Scars of my Past

by DC Renee

  I sighed in response. “What?” I asked in defeat, knowing she would win. I just … I couldn’t handle seeing Cam happy with anyone else, and I was afraid that was what she would show me, hoping it would light a fire under my ass to fight for Cam. I was barely holding myself together as it was, crying only at night when I didn’t think Amanda could hear me. I didn’t want to acknowledge how excruciating this was in the light of day even though it was painfully obvious.

  “I had a hunch,” she said, and I had a feeling there was more to the story before I had even heard it, but I had no energy to ask. Besides, I wanted to get this over with like ripping a Band-Aid off quickly. “So I searched Cam’s Facebook as far back as I could go.”

  “Okay?” I asked when she paused for a moment. It was almost as if she was building the suspense.

  “It was mostly people posting on his wall, pictures of him playing football, at parties, his friends saying stupid shit, the usual,” she added with a shrug. “And then I got to this post. It’s from two years ago.”

  “What is it?” I asked, my curiosity actually getting the better of me.

  “Read it for yourself,” she said as she handed her phone over to me.

  “‘A nameless, faceless girl,’” I read the poem out loud.

  “You felt the wrath of my pain.

  You did nothing wrong.

  It was always my own shame.

  I seek your forgiveness.

  For all that I’ve done to you.

  And I pray that one day.

  I’ll be able to forgive myself too.

  By a nameless, faceless boy.’”

  “It’s you,” Amanda cried.

  “You don’t know that,” I responded, but I did. He’d written this years earlier but also years too late. He’d tried, though; he’d tried in some respect. Did that make this all better? Or did it make it worse? That he knew what he’d done but hadn’t stopped? That he wanted to apologize but didn’t bother trying to find me? That he thought he could make amends by posting a random poem on a social media account? But he didn’t forget … He didn’t just let what he did go … He cared … Years later, he cared.

  What did that say about him? What did that say about everything I believed about him?

  “Gen, doesn’t this mean anything to you?” Amanda asked, sympathy and pity in her voice and eyes.

  “It means too much,” I told her.

  “Because you love him.”

  “Why didn’t he find me?” I asked her. “He could have found a yearbook, searched every girl until he found me, looked me up, and apologized in person. It would have been better than this. This is him half-assing it.”

  “This is him proclaiming to the entire world that he fucked up. I think that’s kind of romantic.”

  “You would.” I couldn’t help but snort in response. “Besides, it was cryptic. People probably thought he was all philosophical. It probably got him laid,” I replied dryly.

  “The point is that he didn’t just brush you off and not give a shit. Sure, he might have gone about it the wrong way, or he could have tried a little harder, but he did try, Gen. This is proof. And now he’s trying even more. Give him a chance. Let him apologize now.”

  “And what if he doesn’t apologize? What if he just gives me excuses?” I asked, voicing one of my biggest fears. I was afraid he wouldn’t own up to his mistakes, and he’d blame them on something else. Then I’d be crushed. This way, I had the illusion that he had truly changed, and he was a better man. He was someone who could the fix problems he’d caused … Because I couldn’t possibly be in love with a little boy who held no accountability. And right then, it felt like love. But if I had been wrong yet again, I didn’t think my heart could handle any more damage. One more crushing blow and the pieces would never fit back together.

  “He will,” she told me without hesitation.

  “I’ll think about it,” I answered. It was true. I would think about it. I’d been thinking about it. I couldn’t freaking stop thinking about it. I was a coward. Plain and simple. A coward afraid Cam didn’t give a shit while also afraid that he did.

  “I guess that’s better than nothing,” she said with a shrug. “I have to get to my next class,” she told me. “I just had to show you this. Love you, Gen,” she added as she gave me a kiss on the cheek and headed out.

  So I did exactly what I told her I’d do—I thought about it. Too bad my heart seemed to want to think as well because right then, my mind didn’t like my heart’s thoughts.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR

  Past

  Cameron

  One hour earlier …

  I HAD NO GRAND gestures—no giant bouquet, no boxes of chocolate, and no cliché serenade to play outside her window. I didn’t send her love notes or her favorite food. I didn’t make her a playlist with songs of heartbreak, sorrow, and woe. That wasn’t me. And I didn’t think those things would win Gen over. Persistence might wear her down, and showing her she was all I thought about without all those extras might sway her, but spending every moment I had trying to track her down might make her give me a few minutes. So that was what I had done until I couldn’t take it any longer.

