by E. K. Blair
“Cam!” Ming squeals. “You came!”
“I love your dress,” I respond as Kroy slips my coat from my shoulders.
“I’ll be right back,” he tells me before heading to the coat check.
Ming’s eyes follow him and then come back to me when he’s out of earshot. “Are you two back together?”
Not wanting to confirm or deny, I go along with David’s idea, saying, “It’s complicated.”
A few girls call Ming over to them, leaving me alone at the back of the room. The group we came with is already out on the dance floor, and as I watch them, a drop of jealously lands on my shoulder. What I wouldn’t give to feel as free as they do.
Kroy’s hand slides around my waist, but he doesn’t say anything. We simply stand together, watching another passing moment of our senior year. Moments David thinks I should be enjoying, but how can I enjoy something I don’t fit into? With so much separating me from them, I’ve become an outsider looking in. Plagued by fears that are anything but adolescent, there isn’t a single person in this room who knows the real me anymore.
When the music slows, everyone pairs off.
“Dance with me.”
The adoration Kroy’s eyes still hold for me is merely a product of my deception, and the thought brings on a twinge of guilt. If he knew my truth, knew I had given myself away so quickly to someone else, he’d never look at me again the way he is right now. I doubt he’d ever look at me at all, and that very thought punctures me deep inside. It’s the realization that just because life turned the tables on us, I still care about him.
He holds out his hand, and I take it, harboring the fear that if he ever found out about me, he’d never offer me his hand again. I follow as he leads me out to the dance floor, and when he holds me in his arms and sways us with the slow melody, I birth a small hate for myself.
Kroy deserves so much better than me.
Maybe David does too.
I lied to him when I suggested that Kroy wasn’t hanging on to hope, because he is. And he shouldn’t be, because I’m not the girl he used to know. I’m a liar and an imposter. Every day I get out of bed and pretend to be something I’m not. It’s only when I’m with David that the truth emerges from behind the façade, and I’m safe to be me.
With my head on Kroy’s chest, I savor what’s fading before my eyes: a lifelong friendship between innocent hearts that eventually fell for each other. And although his innocence remains, mine no longer does, and when the song ends and a faster one begins, I cling on to his disillusionment for a while longer. We continue to hold each other, dancing slowly against the quick-paced bass, and somewhere, amidst the chaos, there dwells a mutual sadness.
When feelings start to build, I pull back and disconnect the way I’ve trained myself to.
“I need to go to the ladies’ room,” I tell him, needing space to pull myself together.
I make my way through the crowd and duck into the bathroom. A few girls stand at the sinks as they freshen up their makeup, so I close myself in one of the stalls for a moment of privacy. Leaning against the door, I focus my thoughts on the cold metal piercing into my bare back. The contrast in temperature is a sharp bite to my system, giving me something else to think about aside from high school angst.
I grow irritated as I stand here in these heels and this stupid dress, locked away with the damn toilet when I didn’t even want to come here in the first place. But here I am, hiding and so very unworthy of the guy I came with. I’m a travesty, and he has no clue—and that makes me feel like complete shit.
When I hear clicking heels walking out, I unlock the door only to lock it again when another group shuffles in.
“I can’t believe Kroy brought her.”
My ears perk up when I hear Christine’s voice, one of the girls that’s in our group.
“He can do so much better than her,” another girl says. “She’s not even fun to be around anymore.”
“Oh, I know. And that scar . . . nasty.”
“Right?” a third voice chimes in. “Seriously gross.”
I stare down at the toilet, wishing it was big enough for me to dive into, because that’s how desperate I am to escape right now. I’d swim through the gutters of hell to get myself as far away from here as possible. I doubt my heart could sink any lower as I fight tooth and nail to keep my scalding tears from falling. I might cry over my father, hell, I’ll even allow myself to cry over David, but I refuse to give these bitches my tears.
“Oh. My. God. I saw her mother last night at the Gaillardia Country Club. I was with my parents for the annual Christmas auction, and she was wasted.”
“For real?”
And when I think my gut can’t twist any further, it does, wringing out the bile of secrets hidden. It floods my system in a tidal wave of mortification.
“Yeah. She was with some guy too, hanging all over him.”
“Mr. Hale, like, just died!”
“I know. So trashy.”
Biting my lips together, I hold my breath, swallowing an ugly sob threatening to erupt from the base of my throat.
How is this my life?
How have I fallen so far that I’ve become the school’s bathroom gossip?
“Someone should tell Kroy to stay away from Cam before she ruins his reputation.”
“No joke.”
“She rode in the limo with us,” Christine says. “She wouldn’t even talk. She just sat there like a disgusting lump on a log.”
“What does he even see in her anyway? Give him one night with me, and I promise you, he’d forget about her in an instant.”
“You are so full of yourself.”
They all bust out laughing.
Embarrassment fades into sadness, and when sadness dissolves to anger, I can’t hang on any longer. The moment I step out of the stall, four girls stare at me in horror of being caught, but I don’t stick around long enough to say anything. What would I say anyway? Apparently, I’m worthless and someone forgot to update me on my status change.
