Becoming Grey: Episode 12

Chapter Twelve 

November 8th,  2017 

“You’re going to be upset.” Callie heard how small her voice sounded and hated that almost as much as the words themselves. She kept her eyes on her hands, twisting the cuff of her hoodie between her fingers until the fabric bunched against her palm. 

Stuart moved from behind the desk and crouched in front of her, bringing himself down until she could not avoid seeing him without deliberately turning away. “Maybe,” he said. His voice stayed quiet. “But I’m not going anywhere. You need to tell me what happened.” 

Callie looked at him, and the knot in her stomach pulled tighter. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to tell him. Ten minutes ago, when she had crashed into him in the hallway, telling somebody had been the only thing she wanted. She had wanted her dad to take whatever had happened and make it manageable, the way parents were somehow supposed to be able to do. Now that he was sitting in front of her waiting for the words, she wanted desperately to take them back before she had even said them. 

Because once she told him, he would know. 

Callie had spent her whole life knowing what her parents believed. The Greys went to Mass every Sunday unless somebody was sick enough to have a legitimate excuse. She knew the prayers without looking at the missal. She knew when to sit, when to stand, when to kneel, and could still remember Sally correcting the way she made the sign of the cross when she was little. Some lessons had been spoken directly and others had simply existed around her for so long that Callie could not remember learning them. There were things you were supposed to do, things you were supposed to wait for, choices her parents expected her to make because those were the values they had raised her with. 

And Callie knew she had broken one of them. 

The thought sat heavier than the pregnancy test hidden in her backpack. 

She swallowed and looked down again. A frightened part of her had already decided what happened next. Her father would look at her differently. Her mother would be disappointed. Every Sunday morning, every conversation about trust, every time Stuart had called her his girl or told someone how proud he was of her would somehow be rewritten by what she was about to say. 

Maybe that was ridiculous. Stuart was still crouched in front of her. He had not yelled. He had not demanded an explanation. When she had fallen apart in the hallway, he had held her until she could breathe again. 

Fear did not care much about evidence. Callie’s fingers tightened around the cuff of her sleeve until the fabric twisted against her palm. What frightened her most was not even the possibility that her father would be angry. Anger she could understand. He could yell, ground her, take away her phone, tell her how badly she had screwed up. Somehow all of that seemed easier than the possibility that she would say the words and watch something change in his face. She wanted more than anything to take the whole thing back, and not only because she was terrified of what it meant for her. She wanted to take it back for him. She didn’t want to disappoint her father. She didn’t want him to look at her and see somebody different from the daughter he had thought he was raising. 

“I’m sorry.” Callie bent forward and reached into her backpack, but her hands were shaking badly enough that she caught the zipper lining instead of what she wanted. “I-I didn’t pay for this. It’s from the store.” 

Stuart’s brow furrowed. For the first time since they had entered the office, some of the alarm seemed to leave his face. “Callie, taking something without paying isn’t okay, even from here.” His voice stayed gentle, more confused than angry. “But sweetheart, if that’s what this is about, we can fix that.” 

That almost made her cry harder. 

Because he still didn’t understand. 

Callie finally got hold of the box and pulled it free. For a second she could not make herself hand it over. The packaging was crumpled where she had shoved everything back inside, one corner bent and the top flap torn from where she had opened it too quickly in the bathroom. Stuart held out his hand, waiting, and Callie placed the box into it before she could lose her nerve. 

He glanced down. 

Callie watched the relief disappear from his face. 

Stuart turned the box upright. His eyes moved over the front, then back to Callie, and she saw the moment he understood that the stolen merchandise was not the reason she had been crying. He opened the damaged flap and tipped the contents carefully into his palm. The folded instructions came first. 

Then the test. 

Callie could barely look at it. 

“There’s two lines, Dad.” Her voice broke on the last word. She wiped at her cheeks, but more tears followed immediately. “I checked the instructions. I checked them like ten times because I thought maybe I was reading it wrong, but there’s two lines and I don’t know what to do.” She tried to draw another breath and couldn’t seem to get enough air. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” 

Stuart was still looking at the test. 

Callie had spent years being the person who usually had an answer. Even when she didn’t know something, she knew how to find out. She could search for it, test it, work through the problem until there was some next step she could take. There was always supposed to be a next step. 