  So I convinced Amanda to help me.

  Convince might not even be the right word. We had a conversation that lasted about ten minutes before I told her my plan, and she was in.

  I think she liked me—not that way. I think she liked me for Gen despite knowing the sordid details of my past. Well … not all the sordid details. Even Gen didn’t know those, but she knew I was a first-class asshole. Yet Amanda saw something in me, something I thought Gen had seen, and agreed to help.

  So now it was just a waiting game. I needed to play by the logical timeframes Amanda had given me.

  It wasn’t an easy feat … waiting.

  I’d been waiting for over a week. When you thought about how long Gen had waited for an apology from me, that seemed like a miniscule amount of time, but I loved her. I loved her so much it physically hurt. Another minute apart would tear me to shreds.

  So I sat patiently by the apartment, or not so patiently—more like anxiously waiting for the right moment to barge into Gen’s life, and hopefully never leave it again.

  Patience … it most definitely was a virtue … just not one I seemed to have.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE

  Present

  Genevieve

  “I FORGOT MY keys,” Amanda said over the phone. “I’m a few minutes away from our place. You’re not going anywhere, I presume?” she asked.

  “No.” I didn’t bother lying.

  “Good. Open the door for me when I get there,” she said and then hung up.

  She was annoyed with me because I still hadn’t found the courage to contact Cam and hear him out, and even more so that I was still hiding at home. I already admitted I was a coward; what more did she want from me?

  Two minutes later, Amanda knocked on the door. I opened it but stood frozen in shock.

  “What … what are you doing here?” I asked as I looked at Cam standing in my doorway. He looked worse for wear, probably a carbon copy of my image. It didn’t take away from how handsome he was, but it made me feel bad for putting him through this. And then I quickly reminded myself that he had actually put us both through this … starting years earlier.

  “Two minutes, Gen. That’s all I ask for. Two minutes to tell you everything, and then you can decide if you want me out of your life for good.”

  An argument was on the tip of my tongue. I wanted to tell him to go to hell, but my mouth had other plans.

  “Two minutes,” I agreed as I opened the door wider to let him walk in. God, a moment in his presence and I was a sucker once again … the effect he had on me … which was exactly why I hadn’t wanted to speak to him in the first place.

  “I miss you,” he said quietly. Not missed, but miss like I was still not there. It warmed my heart a little.

  “I’m listening,” I said, trying to sound i
ndifferent but knowing I sounded anything but.

  I sat on the couch, and he followed. He sat on the couch by me, close enough I could feel the heat from his body. I missed him too.

  “I’m so sorry, Gen. I’m so very fucking sorry for what I did to you, for the things I said, for how I made you feel. If I could go back … shit, if I could change things, I would have in a heartbeat. But you have to know … you saved me. You were my outlet.” His words were urgent as if he was trying to get it all out before he broke down, but his words didn’t make me feel any better. “And it wasn’t personal then. I didn’t even see a person, just an object. It doesn’t excuse it, doesn’t make it right, but for you to understand, I have to start at the beginning.” Wasn’t personal? The acute pain radiating off him was the only reason I bit my tongue. I gestured that I was still following, and he continued. “As you know, my name used to be Tyler Haywood,” he told me, and I nodded in response. “But it wasn’t always that. I was born Tyler Cameron Dents. My father died when I was very young, just a few years old, but from what I remember, my parents had a love like no other. My mom was so in love with him that when he died, she never recovered from his loss.” He lowered his head, and I had a feeling he was remembering a time when things were happy, and I knew, I just knew that the story wouldn’t be a good one after this. “She was never the same, but I think she wanted some stability for me, so she started seeing this guy named Charles.” The way he said his name—a mix of fear and loathing—caused a feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach. “At first, he seemed nice, like he cared about my mom and me. They married shortly after …” He trailed off as his voice broke on whatever memory he was stuck on. I wanted to tell him to stop talking because I didn’t need to know the rest. I didn’t want him to relive whatever he was about to tell me, but I didn’t. A part of me needed to hear his words just as much as he probably needed to get them off his chest.

