Rags to Riches

I have no earthly idea how I actually made it through that entire dinner party. Actually, most of it probably had to do with Callie. And the fact that we actually missed the dinner. But then again, that might have been the most relaxing part of the night, being able to just sit there and eat without anyone trying to talk to me about things I had no knowledge of. But somehow, Callie was able to guide me through all of those bullshit encounters that happened after dinner was over. Miraculously, I ended up not even getting close to another break down the entire night.

Of course, all of my initial anxiety came rushing back in the form of exhaustion once we were in the safety of the Seville family car. Don and Tracy were going on about how the event was such a success and how exciting it was for the future of TechNet and blah blah business-y things that I was way too tired to even try listening to. My eyes could barely stay open anymore an apparently my body couldn’t stay up right either, because the next thing I knew, I opened my eyes and realized that I had rested my head on Callie’s shoulder. Her body was tense against mine and I sat back up immediately. I whispered an apology and turned to look at her.

Her eyes were wide and her face held almost a nervous expression as she side-eyed me. It took me a second to realize why she was looking at me like that, but it all came rushing back at once. The roof-top garden thing. The bench. The kiss. ’Oh my lord, I kissed my boss’ daughter,’ was the first thought that flew through my head. I was still looking at Callie and had no doubts that my face probably close to matched hers at that moment.

But oh god, I didn’t just kiss my boss’ daughter. I kissed my friend. I mean, we were friends in my book by that point. Maybe she didn’t think of me as her friend, but I sure didn’t want to lose her as one of mine. I didn’t have enough quality friends out there to be able to afford losing any of them. I mean, shit, she was probably my only quality friend anymore. No way in hell would Brandon and Shaun would count as quality, and I got rid of my others after I got arrested for the second time. And here I was getting caught in the moment, and kissing my only good friend left.

Or did she kiss me? Honestly, as I thought back over that scene, I couldn’t remember who made the initial move. We both ended up moving in and closing the gap, but I don’t know which of us actually moved first. Did we both just instinctually move at the same time? What the hell? But also, what did it matter? If I kissed her, I had no clue how she feels about it. But if I kissed her, I really didn’t even know how I felt about it.

Sure, the kiss was nice and everything. I’m not saying I didn’t enjoy kissing her; I really did, actually. Maybe that’s the part I’m uneasy about. I’m not worried that she kissed me because she likes me and I don’t feel the same way, so it would mess up our friendship or whatever. I don’t even think I’m worried about her not liking me, because I would barely believe it if she came right out and said it. I mean, seriously, she’s seen where I live; she knows where I come from. Why would a girl like her ever be into me unless she was trying to piss off her father or something?

’You mean like what you told Brandon and Shaun about her?’ my subconscious nagged. I felt my heart sink in my chest and screwed my eyes shut to stop them from going wide with realization.

I had to force myself to replay certain parts of the night over and over again, because of the sheer abundance of examples why Callie would never in a million years do what I made up about her. Even aside from her asking her father to dance with her, there were a ridiculous amount of things that made it painfully obvious that she loved Don to death and would never have a reason to try and make him angry.

And it’s not like her dating me would actually make him mad anyways. Obviously he’s not the kind of guy that looks down upon poor people. He gives absolutely zero fucks about my criminal history. He freaking likes my tattoos. Seriously, I tried mugging the guy and he basically laughed in my face and hired me on the spot. Like, fuck, I don’t think I’ll ever let him live that one down. He obviously can hold nothing against me, even if I was seeing his daughter.

He’d probably just get protective because she’s his baby girl or whatever. But Christ, I don’t know if that would make it any better than him hating me because I’m a delinquent. I don’t know how well he’d take to anyone dating his daughter, because they definitely have a close relationship. But, then again, maybe he’d actually take better to me dating her than some other random guy that he doesn’t know. Callie said herself that he really likes me and that I’ve made a good impression on him. Lord only knows how I managed that one.

’Snap out of it, asshole,’ my subconscious chimed in. ’Stop jumping to conclusions. She’d never date a guy like you, so what good does it do to fuss over all of these what-ifs that aren’t ever going to happen? Just stop being a presumptuous little twit already.’

I was trying my hardest not to let on that I was having any kind of that ridiculous mental rant, but it was getting to be too much, and as soon as that nagging voice came back to insult me, I lost my outward control. I clapped my hands over my face and let out that weirdest, low pitched, grumble of a noise I’ve ever made in my life. I was too caught up in my own thoughts before that point to have noticed what Callie was doing, but as soon as I made that god-awful noise, I heard her and felt her shuffle around and move in closer to me.

I don’t know if she was putting herself through anything near the turmoil I had myself going through, but if she was, she completely brushed it off as she placed one hand on my bicep and the other between my shoulder blades. Her voice was calm, but worried, which only made me feel instantly worse. “Hey, Kenny, are you okay? What’s wrong? You were dealing so well with everything earlier. What’s going on?”

