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Callie sat on the porch swing, legs folded beside her, with a vacant stare; her hands cupped tight around the mug of tea in her lap. She didn’t move at the sound of the front door opening then closing, or at the subtle rocking when Brandon sat down beside her.
He sighed. “Moms asked me to talk to you. They’re worried something’s wrong.”
“Something is wrong,” she answered without inflection, her gaze fixed on the front yard. It was another bright, beautiful California morning that felt like a reprimand. A reminder that she was supposed to be as bright and happy. “Tell them I’m fine, just a little tired. Big house, needed some time to myself.”
Brandon leaned forward, bracing his arms on his knees; his eyes focused on the wood slats between his feet. “I don’t know if they’ll buy that. You’ve been a bit distant with everyone and not just today.”
She looked at him with a stony expression. “Be convincing. It’s not like I can tell them the truth.”
He reciprocated with narrowed eyes. “It’s not like this is any easier for me, okay?”
“Which you’ve made abundantly clear is not my problem,” Callie hissed with gritted teeth and fire in her eyes. “What do you want from me, Brandon? You told me you were done being my shoulder to cry on. You told me that I was alone in this, so I’m dealing with it the best way I know how. I’m respecting your wishes, so go white knight somewhere else and leave me alone.” A tear slid down her cheek, and she angrily wiped it away. “Damn it.”
Callie’s knuckles turned white as she gripped the mug in her lap, and her jaw shook as she desperately fought to keep her emotions in check.
He looked up at her, and the thin veneer of normalcy he’d been tirelessly working to keep up, cracked. Her pain would break him every time.
“I didn’t mean it that way,” Brandon whispered, his own emotions leaking through.
“Then how did you mean it?” she replied wetly. “Is there a list of appropriate things I can go to you for?”
He sat up and turned toward her. Everything bubbled to the surface: pain, anger, loss, helplessness– all etched across his face.
He spoke in a terse whisper while he felt like shouting. “What do you want me to say, Callie? That it’s killing me as much as it’s killing you? Because it is.” His breath grew choppy, and he gripped his knees. “That it’s taking everything I have to pretend nothing’s wrong. That I’m drowning in guilt, because I put us here. That I’m ashamed of how angry I am that you were adopted. Is that what you want to hear?”
Callie shifted to face him, her face softening and her eyes brimming with tears. “If that’s the truth, then yes.” Her hand lifted to touch him, all of her crying out to go to him– to pull him into her arms and through will alone take his pain into her, but she caught herself just in time and dropped it in her lap.
Her gaze drifted from him to the wall behind him. She murmured to the air, “Will we ever stop feeling this way?”
It felt surreal having this conversation– the lines so familiar, but nothing was the same.
He scrubbed one hand over his face and sighed. “Do I think we’ll ever stop loving each other like we do now? No, I really don’t. Will we become much better at faking it? Yes–maybe someday we’ll even believe it.”
Brandon rested his arm along the back of the swing, her shoulder only fingertips away from him. He curled his fingers against his palm, fighting the constant magnetic pull.
Callie looked at him, her eyes lovingly gliding along the planes of his face, feeling like she needed to memorize him. That even though they will see each other countless times through the years, this would be the last time he was hers.
She shook her head. “No, you’ll go off to Julliard and meet an amazing girl. She’ll be smart, beautiful, ridiculously talented, but she’ll also be kind and generous. She’ll make you laugh and share your passion for music, and the most complicated part of your relationship will be what you’ll have for dinner that night.” Callie released a shuddered breath, unchecked tears dripping down her face. “You’ll fall madly in love and get married and have a huge family. You’ll be happy, because someone that is as kind and generous and caring as you deserves to be happy.”
“Oh, is that all?” he replied, his attempt at humor falling flat against the thickness in his voice.
She flashed a weak smile. “You’ll also be an award winning, world renowned composer and pianist, but you’ll be selective of how frequently you play. Only small venues where you can see the faces of the audience and watch as your work moves each and every one of them.”
They stared into each other’s eyes, both wearing the same tortured expression.
Brandon knew with unwavering certainty that she couldn’t be more wrong. There was no way he could love anyone nearly as much as he loved her.
