Authors note.
As always, my thanks to Neurparenthetical, whose untiring vigilance makes my illegible scribble readable. Any residual errors are left there purposely in order to give you guys something to do.
Enjoy. - and please, whatever you feel about the story feedback is always appreciated. I can't improve if I don't know where I am going wrong.
Caleb 14 - The Showdown
Saturday morning, I got up at four. Everyone else seemed to be having a lie-in. I did a couple of hours of martial arts and then decided to go out for a run. The dogs came with me, and I had a lot of fun running with four hounds loping along beside me or dashing off to investigate something or other before catching up to me again.
Breakfast was over by the time I got back, but Cheryl had saved me a plate - well, more of a tray - of food. My appetite seemed to have gone into overdrive since I'd ramped up my TK usage. That was another reason it had felt so wrong to accept money from Dean for the work I was doing. I must have been eating them out of house and home.
Having showered and eaten, I was just about to join the rest of the family on the deck when my phone rang. It was my mother. For a moment, my finger hovered over the 'Reject Call' button, but I figured I would have to speak to her at some point. With a sigh, I answered.
"Hello?" I said.
"Caleb?" she asked.
I toyed with several sarcastic responses but decided against. "Yes?"
"Where have you been?" she asked. "I have tried and tried calling you and you haven't returned any of my calls."
"I wasn't in the mood for any more lies," I said without heat.
"Lies?" she sounded genuinely puzzled. "What lies?"
"Oh, I don't know," I said, "let's start with twenty years of lies about who I was. Of my power, of my family, of being manipulated into becoming another pawn of a living ancestor I never even knew existed."
"You don't understand, Caleb," she said, "We had to..."
"No," I interrupted her. "You didn't. Your job was to prepare me to take on a massive responsibility, not to lie to me for my entire life and then present me to them on my twentieth birthday, a literal virgin sacrifice."
"But we didn't know," she argued. "It was only when the amulet came off that we knew that you had any power at all."
"More lies," I said. I was getting angrier but managing to hold a measured tone. "Maggie already told me that she saw me when I was three days old, and even then, she knew that I was the most powerful user she had ever seen. There is no way that you didn't know I had power, and that one day I would be faced with dealing with them, with zero warning or preparation.
"Don't tell me that she didn't tell you," I continued, "because I won't believe you. Not unless we are face to face and I can see you when you tell me. You know I'll see the truth then, so if there is nothing else you would like to lie to me about, then I have things to do."
"Caleb," she repeated. She was full-on crying. "You don't understand. We had to..."
"You already said that," I interrupted her again. "You had to follow their instruction? By what law? By what right did they decree that you had to put your child in so much danger? You may as well have sat me in a room full of loaded guns and just hoped I didn't figure out how to pull a trigger. I could have seriously hurt someone, killed someone even, and whose fault would it have been?
"Even if - and it's a big if - I didn't get into legal trouble, I would have had to live with what I had done for the rest of my life. All because you were too weak or stupid to put the needs of your own child before the edicts of 'The Matriarch.' So much for maternal instinct.
"So, if there's nothing else,
Mother,
I have things I need to be doing." I ended the call. I was surprised to find that I had tears streaming down my face. I couldn't decide whether they were tears of rage or sadness.
I looked at my phone. The picture of Angela holding her shirt up to show me her ass was on the screen and I wondered.
What if? What could have happened? How easy would it have been for me to make her come back to me, peel those painted-on jeans down and...
My phone's screen shattered as it hit the wall.
I should have been told, warned, and better prepared. I could have done anything, hurt anyone.
I felt arms encircle me, pulling me into a motherly embrace. Cheryl was holding me, talking softly and assuring me that things would be okay. Gently, she led me into the living room, and sat me on the couch, taking a seat beside me and holding my hand.
"Caleb," she said quietly, "let me help. Tell me what hurts."
"I don't know how to explain," I said.
"Just say what you are feeling," she responded. "I promise, I'm not here to criticize or judge you. I just want to help you find your way."
"I just feel so alone," I said. "I know that sounds stupid. I have three wonderful girlfriends, so how can I be alone? But everyone I thought I could rely on has lied to me my entire life. When you can't trust your own parents - who raised you - to be honest, and responsible, and tell the truth, and then you find out your entire childhood has been some macabre parody of
The Truman Show
... how can you trust anyone after that?"
"What about the twins?" she asked gently.
"I love them," I said, "I really do. But they are so free with their power; it's like a drug. They use it to pep me up or settle me down, to get me to sleep at night. Just sometimes, I long for a night I can't sleep. Sometimes I can't tell if what I'm feeling is real or just something manufactured by them.
"When I was a kid, we used to get ice cream with sprinkles on, and I could never get enough sprinkles. So when I went to University and I could buy what I wanted, I got myself a whole bowl of sprinkles and ate them. I made myself sick, and now I can't even look at the things.
"It's kind of like that. There are too many sprinkles. I need some normalcy."
"And Jules?" she asked. Strangely, there was no edge to her voice. I would have thought she'd have felt defensive on her daughter's behalf. If she did, she hid it very well.
"...is the one person I am certain of," I said. "But that puts so much pressure on her. It's not fair. She is a beautiful young woman with enough of her own issues, without her having to take on mine."