by K. M. Raya
Her heart stuttered as she quickly realized what had made him pause. She felt him pull away quickly as if his skin was on fire. Following his eyes, she could see that he was staring at her mangled and scarred skin. It was a pale mixture of melted grafting and angry red bumps where glass had peppered her in the explosion. It was a startling sight, she knew this and for that reason, she pulled away in shame and pushed him to the side roughly. His body smacked into the wall beside the bed.
"Out!" She snapped at him and he flinched.
"That's from..." He paused as he studied her legs. He'd known she was injured in the accident, but she guessed seeing in the flesh made it real. She shoved him from the bed and onto the floor. Him seeing her scars had snapped her out of the moment and back into reality.
"I said get out!" She yelled louder this time. Sebastian rushed to throw his shirt back on but continued to eye her like one would a wounded animal.
With his hands still fisted in the bottom of his shirt he stepped closer. "You think you have the right to order me around? After what you did you're lucky I’m even speaking to you."
She held back a wince and dressed frantically as he watched her. Her bathing suit was still on but she was too exposed.
He could see everything.
Her scars.
Her shame.
"Is that the only argument you even have? I don't even know why you're in my cabin, Sebastian!"
His once heated eyes reverted to a cold look of indifference and she hated it.
"You know what? Me either, this was a mistake." He raised both his hands as he walked backwards. "I've been done with you for a year now and I don't know what the fuck I was thinking."
She refused to let her hurt show because he was right. He had been done with her before they even had a chance to begin. Theirs was a love so fleeting and so new and it slipped through her fingers like water.
Sebastian turned on his heel and slammed out the door just in time to miss the girls barging their way up the steps. They looked at him as he stormed past them.
"Um, tell me that wasn't Sebastian Carter fleeing our cabin in the night, Freya you little minx," said Sam as they shut the door behind them.
She didn't have the energy to answer because her emotions were on a roller coaster, soaring into the heavens before plummeting back to Earth over and over again. She couldn't keep track of these feelings that had refused to surface for so long suddenly appearing out of nowhere.
Phee approached her with open arms and Freya realized that tears were wet on her cheeks. She hadn't even realized she'd started crying. She let the girl envelop her in her arms as she cried onto her shoulder. She hated feeling this weak but a girl could only take so much at once. Again she wondered just what in the hell her mom and dad had been thinking, sending her to a camp filled with the people she's hurt the most.
Freya
The following week flew by in a haze of sleep and hiding out in her cabin with Sam and Phee. She could barely count the rounds of card games played and naps taken. Sebastian had not been back since that last night, but Maverick had stopped by a few times, if only to sit with Freya in silence as she wallowed.
The summer was growing hotter and the days were getting longer but Freya only looked forward to her return home.
She wondered often how her parents were doing, knowing they had probably enjoyed their time away from her. Freya missed the closeness she had with her mother in previous years. They had always been like two peas in a pod, shopping together, brunching and hanging out. Her mother was a fun woman, young and driven while her father was kind but serious. Together they had formed a power couple, conquering the legal neighborhood after opening up Lockwood Law Firm a few years before Freya's birth.
She found herself wondering often, whether or not she should hope for the days of easy communication with her parents to rekindle once again, but every day that passed without a word— without a single letter answered that question for her. Her parents were ashamed of her. She knew this. She knew it in the way they couldn't look her in the eye, and the whispers that stopped suddenly when she would enter the room. Her house felt foreign to her even though she had lived there her entire life. But she didn't blame them. Not at all.
She was lying on her bed, staring at the grooves in the wooden ceiling when a knock on her cabin door startled her. Freya sat up to go to the door when instead, it swung open moments later revealing none other than Maverick, decked out in hiking gear with two full backpacks on his muscular arm.
"No," Freya deadpanned before he had the chance to get halfway across the room. She shook her head and laid back on the bed with a huff.
"Oh yes! It's time, Freya Lockwood, you and I are going on a hike!" He announced. She tilted her head up to glare at him while he waited at the end of her bed.
"Do I look like I'm ready for a hike?" She asked incredulously. "Ask Sam, I'm sure she'd be up for it." She suggested though she knew it would be futile.
Maverick chuckled "Does it look like I'm asking?" He arched a thick black brow. "Get your pretty ass up!"
Freya growled under her breath but did as he said. Twenty minutes went by as she changed into a pair of jeans and her camp t- shirt. It would be a scorcher today and she inwardly cringed at the thought of wearing jeans, but the thought of a boy/man like Mav seeing her ugliness made her feel sick to her stomach.
As they left the cabin, he handed her a pre packed backpack, which was thoughtful of him and they set out into the early morning. It was Sunday and the camp was quiet with no scheduled activities to break up their day. Campers milled around here and there but mostly kept to themselves. Every now and again they would pass by another camper who would grimace and make a show of dodging her. Maverick said nothing each time and she appreciated his manners.