Without thinking, he brushed his thumb against her bare shoulder, and the familiar jolt coursed through him right to his heart. “So where are you in this utopian future?”
A loose strand of hair fell into Callie’s face, and she tucked it behind one ear, remembering all the times he had. Her chest ached– would everything in her life be a constant reminder of him?
She sniffed and answered matter of factly, “A spinster married to her work, of course–oh, with a ton of cats.”
Brandon smirked. “Do you even like cats?”
She scrunched her face in mock thought. “I don’t know. I’ve never had one, but I hear it’s a requirement of spinsterhood.”
“So why am I married with a bunch of kids, and you’re a single, workaholic covered in cat hair?”
She barked with laughter. It’d been awhile, and he had missed the sound of it.
Her face fell and she shrugged. “No one to leave behind if something happens to me–” with a sad twitch of her lips, she added, “but don’t worry, I plan to beat out Mariana for coolest aunt. I’ll make sure your kids are always filled with sugar and bouncing off the walls before I return them to you.”
“Thanks for that,” he replied.
Brandon looked into the brown eyes he loved so much, the ones that would haunt him for the rest of his days.
“Or what will probably happen is, we’ll go off to college,” he countered in an even tone. “I’ll meet someone who’s nice enough, and we’ll date because it beats being alone. Maybe, she and I will be together long enough that I’ll feel obligated to bring her home to meet the family for some holiday. I’ll spend the entire time trying not to throttle the guy you bring home, because by this point, I’m not supposed to be jealous. However, it will all be wasted effort. She’ll see how I look at you, because you never get over the love of your life, and dump me because I never look at her that way. I just hope when she does, it’s privately, so Moms can continue to pretend we love each other like siblings.”
They both shuddered at the word, despite it being true. Lawfully, they were related now.
“So where am I in this grim future of yours?”
“It’s not grim, just realistic.” He settled back against the swing, his gaze tracing along her face. “You’ll date, but it will never be serious, because every guy will end up like Wyatt. When something major happens in your life, you’ll turn to me, not even thinking you should call him. And I won’t turn you away, because what I feel for you will be as fresh as it is now.”
“Brandon,” she whispered, placing her hand on his knee.
He shook his head and blinked away the moisture building in his eyes. “You’re right,” he continued, “you will bury yourself in your work, but it won’t be just because you love it–even though you will–it will be something to separate yourself from him. An excuse on why you’re not closer, when in reality, you don’t trust him. And I’ll hate myself for being relieved about it, because despite how much I want you to be happy, I’ll still never want to see you with someone else.”
“And we’ll both be miserable forever?” she added flippantly.
“It won’t be all bad,” he replied with a shrug. “I’ll still be an award winning, world renowned composer, and you’ll revolutionize the foster care system, saving thousands of children from terrible homes. We’ll change the world.”
“While suffering in silence for eternity?”
“If I’ve learned anything from this past year,” he answered with a sigh, “it’s unlikely you’ll get everything you want in life, but that doesn’t mean you can’t do great things with what you do have.”
“That is the most depressing thing I’ve ever heard,” Callie commented flatly.
She looked at the boy she loved with all of her heart, and reflected on how much he’d aged since they met. He used to believe anything was possible, but by her continuing to give up what she wanted most for what she needed more, his heart had hardened and his boundless hope had found its limit.
“No, I won’t allow it,” she exclaimed, surprising them both.
Brandon narrowed his eyes. “You won’t allow what?”
All hints of her earlier despair vanished, replaced with steely determination. “Do you still believe I deserve to be happy? That I deserve everything I want in life?”
“Yes?” he answered hesitantly.
“Well, so do you!”
Callie lunged toward him, the mug in her hands falling forgotten to the floor. Right where anyone could see, she kissed him with all of her heart, fingers laced in his hair, pulling him to her with the desperate need to never be torn apart.
When she pulled away, he blinked, looking dazed, like he’d forgotten there was a world outside each other.
Callie gave him one more lingering kiss before standing up, violently rocking the porch swing, and marched through the front door.
It took Brandon a moment to register what was going on, then a spear of panic hit him in the gut. “Callie,” Brandon called out and chased after her. “What are you doing?”
