Kill Me
Chapter 9
By: Makena
It had been nearly a month since Callie had left her home in Waldorf, but she didn't have many regrets. Billy had promised to get off heroin, although Callie highly doubted this, and Sam had become one of the few friends Callie had ever really had in her life. She got to watch the band - who she eventually found out was called Blue Body Sanctuary - and she let Rob try and give her guitar lessons. And she couldn't remember being happier in her entire life.
Callie sat down with her guitar - something everyone (including Billy and herself) had chipped in to buy her - and tried to practice a couple of cords. She had gotten a couple of them down when Billy walked into the bunk area from the main area and watched her for a while.
"I suck, don't I?" Callie asked him finally, looking up at him.
"Naw," Billy said. "You're doing better then you were before."
"Mmm, thanks," Callie said, putting her fingering charts and music sheets away.
"We're stopping at a gas station soon," Billy told her and Callie placed her guitar carefully into it's case. "If you wanna get something..."
Callie nodded and sighed. Every time they stopped, she thought about calling and every time they stopped, she was to afraid to do so. She dug out a couple of dollars and some change as soon as the bus stopped and hopped off, wandering into the gas station to buy herself something to eat and a drink.
"Healthy," Sam noted, eyeing the soda and the bag of chips Callie had picked up for herself.
Callie shrugged and went to the counter to pay for her things.
"You should come watch us tonight," Sam said, standing in line behind her.
"I come watch you almost every night," Callie pointed out.
"But you should come and watch us tonight anyway," Sam said. "In case you were thinking about not watching us."
Callie nodded. "Okay," she said, walking out of the store.
On the way out, she noticed a pay phone and stopped short, staring at it for a moment. She tried to run through explanations and excuses why she couldn't - why she wouldn't - call her father.
It might be Kelly. I won't have enough change. They might try to track me. I don't have enough change. There's some one using the phone.
Callie sighed. None of these were good enough excuses, especially the last two, because she did have enough change and there was nobody using it. Slowly, she walked to the pay phone, deposited enough change, and dialed the numbers. She began to get nervous as the phone rang and she considered hanging up before anyone could answer.
"Hello?" a voice asked from the other end.
Callie froze - she didn't know where to begin.
"Callie?" her father asked. "Callie... is that you?"
"Y-yeah," Callie stuttered.
"Callie! Oh, thank god... where are you? How are you? Are you okay? Don't go anywhere, I'll come get you..."
Callie sniffed and tried not to cry as she began to play with her rubber band again.
"Callie?" Benji questioned again.
Callie couldn't think of anything to say, except something that her and Benji used to say to each other a long time ago.
"See you later," she said, hanging the phone back up.
She could hear her father's desperate cries as she hung the phone up and couldn't help but cry. She missed him - she felt horrible for doing this to him, but - see you later. She knew she'd see him again. At least, she hoped she would.
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"Can I ask you a question?" Sam asked Callie, who was hugging a pillow and staring at the TV screen blankly while Mark and Jeremy tried desperately to kick each other's asses.
"You just did," Callie said, trying not to tear her eyes away from the screen.
"I'm going to ask you another question, then," Sam said, sitting down next to her on the couch.
"Shoot."
"What are you gonna do when the tour is over?"
Callie frowned and looked at him. "When the tour is over?"
Sam nodded. "I mean, the whole point of running away is to get away from one life to start a new one somewhere else, right?"
"I guess," Callie said with a shrug.
"So, what were you planning on doing? I mean, you can stay with us as long as you want to, but once the tour is over - we go back to Waldorf."
Callie chewed on the side of her mouth for a moment. "I guess I can look for my mom," she said with a sigh. "Live with her until I'm 18 or something."
"Where does she live?" Sam asked curiously.
Callie shrugged. "California, I think," Callie replied. "I think I heard my uncle Joel talk about that with my dad once. LA, most likely."
"We're gonna be in Cali in a couple of weeks, you know," Sam said. "We could help you look for her, I guess."
Callie sighed and smiled slightly. "That would be cool," she said. "You wanna see a picture of her?"
Sam shrugged. "Sure," he said, watching as Callie grabbed her back pack and began to dig around.
