The Brightest Light of Sunshine

There’s a black hole inside my chest, eating me alive from the inside and consuming every inch of my bleeding soul little by little.

I can’t bring myself to feel, to care, to stop it.

My phone shakes between my trembling hands, and not even Grace’s calming words as she tells me she’s coming right away manage to wake me up from this fucking nightmare.

It’s funny how I knew this was going to happen eventually. Maybe not this, exactly, but I’ve always suspected the ticking bomb that was our family life was going to explode sooner than later.

This is my fault. By doing nothing to fix the situation, I allowed it to get this far.

Once again, my family has failed Maddie. Only that, this time, it’s my neglect that put her in the ER.

I was in the middle of tattooing Oscar when my mother called. I rarely pick up the phone while I’m working, but she never, ever calls, so the moment I saw her caller ID I just knew. I fucking knew.

She had gotten into a fight with Pete, which ended with him packing his bags and leaving. For good, she’d said. Good-fucking-riddance and all that. At least that was my immediate thought when she told me, thinking that was it. Pete walking out of our lives and never coming back was more a blessing than a curse, even if my mother couldn’t see it as such at the time.

But there was more.

He wasn’t out of the door for five minutes before my mom opened her liquor cabinet and chugged down her whiskey straight from the damn bottle. And then went for another. I know this because she’d confessed everything between broken sobs.

My sister was in the house while all of this went down. When she spotted our mom on the couch, drunk and crying her eyes out, she sprinted towards her. Probably because she thought she was dying. And in her way, she tripped over a bottle my mother had left lying around on the floor and hit her head on the sharp corner of the coffee table.

I’ll give it to my mom—despite her pathetic state, she sobered up enough to understand she needed to call an ambulance. I can only imagine how badly Maddie was bleeding for her to come to her goddamn senses while being two bottles deep into oblivion.

And now I’m sitting alone in the waiting room outside of the ER, where they’re stitching up Maddie’s head, and I have no fucking clue what kind of damage has been done. I don’t know if there’s brain trauma, if she’s hurt somewhere else too, or if it’s so bad she’d have to stay the night and maybe even for a few days.

Images of her small, fragile body choke me up until I can barely breathe. She might not be strong enough to sustain a head injury… She might have lost too much blood already… My mother might have called the ambulance too late…

I hide my face between my trembling hands, and I break down.

This is all my fault. My head hasn’t been in the right place. I’ve been distracted with… other things, when all my focus should’ve been on my sister. For the longest time I refused to see the signs, blinded by wishful thinking that our mother would get her shit together and we would avoid this dumpster fire. Of course not, and now my sister is in the fucking ER for it.

If she doesn’t make it… If something happens to her…

“Fuck.”

I feel my whole body shaking with fear as my head spirals, down and down and…

“Cal.”

Grace’s soft, worried voice drifts over towards me like a gust of fresh wind in the suffocating desert, and for a moment this nightmare turns into a short-lived dream.

“Cal…” Her hands engulf mine and peel them away from my face.

I can’t look at her right now. Not when I have to fight back this magnetic pull towards her. Her gentle lips kiss away my tears, making me feel guilty for feeling so fucking loved when Maddie is alone and afraid in the ER right now.

Grace tangles one of her hands on the back of my hair, trying to sooth me with the gentle scratch of her fingernails on my scalp. “Tell me what happened, love.”

When I muster the courage to lift my eyes to look at her, I wish I hadn’t.

Her eyes are red and puffy from all her tears, and seeing her so utterly distraught over my sister breaks me down again. She doesn’t speak. Silently, she wraps her arms around me, and I pull her onto my lap. Her sweet, familiar scent wraps around my heart to the point where I want to throw up just thinking of what I have to do next.

“Please,” she whimpers against my neck as she holds me so tightly her grip might leave a bruise. I couldn’t fucking care less. “Please, tell me what happened. Don’t leave me in the dark.”

I hold her against me, wishing things would be different, longing for that future I was so sure was in the cards for us, and I tell her.

How I should’ve done something. How it’s too late now. How selfish I have been, ignoring the signs, and what it cost my sister.

By the time my throat clogs up and I can’t get any more words out no matter how hard I try, we’re both crying.

“Where’s your mother now?” Grace asks me in a whisper once she calms down.

“In custody.” My voice trembles as I speak. “Grace, I’m… I’m gonna file for Maddie’s guardianship.”

If my confession shocks her, she doesn’t show it. “How can I help?” she asks instead, making my fucking heart tighten again.

