More Than Words
Page 41

“Stop. I can’t be your prince, Jessie. You have to see that.” Callen swore softly, turning away.
My heart contracted in pain. Did I see that after what I’d just experienced upstairs? Maybe. But I was having such a hard time separating the man I’d spent the weekend with from this man. I couldn’t merge the man who had brought me to an empty church in the middle of nowhere simply because he knew it would fascinate me with this man who seemed without morals or a conscience, a man who could hurt people so easily and so selfishly. “I guess … I … I hoped you’d decide you don’t want to live that way, surrounded by shallow people, becoming one yourself, making choices that leave you feeling ashamed, the way I see you do now. I know you felt what I did this weekend, Callen. I was there. I saw you. That man upstairs a few minutes ago, that wasn’t you. Or at least … it doesn’t have to be. Not anymore.” I reached for him, but he didn’t reach back.
“You’re wrong,” he said, his voice a choked whisper. I let my hand fall, pain radiating through me. “God, Jessie, if I could change for anyone, it would be you. I don’t want to be that man. But it’s who I’ve become. It’s who I have to be.”
He backed away, the look on his face filled with such agony, I could only stare in dismay. If he felt as upset as I did, if he didn’t want to be that person, why was he doing this? “What …? Why? Why do you have to be someone you detest?”
Callen sighed as he turned from me, moving toward the window, where he pulled the curtain open and stared out at the garden. His stance was rigid, his shoulders tensed, and he was quiet for so long, I almost went to him. But something held me back. I felt a heavy anticipation, as if he was weighing whether he should share something with me, as if he was attempting to gather some inner strength. And so I waited, barely breathing.
“I can’t read,” he said, the words so quiet, I almost questioned whether I’d heard them correctly. My heart began beating quickly, and my mind filled with confusion. He turned to me, such naked vulnerability in his eyes that I sucked in a gasp. “I can’t read books, or menus, or signs. I can’t read texts or e-mails. I couldn’t leave you a note at the train tracks when we were teenagers because I can’t write a fucking letter, not even one.”
Wait … what?
I felt frozen with shock, my mind whirling to try to gather any clues that might have told me. I couldn’t think of any. “I … I didn’t know.”
“I’m good at hiding it. I’ve made hiding it my other career, Jessie.”
I stepped forward, drawn to him, to the pain on his face and the way he looked so lonely standing there in front of the window. The light created a halo around him, his dark hair falling over his forehead. “How, though, Callen? I don’t understand.”
He looked to the side for a moment, shoving his hands in his pockets and shrugging, the movement barely noticeable. “I struggled a lot in school when I was a kid. The letters … I couldn’t grasp them. I was finally diagnosed with a learning disability, but”—he pulled his hand from his pocket and brushed his hair back from his forehead—“still, it was so hard. The school paid for this tutor to come to the house, but my dad would watch, and it made me so fucking nervous, so I wouldn’t try, and then I would act out later.” He sighed, the sound full of such weariness it made my heart catch.
“Pretty soon I figured out that if my dad got frustrated enough, he’d end the lesson and then lash out at me physically. I preferred the physical abuse to the humiliation of not being able to understand the letters.”
“Oh, Callen,” I breathed, tears springing to my eyes. “That’s what you meant, all those years ago, when you said you didn’t mind being hit.”
His nod was shaky. “Yeah. Being hit was better than the names he called me. Idiot. Retard. Disappointment. Being hit was better than constantly feeling like a worthless failure.”
“And … the words you hear on repeat in your head, it’s him calling you names because you can’t read? All the praise, all the accolades, yet it’s only him you hear.” I paused for a moment and looked at his forlorn expression. “He steals your magic.”
“Yeah.” The word came out on the whisper of a breath. “It’s why I can’t be alone. Why I’d do anything not to have to be alone. Because when I’m alone, he is all I hear in my head.”
I went to him, unable to hold myself back, even though many things still weighed so heavily on my heart. To leave him standing there alone after he told me the secret he’d held on to for so long was unbearable. I wrapped my arms around his waist, laying my head on his chest and squeezing him to me. His hands came up, threading through my hair, and he laid his chin on top of my head. “Jessie,” he sighed.
After a minute he raised his head, and I tipped mine back to look at him. “I’m sorry about today. I’m sorry you were confronted with the worst of me. I’m so fucking ashamed. But do you see, I’m not your prince and I never can be. I couldn’t write you a love letter if my life depended on it. I can’t even write my own name. I’d just … embarrass you.”
“You’d never embarrass me, Callen, and you can learn. You’re a man now, not a scared little boy afraid of disappointing his father. You could hire a private tutor if you wanted. You read musical notes and symbols. If you can read those, you can learn how to make sense of letters, too.”
He took my arms from around his waist and stepped away, shaking his head. “No. It’s not the same.”
“How?”
“I don’t know for sure. Maybe it’s a right brain/left brain thing. Maybe I’m an anomaly. I have no idea. It’s not like I can research this kind of stuff.” He looked away for a moment. “That day in the boxcar when you showed me the music in your book, it was like …” His face screwed up as if he struggled to explain it, even to himself. “It was like the notes had actual weight, with their round, heavy bottoms and the light little staff on the top. Their shape … anchored them to the paper, and they didn’t twist and turn and fly away like letters and numbers did. Do.” He shook his head. “I can’t explain it, Jessie, but I read those notes. They stuck in my brain, and when I looked at them the next day, they looked the same as the day before and I remembered their names.”
Emotion clogged my throat so that I could barely speak. Oh, Callen. “That’s … I mean, I wish I had known. I wish I had understood how important that music book was to you. I would have brought you every single one I could get my hands on.”
He smiled, and it was soft, sweet, a little sad. “I know you would have. The keyboard, though, it helped even more, especially once I could put a sound to the note. Somehow hearing what the symbol sounded like cemented it in my brain. I became obsessed with music, with how the notes fit together, how they complemented each other, how a string of them changed their feeling. I …”
I shook my head in wonder. God, did he think just anyone could have taught themselves to read music, to play on an old keyboard, to compose music that went straight to people’s souls? “You’re a genius, Callen. You’re a musical genius.”
He laughed, but it didn’t hold much amusement, more pain than levity. “I’m hardly a genius. I’m a—”
“Don’t.” I moved forward, putting two fingers against his lips, halting his words. “Don’t you dare say it. Don’t you repeat what he said to you.” I let my hand fall away, shaking my head. “It’s not his voice you hear in your head, is it? It’s yours. It’s your voice, repeating the words he once said to you, reinforcing them. You still believe they’re the truth, so they still hold so much power.”
He opened his mouth and then shut it, his eyes moving over my face. He let out a shaky breath. “I don’t know. I don’t even know anymore.”
“They’re lies, Callen, and they always were. Lies told by a cruel, heartless man to a scared, impressionable little boy. You have to believe that before they’ll go away.”