“You can tell me anything,” he encouraged.
She couldn’t believe she was saying this. “I was wondering who was going to kill me first—my mom or Savannah.”
He laughed, knowing the joke and underlined truth to that statement. “Savannah. That’s why I’m not sure it’s a good idea to go out with them tonight.” Well, at least he could find something funny in all of this.
If they weren’t going out with Savannah and all his friends, then what was he thinking that they were going to do tonight? And what was going to happen when she got home and he couldn’t stop her sister from killing her?
Cally was just about to ask when Hannah, thankfully, changed the subject. “So when are you going back?”
Dakota’s answer was to be expected. “I switched with a guy, so I have to go back Sunday.”
Hannah smiled. “So you get to spend four days together, aw, how sweet.”
Cally shook her head, knowing that wasn’t going to be the case. “I have to work tomorrow and Saturday.”
“Can’t you take off?” Dakota’s sister insisted, like she had a choice in when she was scheduled to work.
“I’m filling in for someone else tomorrow,” Cally told her, hoping that the girl would understand that jobs didn’t work that way; you couldn’t just take off at the last minute whenever you wanted to.
Dakota was ever the optimist. “You’re working day shift, so we can go out tomorrow night, and I’ll pick you up Saturday after work.”
Okay, so she was going out and most likely getting drunk Friday and Saturday night, and he was going back Sunday, which meant that she was going to be alone with Savannah for the next week with no protection! Yeah, this had all the makings for a murder plot.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
Cally just shook her head, not wanting to admit the massive friction that was starting to overwhelm her.
“We’re going to have to work on this,” he teased, half seriously.
She looked at him, mustering up the courage to throw the obvious back in his face. “I was just counting the number of days I have left on this planet.”
“You’re overreacting,” his sister groaned as she made a face at him.
Cally looked to Dakota who knew as well as she did that she wasn’t overreacting. He just didn’t understand why Savannah was going to kill her. She wasn’t even sure he understood just how bad this crap was.
Cally knew he was trying to reassure her, but it wasn’t helping. “She’ll calm down,” he said.
She couldn’t stop shaking her head as she argued, “She’ll kill me first.”
He looked her dead in the eyes as he insisted, “If she’s still angry when I leave, you can stay here.”
What planet did he think he was on? “No one is going to let that happen.”
His sister seemed to agree with him. “Yeah, they will.”
All right, everyone had officially lost their minds. “I have to work, and it’s only a short walk to work from my house. If I stayed here, how would I get to work?”
Hannah just gave her some knowing smile, just before Dakota thankfully changed the subject. They didn’t seem to want to answer that, and she was still right—she wasn’t going to last the weekend, let alone until he figured things out.
Cally sat there as the two of them talked and she let the dread and fear start filling her again. She wasn’t going to make it through this day, let alone the next three. What had come over her? Why was this happening to her, of all people? And what happened to the sane, rational Cally? The one that knew breaking up with Dakota was the only thing that would keep her alive in the long run?
Her heart nearly stopped again as she heard a car door shut outside. She looked down at her watch and realized it was nearly five thirty; one of his parents had to have just gotten home from work. This just kept getting worse. She groaned inwardly as the dread began building yet again. Why couldn’t they tell her mom first, and then they could avoid having to tell his parents all together, because there was no way in this world that her mom would agree to any of this.
Cally didn’t mean to do it, but she held her breath as she heard the door open behind them. There was no way she was getting out of this now. But everything inside her screamed for her to run as far as she could go and as fast as she could make it before someone tried to stop her and drag her back into this mess. She felt Dakota squeeze her hand, trying to reassure her, but it wasn’t working. Nothing could prepare anyone for this—telling parents that a fifteen year old was getting married was insane! No it was beyond insane; it just couldn’t happen. This was so not happening!
Cally vaguely heard the second car door shut, and the second time the screen door shut, when his mom asked, “So what happened?”
Hannah was more excited than anyone and answered bubbly, “She said ‘yes,’ of course!”
There was no way she could face anyone now that it was out. It hit her at that second that there was no way she could back out of this on her own. But there was also no way that her mother was going to let her get married at fifteen either; so she could just keep holding on to that one sane and rational thought.
She couldn’t move or speak or anything as everyone seemed to keep moving around her and doing what they must normally do. She was engaged to a guy that was perfect in every way, a guy that she was planning to breakup with just a few hours ago. A guy her mother was going to force out of her life as soon as she found out what the two of them had been doing. Yeah, where was any of this normal fifteen-year-old behavior?
Cally sat there, shaking as his parents sat on the love seat across from them. She had met them once before, but only for a few minutes. She didn’t really know them and was terrified of them, not because they were going to hurt her or something, but because she just didn’t know them that well. She couldn’t look at them or say or do anything other than sit next to their precious son. She couldn’t even believe this was happening at all, and yet, here she was, waiting for them to start yelling at her or something. And she couldn’t look at them, because she knew the fear they would see in her eyes, the fear of them seeing the truth that she just wasn’t ready to get married to their beloved son.
Hannah was the one to break the awkward silence. “She was so surprised. She had no clue he was going to propose.”
His mother reprimanded her daughter. “Let them tell us.”
She was more than happy to let Dakota explain what happened much the way he had to his sister. Cally just sat there, staring at the ring on her finger for the first time, truly admiring its simple beauty. She hadn’t really looked at it before now, and she was surprised. It was light gold and delicate and beautiful. It was made of gold and had a diamond surrounded by emeralds. There was a beautiful etched leaf pattern etched into the band that wrapped down and around the finger. It was very beautiful and far more than she deserved after everything she had been about to do to him.
She looked up when she heard them ask, “Are you sure about this?”
He was so confident and sure of everything. It was something she admired about Dakota. “Yes. I want to do this as soon as we can. I want her out of that house.” He squeezed her hand, and she couldn’t believe what he had said.
“And what do you want?” his father asked her, like she had a say in this.
Cally knew he was asking her, but she didn’t know what to say. So she shrugged her shoulders, lost in this conversation much like she had been lost in this mess since before it had even started this afternoon.
She could feel his mom staring at her, but the farthest she could look toward them was the coffee table. She heard his mom ask, “Does she even know