“You can’t.” I swallow past the lump in my throat. “You… I can’t do this to you, Grace.”

Luckily for my sanity, because I can’t bear to have this conversation right now, a doctor enters the waiting room. “Samuel Callaghan?”

I stand up in a rush, pulling Grace up with me as I go. “How is she?”

The doctor eyes Grace briefly, tucked under my arm, and slowly turns to me again, “She’s awake and recovering. She had a mild cut on her hairline that required stitches, but fortunately she didn’t lose a lot of blood. Would you like to see her?”

Nothing could’ve prepared me for the heartbreaking sight of my sister lying on a hospital bed. Grace squeezes my hand as we step inside, both of us wearing our fakest smiles to avoid freaking her out even more.

“Hey, princess.” I kneel next to her bed and take her small, cold hand between my shaky one. “How are you feeling?”

To my surprise, Maddie smiles. “My head hurts a little, but the doctor said I was very brave, so I think now I feel better.” When her eyes move behind me, her smile widens. “Grace!”

“Hi, sweetie.” She comes to stand next to me and rubs Maddie’s covered leg in a comforting gesture.

I’m so fucking anxious I barely notice the bright yellow walls, full of animal stickers and other kiddy props before the same doctor comes back again with an easy smile on his face. “You are her brother, correct?” I nod. “Will she be going home with you today?”

“Yes,” I say without hesitation.

He proceeds to explain the care instructions for the cut, and I start breathing normally again when, after a quick check-up, he confirms she’s ready to go home.

Little did I know the nightmare was far from over.

***

Grace

Cal isn’t talking to me.

Not more than strictly necessary, anyway, which is freaking me out.

After we got confirmation that Maddie was all right and ready to go home, I texted Aaron with the update and he and Emily stopped by Cal’s apartment to drop off some takeout and new toys for Maddie, as well as an obnoxiously big ‘Get Well Soon’ pink balloon that the little girl loved and immediately took to her bedroom.

But they left an hour ago to let us rest, and it’s been fifteen minutes since Cal and I finished our food, and he still hasn’t uttered a single word to me. He put Maddie to sleep as soon as Aaron and Em left, and the apartment is eerily silent.

In some capacity, I understand he’s still in shock.

Right as we were leaving the hospital, he got a call from his mom saying social services will be getting in touch, and that she was voluntarily signing up to rehab as soon as she was able to. Cal barely said a few words to her before he hung up.

His words from the hospital flood my head as we sit in silence, not really looking at each other.

I can’t do this to you, Grace.

And while I have a fair idea of what he meant by that, I wish he just ripped off the bandage and told me.

I wish he had the courage to tell me he wants to break up with me.

“Do you want to talk?” I ask him when I can’t take the deafening silence anymore.

Without looking at me, he nods.

I take a deep breath. It’s clear that Cal isn’t okay right now, which is understandable—and it’s also why I need to be a little stronger and a little more compassionate than usual, for the both of us. Because he can’t right now.

“Tell me what’s on your mind,” I start with something simple enough.

Still, it takes him a good five minutes to get the words out. But I can be patient. For him. For the both of us.

“I should have seen this coming,” he finally mutters, his eyes never leaving the table. “I put too much trust in my mom getting her shit together when I shouldn’t have. The signs were right under my nose, and I ignored them.”

“There’s no way you could’ve predicted what happened, Cal.” I search his eyes, but there’s no use. “Please, don’t punish yourself for this.”

“Too late,” he mumbles.

Gathering all my inner strength, I count to ten in my head before speaking again. “Doing so is pointless now. It happened, and it sucks, but we should focus on moving forward. For Maddie.”

Slowly, too slowly, he lifts his head until our gazes collide. What I see is absolute devastation. “We?” A whisper.

“I’m not leaving you, Cal.” I reach out my hand and brush my pinky against his tattooed knuckles. I’m not sure he wants to be touched right now, so I keep our contact to a minimum when he doesn’t pull away. “When I said I understood that Maddie will always be your priority, I wasn’t lying.”

I can see the storm raging inside his head, and for the first time since I’ve met him, I don’t think he’s doing anything to stop it. “I…” he starts, and in my heart, I somehow know the rest before he says it. “I can’t do this.”

Still, I swallow down my nerves and focus on keeping a cool exterior and a steady voice. “You can’t do what?”

He shakes his head as if I don’t understand a thing. “This… This thing, Grace. I can’t put you through this nightmare too.”

