Caleb

She had the prettiest lips a liar could ask for, ‘cause God knows I wanted to kiss her ‘til she told the truth. I wanted to look into her wild, brown eyes and let every word she said sink into my skin like I believed them.

But I didn’t, and for the first time since I’d promised to love her, I let her go a little bit. I let her tears mean a little less ‘cause I didn’t know the difference between the ones I could trust and the ones I couldn’t anymore.

           “You alright, Hailey?”

Sawyer’s voice cut through the hiss of the summer cicadas like a snake in the shadows. Hailey slid her hands away from me—all too quick and I swallowed down the sucker punch sting of her skin leaving mine for the third time.

           “I’m fine, Sawyer, I was just telling him to leave.“

He snaked a hand around her pretty little waist and pulled her tight enough to him to set my blood on fire. I grated my hands against my blue jeans to ease the ache pulling at my fists to shatter his smooth-talking jaw to pieces.

            “Well, that was one hell of a send off, Hailey,” he said.

He dug the tips of his fingers deep into her t-shirt, ‘til she cracked a smile to hide the pain. The kid had a goddamn death wish.

            “Touch her like that again, and I’ll gladly take a life sentence for what I’m gonna do to you.”

For a split second he cracked a sideways smile like I was bluffing, like he thought if he stood there grinning long enough that I’d back down from what I’d said. If he’d had any sense he would’ve realized he wasn’t standing toe to toe with a liar, but an Evans. Evans men died living out the last of their promises. I’d kill to keep mine.

            “Caleb, please, go home, okay? Just go home.”

I never should’ve looked at her, I should’ve held my ground and kept my eyes on Sawyer so he’d only see the man I wanted him to, a man who stood by his words instead of a man who crumbled at the sound of hers.

Hailey didn’t understand how much I hated seeing the worry scribbled across the lines in her face. How many times I’d pulled over sick on the drive down to get her, just thinking about the kind of things Sawyer had done to her and the things he could do. The worst of it was, the ugliest parts of me kept whispering bits and pieces of my trust in her away. What if she wants to stay?

            “Come home,” I said, and as quick as those words left my lips all the strength keeping me standing slipped out of my body and buried itself deeper than the dirt.

The weight of that woman brought me straight to my knees when all I wanted was to look stronger than I felt. I wanted her to follow me, to never ask questions, to hold onto me like she had last night ‘til I believed in her again. But every minute she kept the distance between her and Sawyer less than the distance between her and me, my faith in her bruised until it bled.

        “Hailey, sweetheart, can you go back inside and tell Maria everything’s alright. I just wanna talk to your friend here for a minute, man to man. I’ll catch up in a second,” Sawyer said.

My blood pumped hard enough through my heart to break through my veins just hearing how he talked to her. He barked orders at her like she was some goddamn dog, and the worst part was watching her listen. She listened ‘cause she had to, not ‘cause she wanted to, at least that’s what I wanted to believe.

Hailey slipped out of his grip, turned on her heels, and walked away from me, her soft skin shining so brightly in the sun she looked golden. Maybe that’s the way all people look when they leave before you’re ready to let them go—like angels.

Sawyer was quick to block out her light, and towered over me like he knew I didn’t have it in me to fight anymore. He leaned down, poisoned the air with the stink of his fancy cologne, and grabbed me by the scruff of my t-shirt.

         “I don’t know what you were hoping for by showing up here this morning, but incase she didn’t make it clear to you, she’s mine, okay? Can you understand that, country boy?”

Every word he said flew in and out of my ears so fast I stopped trying to pay attention.

          “She wasn’t yours last night.”

I cracked a see through smile and waited for him to do the only thing he seemed to know how to do, bitch, whine, and talk my ear off with pretty boy threats. Instead, he ripped my shirt a quarter way down the middle like he’d finally figured out how to be a man. But like I said, everybody I had to be afraid of was dead.

          “That’s an ugly scar you got there. Looks new enough. Still hurt?” He asked.

           “Why would I tell you something like that?”

 Sawyer let me go and stood up a little too straight all of a sudden.

            “I didn’t want you to tell me, I wanted to see for myself.”

