The Choice (a Painful Past)

178 Colby's POV

"Hmm," I hummed, as I stood back and crossed my arms.

I let my eyes move down, over her body, slowly, teasingly, then back up to her eyes.

"I don't know, Cal. I kinda like having you around."

She blushed, furiously, then rolled her eyes. "Get in the car, Brock." She replied, with a smile.

"Yeah, yeah, let me throw a shirt on and get my keys." I laughed.

Sadly, I knew that she thought I was only teasing her. She would never believe that I was one hundred percent serious. I enjoyed having her around.

I liked looking at her and making her blush. It was quickly turning into one of my favorite activities.

I went back inside, threw a tank top on, then slid my socks and shoes on.

"Hey, is Callie okay?" Sam asked me, as he looked up from his laptop.

I nodded.

"I told you not to fuck with her phone." He mused.

"Shut the fuck up, Sam." I groaned.

He grinned and went back to his laptop.

"Just saying. You should listen to me more often."

"Yeah, well, I got to cuss his bitch ass out, and she's not mad at me anymore, so I think I did okay." I replied, as I stood up from the bed.

"You taking her home?" He asked.

"Yeah. When I get back, we can figure out what we're going to do out here. See ya." I said, throwing my hand up, as I walked out the door.

The ride to Callie's place was short. Much shorter than I wanted it to be. Thankfully, we didn't talk about Will.

Instead, we laughed about funny instances in our past, while I snuck glances at her smiling face. There was almost no trace of the destroyed girl from last night. The only place she still hung around was in Callie's eyes.

Her beautiful hazel eyes that glinted yellow and orange in the sunlight, were full of so much pain and sadness. I had to stop myself from getting pissed all over again. An emptiness of sorts laced my stomach, when I pulled into her driveway.

I couldn't believe that she still lived in the same damn house. It was in need of a fresh coat of paint, indicated by the grey bald spots that were exposed by the peeling. Some of the wood on the porch looked like it didn't have too much longer before it totally gave in.

There were probably a hundred things that needed to be fixed but that wasn't what was important. I remembered being here, at this house. Callie's mom was just as good of a woman, as my own mother was.

We used to call them our personal angels, because you didn't really find too many people who had such good mothers. See, most teenagers claim to hate their parents, or think that they are treated unfairly, or so many other things. Callie and I never really had that problem.

Yeah, I probably put more gray hairs on my mom's head than I should've, but she was always there for me. To the world, I might be Colby Brock, but to my mom, I would always be Cole Baby.

"I guess this is my stop." Callie said, quietly, pulling my attention to her.

I looked over and smiled at her.

"I mean, you can always grab some clothes and come back with me." I said, arching my eyebrows.

"Huh, yeah right." She laughed. "Responsibilities, Colby. I have a lot of them. I had fun last night though. Considering. Thank you for the break away from all of this. It can be...overwhelming sometimes."

"Well, make plans for a few more breaks. I have an entire week to kill, with no meetings in sight." I replied.

"I'll see what I can do." She murmured.

She was looking at me in a strange way, like she was confused by something.

"What's up?" I asked.

"Hmm?" She murmured. "Oh, nothing. Got lost in thought. I'll call you tonight. Don't do anything I wouldn't do."

She leaned over, before I knew what was happening, and kissed my cheek. Then she jumped out of my car, quicker than the Flash himself.

"See ya, Brock! I had fun!" She yelled back, waving.

"See ya, Gorgeous." I murmured to myself, as I waved at her.

I didn't back out of her driveway, until she was inside. I missed her already.

What was happening to me? I really had thought I was over this thing with her. I was so head over heels in puppy love with her in high school, I really didn't think the feeling would ever go away.

But, after she started ignoring me, those feelings got buried. It had hurt, more than a lot. There had been nights where I constantly typed out messages to her, begging her to explain what I did to make her ignore me.

In my heart, I knew that it wasn't anything that I had done. It was because of Will. I tried so hard to get her to talk to me, but to no avail.

I eventually gave up. The longer I went with no contact, the more she became just a special person from my past. I never forgot about her, and I would occasionally check her Facebook, just to see how she was doing.

I never made any more attempts to contact her though. Then, she had disappeared from Facebook too. I think, subconsciously, I had dated girls that reminded me of her.

Sometimes in looks, sometimes in personality, but they never added up.

The drive back to the hotel was short, but lonely. There was already a void when she wasn't around, after one fucking night. This stupid town, and this girl, were making me turn back into that lovesick teenage fool.

When I pulled back into the parking lot, I had already made up my mind about one thing to do, while I was in town. I was going to spend as much time as I possibly could with her. I still couldn't believe that she was finally done with that fucking prick.

God, I hated him. I didn't normally hate people. Extremely dislike them, maybe, but never hate. I fucking hated him, with a passion.

After everything that Callie had told me, I made another promise to myself. I was going to beat his ass before I left. He would get what he had coming to him.

When I unlocked the room door, and went inside, I found Sam still sitting in the bed on his laptop. He had gotten up to change clothes though.

"Everything go okay?" He asked, without looking up.

"Yeah. Went fine. What exactly are you doing on your computer? We're supposed to be on break." I replied.

He glanced up and smiled.

"Well, while you've been flirting with your high school crush, I've been going over and editing the material that we got the other night. You know, at Ben's party. There are a few things that I didn't even notice. I was thinking we could call the owners up and see if we could spend a night there. See what else we might come across. Without 20 kids to scar for life."

I nodded. "Hell yeah, sounds like a plan. Do you mind if..." I let my sentence trail off, because he was already grinning and nodding.

"Yeah, you can ask Callie. I don't mind." He laughed.

"Thanks." I grinned. "I can't help it, Sam. There's something there. Maybe it's just because I haven't seen her in so long."