  “He started showing his true colors … and Gen, they weren’t pretty.” He looked at me with such anguish I could literally feel my own heart crack under the weight of those simple words. “It was slow at first, just talking down to me and my mom. Then he moved onto verbal abuse. That transitioned to physical. It was always my mom. He even—” he cut himself off as he choked up. “She was pregnant … a few times … but she lost them. I don’t know the reason, maybe I just wasn’t meant to have a sibling, or maybe it was the universe preventing Charles from corrupting an innocent life, but he blamed her, and I blame him. He hurt her … and she miscarried … I don’t think that was a coincidence.” He stopped, breathing in and out deeply as if getting his bearings before continuing. “She tried to protect me; she did,” he said as if he were trying to convince himself and me, but I believed him. “She tried to shield me as best as she could. She wasn’t always around, though,” he admitted. “And when she was, I didn’t do my job—I didn’t protect her. Even when I got old enough to stand up for myself, to fight him off her, I was … I was scared,” he said in such a small, broken voice as if he was turning back into that innocent child who had no one to tell him things would be okay. I guess they weren’t, though, were they? “We moved at some point, and Charles adopted me, giving me his last name. That’s … that’s when you knew me.” He said it like he wished I hadn’t, like he wished no one had.

  “Then my mom got sick,” he told me. I already knew where this was going, and I reached up to wipe the tears that had fallen some time before. I had courted death and lived to tell about it, but I had never thought about the impact that it would have had on my parents, on the people who loved me until after … I could only imagine what kind of impact Cam’s mom’s death had on him. I waited patiently, letting him have a moment to gather himself. My heart was cracking wide open, and I was only a listener, a bystander in his real-life story of pain.

  “Things were only slightly better then, but she passed away when I was in high school. That’s what my tattoo is about,” he said quietly, his words just an echo in the room. “It’s for my mom,” he added. He spoke the words through shallow breaths, taking energy just to say them, to acknowledge the loss he’d suffered. I wanted to comfort him, but his next words stopped me. “You know,” he said with such bitterness I clenched my hands to keep from interrupting whatever he would admit. “I didn’t even cry when she died,” he said with a level of self-disgust.

  I choked on a sob. “Cam,” I said, deciding he needed me more at that moment than he needed to say whatever he’d come to tell me.

  “I didn’t cry at her funeral, at the wake, none of it,” he lashed out at himself.

  “Cam,” I tried again, but he was determined to hate himself. He’d been a boy, a kid dealing with so much. Of course, he didn’t cry. He was in shock. He had to know that.

  “Not because I didn’t want to,” he said so earnestly, begging me to believe him. “I wanted to cry for her, to cry for the unfairness of it all, for losing her …” He trailed off, and I was frozen, unsure of what to say, what to do.

  “I didn’t cry for my own mother when she died … because Charles wouldn’t let me.” I could hear the sadness, hear the fear, hear every emotion he was still trying to hold in with his words. “I was a big guy, a high school athlete. I could bench-press Charles in weight, and I was scared of him,” he mocked himself. “I was a scared, stupid little boy.” He ran his hand across his forehead like his head hurt to remember that time.

  I could actually feel the distress rolling off him in waves, and I knew he hadn’t even touched the tip of the iceberg. “If I thought things were bad before, I didn’t realize they could get worse.” He stopped, breathing in and out heavily like he’d run a marathon. Composing himself, he steeled himself to tell me how things actually got worse.

  “You just happened to be there whenever I needed to head home, and I knew what awaited me. I didn’t want to go home, but I had no choice,” he told me. “He’d call me, tell me I was needed, and to hurry home. I didn’t want to,” he said, sounding exactly like the scared little boy he’d seen himself as. I didn’t bother wiping the tears pouring down my face. There were too many, too many drenching my very soul from the injustice he’d suffered, the pain he’d endured. “He’d call me a piece of shit, so I’d call you a piece of shit. He made me feel like a loser, so I’d make you feel like a loser. It was my only way of controlling a piece of my life,” he told me, trying to reason with himself more so than me at that point. “Because I had no control in other areas.”

  “Cam,” I whispered his name again, telling him it was okay, but his name died on my lips, my voice lost to agony … his agony.

  “God, I am a piece of shit for the way I treated you, for the things I said to you, and the things I made you feel. Fuck, Gen, I’m so sorry …” He trailed off.