She had no next step now. 

Her father looked up. 

Whatever Callie saw in his face broke the last of her composure. She leaned toward him without thinking, fourteen years old and terrified and suddenly wanting something she had not needed in a very long time. 

“Help me, Daddy.” 
 
Callie felt whatever energy she had left drain out of her once the words were finally spoken. There was nothing left to hide from her father now, no confession still waiting in her throat, and for the moment even the fear of what came next seemed too exhausting to hold onto. She let her dad  pull her against him and rested her face against his chest, listening to his heartbeat while he rubbed one hand slowly over her back. He did not tell her everything was fine, because it obviously wasn’t. He did not tell her she had done nothing wrong or pretend they could make the problem disappear. He simply held her and reminded her that she wasn’t dealing with this alone. That mattered more than Callie could have explained. 

Eventually Stuart got her a bottle of water from the break room and convinced her to drink some of it. He moved from crouching beside her to sitting in the other chair, close enough that she could reach him without getting up. The pregnancy test and its crumpled box remained on the desk between them, and Callie tried not to look at either one. Every so often her eyes found them anyway. Two lines. They had not changed. She had half expected them to fade once enough time passed, as though the universe might realize there had been a mistake and quietly correct it before anyone else found out. 

It didn’t. 

Stuart did not interrogate her. That almost made things harder. Callie kept waiting for questions she knew he had every right to ask, but most of the time he seemed content to sit with her. When she cried again, he let her cry. When she apologized again, he told her they would talk about everything eventually, but she did not need to solve the rest of her life before breakfast. At some point he checked his phone, sent another message, and made a quick call to make sure someone else could handle things out front when the store opened. 

Time passed strangely after that. Callie would have sworn they had been sitting in the office for maybe ten minutes when she glanced at the clock and discovered nearly an hour had gone by. 

Then she heard the back door open. 

Footsteps moved quickly through the stockroom. 

Callie knew them before the office door opened. 

Sally came in still wearing the coat she had thrown on that morning, her purse hanging from one shoulder and car keys clenched in one hand. Her face was already tight with worry. 

“What happened?” She looked first at Stuart and then immediately at Callie. “What’s wrong? Is she okay?” 

Callie’s stomach twisted all over again. 

For one awful second she thought she was going to have to say it. 

Stuart stood. 

“Callie’s pregnant.” 

He said it plainly. Not harshly. Not accusingly. He didn’t soften the words into something confusing or make Callie explain what the test meant. He simply took the truth she had barely managed to give him and carried it the rest of the way for her. 

Sally stopped moving. 

The keys went still in her hand. 

Callie dropped her eyes to the floor before she could see whatever came next. She could already imagine it anyway. Disappointment. Shock. Maybe anger once the surprise wore off. Her mother had trusted her. Both of them had. Callie had spent her entire life knowing where the lines were, and now somehow she had managed to cross one so completely that there was no pretending otherwise. 

A second later, Sally’s purse landed on the desk. 

Then her arms were around Callie. 

Callie barely had time to look up before her mother pulled her against her, one hand cupping the back of her head and the other wrapped tightly around her shoulders. 

“Sweetie, it’s going to be okay.” 

That almost started the crying again. 

Callie pressed her face against her mother’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, Mom.” 

“I know.” 

“I’m really sorry.” 

Sally held her a little tighter. Over her mother’s shoulder, Callie could see Stuart standing beside the desk. Sally looked at him, and something passed between them that Callie couldn’t read. Her mother’s face was different when she looked at him. More serious. The part of her that was comforting Callie had not disappeared, but underneath it something practical had already begun working. 

Callie understood that look. Sally got it whenever something happened that needed dealing with. 

For once, Callie was the something. 

The thought made her stomach twist again. Her parents had trusted her. They let her work at the store without watching every move she made. They trusted her to handle school, to watch Hannah, to go places with Maggie and Luke, to spend time with Myles without someone constantly checking up on her. Callie had always liked being the responsible one. She liked that her parents treated her as though she had earned that responsibility. 

Now it felt as though she had shattered all of it in one morning. 

Sally eased back enough to look at her. “Cal, we’re going to get you checked out.” 

Callie wiped beneath one eye with the sleeve of her hoodie. “Checked out?” 