Anger feeds the blood in my veins, and I stumble slightly on weak knees as I make my way over to Kroy.
He sees me and rushes over. “Are you okay?”
“Can you take me home?”
“We just got here. What happened?”
“Nothing. I just want to go home.”
“We all rode together, Cam. No one is going to want to leave,” he says. “Seriously though, what happened? Your face is sweating.”
“I’m not feeling good.” I’m too humiliated to tell him what people are saying about me.
“Well can you just sit down? I’ll get you some water.”
“Can you call me an Uber or something? I really don’t want to be here.”
He puffs a heavy breath of frustration at me. “Why can’t you just have fun?”
“I tried, Kroy. Even when I didn’t want to, I did anyway,” I argue when he becomes annoyed with me.
“Why do you have to even try? You should be happy. You love coming to these things and hanging out with our friends.”
“These people are not my friends.”
“They are.”
How can he be completely naïve to how disgusting they truly are?
“No, Kroy, they aren’t. And even if they were, I just don’t fit in with them anymore.”
“Because you don’t want to,” he snaps. “You don’t even want to try. This summer happened, and ever since, you’ve been doing nothing but making up excuses to avoid everyone.”
“I wouldn’t have to make up excuses if you’d just accept the truth for what it is. But you don’t! Everyone just rolls their eyes at me and takes every damn thing I do personally. Well, news flash, it wasn’t that I didn’t want to be around them because I didn’t like them—I was sad! I still am, but it’s not enough for you all to accept.”
“I’m doing the best I can here, Cam.”
“I can’t do this right now,” I tell him and then walk away.
; “Where are you going?”
“Home.”
“Cam, wait.”
“Just leave me alone,” I toss over my shoulder, giving up on the night. Even if my heart had wanted to be in it, there’s no way to salvage it.
So, I collect my coat, walk out into the bitter cold of night, and call for an Uber. When my phone flashes that the closest car is twenty-five minutes away, I curse this bleak town and start to walk.
In a matter of a minute, my limbs are shivering. Cold and alone, walking down the snow-lined sidewalk next to the dark street, I pull out my cell with nearly numb fingers not even my anger can heat and text David.
Me: Don’t ever ask me to do something like this again, because I won’t.
I slip my phone down into the pocket of my coat as I concede to despair. The first tear bites my flesh, leaving an icy cold trail down my face. My coat vibrates with his text, but I don’t have it in me to read it. I can’t keep pretending I’m tougher than what I really am.
I don’t want to cry. I don’t want to feel anything at all. But the strength needed to bury it down and keep it dormant is more than what I have in me.
Another text vibrates.
I try so hard every day. I fight against everything, but all I’m doing is allowing it to eat away at the delicate flesh that’s struggling to keep me together.
Wiping the tears the moment they surface, I grow more and more angry. Angry at my dad for dying. Angry at the guy who drank too much and got behind the wheel. Angry at my mother for allowing her broken heart to destroy her. Angry at David for being my teacher. Angry at Kroy for not having enough life experiences to understand me. Angry at Taylor for making my life a worse hell than what it already is. Angry at the piece of glass that dug in too deep, leaving me with this freakish scar.
Buzzing ripples in cadence from my pocket.
He’s calling.
The tip of my nose and ears sting from the freezing temperatures, but I’ll take this pain. I’ll take it and nurture it, because it’s so much more tolerable than the pain my soul is forced to bear.
Clenching my wool coat around me even tighter, I continue to walk, my frozen toes curling inside my heels. Cars zoom past, one after the other, their engines barely audible over my chattering teeth. But it’s when I catch David’s SUV slowing along the curb that I stop in my step. He flies out of the vehicle, and in less than one second, opens the passenger side door and puts me in.
“What the fuck are you doing?” he barks when he closes his door and pegs the heater.
“P-please don’t y-yell at me.” My voice shatters around my body’s violent chills.
David rips off his coat and uses it as a blanket, laying it over my chest. He throws the car in drive and whips it behind a small strip mall that’s beside us.
When he has us hidden away next to a dumpster, he does what he can to warm me, wrapping me up in his arms. The streetlight above us flickers as it strives to stay alive, much like my heart right now.
“What are you doing walking in the freezing cold? Where the hell is Kroy?”
My bones wrack against his arms that attempt to soothe.
“I want to go home, David.”
“I’m not taking you anywhere until you tell me what has you walking alone on the goddamn streets when it’s twenty degrees outside.” His words come out in tempered fury.
“I’m so scared.”
“Of what?”
“Of feeling what I’m trying not to.”
“God, baby. Don’t be. I swear to you, no matter how much pain you’re in, I won’t let you drown in it.”
“You promise me?”
“Come here,” he says, tugging me toward him, and when I crawl over the center console, he gathers me against his chest, cradling me in his lap. “I promise you, you’re safe with me. If you need to cry, then cry. And if it’s still not enough, cry some more. Cry as hard as you need. Hit me if it will help you get the pain out. I swear to you that I’ll be here with you so that you don’t have to go through this alone.”