  I’d wanted to hear those words for so long, for so very, very long, and now that he’d said them over and over, I didn’t want them. I didn’t want his sorrys if it meant they came with all this. I didn’t want him suffering what he had. I didn’t want him going through that in the first place, let alone the memories haunting him now. “But you have to understand that my life at home … I should have fought him … but I couldn’t. It’s like I’d been brainwashed to listen, to obey, and do what he wanted …” He kept going despite his own distress, despite my distress. Constantly pausing, he kept trying to find the right words to tell me what I didn’t want to hear. “There’s something no one knows,” he told me. “Something I couldn’t share with anyone because I wouldn’t be able to take the stares, the pity, and the looks of disgust in other people’s eyes.” He paused again, not even noticing the cries escaping my lips, willing him not to continue. “This is so hard,” he said a moment later. Then stop, I wanted to say, but the words didn’t leave my mouth. “I thought I’d go to my grave without sharing this with anyone, but you deserve to know why I poured all my agony out on you … why I did and said the things I did. Fuck …” He trailed off, and I put him out of his misery.

  I pla
ced my finger on his lips, telling him not to speak anymore. “I know,” I whispered hoarsely and dropped my hand.

  “What do you know?” he asked, half confused, half worried, his voice cracking on every other syllable.

  “I know what he did to you,” I told him softly.

  “What do you know?” he asked almost accusingly, a resounding dread creeping into his voice.

  “Who do you think called the cops?” I asked sadly, almost afraid to admit it.

  “Gen,” he said my name like he was in church and I was the god he prayed to. He lowered his head as if he couldn’t look at me—as if he was scared to look at me.

  I placed my hand gently under his chin and lifted his face, so his eyes stared into mine. He didn’t cry, but his eyes were glassy. He was still holding everything in.

  He had told me his story. He deserved to know mine.

  “When you hurt me,” I started, and he flinched. I felt bad, but it was the truth of things. He had hurt me. There was no denying that, so I kept going. “When things got really bad for me… and I did what I did to myself …” I trailed off, so he knew what I was referring to. I didn’t like to say the words, more so at that moment because I didn’t think he could handle anything else piled on top of his misery. “Looking back, I think it was a cry for help more than anything, but it didn’t matter then. I needed help, and my parents put me in therapy. I was reluctant at first, not believing I could be fixed. I didn’t want to die anymore, but I also didn’t really want to live. I just wanted to survive and hide; become invisible so I could creep through life without any more people noticing me the way you had.”

  “I’m so sorry,” he whispered.

  “No,” I told him. “That’s not the point of this,” I said, and I saw a slight nod from him. “While I was there, they told me I needed to face my demons before I could move on. They kept telling me that over and over, kept trying to get me to discuss it all, to see who I was without any outside influence. I didn’t even know what that meant half the time. I just wanted to be left alone. I just wanted to forget it all and start fresh, but I was being held back by the very thing I was trying to forget. It was a never-ending cycle until one day I finally snapped. They wanted me to face my demons? All right, I’d face them … my own way. I’d face you,” I told him. I didn’t know when I’d stopped crying, but it didn’t make my own memories any less painful. I just knew that I needed to be strong at that moment to be able to discuss the past without breaking down—not for me, but for Cam. “So I snuck out and went to your house,” I admitted, and a flitter of surprise passed over Cam’s features. “I didn’t even know if you still lived there or anything,” I said with a shrug, “but I had to try. For my own sanity, I had to face you. I saw your car outside, so I figured I was in luck. I walked up to the front door, trying my best to be brave, be bold, and stop fearing you. I was about to knock, lost in my own problems, when I heard something coming from inside. I can’t describe the noise, but it didn’t seem right. Call it instinct, call it fear, call it whatever you want, but my hand froze midway to knocking on the door. I waited and listened, and I heard it again. I tried to peer through the windows, but I saw nothing. I walked around the house, trying to determine what was going on. When I saw the side gate was open, I crept through the backyard until I saw you in the window.” I didn’t stop when his whole face turned ghastly white or when his lips drew together in a tight purse. I would get this out. I needed to get this out. He’d had his own burdens to release, and these were mine. I hadn’t even realized I needed to say these words until then, but I had carried them for a long time.