Page 86 of What Hurts Us

“Always.”

“Why won’t you let us give this a shot? A real shot.” Cal sighed, but I silenced him. “You say that it’s real to you. You agree that there’s something here—something good between us. But you can’t get past whatever’s in your head that’s telling you that this isn’t worth it.” A tear slipped down my cheek. “I know it’ll hurt if it ends, but you’re not saving us from hurting. You’re stealing the joy out of what makes the hurt worth it.”

Slowly, he eased up, reclining against the headboard. “You’ve been wondering why I wanted to fake a relationship to get out of the fundraiser rather than just being in one for real? This is why, Layla.” Lines of worry and fear striped his beautiful face. His jaw was set in a hard line. “I was dealing with a Creeker call at work. Gran fell, and I couldn’t be there for her. At some point, that would be you or whoever else. I can’t fail the town just because I have feelings for you, and I can’t fail you because I’m fulfilling my duty to the town.”

“It doesn’t have to be one or the other,” I said softly. I bit the inside of my cheek to keep my lip from trembling. “You know, one of the first things I learned when I got my first nursing job was that I can’t save everyone. There will be people that, no matter how hard I try, how much I do—it’s not enough. It’ll never be enough.” I clutched his hand. “You can’t be everywhere all the time, and no one expects you to be. Gran called me today because she knew you were at work. She didn’t expect you to magically appear. You can’t save everyone, Cal.”

“I have to,” he croaked. “They saved me.”

* * *

“Is yours too hot?”I asked as I blew on the surface of my chai. Giving Callum a moment of privacy, I slipped down to the kitchen and prepared a tray with two mugs—the pineapple one for me and the dumpster fire mug for him—and all the accoutrements for chai.

Cal poured from the teapot, filling his dumpster mug while I grabbed a rock candy stick and used it to stir my tea. He watched me curiously, then mirrored the action with his. Taking a testing sip, he nodded in approval. “It’s good.”

“Saffron rock candy. It’s calledNabat.Makes the chai sweet and adds a little extra flavor to it.”

We sat in his bed, sipping chai in companionable silence. Callum had drained half his mug before he decided he was ready. “When I was fourteen, my parents divorced.”

“Oh, Cal—”

He shrugged. “I didn’t care. I knew they weren’t happy. They fought all the time. Honestly, I was pretty relieved when it was finally over.” He stared into the glimmering surface of his tea. “They got fifty-fifty custody of me. One week here, one week there. It wasn’t so bad. I was still in the same school. Nothing really changed until my dad started seeing Cynthia.”

“Your step-mom?” I guessed.

He grunted something noncommittal. “She was pregnant before the ink was dry on the divorce papers, and they got married. She already had a daughter from her first husband. In the span of about a month, it went from just me and my dad to an insta-family—one that I was only a part of every other week.” He sighed. “Then my mom got remarried. Jared had three kids from a previous marriage. Insta-family on that side too. And there I was, stuck in the middle. When my mom had another kid, they needed to shuffle bedrooms around to make space. Since I was only there half the time, it was decided for me that I’d be okay with staying on the pull-out couch.”

My heart shattered. All I had ever wanted was just a little independence from my tight-knit family; all the while, Cal just wanted a family.

“My dad owns a construction and development company. He’s also on the board of commissioners for Orange County.”

I frowned. “Seems like a conflict of interest if he gets a say in what areas of the city get zoned for construction projects, then gives his company first pick of those development jobs.”

Callum chuckled. “You’re more astute than most of the people who voted him in. All they saw was a successful businessman who doted on his wife and two kids.”

But his father didn’t have two kids.He had three.

“I started looking for where I fit. I didn’t have a place at my mom’s anymore. And my dad—all he ever did was work. Back then, he’d rarely even come home for dinner. So, I was left with a family that wasn’t mine. Every other week, back and forth. Over and over again. I got sick of it.”

“What happened?” I asked softly.

He took a sip from his mug. “I wanted something to take the edge off. To help me forget that I wasn’t wanted.”

There was shame in the way he said it. Like it was his fault. I took the mug out of his hand and set it on the nightstand beside mine. Whether he wanted me to be close to him or not, I wiggled into his side and rested my head on his shoulder.

“Given that I didn’t have a bed and four walls of my own, I decided that weed and pills would be easier to hide than liquor bottles. My gym teacher caught the kid who was pushing product out of the locker room, and he dropped the names of every single one of us who he sold drugs to. Cops brought a K9 through and found my stash in my locker, in my bag, and a few pills in my pockets.”

“Please tell me you didn’t try to use thethese aren’t my pantsexcuse?”

A small smile curled at the corner of his mouth. “It was pretty clear that there was no way I could talk myself out of it.” The back of his head thumped against the headboard. “You know the most relief I ever felt was the day I got caught? I expected my mom to come in and scream and yell at me. I expected my dad to get pissed and ground me for eternity. I wanted him to. I wanted him to be around to make sure I stayed on the straight and narrow.”

“But he sent you to Gran’s instead,” I guessed.

Cal nodded. “Given that I was fifteen and had beenhaving a hard time with the divorce,my dad used his sway as an “upstanding commissioner” to convince a judge to give me community service instead of juvie.”

Before I could make sense of what was happening, Callum pulled me into his lap, wrapping his arms around my middle and hugging my back to his chest.

“So, I moved to Falls Creek. Moved in with Gran, who was equally angry at the world because Grandad had just died. Together, we were an angsty pair. But Gran didn’t put up with my moping or my attitude. She saw to it that I completed twice as many community service hours than the court ordered. She took a punk kid who was angry because every person who was supposed to be a constant in his life had failed him and made me serve others instead.

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