“What I should have done awhile ago,” she said over her shoulder with a stubborn jut of her chin.
“Callie, don’t do what I think you’re going to do,” he warned, grabbing her arm, his heart hammering in his chest. “I was wrong. You were right. I’ll have the wife, the kids, the career, and you’ll be covered in cat hair. Just please, please–”
“Moms!” Callie bellowed at the top of her lungs, “I really need to talk to you. It’s import–”
Brandon put his hand over her mouth to muffle her yelling, but it was too late. Their parents rushed from the kitchen, clearly alarmed.
“Brandon, what are you doing?” Stef cried, aghast to find her son wrapped around Callie, with one hand over her mouth and the other around her waist.
“Keeping her from making a huge mistake,” he grunted, while Callie elbowed him in the stomach.
“Let her go,” Lena exclaimed.
He released her with a warning plea, “Don’t do this, Callie. This is you reacting, when you really should be thinking.”
“No, I’ve been doing way too much thinking, and not enough trusting the people that love me,” she remarked.
“Will someone please tell me what’s going on?” Stef shouted, bracing her hands on her hips.
“We’d certainly like to know,” Jesus commented from the dining room with devilish amusement.
Mariana and Jude stood next to him like stone statues, fear and warning etched across their faces. They knew what was coming.
Brandon glared at his siblings. “Get lost. This has nothing to do with you.”
Mariana crossed her arms and raised a single brow. “I highly doubt that,” she retorted, laced with contempt.
Callie looked at her adoptive parents and had to believe that two people that fought so hard for her would still love her no matter what, or what was the point?
She took a deep breath. “For Brandon’s sake, we might want to have this conversation privately, but I’m more than willing to say it in front of the whole family.”
Brandon closed his eyes and shook his head, sure this couldn’t be really happening. That it had to be a dream, and he’d wake up at any moment.
Stef and Lena looked at each other and blanched. What they feared was coming true, it was just the question of severity now.
As calmly as possible, Lena turned to her wife and said, “Why don’t we have this conversation upstairs? Kids please respect our privacy and stay down here.”
“Like we don’t already know,” Mariana scoffed and went back in the kitchen.
“Know what?” Jesus bellowed after her. “I don’t know.”
Struck mute, Stef motioned to the stairs.
As Callie climbed each step followed by Brandon, Stef and Lena, the adrenaline coursing through her veins was beginning to ebb away, replaced by genuine terror. The only thing propelling her forward was the reminder that she wasn’t just doing this for herself; she was doing it for him. He deserved better than second place.
Single file, they entered Stef and Lena’s bedroom, and quietly closed the door behind them. Lena sat at the foot of the bed while Stef stood beside her, arms crossed.
Callie pulled herself erect, knees locked, and chin tilted up, like she was facing a firing squad.
Brandon stepped beside her and whispered, “You don’t have to do this. It’s not too late.”
She looked up at him with a wobbly smile and took his hand, giving it a gentle squeeze. “No, it’s time to tell the truth,” she answered back, looking into his eyes. “It’s not too late for you to run. I can do this on my own.”
“Not a chance,” he declared. “We’re in this together.”
He was torn between wanting to pull her into his arms, overwhelmed that she was risking it all for him, and the serious need to shake her until common sense returned. She might be certifiable, and at that moment, it felt like his body couldn’t contain how much he loved her. He would walk through fire for her.
Callie looked back to her adoptive parents and stated simply, “I’m in love with Brandon.”
He stared at her in shock, stunned by her bluntness.
“What do you mean ‘in love with’?” Stef questioned, her words edged with steel.
Lena gently touched her wife’s arm. “Let them talk, love.”
“She means–” Brandon started before Callie interrupted.
“It’s okay. I need to say this,” she reassured. She squeezed his hand again for courage and started down the scary road of elaborating. “I mean, for the past year, I’ve had–”
“We’ve had,” Brandon injected.