Not all empty men make empty threats. I blinked and he sent the heel of his foot straight into the place where Anderson left his mark. I should’ve been breathing, I should’ve been up on my feet, ready to lay Sawyer out for taking such a cheap shot, but I couldn’t get the air back into my lungs.

Lightning bolt pain lit up my chest the same way it had the night I got that scar, the night I was ready to die for the girl I couldn’t seem to hold on to. I crashed face down into the dirt, and choked on mouthfuls of dust while Sawyer’s shoes slinked back towards the house.

The old me would’ve stayed facedown on the ground and let the pain push me halfway hell, but as long as my heart was still beating I’d get up after every beating as long as I was taking em’ for her.

                                                                               ***

I pulled up to Hal’s restaurant a little over an hour after his son tried to stomp a hole through my chest. But Sawyer’s footprint had nothing on the dull ache rattling around my ribcage looking to start the kind of trouble I couldn’t afford to get into.

I sped into an half-empty driveway and jumped out of the car heart set on talking Hal into driving straight back down to Charlottesville with me and setting things straight. But I couldn’t think straight, couldn’t even see straight, ‘cause I was blind to nearly everything else but the quiet rage running through my blood.

The sickly smell of day old flowers and still-wet floors blasted past my nostrils the second I stepped into the lobby. Hal’s looked like a ghost town aside from the scattered bunches of uptight waiters and waitresses scrambling around the restaurant like they had something to prepare for.

Couldn’t care less what it was, I needed to see Hal almost as badly as I needed a drink. Anything to take the edge off the fact that I’d lost my girl again.

            “Sir, we’re closed. There’s a special event this afternoon but we’ll be back to our regular hours tomorrow—“

A curvy little blonde with a tomboy haircut and blue eyes big as quarters came jogging through a jungle of tables just to stop me from getting any further into the restaurant than I already had. She looked like she’d just stepped out of a tornado, shirt un-tucked, name tag crooked, and shoe laces hanging sloppily out of her Chucks. 

            “You the manager?” I asked.

She spat a wad of gum out of her mouth, into the palm of her hand, and rolled it between her fingers. Why a place like this hired someone like her was beyond me, but I didn’t ask questions.

            “Do I look like a manager to you?” She asked.

            “Do you want me to answer that?”

She flicked her little pink gumball towards a trashcan at least three feet away and landed the shot dead center.

            “What do you want? I already told you we’re closed,” she said.

            “I need to talk to Hal, is he around? It’s important.”

            “No kidding, you look like shit.”

She didn’t look much better but I was nice enough to keep my mouth shut about it.

            “Look, is he here or not?” I asked.

         “He stepped out with my uncle a second ago, but if you stick around they’ll be back in a minute.”

Blondie lead me over to the bar, swinging her hips all over the place like she wanted attention. She had mine, but not in the way she wanted.

          “Do you always walk like that or just when you want people to notice?” I asked.

The pin up smile she’d had on since I’d started talking to her fell right off her face. Good. I wasn’t somebody she could tease into trouble.

            “You noticed, you decide,” she said.

            “My girl’s waiting for me outside—“

No she wasn’t. She was sixty miles away with some other guy and I couldn’t do a goddamn thing about it.

            “I never asked about her. You wanna drink?”

More than anything.

            “I’ll have a water,” I said.

She leaned across the bar and stared at me like she could see the liar in me doing his best to look like he was telling the truth.

            “I’ll get you a whiskey. You look like a whiskey man.”

I didn’t turn her down. I sat there like a cotton-mouthed idiot and watched her pour me a double in the middle of the day like it wasn’t a problem.

Whiskey turned men into monsters, and my dad loved being a monster more than he did a father. But I guess when you lose the things you love, losing yourself along with them is better than living with your loneliness. God knows I was lonely today.

            “What happened to your shirt?” She asked, and slid my shot across the bar without spilling a drop. I threw back my old man’s poison and waited for the slow burn to settle in my throat before I answered her.

            “Long story. I don’t tell my stories to strangers.”

She shot a hand out towards me. Her skin was softer than it looked.

            “I’m Evie.”

            “Caleb.”

Evie let her eyes linger on mine for a little too long. If there was one thing she was good at it was making people uncomfortable.

