Devotion and Desire

Chapter Two

*We're all seeking that special person who is right for us. But if you've been through enough relationships, you begin to suspect there's no right person, just different flavors of wrong.*
-Andrew Boyd

Callie's P.O.V.

I was just getting out of work Wednesday night, well technically Thursday morning, and it had already been a hell of a week. Public transportation didn't run late enough for at least half of the days I worked, but luckily, after yet another draining, grueling shift - today was not one of those days. I think I would have just given up and slept in a booth if that had been the case tonight. I'd pulled a double tonight for the second day in a row, and I was beyond beat. A normal person would be thinking I can't wait to get home so I can just relax, but I wasn't a normal twenty-three year old. The work didn't stop for me, even after I left the diner. Actually, work was the easy part most days.

I pulled the cord on the bus for my stop, impressed that I had actually managed to stay awake the entire ride home, and then made the short two block walk home. Forty-five minutes after my shift ended, I finally walked in my house, only to be immediately greeted by my siblings screaming and fighting. I sighed, kicking my shoes off my aching feet.

"Whoa, whoa! Break it up!" I yelled, jumping into mom-mode and grabbing my sister off of my brother - who had been beating him mercilessly. "What the hell is going on?" I demanded, exasperated.

My home life was... complicated and stressful to say the least. I had custody of my three siblings, all younger than me; two brothers and a sister. Justice, my oldest brother was fifteen and Kennedy and Grace were eight-year-old twins, who were always at each others throats these days.

Our mother had passed away from cervical cancer, five years ago, when I was only eighteen, and our father wasn't in the picture anymore. After my mother told him the news that she was pregnant with the twins, he just up and left. He decided to run away from his family and live a life free of responsibilities - and naturally, he met a younger woman with no children and moved away with her, quickly replacing us. Truthfully, I think he had been looking for an excuse for years, though. It sure seemed like that, anyways.

Hadn't seen or heard from him in nine years, and sometimes I didn't even blame him. There were many days, especially now after doing this for five years, when I wanted to tear my hair out and run away too. On particularly rough days, I'd find myself looking for flights online to Antarctica, only to check my bank account and have that fantasy shut down immediately. Some days I was half-tempted to jump on the next Greyhound, not caring where the hell it's going. Some days, I thought about just dropping all three of them off in front of the closest fire station.

Other days though, I hated my father. I hated him so much for forcing this on me and making this my life. For being the one who got to abandon their responsibilities while the rest of us - meaning me, picked up the slack. For never once sending any money home to help my mother, and therefore making that my responsibility too. For never sending the twins any Christmas or birthday cards. For acting like they just didn't exist, even though he was half the reason they were even alive. For not checking in with me once, after our mother died. For not showing up to her funeral. Honestly, the list went on and on. He got to run - he had that choice, even though he shouldn't have, but I didn't. Not for at least ten more years, when the twins would be eighteen.

But to think they wouldn't need me anymore the day they were legal adults just wasn't realistic. More than likely, this would be my life until long after any semblance of youth had passed me by. I had gotten custody over my three siblings only four months after turning eighteen. I loved them all desperately, but I hadn't even gotten a chance to live my own life and now I was responsible for three kids. I hadn't gotten a choice. No one asked me if I wanted this. Some days I just wanted to be a sister again, not a mother.