“We’ve had,” Callie echoed with a sideways glance, “strong–romantic feelings for each other. We’ve tried everything from pretending we don’t, dating other people in effort to ignore it, flat out attempting not to act on it, and lying to you both and each other–all because I desperately wanted to be a part of your family,” Callie wiped at the tears running down her cheeks, “but pretending I don’t–we don’t, feel this way doesn’t make it go away. It just hurts more because we have to hide it.”
Lena looked at her stepson, fear and compassion fighting for equal measure in her heart. “You assured us you didn’t have feelings for Callie, anymore. That you were just wrapped up in the moment.”
“I lied,” he answered, meeting her gaze.
“I don’t get it,” Stef growled, fighting to hold onto her temper. “All of this over one kiss months ago?”
Lena looked over at her with pity in her eyes. They both knew that wasn’t true, but had clung to it for as long as possible.
Callie chewed her lip. “It wasn’t just at the wedding,” she confessed. “First off, I want to make it clear that every time, I initiated it. I pulled him aside at the wedding, and I kissed him. I didn’t run away to get away from Brandon. I left to protect Jude, because I knew I loved Brandon and that would jeopardize Jude’s adoption.”
She took a deep breath, knowing this was the beginning of their shared blame. “We secretly saw each other while I was at GU, and I had the girls cover for me. Every time Brandon came to see me, I didn’t turn him away.” She sniffed and blinked, her words squeezing through her throat. “I was so happy to see him– I f-f-felt so alone, but I knew it would be okay, because–” Callie looked up at Brandon with a grateful, broken smile, “because I had him.”
Everything inside him ached. He already knew what she said was true, but hit him so much harder hearing her say it. He pulled Callie against his side and wrapped his arms around her, desperately wishing he could protect her from the devastating fallout of her confession.
Stef’s skin flushed a furious red, and her eyes grew wide with rage. “You’re telling me you violated a restraining order, risking being sent to juvenile prison, all to see a girl?”
“Stef!” Lena snapped. “Callie is more than just a girl.”
“You’re damn right,” Stef shouted, prowling the room. “She’s our daughter.”
“Stef, sit down!” Lena ordered. “You want to know why they hid this from us? This is why! Now. Let. Them. Talk.”
She relented and sat at the foot of the bed next to her wife, crossing her arms and choking on her fear. What were they going to do?
Lena took a calming breath, and as even and gently as possible, asked, “So you were seeing each other while Callie was at Girls United. What happened after that?”
Callie and Brandon exchanged looks, their shared pain telegraphed between their gaze.
Brandon answered, “We decided–”
“I decided,” Callie corrected, her eyes glacy.
He looked at her for a hard moment. “It was decided that Callie needed a family more than a boyfriend, so we broke up.”
“Smart,” Stef scoffed, resulting in a slashing glare from her wife.
“But you didn’t stay broken up?” Lena supplied.
Callie grimaced. “No, we did– it um, became a lot more complicated after that.”
Lena nodded. “This is when you dated other people but still had feelings for each other?”
“Yes and no,” Callie replied unhelpfully, which was rewarded with a sideways glance from Brandon.
“I mean,” she huffed, “that I kissed Brandon at the GU fundraiser, after my dad refused to sign the papers, and I thought adoption was off the table. We weren’t seeing anyone at the time– but we also didn’t get back together.”
“But you were both still in love with each other?” Lena elaborated.
“Yes,” Brandon and Callie said in unison.
“Brandon turned me down,” Callie supplied, her eyes shifting to the floor.
“Smartest decision I’ve heard thus far,” Stef muttered.
Lena pinched her lips with tried patience. “Okay, what changed from then to now?”
Real fear washed across Brandon and Callie’s faces.
Brandon squeezed his eyes shut, wishing Callie would stop here, but knowing she was going to spill everything. He wasn’t sure if this was going to be the most frightening or most embarrassing moment of his life. Probably both.
Callie stood up straighter and pulled away enough that they were again side by side, facing the adults. “After the social worker came to talk to us about our–um, sibling relationship,” they both again grimaced, “the thing with Rita happened. I knew Carmen was lying, so I confronted her and recorded her confessing that she was lying about Rita hitting her.”
“Which saved Rita’s life,” Stef added with a small, proud smile.