Callie found her sketch/writing book and flipped through it for a while. Finally, she opened up to a page that contained a sketch of a young woman. Pressed against the sketch were three photographs. Callie lifted them and sat closer to Sam so that he could see. The first picture was of a beautiful young woman with brownish colored hair. She was wearing jeans and a lavender tank top and she was holding a little girl - four or five years old - with dark brown hair in pigtails. Standing next to the young woman was a man with dark brown hair and a pink patch in it.
"That's me," Callie said, pointing to the little girl.
"Is that your dad?" Sam asked, pointing to the man with the pink spot in his hair.
"Yeah."
"You look a lot like him," Sam told her. "You did then, too."
Callie sighed and flipped to the next picture. It was a close up of her mother, who was smiling, showing her perfect white teeth. The next was a picture of Benji, wrestling the young woman to the ground while Callie stood and watched, laughing at the two.
"What happened to your mom?" Sam asked as Callie began to stuff the pictures back into her book and snap it shut.
"She took off when I was five," Callie explained. "I have to use the bathroom."
"Can I look at this while you're in there?" he asked, holding up her black sketch/writing book.
Callie hesitated. She hadn't really let anyone see the contents of her book. Not that any of the things inside were very personal - nobody had really asked her or seemed to show any interest in the book at all and it had therefore been marked as "private."
"Uh... I guess so," Callie said. "Just... don't let anyone else see it."
Sam nodded and began to flip through the book as Callie walked to the tiny bathroom that was on the bus. There were lots of things in Callie's book; poems, sketches, stories, magazine collages and local band fliers - to list a few things. Sam flipped through and gazed at the things Callie had accumulated over the years of having it and laughed when he saw a picture of Jeremy and himself, wrestling on the floor with Landry watching and Rob still playing playstation. He got towards the end when some more photographs popped up. There was about a roll full stuck between the two pages this time. Sam picked the small stack up and began to sort through them.
There was an older picture of Benji, kneeling down beside his daughter so that he was more level with her. There was another picture of Callie jumping on a trampoline near a white fence with Joel sitting on the sides watching her. The picture under that was of Joel, hugging Callie from behind her.
Sam looked up as the bathroom door opened and Callie stepped out, but she didn't look at Sam. Instead, she wandered back towards the bunk area and closed the door behind her. Shrugging, Sam shuffled through the pictures again.
There was one of Benji and a young, blond woman standing at an alter, obviously getting married. The little girl standing just behind the young woman was looking up at her with a scowl and dislike. More pictures showed Callie as she got older with her father and her uncle - some even included
Paul and Billy. None of them, however, had anyone that might have been considered a friend to her. No one her age that looked like they went to each others house and played Barbies or stayed up and talked about guys over the phone.
Finally, Sam put the pictures back and he stood up with the book, walking back to the bunk area to find Callie. She was sitting cross-legged on his bed, listening to her CD player with her eyes closed.
"What are you listening to?" Sam asked her, sitting down on Jeremy's bed.
Callie opened an eye and looked at him. "Blisstrip," she replied, pushing the stop button.
"Ohhh," Sam said, making a face while adding sarcastically, "nice choice."
Callie shrugged and pushed her CD player aside after she had taken her head phones off.
"They're kind of like 311 meets Incubus/Hoobastank," she replied. "Which makes for a cheep, crappy-ass band, but - the guitar/back-up guy is pretty cute."
Sam laughed. "That's what you get for listening to Michigan based bands," he told her.
"Mustard Plug is cool, though," Callie said, leaning against the side of the bus.
"True," Sam replied, fingering the edges of Callie's book. "But then there are people like Kid Rock and Eminem."
"Ah..." Callie laughed. "Quite right."
Sam sighed and handed her book back. "You should get that published if you ever become famous," Sam told her as Callie took her sketch/writing book back into her own arms.
"Why's that?" she asked him.
"I dunno - 'The Early Works of Callie Madden.' People would defiantly buy it."
"Okay," Callie said. "I'll keep that in mind. So... what am I gonna be famous for?"
Sam laughed. "For playing guitar," he said. "Although, you might wanna pick a second choice before you think about doing guitar full time..." Callie whipped her foot out and kicked Sam in the leg as he tried to get away from her.
"Ass hole!" she called.
"But a good guitar player!" he shouted back.