Hush by Jess Wygle Read Free Book Online Page B

asked.
    Callem studied me for a second before answering, “Why do you say that?”
    “I’m an observer at heart.  I watch people, learn to pick up on little things.  If you can decipher someone just by the way they move their hands or where their eyes plant themselves, you’re already one step ahead of the game.  It’s something I’ve always done.  I can tell by the way you look at me, and won’t stop looking at me.  That’s why I remind you of someone.  You saw the correlation when we first met too, which is why you felt the need to keep an extra close eye on me last night.  You care for her, whoever she is, don’t you?”
    Callem sat in silence for a second.  “Here I thought I wasn’t that transparent of a guy.”
    “On the contrary.  You’re hard to see past and I think you’re not one to boast about yourself, which is why me and my egotistical ways have been dominating the conversation, but your eyes are telling a story of their own.  Blame it on them.”
    Callem chuckled, rubbing his lip with his fore finger.  “You’re right.  You do remind me of someone.  Camilla.  She and I dated in high school and shortly after.  We were together about six years, but she tragically passed away in a drunk driving accident.”
    “Callem, I’m sorry,” I replied, feeling like an ass now for prying.
    Callem nodded slightly.  “I was in Tennessee at the time for military stuff and in my youth, I blamed myself for her death.  I thought if I had been with her, she wouldn’t have had to drive.  Ultimately, it was her choice to get behind the wheel that night, but grief does awful things to someone.  You look a lot like her.  It’s hypnotizing, in a way.”
    “Was your relationship serious?”  Why did I ask?
    “It could’ve been, but it’s hard telling.  In those first years of early adulthood when you’re first out on your own and you start making your own grown up decisions, well, you get this air about you that makes you feel important and responsible and it’s intoxicating.  Dangerous at the same time because you don’t know any better.  You haven’t been doing the adult thing long enough to’ve learned from your own mistakes.  The choices I made back then, I’ve never had more regrets at any other stage in my life.  I was dumb and anything could have happened to Camilla and I if she hadn’t died, but there’s no way to know.  Relationships back then were mostly physical and at my age now, you can’t base a relationship based purely on physical attraction.  I get that now.  I didn’t get that then.  We were just so in love it blinded us.  We thought we’d be together forever, but that may not have been the case if things had turned out differently.”
    “Have you ever been married?”
    “No, not me.  I’m married to my work.”
    “No children either?”
    Callem shook his head.  “Nope.”
    I nodded slowly.  “Is that something you’re opposed to?”
    “No, not at all.  It’s just never happened for me.  I’ve dated, casually since Camilla, but nothing strong enough to even consider that step.”
    I smiled.  “I hear you.”
    “What about you?  Lose any promising prospects?”
    “Not really,” I cringed.  “I’m kind of like you.  I’ve never dated much.  There were a few guys while I was doing my residency, but nothing promising.  I don’t think I could ever be with another doctor anyway.”
    “Why not?”
    “It’s a very demanding, consuming profession.  I’d either feel cheated or feel like I was cheating him out of me; cheating on him with my job, you know?  It wouldn’t be fair to either of us.”
    “But if you found a doctor you fell for, like actually fell in love with, do you really think you’d turn that away?”
    That was a good question.  I bit my lip.  “Well, I don’t know love.  I’ve never loved someone in that way.  The love I have for Erin and her parents, that’s hard for me to consider it love.  I think