Her anger subsided, and her eyes grew wet over the bravery of her daughter. A young woman that never backed down from doing the right thing, no matter how hard. Her heart broke for both of her children, standing before her and Lena, possibly confessing one of the hardest things of their young lives. She wanted to protect them, but from this, she didn’t know how.
“I couldn’t let Rita go to prison for a crime she didn’t commit, even though the recording also implicated me of, well–” Callie drew in a deep breath, twisting her fingers nervously. “Carmen knew I was seeing Brandon when I was at GU, that I kissed him at the fundraiser, and how I felt about him. In the recording, she threatened to tell my social worker about all of it, and I didn’t deny it.”
Stef blinked back her tears, and with unbounded love, said, “You turned over the recording, even though the information would keep us from being able to adopt you. Oh honey, how scared you must have been.”
Lena flashed a watery smile at her wife and took her hand, lacing their fingers together.
Callie’s chin quivered, and she again whipped the tears from her face. “It was the right thing to do. You taught me that.” She sniffed and cleared her throat. “Anyways, I knew that once my social worker found out what was on the recording, it would be out of your hands. There was no way the judge would let you adopt me.”
A pregnant silence fell across the room, as each mind weaved its way to the conclusion. Normal neighborhood noises filled the air: lawnmowers, children playing, birds chirping. It felt wrong that life went on outside, while this very moment all of their lives would be changed forever.
“We were up in Idyllwild, when I sent the recording to Rita,” Callie continued, looking up at the wall, because she couldn’t bare to look at their faces. “You had already left for home, when I– warned Brandon what was on the recording.”
With two fingers, Stef rubbed the spot between her brows. “By the look on both of your faces, I think we can infer what happened next. Did you at least use protection?”
“Yes,” Brandon exclaimed, “Christ, Mom. I’m not–”
“An idiot?” Stef supplied with arched brows.
“Jesus,” he jabbed back.
Callie sighed. “The point is,” she continued, “that we can’t go back, and we can’t pretend that it didn’t happen. And, honestly, I don’t want to. We’ve been fighting this losing battle for nearly a year, and ignoring it doesn’t make it go away. Regardless of what happens next, I’m done lying about it.”
“Thank you for telling us, Callie,” Lena replied gently. “It was very brave of you.”
Brandon snorted. “She’s brave, but when I told you, I got a ‘suck it up, buttercup’ and a restraining order, amongst other things.”
Stef, tired and remorseful, looked up at her son. “I’m truly sorry about how I handled what happened. I overreacted, and you didn’t deserve it. You were honest with us, and I punished you for it. Which I’m guessing is why you kept the rest of this from us?”
“We were going to tell you,” Callie supplied, “but then–”
“We got home,” Brandon finished ruefully, “and it turned out Callie was getting adopted, after all.”
“Everyone was so happy,” Callie lamented, “and after all that you went through to adopt me and then the courthouse with all of those foster kids, I just couldn’t tell you. But these last few weeks, I’ve been so miserable, I don’t have it in me to keep pretending to be okay and to keep lying to you.” With a whimper, she whispered, “I promised to never lie to you again.”
Stef closed her eyes and sighed from the marrow of her bones, crushed by the whole situation. There was no making this go away.
Lena looked at Brandon and asked, “Do you have anything to add?”
“If it was up to me, I’d have kept lying,” he answered stonily.
“Brandon!” Callie exclaimed, looking up sharply.
“What? You needing a family over a boyfriend hasn’t stopped being true,” he said, gritting his teeth. “Callie, I love you. I’ll always love you, which means I would sacrifice anything for you. As Mom pointed out to me, we can’t live together and date each other–so where does that leave us now?”
“I told you before, I could live–”
“With your dad,” he finished. “Leaving the only place you’ve felt like home in years, not to mention Jude, to live with a man you barely know and wasn’t even aware existed until this year. No way am I doing that to you.”
“Well, it isn’t your choice, now is it?” Callie snapped.
Stef and Lena watched as their children squabble like an old married couple, the familiar battle of being at odds because both were fiercely trying to protect the other. They might as well have been looking at a mirror.
It started as a twitch of their lips, a grin, then they glanced at each other and erupted in laughter. Snorting, full body shaking, wheezing laughter.
