Page 58 of Sweet Pea

“I didn’t say anything about money, I was talking about your parents. You had a mom and a dad and a seemingly stable life. What made you decide to run away?”

“Why is it so important to you to know why?”

“I have to confess something to you,” I said, feeling a pang of guilt in the pit of my stomach.

“What is it?”

“That first night, at Sally Anne’s I told you my mother was killed in a car accident.”

“I remember.”

“That’s not actually true. My mother wasn’t killed, she abandoned me and my father. One day, without warning, she decided she didn’t want to be a wife and mother and left without a word. I was thirteen years old.”

“So, your mother is alive?”

“No, she died from a heroin overdose four years after she left.”

“Jesus, Callie,” Sweet Pea said softly.

“My father later told me she’d become addicted to opioids shortly before she left us, and that he’d been too consumed with his work to notice until it was too late.”

“That shit gets a grip on some people,” he said.

“I’m still working through the guilt I feel for not noticing my mother’s problems myself.”

“You were just a kid,” Sweet Pea said.

“I know that now, and it’s because of what I went through that I decided to practice family law. To do what I could to help keep families together.”

“Why lie to me about your mother? You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Because despite my progress, it’s still painful for me to talk about, but mostly because I don’t want people looking at me the way you’re looking at me right now.”

“Then why tell me?”

“Because I have a fear of abandonment, and knowing you ran from what appears to be a stable home, scares me.”

“Why?” he asked dryly.

“Well, I guess I figured since you invited me to Clutch and Eldie’s party, and after last night, that you were interested in pursuing some sort of a relationship with me.”

Sweet Pea looked at the floor and said nothing. This was clearly not the conversation he was expecting or wanting to have.

“Did I say something wrong?”

“No,” he said. “I...I don’t really have the time to talk about all of this right now. I’ve got a bunch of shit I need to get done at the Sanctuary today. I should really get going.”

With that, Sweet Pea gave me a kiss on the forehead and left me by myself in the condo.

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