            “Do you always keep your girlfriend waiting like this? Or is today a bad day?”

Some women don’t know when to stop.

            “Don’t you worry about that. I’m gonna head out. When Hal gets back just tell him Caleb Donoghue was looking for him—“

            “Evie, don’t you let that boy pay for his drink. It’s on the house. How are you, son? Surprised to see you here today.”

Hal rounded the corner of the kitchen smiling wider than a Texas plain. The same light switch anger I’d done my best to keep in check around Sawyer sparked to life in front of his old man. I was outta my chair and halfway across the room before Hal made it halfway to the bar.

            “I need to talk to you, sir.”

       “I’m happy to talk, but right now I’ve got a community lunch to prepare for. The whole police department’s gonna be here in an hour to celebrate their new recruits. You have my phone number, right? Give me a call sometime tomorrow and—“

            “I need to talk to you, now.”

Didn’t know if it was the whisky or weakness in me that wouldn’t take no for an answer, but the happy go lucky look on Hal’s face hardened up quick.

            “Keep your voice down, son.”

         “Then you listen to me. I need you do something about Sawyer,” I said.

Hal leaned in close and wrapped five of his porky fingers around my arm.

            “Caleb, look, you know I like you and I know you’re having a hard time right now, but if you wanna talk to me about my son I’m gonna have to ask you wait until we can talk someplace private.”

            “He’s hurting her, Hal. He’s putting his hands on my girl and you want me to wait ‘til your schedule frees up so we can talk about it? I don’t have that kinda time and neither does she.”

Every muscle in my body ached trying hold myself back from screaming, from kicking over all his fancy chairs a tables that only reminded me of how much rich people have and poor people don't.

Sawyer came in and took the one thing I had, the one good goddamn thing I had in my life, and he stole her like she was another pretty little thing he had the right to take. If he had the right to steal, I had the right to fight.

            “That’s a heavy accusation, son. I want you to go home, sober up, and think about what you’re saying before you come see me again, okay? Sawyer’s a lot of things, but he’s not kind of man to put his hands a woman. You’ve gotta be sure before you say something like that, Caleb.

Hal’s eyes washed over with something that looked a lot like pity, like he was staring at some crazed, desperate, kid who was too heartbroken make any sense. Maybe I was all of those things, but I sure as hell wasn’t wrong about Sawyer.

            “You know, you’re the second guy to tell me that, Hal. ‘Bout seven years ago, I came home from school and growing up I wasn’t one of those kids who looked forward to the end of the day. I never wanted to leave because going home was the worst thing in the world ‘cause I had the worst father in the world but nobody at school believed me. My Ma and dad used to fight so badly it sounded like the world was breaking every night. But I hadn’t actually seen my dad put his hands on my Ma so when I told one of my teachers at school about it he said the same thing you did—”

            “Caleb, I didn’t mean to—“

“—So there was this Friday I came home and Dad was standing in the living room yelling at my Ma so loud she had to hold hands over her ears just to shut him out, just to catch a break. And Dad kept saying, that he’d beat some sense into her if she wouldn’t listen. But she held her ground, ‘cause she was brave, you know? She never let him tell her what to do. So he starts charging at her, right? And I’m standing there with my backpack on and my heart my throat, and I knew that if I didn’t do something he’d beat the shit out of her. I didn’t have to see him do it to know that he would. So I stepped in between him and her and he put me in the hospital for two weeks. I was fourteen, Hal. Fourteen and I knew then what you don’t realize right now.”

All the blood in Hal’s full moon face drained away ‘til he turned whiter than his fancy tablecloths.

“Look, I’m not trying to make you lose sleep or feel sorry for me ‘cause a’ that story. There’s a lot of people with a lot of sad stories, I don’t want this to have to be hers,” I said.

Hal reached out and put a weak hand on my shoulder and held on to me like he understood some part of my pain. He didn’t know a goddamn thing. Nobody did.

            “I hear you, son. I’ll check in on him. But I can’t guarantee you anything, Caleb.”

If he couldn’t, I would.

            “I’ll tell you one thing, Hal. If he does anything else to hurt her, I’ll take care of him myself, and that’s not a threat, that’s a promise.”