Callie and Brandon looked at them like they both had grown extra heads.
“What the–” Callie stared in horror.
“I think they’re having a nervous breakdown,” Brandon added with disbelief, which just made Stef and Lena laugh harder.
“What do we do?” Callie asked.
“I have no idea,” Brandon replied, clearly worried. “I’ve never seen them act this way. They’ve finally snapped. Maybe we should leave them alone until they calm down?”
Without waiting for a reply, he turned and opened the door, placing a guiding hand on the small of Callie’s back.
While she walked into the hall, over her shoulder, she whispered, “Of all the reactions I expected, this was definitely not one of them.”
“It beats being yelled at,” Brandon muttered back and shut the door behind him.
Stef and Lena continued to howl with laughter until tears ran down their cheeks. They laid back on the bed, legs hanging over the edge, and reached for each other’s hand.
“What are we going to do?” Stef groaned to the ceiling.
“I don’t know.” Lena shook her head. “Callie was right, though. We ignored it, hoping it would go away, even though we both know better.”
“I was sure Brandon was just infatuated with Callie, and he’d get over it,” Stef reasoned poorly. “He’s a seventeen year old boy. Teenagers fall in out of love every week.”
Lena looked over with a wry smirk. “Which is why we thought when Callie wanted to live on her own, it was so she could see Brandon? Or when we found the pregnancy test, our minds immediately went to Brandon being the father?”
“Alright, alright,” Stef conceded. “By that point, Callie was our daughter regardless of a piece of paper, and it was easier to ignore what could be happening between her and Brandon, than to deal with the consequences if there was something going on.”
“I don’t disagree,” Lena concurred quietly. “But it taught our children it was better to lie to us and keep their feelings hidden, than to have an open, honest conversation about it. Their faces when they finally came to us. They were so scared.” She sniffed and ran a knuckle under her eyes.
Stef released a full body sigh. “Brandon is not wrong, either. They are both our children, but it’s out of the question for them to live under the same roof, whether we let them date or not.”
Lena chortled. “Let them date. With teenagers, if there is a will, there is always a way.”
“I know,” Stef cringed, throwing one arm over her eyes. “If a damn restraining order didn’t stop them, I don’t think grounding and stern warnings will do anything,” with a pained moan, she added, “Oh God, they’re in love!”
“For over a year,” Lena added with a grimace, “in secret!” She sighed. “There is a lesson here, ignoring problems doesn’t make them go away, just makes them bigger and more complicated.”
Stef dropped her arm to her side and tossed her wife an eyeroll. “Yes, love, I am aware. So what do we do now?”
“Either Brandon moves in with Mike, which means sharing a room with AJ, or Callie lives with her dad for the foreseeable future,” Lena reasoned evenly, despite both options tearing at her heart.
“We could install surveillance cameras in the house and make them wear ankle monitors that has an obnoxious alarm if they get too close to each other,” Stef offered with a smirk, which elicited a laugh from her wife.
“And they would never speak to us ever again,” Lena countered. With a lamented sigh, she said what they both didn’t want to hear. “The first step is to call Mike and Robert, and the four of us figure out what to do.”
“Ending with one of our children moving out of our house until they go off to college. Even if they tell us they aren’t in love anymore, we won’t know if it’s true or if they’re just trying to protect each other.”
“That’s why we’re the parents. We have to make the tough decisions.” Lena turned her head to look at her wife, tears blurring her vision. “Whichever way this turns out, Callie and Brandon will be wracked with guilt, so we have to be strong for them. They need to know that coming to us was the right decision.” Tears leaked down her face onto the comforter beneath them. “They need to know that this will always be their home, they will always be our children, and we love them unconditionally. That this is just a bend in the road, not a dead end.”
Stef squeezed Lena’s hand. “We will, love. It could be worse. At least we know they’re good kids that come from good families, and maybe now they won’t get into so much trouble.”
Lena laughed. “I love you.”
“I love you, too,” Stef said into her eyes. “Time to face the music. At the very least, we have to let the kids know our nervous breakdowns are over.”
They giggled, sat up, and prepared to make the tough decisions.