Page 125 of What We Don't Say: Part One

“She should know,” Sloane says. He reaches for his phone, his movements too controlled now, all the panic folded into the careful way he unlocks the screen. “And she should hear your voice.”

He presses Callie’s name and puts the phone on speaker, holding it close enough for me to speak without sitting up. The ringing fills the sunroom. It sounds ordinary. That makes it worse. I stare at the screen and picture her in a hallway, maybe checking her notes, maybe touching the protein bar Idris put in her bag. I picture her seeing Sloane’s name and stepping away from the interview room because she promised she would answer.

The call goes to voicemail.

Sloane closes his eyes for one breath. When he opens them, they are wet and furious, but his voice is gentle when the beep comes.

“Hi, Callie,” I say. My throat tightens, and Idris’s hand settles over my ankle beneath the blanket, steady pressure that helps the words stay whole. “It’s me. I’m home, and I’m okay. I cut my hand a little, but you took care of it, and the nurse said it’s fine. I wanted you to know I’m not scared of lunch. I’m not scared of you. Please call when your interview is done.”

Sloane bends over me, bringing the phone closer to his own mouth. “Hey, baby, it’s me. Theo’s home with us, and he’s okay. We aren’t trying to interrupt anything, and we don’t want you worrying if you’re walking into the interview, but call when you get this. Hurry home when you can. I love you.”

Idris leans in from my other side without taking the phone from Sloane. “Text me when you’re out, Calliope. Eat the protein bar if you haven’t. Drive carefully. We’ve got him until you’re home.”

Sloane ends the call and leaves the phone faceup on the blanket near my knee. For a minute, none of us moves. The sunroom hums softly around us, warm and prepared and full of all the things we thought we had a few more days to finish. My phone is tucked against my thigh. Idris’s phone sits on the side table with the ringer turned high. Sloane’s phone is beside my knee, bright for a few seconds before the screen dims.

“Maybe she’s already in the interview,” I say.

“Probably,” Sloane answers. His hand stays over my stomach, but it has gone too still.

Idris picks up the water bottle and brings it to my mouth. “Drink for me.” He watches me swallow, then wipes a drop from my lower lip with his thumb. “She’ll call when she can.”

I nod because they need me to, and because I want it to be true. Outside the sunroom, Garrett’s voice moves low through the hall, calm and distant, taking care of the thing that happened at campus. I catch only pieces: incident, documentation, proximity to heat, yes, I understand the concern. The words blur beneath the sound of Sloane breathing behind me and Idris shifting closer to the doorway.

The phone stays dark.

I keep Callie’s sweater pressed to my mouth anyway. It smells more like me every minute, but I hold on to what is left and listen for a call that doesn't come.

Sloane

Theo sleeps for fourteen minutes before he wakes up asking for Callie again, and I know because I count every one with my hand on his stomach and my phone faceup beside my knee. He’s curled between me and Idris in the sunroom nest, body warm and loose from the spike but still wrong in the quiet afterward. The sex helped. It gave his body somewhere safe to spend the worst of the rush, and Idris and I kept him with us through every shaking breath until the sharpest edge finally passed. But his face stays too tight even in sleep, his injured hand is tuckedcarefully against his chest, and his other fist hasn’t let go of Callie’s gray sweater since Idris put it back into his hands.

“Callie?” he whispers into the wool.

The sound cuts straight through the center of me. I press my palm more firmly over his stomach, giving him warmth and pressure without holding him down. His skin is still damp beneath the soft shirt we put on him, and the tremor in his thighs hasn’t fully faded. “She’s probably still in the interview, sweetheart. We left the message. She’ll hear your voice when she gets out.”

Theo’s eyes open halfway. Cardamom and peach blossom cling to him, sharp with exhaustion, and Callie’s honeyed pear and vanilla tea is fading from the sweater every time he breathes into it. “She said she’d come home after.”

“I know.” I bend and press my mouth to his hair, keeping my voice steady because he needs steadiness more than he needs the truth of what my chest feels like. “She will.”

Idris sits on Theo’s other side with a cooling cloth in one hand and a bottle of water in the other. He doesn’t say the interview should’ve ended by now. He doesn’t look at the phone where Callie’s name still hasn’t changed. He only smooths the cloth over the back of Theo’s neck and says, “Drink for me.”

Theo’s brow pulls tight. “I drank already.”

“Again,” Idris says, and his voice softens when Theo’s mouth trembles around the refusal he’s too tired to make. “Small sips. Your body worked hard.”

I hold Theo upright while Idris tips the bottle to his mouth. Theo drinks because Idris waits like the whole room can wait with him, and when he’s done, Idris wipes a drop from his lower lip with his thumb. The tenderness of it should make me feel better. It doesn’t, because Theo’s gaze slips past Idris to the doorway again, searching the empty place where Callie should appear.

My phone is still dark.

I pick it up before I can talk myself out of it, thumb already on her name. Idris watches me across Theo’s body and doesn’t tell me to stop. We’ve already called. Theo left his message. I left mine. Idris kept his calm and told her to drive carefully. None of it changed the screen.

The call rings until the flat voice of voicemail answers.

“Hey, baby, it’s me again.” I keep my voice low because Theo is listening and because Callie might be standing outside a room full of people deciding whether they want her future. “Theo’s resting. He’s asking for you, but he’s safe with us. We’re not trying to scare you or pull you out of anything. Just call the second you can, okay? Even if it’s only long enough to tell me you’re all right. I love you.”

I end the call before the last word can break. Theo’s fingers move against my shirt, searching until I put my hand over his. He looks at the phone, then at me.

“You didn’t tell her the spike got bad,” he says.