“Hey.” This time, all my fingers wrap around his unmoving hand. “I’m choosing to put myself through this because I love you, all right? Both of you. I’m not going anywhere, and I refuse to let you push me away. I know this is your panic talking and not what you really want.”

But he shakes his head again and when he releases himself from my grip, my stomach sinks with dread. “It’s not my panic talking.”

I wet my lips, which are suddenly as dry as my throat. “What do you mean?”

He rubs his eyes with the heels of his palms and refuses to meet my gaze once again. “I need time.”

Time.

Do you ever hear a word so many times that it stops making sense in your head? Well, that’s exactly what’s currently going on in mine. Not because someone is physically saying ‘time’ over and over again, but because it’s echoing inside my head until there isn’t room for anything else.

Time. Time. Time.

Anxiety grips at my chest and refuses to let go. “Time,” I repeat. It sounds foreign on my tongue, tastes too sour.

“I’m filing for permanent custody tomorrow,” he says. “I’ll become Maddie’s legal guardian until she’s of age which means… Which means there is no life for you and me alone, Grace. It’s not just the two of us anymore. We’ve only known each other for a few months, been together as a couple for even less and I can’t… I can’t take your freedom away from you.”

“I’m going to stop you right there.” I hate the way my voice becomes more agitated with each passing second. “One, we’ve already been through this. I already knew this could happen before I agreed to be your girlfriend, Cal, so don’t act like this is news to me. And two, what freedom are you even talking about right now? Do you seriously think I’d feel shackled to you because of Maddie?”

He quickly meets my gaze. “That’s not what I meant—”

“Well, that’s what you said.” Deep breaths, Grace. Deep breaths. Forcing my voice to its usual soft tone, I ask him, “Are you still afraid of what could happen to Maddie if we ever break up?”

He gulps. “Yeah.”

“Okay.” Another deep, useless breath. “I understand. But I’m not going to let you push me away, Cal. Not when there’s a possibility we might never break up. Because I don’t think we ever will. You’re it for me.”

“It’s not just that.” He runs his fingers through his already messy hair in a nervous gesture. “I don’t think you understand the seriousness of this situation, and I get that because this isn’t your family issue to worry about.”

“You are my family.”

He ignores me. “But you must think long-term now. Maddie is moving in with me and won’t leave at least until she’s eighteen. That’s fourteen years. It will feel as if I have a kid, Grace. It’s not temporary, and it will change our relationship forever.”

“I know that,” I whisper between gritted teeth. His condescending attitude and the way he’s treating me like I’m the child rubs me off the wrong way, and I try my hardest not to lash out at him. It won’t help anything if I do.

“We won’t have much alone time,” he continues, oblivious to the helplessness consuming me from the inside. “Maddie will be glued to our side most of the time, and it’s not just that. I have to raise her. I have to cover all her expenses and take care of everything that concerns her. That’s a lot of pressure for… for our relationship. For you. We haven’t been together long.”

“I know.” It’s too late now to stop the anger from lacing my every word. “Do you think I’m just playing house here? I don’t know how else to put it, Cal—I love you. I love you with everything I’ve got. You’re the freaking love of my life, and this is the kind of thing people do for love.”

“Grace…”

“I’m not done.” I stand up from my chair, suddenly feeling like a caged bird. Bracing my hands on the wooden table, I tell him in a low but firm tone, “I love Maddie as if she were my own sister, and I’d do anything and everything for the both of you. I thought you knew by now, but I guess I have to make myself even clearer. Well, here it goes.”

I take a deep breath, bracing myself.

“I’m moving in with you as soon as I graduate. I’ve already talked to Adelaide about going full-time at the studio, and between that and all the money I’ve been saving these past few years I’ve got enough pay rent and help you cover Maddie’s expenses. No—I don’t want to hear it, Cal. If we’re together, if I’m ever going to be your wife and the mother of your children, this is what you’ll have to put up with. My stubborn ass, yes. If Maddie is living under my roof, you better believe I’m going to help you pay for her food, her toys, her clothes and everything else because that’s what family does.”

My palms are sweating, my heart is racing, and my head is spinning as I press a lingering kiss to Cal’s forehead and say, “You wanted time, so I’m giving it to you. Just please remember that I love you more than anything in this world. I’ll respect whatever decision you come to as long as you believe every word I’ve just said, because I meant them, Cal. We are in this together. Always.”

And without waiting for a response, I grab my things and leave his apartment with unshed tears in my eyes.