They took a trail towards the back side of the camp which would circle around the lake and back again. She knew first hand that this particular trail would take a few hours to complete the circuit and secretly the thought brought her some relief. She found herself craving seclusion and privacy, even if she had to share that privacy with a beautiful boy with haunted brown eyes.
Mavericks voice startled her but she didn't show it. "What's up with that Sebastian guy?" He asked out of the blue.
"Nothings up with Sebastian. Just an old friend," she replied without meeting his eyes.
"You're not even eighteen, you don't have any old friends."
"Okay, maybe not an old friend...but a former friend. Bash and I basically grew up together," she admitted. “And I’ll be eighteen next week fyi…” She muttered under her breath.
"Then what's with all the drama the other night?" He asked genuinely. "Whatever it was, it seemed pretty intense."
Freya nodded. "It was...but honestly Mav, I'm not really ready to get into it."
"Sorry, I'm just trying to understand."
She felt bad now. Maverick was being a good friend to her and she was shutting him out again.
They stopped after a while and climbed to the top of a rock face that overlooked a small section of the lake. The water was shallow there and they could clearly see a bed of rocks that lay beneath the waters surface. The waves lapped gently at the cliff and the sun reflected off of the water like tiny diamonds. They sat down, knees bent and arms draped over the tops. They were relaxed and their silence was companionable. Looking at Maverick from the corner of her eye, she could tell he had something on his mind but he spoke before she could ask.
"I'm not an only child, you know," he said quietly without looking at her. She didn't respond, knowing he had more to say.
"My brother, Darren would have been sixteen this month."
Would have been.
"What happened?" She asked hesitantly. She didn't want to push, but now he had her curious.
"Cancer. In his lungs." Maverick took a deep, shuddering breath before continuing. "Found out the summer he turned fourteen and he barely lasted six months after that. Apparently it could have been tr
eated had he gone to the hospital just months before..."
Freya lowered her head and eyes to the dirt beneath her folded legs and sighed. "That's shit," she told him for lack of a better response.
Maverick snorted. "I'm actually relieved you aren't one of those people who tells me they're sorry for my loss." He grinned and she returned the smile.
"Well, I am sorry but there's nothing you or even Darren himself could have done. Cancer is a bitch like that."
He shook his head and his eyes hardened. "You see...that's where you're wrong." He stood to his feet and paced. Freya remained on the ground, giving him space to think.
He continued, "The crazy thing is that the only reason we even found out about the cancer was because of a broken arm that sent him to the hospital. I was the one who broke that arm." He faced her. "On accident of course, but still...I can't help but feel like it was all my fault."
Freya shook her head and stood next to him. She reached out and placed a delicate hand on his shoulder even though he was much taller than her. "Don't talk like that, a broken arm didn't cause his cancer and you damn well know that." What was left of her heart was now breaking for him and the misplaced guilt he carried around.
"I know that but I can't help it. What if I hadn't broken his arm that day playing flag football? What if he never went to that specialist? What if his treatment was what killed him?" He asked almost to himself. She was likely listening to a series of questions he had agonized over frequently.
Stopping him with a hand in the crook of his elbow she hardened her voice. "Maverick stop. No matter how guilty you feel, or how sad it makes you, you did not give your brother cancer. Now, I didn't know Darren, but I do know that finding his cancer probably gave your family the chance to come to terms with a situation that would have snuck up on you otherwise." She stared at him for a moment. "I know you don't want to hear it, but you gave him hope at least. And it was never your responsibility to begin with."
Maverick stared at her with troubled brown eyes and she noticed that tears had gathered in them. This floored her because Maverick had always seemed so happy and so put together. Unless you were looking hard enough, one might never guess at the suffering he carried inside.
He reached a hand out to Freya and lightly caressed her cheek. "I hope you know you're wise beyond your years," he said with a smirk that hid his pain.
"Yeah, well don't get used to it, bud." Freya smiled at him as his thumb brushed her cheekbone. She tried to lighten the mood but it was already heavy.
The look in his eyes changed quickly in that moment, light brown melted into black pools of chocolate. His gaze flitted over her features in a new way that made her breathing speed up and her mind slow down. She knew he was about to kiss her. When he lowered his lips to hers, Freya felt the tension seep from her muscles. A wonderful sense of calm came over her. She noted after a moment that the sensation seemed to be the exact opposite of what Sebastian's kiss had made her feel. Where Sebastian had made her skin burn and her heart race, Maverick made her feel like she was sinking into the warmest silk sheets by a steadily roaring fire.
She could feel his stubble as it rubbed against her face but his lips were silky smooth. She reached up with her hands and ran them over his short, buzzed black hair. It was hard to describe the emotions she began to feel the longer they stood there. His large arms encircled her and she felt the safest she had ever been. Their kiss broke off and Maverick pulled back to stare into her eyes.
