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Amen.
In the early hours of the morning, Callen found herself in an unusual place. It wasn't her usual nature walk—the scenic route to the most popular diner in town. Instead, she sat in the wooden pews of a church she barely attended.
She didn't hate mass. But she didn't exactly love it either.
Yet, here she sat with a rosary wrapped tightly around her fingers as she finished her first decade. Her mouth and fingers are moving almost mindlessly, repeating the sour tasting mantras she had refused to speak out loud for so long—since her parents.
"Cal."
"Cal."
"Callen."
"I'm sorry, Hun, I didn't hear you. What was that?" Callen shook her head, trying to shake the fogginess away from her brain. She blinked rapidly, making her glazed-over look seem more like tears rather than dissociation. Then slowly—almost hesitantly — Callen looked up, settling her weary eyes on the familiar, yet distant sounding voice.
Father George. There's a face Callen hadn't seen in months—not purposefully, at least.
"Hun? That's a new one.. especially for you, Callen," a small, almost breathy chuckle left Father George's lips at Callen's words. He adjusted his sleeves, his tone becoming more serious as he spoke. "I asked if you needed help reciting your rosary. You've been staring at it like it's a foreign object to you for the past fifteen minutes."
Fifteen minutes? Had it really been that long?
"Me? No. No. No, I'm fine. Just got distracted is all," she insisted, waving her hands in front of her frantically as she spoke. She was fine, really—more than fine. She hadn't been to mass in ages. She was just rusty. Yeah, that's what she was—rusty. Nothing more. Nothing less.
It had nothing to do with the fact that Callen hated going to mass. It had nothing to do with how she felt about the church. It had nothing to do with her parents. At least, that's what she kept telling herself. It was the constant mantra in her head. It was a lie she repeated to herself constantly—at some point; it was going to come true.
"You need to come to mass more often, Callen," Father George sighed, wiping the sweat from his brow directly onto his otherwise pristine vestment. "I want this to be a safe space for you, Callen. I want you to feel safe here."
—
Saint Michael, pray for us.
Cold tears pooled onto the cool marble of a quiet hallway, branching off from the Narthex. The distant singing of the choir did wonders for covering up the shaky, inconsolable sobbing of a teenage girl.
Callen was kneeling. Her skirt bunched at the bottom—her unprotected knees bruising against the old marble. Her hands were clasped tightly, bound by her grandmother's rosary. Tears flooded down her face, the sticky, stinging irritation only making her cry harder.
It seemed as if no one cared about the crash. All Callen could remember was being dragged out of the burning vehicle—her father's truck. They gave her a checkup, wrapped her broken arm, and sent her on her way. Instead of being taken home, they took her to church—she could only make assumptions why.
Night mass, something she only experienced at Christmas—it felt almost surreal now. Why was mass seen as more important than taking a traumatized child home? Though, the only thing people in this town knew how to do was pray. You prayed for anything and everything—that was the way of living there. Callen almost hated it. The bitterness of her own unanswered prayers plagued her brain like a sickness worse than death. Now more than ever, Callen wished that someone would've just taken her home.
The events of earlier were slowly catching up to her. Scene after scene, the whole night played repeatedly in her head. Images of the crash flicked through her brain like she was looking through her camera lens.
Oh. yeah. Her camera—for once, she didn't have it hanging from her neck. She remembers now; she was getting scolded. Something about her being reckless. Something about her needing to grow up. Then, nothing. Everything after that is still blurry. Everything after that is too loud—too traumatic.
Callen repeated her parents' words over and over again, hoping to spark new memories in her mind. Nothing. She couldn't think—she didn't want to. She was too scared to truly remember what had actually happened. She was terrified to come to terms with the fact that she most likely filmed the last few moments of her parents' lives.
—
"Honestly, Callen. What were you thinking?" John scolded, demanding an answer to something she didn't even know herself. "What has gotten into you recently?"
Callen stayed quiet, looking down at the active camera in her lap. She felt no regret for what she had done. The regret she was currently feeling was linked to the disapproval of her father. She hated upsetting either of her parents—after all; she was their golden child. She set herself to a certain standard—there was nothing worse than failing to meet said standards.
"Callen. Olivia. Greene. Your father is talking to you," the demand in her mother's voice snapped her back into reality almost instantly. Shit. She had forgotten that her mother was also in the car. Not only had she disappointed her father, but her mother, too.
"Look at me," Olivia spoke softly, her fingers tilting up Callen's chin until they were making direct eye contact. Her mother struggled with being as stern as her father, but she knew how to get something through the thick skull that was Callen's brain. "You need to stop zoning out while we're talking to you. Most people would consider that rude dragonfly."
"This is ridiculous!" John complained, his hands slapping against the steering wheel. "You're babying her. She's almost a grown adult. She should be treated like one."
"Keyword: almost, sweetheart," Olivia spoke softly, her voice acting like a soothing balm, calming everyone in the car down. "She's still a child. She's going to make mistakes."
A mistake. Callen had almost forgotten what that word truly meant. They used it as an excuse for her a lot. It didn't matter what she did—everything was a mistake. She was the golden child; people expected everything from her. She was expected to be a perfect angel—not some demon spawn getting caught smoking a poorly rolled joint in the church's girls' restroom.
"She's sixteen, Olive. She's too old for you to be covering for her anymore—how else will she learn right from wrong?" John huffed out, slightly annoyed, but less angry than before. His eyes left the road momentarily, looking over at Olivia with a soft sigh. "I love you. I love both of you—I just wish that you would stop babying her so much."
Typical behavior of John Greene. Her father had a major problem when it came to her mother, Olivia Greene. He always sucked up to her, especially when they conflicted with one another. He always needed to be the one with the upper-hand. He always needed to be the one in control. He would never admit it out loud, but Callen knew all too well what her father was capable of when he needed his control back.
"Maybe Father George is right. Maybe sending Cal off on that winter retreat will do her some good," her father's voice droned on and on in the background as Callen began spacing out again. Her brain was uninterested in anything but certain words and phrases that left her father's mouth. His lectures always seemed to drag on and on—either he liked the sound of his own voice, or he actually thought that Callen was still actively listening to him.
"John! Honey, watch out!" Olivia squealed out, her voice quickly registering in Callen's brain before—crash. One minute, Callen was being lectured. The next minute, her dad's black pickup truck was crashing into something equally large—it flipped over due to the impact, leaving Callen upside down. The truck settled, rocking back and forth, slowly losing the force that was slammed into it. Then everything went black.
Saint Michael, pray for us.