It was a bit comedic. But contrary to their relationship, Callan and mine was more serious. “It’s a little funny,” I admitted.
“What about you and Callan?” she asked, tilting her head to the side. “Has he finally confessed his undying love for you?”
I froze and dropped my gaze to my hands.Here we go…
“Oh my god, he totally did!” She turned more toward me with a wide grin. “When? How? Did you say it back?”
I pressed my lips together and scrunched my nose, trying to figure out how to tell her about the mess that was last night. “I…didn’t say it back, no.”
She gasped. “Lana, but you—”
“I do.” I looked at her again and smiled gently. “I do love him. But I couldn’t say it.”
She studied me closely as I struggled to find the right words. I took a slow breath and gathered the fragments of the night into a coherent story. “Last night was bad,” I said quietly.
This time, it was she who froze. Her posture, which had been relaxed, became instantly rigid. Her eyes sharpened and locked on mine. “What do you mean? What happened?”
I swallowed. “My mom came by last night. Callan and I had dinner and I thought that things would finally stop being so…intense. That all the pain was finally, slowly going away. But then she showed up and started screaming.”
“Lana.” Holland sighed, putting her coffee on the table in front of us before reaching for my hands. “I’m so sorry.”
I gave a little shrug. She had no fault in this, and the only person I wanted an apology from was my mother. But I knew that would never come. “She, uh…she slapped me.” Saying it out loud made the stinging on my face come back.
A string of curses left Holland’s lips under her breath. It was a raw reaction that showed just how shocked she was. “What a bitch. Lana, are you okay?”
I nodded quickly. “Yes, I’m fine. Callan protected me. But I ran out and just left him there. She trashed the kitchen. Threw things everywhere. I just feel so bad leaving him there, and for not saying it back.”
Holland’s jaw was clenched so tightly I could see the muscle flexing in her cheek. “Okay, first of all, you don’t have to feel bad for running away from someone who hits you. You do whatever you need to do to feel safe. Second, what the hell is wrong with her? And third, Callan. What did he do after you left?”
“He came and found me,” I said, my voice softening at the memory. “At the observatory. He knew I’d be there, and that’s where he told me he loved me. He took me home and he told me he had the police take her away.”
Holland squeezed my hands, her anger slowly being replaced by a fierce protectiveness. “Okay. So, let me get this straight. You get attacked by your mother, you run away, the man you love finds you, tells you he loves you in your favorite place on earth, takes care of you, gets rid of your psychotic mother, and you think you’re the one who messed up by not saying it back?”
I winced at her blunt summary. “When you put it like that…”
“No, Lana, listen to me,” she said, her tone serious but gentle. “You have been through a trauma. Not just the past two nights, but all your life because of her. Your brain is notworking right now. It’s in survival mode. You can’t be expected to process a declaration of love when you’re busy processing the fact that your own mother hit you. That’s not fair to you. Callan knows that. The fact that he didn’t push you, the fact that he just said it and let it be, proves it. He’s not expecting anything from you. He’s just giving you what he has, which is his love and his support. You’re not rejecting him by not saying it back. It’s you protecting your own heart until it’s safe enough to come out again.”
I had never heard her say something so poetic, and while my first instinct was to laugh, I kept it inside and just leaned into her. “Thank you.”
“Now,” she said, wrapping her arms around me. “We’re not going to talk about this for the rest of the day. We’re not going to think about your mother, or the video, or Callan, or anything that causes you stress. Today, you’ll focus on recovery and mind-numbing distraction.”
She moved and reached for the remote on the coffee table, turning on the TV. “I’m thinking we start with something stupid and funny. No romance, no drama, no emotional anything. Just explosions and bad one-liners.” She opened one of her many streaming services and flipped through the catalogue until she landed on John Wick. “Keanu Reeves always helps.”
I agreed. I liked Keanu.
“We’ll watch all four movies, and after that, we’ll move on to a cartoon. And when we get hungry, we’ll order so much food your stomach will explode.”
“I had a big breakfast,” I told her, pursing my lips.
“I don’t care. You’ll be hungry watching Mr. Reeves go on a killing spree to get revenge for his puppy’s murder.”
I laughed softly. “Okay, fine.”
“Good. Now, get ready to watch movies until our brains turn to mush and we forget what day it is.”
40
Callan