“At the clinic.” Sally tucked a loose strand of hair away from Callie’s face. “Before we start deciding what anything means, I want an actual doctor involved. We’re going to work from facts, okay? Not from a twelve-dollar test you took in the employee bathroom while you were panicking.” 

Callie glanced toward the desk. 

The test was still there. 

Two lines. 

Nothing Sally said made them look any less real. 

“Okay,” Callie whispered. 

“Okay.” Sally picked up her purse again and slipped the strap over her shoulder. “Come on. Let’s get you to the car.” 

Callie stood because her mother told her to. That was about as much decision-making as she felt capable of doing. Sally kept one hand lightly against her back as they left the office, guiding her through the narrow hallway toward the stockroom. Callie’s backpack hung from one shoulder, suddenly feeling much heavier than it had when she came into the store that morning. 

They were halfway to the back door when a thought finally pushed through everything else. 

“What about school?” 

Sally looked at her. 

Callie sniffed and rubbed at her face again. “I’m supposed to be there.” 

“Let’s not worry about school today.” 

“But I have chemistry.” 

“Your chemistry teacher will survive one day without you.” 

Under any other circumstances, Callie might have appreciated hearing her mother say that. 

Today she only nodded. 

Behind them, Stuart had followed as far as the stockroom. Sally stopped near the employee entrance and looked back at him. 

“Honey, why don’t you stay here?” she said. “Callie and I will take care of this. There’s no sense in all three of us spending the morning sitting at the clinic, and somebody needs to deal with the store.” 

Stuart hesitated. 

Callie saw it immediately. He did not want to stay. 

“I’ll call you as soon as we know anything,” Sally added. 

His eyes moved from Sally to Callie. 

For a moment Callie wanted him to say no. She wanted both of them there. She wanted her father on one side and her mother on the other, because despite everything she had thought yesterday about being fourteen and practically grown, right now she did not feel grown at all. 

Stuart came over instead and wrapped his arms around her. 

Callie held on. 

“Call me,” he said quietly. 

She nodded against his chest. 

“About anything. I mean it.” 

“I know.” 

He kissed the top of her head before letting her go, though his hands stayed on her shoulders for another moment. “You’re going to be okay.” 

Callie wanted desperately to believe him. 

Sally opened the back door, and cold November air rushed into the stockroom. 

Callie pulled her hoodie tighter around herself and followed her mother outside. 

 
The clinic took forever. 

At least, that was how it felt to Callie. Most of the morning seemed to consist of waiting in different places under slightly different fluorescent lights. She waited beside her mother in the lobby. She waited in an exam room with paper stretched across the table beneath her. She answered questions when people asked them and stared at posters on the walls when they didn’t. Somewhere underneath all of it, she kept holding on to one stupid little hope that somebody was eventually going to walk through the door and tell her the test from Grey’s had been wrong. 

Callie had built the possibility up without meaning to. Home pregnancy tests probably made mistakes. Cheap ones especially. Maybe she was low on some vitamin. Maybe stress had thrown everything off. Maybe bodies were just weird sometimes, which seemed unfair but preferable. She didn’t need the explanation to be particularly convincing anymore. She only needed someone wearing scrubs and a name badge to give it to her with enough confidence that she could believe it. 

Nobody did. 

The confirmation itself was almost disappointingly plain. There was no dramatic pause, no sudden change in the room, nothing that matched the enormity of what Callie felt happening inside her. The doctor explained the result, talked through what would happen next, and answered questions Callie barely remembered hearing. Sally did most of the talking. Callie sat beside her and listened until there was no reasonable way left to pretend the two pink lines in the employee bathroom had meant anything else. 

She was pregnant. 

By the time they walked back through the clinic doors, Callie felt sick again. The November air was cold enough to sting her cheeks, but she hardly noticed. Sally had already called Stuart before they came outside, giving him the answer in a quiet voice while Callie stood nearby and stared at a faded poster on the waiting room wall. Now there was nobody left to tell. Both of her parents knew. A doctor knew. It had become something that existed outside Callie’s head, documented and confirmed and impossible to undo by counting dates differently. 

Sally unlocked the car. 

Callie climbed into the passenger seat and pulled the door shut. 

For a while neither of them said anything. 