I hang on to every little piece of him as his body thaws mine, but my earlier tears are gone. For some reason I can’t explain, I don’t know how to cry right now. So, he takes me back to his place, tucks me in bed with him, and holds me while I tell him about the fight with Kroy and the girls in the bathroom. He never lets go of me as he listens and whispers sweet everythings into my ear. And when he asks me to cry and I tell him I can’t, he’s accepting, never pushing me. Instead, he wraps his body around mine as we drift to sleep.
“I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU EAT your marshmallows like that.”
I give him an evil grin from behind the flame and then blow it out. “It’s better than the way you eat yours.”
“What are you talking about? This is how every red-blooded American eats them.”
“You completely ruin it with the graham cracker and chocolate.” Sitting on the hearth next to David, I pull my scorched marshmallow off the skewer and shove the whole thing in my mouth with an exaggerated, “Mmmmm.”
He laughs at me, chuckling, “You’re eating ash.”
“And it’s so good,” I tease before stabbing another marshmallow onto my stick.
It’s Christmas Eve, and when I woke up with a heavy ache weighing me down, I threw myself together and drove over here. The sadness I felt on Thanksgiving doesn’t even compare to this holiday, and I didn’t have to say a word to him. David knew everything I kept unspoken the moment I walked in. He sees straight through my nonexistent tears, and I couldn’t be more grateful for that. It spares me the pain of having to explain the whys of my mood every time I’m feeling down.
“I’m done,” he forfeits, dropping his half-eaten S’more onto the plate that’s sitting between us and taking a draw from his beer.
“Not me. I could eat these things all day.” I shove another burnt masterpiece in my mouth before David takes my hand and sucks melted marshmallow off my thumb. “I thought you were done?”
He takes the skewer out of my hand, wraps his arms around me, and slides me off the hearth and onto the floor. A giggle falls from my sticky sweet lips as he crawls over me. With his hands braced on either side of me, I hang on to my smile as I stare into bright blue eyes. I run my fingers along day old stubble and watch as a lock of hair falls over his forehead.
“You’re so beautiful,” he says, and I pull him down to kiss me, tasting the sugar on his lips.
I circle my arms around his neck, savoring the stain of his flavor on my tongue. With the fire crackling next to us, my body soaks up the heat from all around. Hand on flesh, he slips under my sweater and over my bra.
He exhales, his kisses falling down my cheek to my neck, and I bow into him.
The sound of the doorbell cleaves our bodies apart, and we both startle, sitting up in a panic. His finger presses against my lips before he takes my hands and pulls me to my feet. His eyes mirror the alarm in mine as we lock on to each other.
“Come here,” he whispers, pulling me into his bedroom. “Stay in here and don’t come out.”
I nod as I sit on the edge of his bed. He closes the door behind him, leaving me alone with horrified fear that somehow we’ve been found out. But fear turns into confusion when I hear a woman’s muffled voice. Quietly, I walk over to the bedroom door, and when I do, the voice clears.
“What are you doing here?” David questions.
“You won’t answer my calls.”
Heels click across the wooden floors.
“There’s nothing to say.”
“You don’t mean that,” she says. “We miss you. It’s been almost nine years since you’ve seen anyone. Please come over to the house. Come over and spend Christmas with us.”
“Mom . . .” His tone comes across as defeated, but for what, I have no clue.
I lean my back against the wall and continue to eavesdrop.
“You’ve never even met the kids.”
“Don’t,” he warns harshly, and my stomach flips in con
fusion.
“You’re their uncle. They shouldn’t be punished over a fight between you and your brother,” she tells him. “Nine years, David—”
“A fight? Is that what you all call it?”
“Don’t you think it’s time to move past this?”
“I have moved past this,” he affirms. “Those nine years you’ve been hanging on to are the same nine years I spent letting go.”
“Please . . . we’re your family.” Her words falter with sadness. “You’re my son. I love you.”
“Where was that love back then? Because if memory serves me correctly, everyone just kept their mouths shut. You all just accepted them while my world went to shit in front of my eyes . . . literally, Mom. Do you have any clue what that was like for me?”
“What were we supposed to do? They were in love, and you ran off. We didn’t hear from you for years.”
“I don’t want to rehash this.”
“How can we rehash it when we haven’t even had the chance to talk about it?”
“There’s nothing left to talk about. He took my future, and he has the wife and the kids that were supposed to be mine. It’s done, but that doesn’t mean I’m just going to waltz in there and pretend what they did was okay. That I forgive them.”
Heels move along the floor again, and then come to a stop. No one says anything as I keep silent, and then, after a long pause, “I’m sorry, did I interrupt something?”
No response from David.
“Is someone here?”
My heart slams against my ribs. She must see the food setup at the fireplace. I cup my hand over my mouth as I step over against the corner of the wall and the door.
“Like I told you. I’ve let it go and moved on,” he tells her.
“If there’s someone in your life, I’d like to—”
“I refuse to drag her into this.”
Oh my God, David. Stop talking!
“Look,” he says. “You’re my mom, and I love you. But we’ve lost a lot of time, and for me to walk back in, as if that time didn’t change us, isn’t something I think I can do right now.”
“But it’s Christmas. And you’re finally home.”
“It may be home for you, Mom. But it’s not for me.”