I groaned again, this time the sound much more normal. I ground the palms of my hands into my eyes to try and distract myself from the feeling of Callie’s hands on me. When I spoke next, my voice was low, slightly muffled from me hiding my face in my hands, and was far from being a string of coherent thoughts. “I-I just. No, I’m not...it’s -uh, ev-every - shit, no. Uh, nothing. N-nothing Callie. You, uh, don’t - you don’t need to worry about me. I’m fine. J-just...nevermind. It’s nothing.”

“Hey, hey, it’s alright. You don’t need to tell me anything you don’t want to. If you don’t want to talk about what’s bothering you, then we don’t have to. I was just trying to help out,” she whispered as she started to rub circles onto my back. I think she knew that I didn’t want to bring any more attention to what was going on, so she whispered quiet enough so that Don and Tracy wouldn’t hear. I was so thankful of that, but I was nowhere near mentally together enough to tell her at that moment. “Just breathe Kenny. Take some deep breaths and clear your mind. I bet you’ll feel a lot better if you do.”

I slowly lifted my head from my hands, breathing in a deep, but still shaky breath. Callie continued to rub my back softly as I tried evening out my breathing, and that went on for at least a couple straight minutes. I don’t know how she knew how to calm me down, since even I didn’t really know and this night wasn’t the first time I’ve had these kinds of freak-outs. Maybe it was simply having someone coach you through it, because I’ve also tried the whole ‘deep-breathing’ thing before, and it’s never really worked until Callie tried using it with me.

I took a couple more deep breaths as I fiddled my hands around in my lap nervously. My breathing had begun to even out a lot more and I could almost feel the ball of anxiety leave my chest like it had earlier in the evening. Callie was still absentmindedly rubbing comforting circles and muttering soothing words in my ears, but it all felt much less necessary than before.

“Thanks,” I half-mumbled, looking at her hesitantly from beneath my eyelashes. I still felt really awkward completely acknowledging her, especially if that meant looking her in the eyes. I really hoped we were closing in on the Seville’s house, because I honestly wasn’t sure just how much more I could take of being in such close proximity to the object of my anxiety.

Thankfully, Callie understood that I didn’t want to talk about it and ended up turning her attention away from me as soon as she realized I wasn’t going to literally break down again. And it turned out that we were indeed fairly close to their house, so I was pulling myself out of their car about five or ten minutes later. Of course, I wasn’t exactly home free at that point. There was no way I was going to take that damned tuxedo home, let alone wear it home, and Don understood that, so he said that he would keep it safe for me until I needed it again. I didn’t want to even begin to think about putting that thing on again, especially if it meant another night like that one. I shuddered slightly thinking about it as I pulled my hoodie back on. The thick, warm material was much more comforting than I ever would have thought it to be until that point, but I was beyond glad to have familiar clothing back on.

By the time I got home that night - and I insisted until I was blue in the face that they let me walk home without freaking out about it - the house was almost completely silent. The only sounds I heard between the front door and my room were the hum of the fridge, the deep snores coming from my mom, and the classical music coming from Annabeth’s bedroom. Even though my dad was a very big man and my mom was a fairly small woman, she was the one that snored like a freaking lumberjack. And despite how loud she always was, it had become a somewhat soothing sound at night, especially after a night full of unfamiliar things for me.

I stood outside the door to my room and listened to the sounds filling the air. Under the sounds from my parent’s room was a soft orchestral dance coming from my sister’s cracked door. She had a hard time falling asleep as a baby, so my mom would always sing her to sleep at night. But she never grew out of the restlessness, so after a while, my mom would just put on the radio for her to sleep to. Somewhere along the line, she fell in love with the classical music station. Now she had an even harder time falling asleep without her “ballet music”, as she called it. She never did ballet, or even showed any interest in starting, but she knew that ballerinas danced to that kind of music, so that’s what she named it.

Thinking about my family like that, all asleep and peaceful at the moment, really didn’t mix well with the residual nerves and anxiety from that entire night. I knew that I needed to tell them about TechNet, preferably sooner rather than later. But they’ve heard enough lies out of me that I was nervous for them finding out. There was almost no way to tell them without exposing my lies along with everything else. But it’s been months of lies at this point, and they’re only going to keep piling up. Especially if Don keeps inviting me to things like that damned party, as it seems like he may well do.

I shook my head as I shut my door behind me. My shoes were kicked off and shoved back under my chair. I shrugged off my hoodie and tossed it on the back of the chair again as well, followed by my jeans and shirt. It was far too late in the day that drug on for far too long for me to be worrying myself over things that I couldn’t do anything about at the moment. What I could do something about right then was my body-draining exhaustion.

I practically threw myself into my bed and burrowed under my covers. My mind threatened to race all night, as it started thinking about all of my issues at once and threading them all together. It went from the apprehension from earlier in the night about the dinner, to the kiss with Callie, to how I was going to tell my parents about Don and TechNet, and all back around again.

Eventually, I trained my ears in to the music coming from the next room over. Maybe Annabeth was onto something with her ballet music, because I found myself sound asleep not even five minutes after tuning myself into the soothing sounds. My last conscious thought, that perhaps turned into a dream that I wouldn’t remember upon waking up, was of a younger Callie, all dressed up in her ballerina outfit, dancing through my head to the music lulling me to sleep.