17. Spend All Your Time Waiting

Spend all your time waiting
For that second chance
For a break that would make it okay.

🎶

Calo looked at the chessboard in front of him, his eyes sparkling. Scratching at his chin with his finger, he thought about the plan he had thought up.

It was a more than genius plan, if he may say so himself.

When his phone rang, he looked at the screen before answering. Reign. Huh. He hadn’t heard from her in more than a decade.

“Hey sis.” His voice sounded uncharacteristically cheerful. “What’s up? How’s that human life treating ya?”

But Reign’s words made Calo stop talking mid-word, his mouth still hanging open. The emotions that coursed through his body were so many that for a moment, there, he couldn’t feel much of anything.

He felt a fog coming over his body and for one short instant, he felt like an outsider in his own body.

This couldn’t be happening. This could not be happening. Not now.

Not after everything that had happened. Not after she was finally coming back again.

Finally, the emotions all came flooding back to him and he was left with nothing but a sinking pit of devastation.

***

45 days into the future:

“So you’re just gonna throw me out like old trash… leave me to fend for myself?! I thought we were a family,” Calo called out accusingly, staring at his sister with disbelief.

“We are,” Havana answered. Her voice was cold. “But you refused to be a part of it, so here you go. More consequences of your own actions.”

“I didn’t–” Calo started, but Havana cut him off.

“Get out, Calo,” she said coldly, pointing to the door.

***

Calo wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but it must have been hours at least. He was still sitting on the bed in the attic, staring blankly ahead. His lower lip was still trembling, and yet he didn’t think he had really cried yet. He wasn’t sure, though. He wasn’t really sure of anything, right now.

The only reason he opened the unknown text message when he received it, was for the more than unlikely possibility that somehow, Reign had made a mistake, and here was someone telling him it had all been a misunderstanding. She was still alive. Of course she was – she was Tori Hoyt.

But it wasnt.

Guess your mom should’ve taught you not to mess with others.

He had messed up. Oh, yeah, he had messed up alright.

His mom had fallen victim to the game of chess he’d been playing… acting like he was the king of the world. She was gone, because of him. And she was never coming back, either. The one person he had loved more than anything was gone. And it was all his fault. In that moment, Calo could only think that he’d lost his game of chess – he’d lost his mother. His queen.

***

50 days into the future:

“Oh, Calo, god no,” came Remi’s response to the former’s proposition. “I mean, I have a family here… a big family… there’s no place left. This isn’t even my house, I couldn’t… no.”

After yet another rejection, Calo felt himself losing it.

“Of course you wouldn’t. When have you ever cared about me anyway? You didn’t even care to raise me, Mom did.”

“Oh come on, that’s not fair–” Remi tried to interject, but Calo didn’t let him.

“It’s not fair? You know what’s not fair? Me getting shunned by my own family like some old family toy no one needs anymore. I never needed anyone, I never asked for your help. I’ve always lived for myself and did so happily. And now, for once… I need help, and you refuse it. For once in my life, I need you… and you’re refusing me like you’ve always done.”

***

There’s always some reason
To feel not good enough
And it’s hard at the end of the day.

🎶

When Alina saw him, the first thing she noticed was how broken he looked. If he were trying to hide it, he wasn’t doing a very good job.

And so she walked over to him, and she decided that he could use some comfort. And for those first few seconds, he couldn’t help but accept it.

Until finally, the anger came – and with Alina being the only person in his surroundings, she happened to be the unfortunate one who had to receive it.

“This is YOUR fault!” Calo all but screamed at her. “You told me to ‘realize my ambitions‘… to become master of this town… to dominate. And look where it’s gotten me!! This is all your fault.”

“Excuse me?!” Alina began, but Calo interrupted her.

“You ruined everything,” he went on. “Look at this fucking MESS! It all happened after you came along. This is all your fault… and now I’ll have to pay for it for the rest of my life. My child will have to pay for it… he’ll never get to meet his grandmother… and it’s all… your fault.”

He wasn’t really talking to Alina – but he wasn’t about to admit that. Instead, he continued to glare at her, the expression of hatred that shone in his eyes directed straight at her – even if it wasn’t meant for her at all.

In response to his words, Alina growled. Showed her dark form, and stormed off, furious.

Calo knew instantly that he had done wrong – but there wasn’t much he could do about it. Could barely order his legs to go after her, let alone allow this rage to subside.

***

7.5 years into the future:

And so Calo still was, well, kind of alone. And kind of homeless. Kind of increasingly pathetic, too. Fuck.

***

Calo stared at the urn in front of him. He recognized the place all too well – it was the exact same spot where she had died.

Finally, looking at that urn in front of him, he felt the tears come. And once they had started, they wouldn’t stop anymore, either.

After he had been sobbing by her urn for well over an hour, Calo’s anger gained back the upper-hand – anger was, after all, much preferred over the weakness that was sadness. Balling his hands into fists, he made the most important decision of his life:

He was going to stop at nothing to bring Tika down. He had just made the worst mistake of his life. He’d messed with the wrong fucking vampire.

