Yours Completely (Reign 2)

“Shit,” Cal muttered, and came to sit next to me on the bed. He handed me the water again. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to yell.”

“You were taking my vitals?” I asked, sipping on the water.

He glanced away. But that was what he’d been doing. The fog was slowly clearing, and he’d been watching my heart rate. Which meant he had been worried.

“I really didn’t know they’d knock me out like that,” I said.

“Okay.” He rose to stand again. I caught his arm.

“No, not okay. Why are you so mad at me?”

His eyes shot at me like two sparkling pools of clear water. “You scared me. That’s all. It’s fine now.”

“No.” I tugged on his arm when he tried to walk away. “It’s not fine. I’m not fine. Tell me what is going on.”

“What’s going on is I woke up thinking you were fucking dead.”

I gasped. “Cal, that’s…”

“Morbid? Yeah, tell me about it.”

Pieces started clicking. Bea had said his mother died of addiction. It was hard on Cal, but this? He was so young. Barely school aged.

“Did you see her use?” Something like that would mess with a child’s mind.

“I saw her do a lot of things,” he said with disdain in his voice.

“It must have been hard when she passed—”

“She didn’t pass,” he cut me off. “She fucking died. Killed herself on accident because she couldn’t handle her shit. And I found…”

My eyes shot wide, the final piece of the puzzle slipping into place.

“You were the one that found your mother dead?” I asked softly.

He tore his arm from my grip and walked away. Oh, my God. He did. I searched my memory for the conversation. Had Bea said he was six when Cal came to live with her? It would make sense, him being a child in the house and being the first one to find her. My chest instantly broke open for him.

“Cal?” I tried again, ambling up from the bed and following him into the living room. “Cal, talk to me.”

He opened the fridge, then slammed it shut. Then he looked around the kitchen. He was lost. I saw it so clearly on his face, and he didn’t know what to do.

“Talk to me,” I asked again softly. “I scared you. Is it because you found your mom dead?”

“I didn’t just find her.” He slapped one of the cabinets shut. “I stayed with her. For a damn week!”

“What?”

He scoffed. “She OD’d on the couch, and I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with her. I knew she was cold. So I covered her in a blanket and sat with her. Talked to her. She didn’t

wake up.”

“Oh, my God.” A terrifying chill ran up my spine. I couldn’t imagine what he’d gone through. How confusing and scary it was.

“Yep, I was a fucking idiot.”

“You were a child,” I said.

He just shook his head. He was getting lost in the pain. I recognized that kind of trauma. Something you thought out, constantly relived, but it never changed the outcome. It hurt to think about, yet when you did think about it, it consumed you. Then the questions came: What I could have done differently? What may have happened if only?