I eventually made my way to the car, jumping at every noise, and jerking my head from side to side as I tried to watch my surroundings. I felt exposed, like at any minute, someone would drive up and it would all be over. My eyes searched the backseat before I unlocked my door and climbed inside and my mind raced with scenarios of someone hiding back there, lying in wait for me to leave the house.

I knew it was ridiculous, but the shock of Grease pushing me out the door, and the lingering fear that the gang in San Diego would find me, were the making of a perfect storm for my imagination.

I turned the car on and drove to the grocery store, but once I parked I couldn’t make myself get out of the car. I sat there, hyperventilating and crying like a lunatic for over an hour before I finally snapped and turned the car back on.

He’d said that he was done.

Done.

I was in a car that didn’t belong to me, in an unfamiliar town, and I had nowhere to go.

So I followed the signs that lead me to the interstate, and I started driving south.

I was two hours into my drive when I remembered that I hadn’t called Gram yet that night, so I pulled my purse toward me and started shuffling through it, finally pulling out my silenced cell phone. I’d called her like I promised I would the night we got to Sacramento, and since that first call we’d talked every night. It grounded me to know she was there, waiting until the day she could move north to live with me, and I think it gave her a little peace of mind to have me calling to check in.

There were missed calls, but I didn’t look through them before I dialed Gram’s number.

“Callie?” she answered on the first ring. “Thank God! Where are you? Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” I told her, baffled at the worry in her voice, “I’m fine. What’s wrong?”

“Where are you, Callie? We’ve been calling you for hours! Asa called me, worried as hell that you hadn’t come home!”

“I’m fine, Gram,” I reassured her, pissed as hell that Grease had called and worried her. “I’m on I-5 South.”

There was a slight pause before she spoke again, her voice calm, “Why are you on I-5, Callie?”

“It’s not working out up here. I need to come home,” I told her stupidly. I knew I couldn’t go home. I didn’t have a home any longer.

“Baby girl, you need to turn around. Take the next exit and you turn right back around,” she replied in a soothing voice normally used on small children.

“I can’t,” my voice caught in my throat, “I don’t have anywhere to go.”

“Calliope Rose, you’ve got a man searching high and low for you right now, what do you mean you don’t have anywhere to go?”

“He pushed me out of the house, Gram,” I told her on a whisper. “He said he was done because I didn’t want to go to the grocery store.”

I knew I wasn’t being fair. Grease’s issue was a lot bigger than the fact that I didn’t want to go to the grocery store that night. He was fed up with me—but I didn’t want my Gram to know that. She was telling me to turn around, and I was hopeful that if I painted him in a harsh light, she’d tell me to come home.

I just wanted her to take care of things.

I didn’t want to be an adult anymore.

“Baby, he’s been frantic. He’s called me no less than ten times asking if I’d heard from you yet. Whatever happened between the two of you can be worked out, I promise. Now turn around.”

I took the next exit and pulled into a gas station. I didn’t need any gas yet, but I needed a minute to decide whether I should keep going or start back. My mind was a jumbled mess of emotion, half of me happy that he was worried about me and the other pissed enough to not care that he was worried. He’d kicked me out of the house. He swore at me and pulled me around the house like a rag doll.

Fuck him.

“Okay, Gram. I’m heading back,” I told her calmly, though my chest was burning with righteous anger. “If he calls you, tell him I’ll be back in a few hours.”

“Good God, Callie. How far south did you get?”

“I’m only two hours south, but I have to stop at the grocery store on my way back,” I explained as I pulled back onto the freeway.

“Okay, baby, I’ll tell him… are you sure you don’t want to call him yourself?” she asked me, sounding relieved that I’d gotten my head on straight.

“No, I really shouldn’t be talking on the phone as I drive,” I said, though it had nothing to do with the reason I wasn’t calling Grease.

We said our goodbyes, but before she hung up, I had one last thing to say.

“Hey, Gram? Make sure you tell him not to worry,” she took a deep breath in relief, but I wasn’t finished. “Tell him not to worry—that I’ll be stopping at the store for his toilet paper and milk.”

Chapter 26

Callie

When I walked in the apartment later that night, I was surprised that Grease wasn’t waiting by the door. Gram had made it seem like he was crazy with worry, but I saw no indication of that as I juggled the bags of groceries and locked the deadbolt behind me. The place was quiet as I walked through the living room, but when I flipped on the kitchen light his voice startled me.

“Where the fuck have you been, Callie?” he asked quietly from where he was sitting on the couch. He was leaning forward with his elbows resting on his knees and a beer bottle dangling from his right hand, and the unnatural stillness of his body must have been the reason I didn’t notice him as I’d walked in. I continued into the kitchen as if I was unconcerned with his presence.