***

10 years into the future:

“What happened?”

“What do you think happened? It’s over for me. I’m done, I’m defeated. I failed.”

He sniffed.

“No, you’re not,” Tori told him. “So you have been defeated once. So have I. That doesn’t mean you can’t come back from this.”

“You can’t.”

“Maybe not. But that doesn’t mean it has to be over for you too. You’re still alive… and maybe you’re not kicking right now, but you will again. You can come back from this, Calo. Believe me. Don’t give up on yourself.”

Calo heaved a sigh. “What’s the use? You’re gone, dad’s gone. Everyone still alive on this planet absolutely hates my guts. What’s the point anymore? What’s left of my purpose? I have to face the facts. I’m defeated. I’m nothing, not anymore. I’m just… done.”

“I mean…” he looked down, picking at his nails. “Maybe if you or dad were still here, I could’ve… I could’ve actually come back from this. But here, alone? There is just no use anymore. I’m nothing without you, Mom. They were right about me, all those people who used to tease me. I am a mama’s boy. And without you, I’m nothing. No one. And without dad….” Another sigh. “…I’m at the end of my rope, here, Mom. I tried to own the world…. but it owned me instead. Tried to defeat it but it defeated me instead.”

“You’re not defeated.”

“But I am, Mom. I really, really am.”

“Come here, my boy.”

***

I need some distraction
Oh, beautiful release
Memories seep from my veins.

🎶

“Please, Reign,” Calo was downright begging as he looked at his younger sister. They were standing in the kitchen of the house they used to live in together… as a family. “I need you.”

Unfortunately, Reign felt no sympathy for her brother. “You did this,” she started. “And now you have the guts to come to me telling me you need me? Fuck you, Calo. You did this. You killed our mother.”

Though deep inside Calo knew the truth to Reign’s words, he still went into defensive mode immediately.

“Fuck you, Reign, he spat. “You’re just a pathetic human. I could’ve saved her. You could do nothing but stand by and watch like the weakling you are.”

To Calo’s surprise, Reign didn’t seem too fazed by the harshness of his words.

“If anyone is pathetic in this room, it’s you. And you know it as well as I do.”

“Me? Have you seen all I have? All I own? The life I made for myself?!”

“I know you have no one. If my future looked anything like yours, you might as well just kill me now – because I hope to god that I’ll end up better. And I know I will.”

It is only then that they saw the flames that were starting to burst out of the pan Reign had placed on the stove just minutes before Calo had barged in.

Reign and Calo looked at each other, panic written on their faces.

And while Reign ran off immediately…

Calo stayed – and watched his childhood home engulf itself into the flames.

And as he did, he saw memories of his mother, his childhood, burning in his memory, spreading just like the fire throughout his what had once been his home.

***

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***

As Calo watched his parental home go down in flames, Alina packed her stuff, put her headphones in her ears and played some loud music as she walked off – her time with Calo had come to an end, she realized. It was time for her to create her own legacy.

Alina’s walk was sturdy, determined; her face fixed in a resolute frown.

The world should lay at her feet – and it was about time Alina make sure it would. It was time she took control over her own life.

***

Let me be empty
Oh, and weightless, and maybe
I’ll find some peace tonight.

🎶

It was at least half an hour later, that Calo finally turned around.

Another five minutes passed before he found the will to move his feet, and walk away.

***

***

In the arms of the angel
Fly away from here
From this dark, cold, hotel room
And the endlessness that you fear.

🎶

15 years into the future:

Calo looked down at her grave.

He couldn’t quite believe how, in all the years that had passed, he had never once visited this place.

Well, he could; because even after all those years, he still felt angered right down to his core as he thought about all that had happened.

He was still angry – at himself just as much as at him – that he had never gotten the revenge he had vowed we have. Had never given his mother the revenge she deserved.

He had failed.

With a shaky sigh, he gave in – and sat down before the gravestone. His hand went to his face.

He scraped his throat, overcome with a sudden need to speak. And as he forced himself to get over the initial embarrassment that went with talking aloud to a literal piece of stone, he did.

“I’m sorry.”

“I would have avenged you. I would’ve… I would’ve…”

Of course the lump in his throat decided this moment to no longer allow any words past it.

“Shh,” he suddenly heard. He looked to his side, shocked.

“It’s okay,” Tori said.

She moved her hand to intertwine itself in his hair.

“I love you anyway.”

And she enveloped him in her arms.

Calo shook awake. Blinked his wide eyes, squinting them hard.

When he blinked again, she was gone.

He stood up, then, and, with one last look at the piece of stone before him, he turned around, and walked away.

You are pulled from the wreckage
Of your silent reverie
You’re in the arms of the angel
May you find some comfort here.

— Sarah McLachlan

🎶