The next few hours became difficult to separate afterward. Sally drove them home. Callie kicked off her shoes and ended up on the living room couch beneath one of the blankets they usually kept folded over the back. The television was on, though Callie could not have said what they watched. At one point a game show ended and something else began. Sally made tea and brought Callie something to eat. Callie managed a few bites because her mother asked her to, then left the rest sitting on the coffee table. 

Mostly, she waited for the questions. 

There were so many of them that Callie could practically hear them even though Sally had not asked. Who? When? Where? How long had this been going on? Why hadn’t she told them? Had she known what she was doing? Had Myles? Every basic question word in the English language suddenly seemed applicable to the disaster Callie had created. 

Sally did not ask any of them. 

She stayed nearby. Sometimes she sat beside Callie. Sometimes she got up to do something in the kitchen or answer her phone. Once she tucked the blanket more securely around Callie’s feet without saying anything. She seemed willing to let Callie simply exist for a while, and Callie was grateful because she was not sure she had enough energy left to explain anything. 

Stuart came home before Hannah got out of school. 

That alone made the day feel wrong. Callie could not remember the last ordinary weekday when her father had walked through the front door that early. Usually he was still at Grey’s when Hannah came home, and often later than that. Today the door opened sometime in the early afternoon, and a few seconds later Stuart appeared in the living room. 

His eyes went straight to Callie. 

She sat up a little beneath the blanket. 

Stuart crossed the room without saying anything, leaned down, and wrapped his arms around her. Callie hugged him back. He kissed the top of her head before sitting beside her, close enough that their shoulders touched. 

That was when the questions finally came. 

Not all at once. Stuart and Sally didn’t interrogate her. Nobody pulled out a notebook. They asked carefully, one thing leading into another, and Callie answered as best she could. Some answers came easily. Others stuck in her throat until she forced them out. Sometimes Sally reached over and squeezed her hand. Sometimes Stuart stopped talking altogether and gave her time to finish. 

Callie told them everything she knew. 

What she hated most was that they never started yelling. 

She had spent hours preparing herself for anger. In some ways she had wanted it. Anger made sense. She had broken rules she had known her entire life. She had made choices they had trusted her not to make. She had taken all the freedom they had given her and, in Callie’s mind, provided spectacular evidence that maybe they never should have trusted her with it in the first place. She expected her father to tell her how irresponsible she had been. She expected her mother to ask how she could possibly have let this happen. She expected disappointment because disappointment felt like something she had earned. 

Instead, they listened. 

That was worse in a way Callie had not expected. 

When her voice started shaking, Stuart put an arm around her. When she began apologizing again, Sally took her hand and told her to stop for a minute and breathe. Neither of them pretended what had happened was unimportant. Callie could see that they were worried. She could see questions in the looks they exchanged when they thought she wasn’t paying attention, and there was a seriousness in both of them that had not been there yesterday. 

But they were still her parents. 

Her mother was still holding her hand. 

Her father’s arm was still around her shoulders. 

“I know I messed up,” Callie said, staring at her fingers where they rested in her lap. “You guys trusted me.” 

“We do trust you,” Stuart said. 

Callie looked up at him. “How?” 

The question came out sharper than she intended, almost angry, because she genuinely could not understand it. 

Sally shifted closer. “Cal, being trusted doesn’t mean you’re never going to make a mistake.” 

“This is a pretty big mistake.” 

“Yes,” Sally said gently. She did not hesitate, and somehow Callie appreciated that more than being told otherwise. “It is.” 

Callie’s throat tightened. 

“But you are still our daughter,” Sally continued. “And right now you are scared, and you need your parents. So that’s what we’re going to be.” 

Callie looked down again before the tears could start. 

Stuart squeezed her shoulder. “We can be upset about choices you made and still love you, kiddo. Those things aren’t opposites.” 

That was the part Callie had not understood that morning. 

She had imagined disappointment as a door closing. She had imagined telling her father and watching herself become somebody else in his eyes, somebody less deserving of all the things she had always taken for granted. Instead she was sitting between both of her parents on the same couch she had sat on a thousand times before, with her mother holding one hand and her father beside her. 

Nothing was fixed. 

There were still questions they had not answered. There were conversations coming that Callie did not want to have and decisions somewhere ahead that she could barely stand to think about. 

But she was still their daughter. 

For today, that was enough. 

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