"I've been picturing exactly that since the second I jumped up onto that dock," he admitted and Freya could feel her cheeks beginning to heat up. Sure she had felt attraction to the older boy, but she had no idea that the feeling had been mutual all along.
Instead of responding, Freya lifted to her tippy toes and yanked his face back down to hers. She kissed him harder this time, almost frantic. She could feel his calm sinking into her as if his energy could literally flow from his body into hers. His fingers sifted through her hair as he scooped her up and lowered her to the ground. Maverick hovered over her body as they lay on the cliff-side and she thought to herself that nothing had ever been so perfect.
He rained kisses down the side of her neck and his hand began to travel beneath her shirt. Her breath hitched as his thumb grazed her hard nipple. She moaned in ecstasy. He felt so right against her skin. His lips moved lower until their warmth wrapped around her nipple and sucked it into his mouth. She wasn't a virgin. Hadn't been since she turned fifteen, but still his brand new touch made her shiver and writhe.
The trees around them were thick enough to offer a semblance of privacy but even that would be a worry for another time. At that moment, all Freya could feel were his hands on her body and his lips on her neck. He sat up, pulling her with him as she removed his shirt before hers followed. She wore a bathing suit underneath, but he quickly pulled the little string behind her back and let the black garment fall to the ground. The careful way he held her and the reverence in his eyes told her that her body was safe in his hands. She was no child, with her eighteenth birthday barely over a week away, and she wanted him to know that.
Freya pushed him backwards and stood. He opened his mouth to protest but her smirk silenced him. Maverick watched her as she slowly and methodically peeled her jeans down her legs, revealing the mangled skin of her leg beneath. His eyes shot to her leg and then latched on to her gaze. She watched him back carefully. The heat in his eyes never dimmed and she was thankful that he obviously still found her beautiful. Her shame would forever be embedded into her very skin, but his touch could wash it all away. If only for a little while. She walked closer until his hands reached out and slid along her skin, grazing her scars gently and almost reverently. Slowly, she lowered herself onto his exposed hardness with a silent gasp. His eyes were blazing and his breaths were labored as he thrust up into her. She watched him back— eyes never leaving his. He didn't look at her like one might look at a monster, but instead he gazed at her as if she were the answer to every question he'd ever had.
Freya
The following day was significantly better than the ones before it. She knew it had everything to do with Maverick and the heated moments they had shared on the cliff-side the day before.
He had seen her scars and instead of grilling her about the how and the why, he seemed to understand that she needed something else at that moment. In the back of her mind though, Freya couldn't banish the small feeling of guilt that seemed to hover like a cloud over her otherwise sunny day. Every time her mind had wandered to the feel of Mavs lips on hers and the caress of his strong hands over her skin, Sebastian's blue eyes would invade her mind. She knew it was stupid to worry about her lost love out of some misplaced loyalty. He hated her and she knew it. Still, her heart ached for the boy she had pined for all of those years. The boy whom she thought she might marry one day if given the chance. That life had flown right out the window, along with any future she had hoped to plan for herself.
Freya left her cabin that next morning, heading for the dining hall to grab some breakfast. After eating her daily apple and downing a glass of orange juice, she was just happy that she had made it through the meal without leaving with hair full of someone's beverage. She left and passed the cabins, following a dirt path through the camp that led to the recreation center. It was a large wooden building with an 'A' framed roof and a deck that circled its perimeter.
Inside, there were four large rooms, one for arts and crafts, one that held a small gym, another held a small library until finally reaching the writing room. Ten tables spread out through the space, each having two worn looking chairs in front of them. A large blue bin sat at the head of the room with a slit carved into the top of it. Campers were encouraged to stop by at least once or twice during their stay to write letters that would be sent home weekly for their parents to read and enjoy.
Freya knew that her parents wouldn't want to hear from her, but she could think of another who just might. She took a seat in the b
ack of the room, making a point to ignore the odd glare here and there as other random campers took notice. Even after all this time it was still hard to get used to the blatant hatred that burned in the eyes of her every peer. With pen and paper at the ready, Freya's thoughts flowed from her fingertips.
Carmen,
Hey Car.
How's everything?
Pretty shitty I bet.
I'm sorry...that's not what I'm trying to say at all. I need to tell you that I'm sorry. I messed up. I hope you can forgive me someday because I don't know what I'd do otherwise. I miss you every single day and camp just isn't the same without you guys.
I keep waking up in the cabin wanting to yell at Mina for keeping the lights on only to find Phee sitting in her place... I think you'd like Phee through, Car. She's loud and embarrassing just like you. Don't tell anyone this but I have a theory that she and Sam are together...like, very together. At least I hope they are. Everyone deserves a little bit of happiness in this messed up world. Everyone except for me, that is. I've tried to search for the words that would make this all better but I know they don't exist. What I did to you... to all of you is unforgivable.
