Reclaim

by Martinez, Aly

  I drew in a shaky breath and stared at his hand. “But what if—”

  “No what-ifs. You don’t have to trust me now. I’ll prove it to you. As long as you can tolerate me, I’ll always be around.”

  Guilt iced my veins, and my head snapped up, an apology poised on the tip of my tongue.

  But he was smiling. His gorgeous, blue eyes danced in the sunlight. Camden Cole, in the flesh, tall and strong, was standing in front of me, telling me all the things I’d never even dared to dream.

  I couldn’t get my pinky hooked with his fast enough. “Friends. True friends.”

  Using our joined pinkies, he gave my hand a tug. “Thanks for telling me about your mom. I won’t tell anyone. I promise.”

  I chewed on the inside of my lip. “Yeah. That’d be good. I don’t talk about her much. It’s kinda weird.”

  He shrugged and never let go of my hand. “No weirder than my dad asking me if I was gay on the drive here.”

  “What?” I half laughed, half shrieked.

  “Yeah. Fun story. I told my grandma about you and how much I wanted to come back, thinking she’d be able to convince my parents. Well, she told my mom, and then by the time the story got back to my dad, there was a kid that I hunted worms with who she thought I had a crush on.”

  I dropped his pinky so fast you would have thought I’d been electrocuted. “Wh-why would they think that?”

  “I don’t know. But let’s just say Dad was super relieved to hear you were a Nora and not a Norman.”

  Nervous laughter bubbled from my throat. “That’s crazy.” I tucked a piece of hair behind my ear, but since my hair was in a ponytail, it wasn’t a real piece of hair and I just looked like a fool.

  “Meh, whatever. He winked and told me I don’t have to be home until nine tonight, so I’m not complaining. So, what are we going to do first today, friend?”

  Oh, shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Of all the days for Camden to come back.

  “Actually, I, um, have to go soon.”

  “What? Why? I just got here.”

  “I know, but I kinda sorta have a date.”

  He wasn’t fast enough to hide his wince. “Oh.”

  “Yeah, I mean, it’s nothing big. We’ve been talking for a little while. He’s gonna make a picnic for us tonight.”

  “Oh,” he repeated.

  “Yeah. Probably just sandwiches and stuff. No big deal.” I nodded so many times that I must have looked like a bobblehead.

  He stared off into the distance over my head. “Maybe you’ll get lucky and he’ll bring you ham, pickle, and mustard.”

  My stomach knotted.

  “Maybe,” I replied, wishing the awkwardness would go ahead and swallow me already. Anything had to be better than this.

  There was literally no reason for me to be uncomfortable talking about this with Camden. Friends could go on dates with other people. Especially when said friends had just come back after a year of me kinda-sorta-not-really hating him. Sure, he was more grown up and hot now. But that was neither here nor there.

  “All right. Well, have fun, I guess. I’m gonna stay here until it’s time to go back. That way, my grandpa can’t put me to work until tomorrow. Hey, can I get the ten back before you go?”

  My back shot straight, and a wave of panic stole my breath. “You’re taking it back because I’m going on a date?”

  He barked a laugh, deep and rich. “I’m not taking it back, crazy. I’m writing my address on it. And you have to do the same. That way, if I get into another Royal Rumble or you decide to take up that hitchhiking you bring up so much—seriously, what’s that about? We’ll always have a way to find each other.”

  I smiled, and for the first time in almost a year, it wasn’t fake. And it was such an overwhelming rush that my hands shook as I passed it back to him.

  “Heads or tails?” he asked, turning the bill in his hand.

  “Heads,” I whispered.

  “Good choice,” he murmured. Flattening the bill across my shoulder so he could bear down, he wrote his address and phone number in Alberton just above the image of the US Treasury. “There.” He handed it back to me along with the pen and offered up his shoulder in return.

  I blushed as he peered down at me while I wrote my address and Thea’s phone number beside Alexander Hamilton’s photo. It was unnerving to be that close to him, but it also felt so ridiculously comfortable, like it was the most natural thing in the world.

  “Leaning Oak Drive, huh?” he asked, smiling down at me, his mouth only inches away from mine.

  My breath caught, and unable to find coherent words with him that close, I nodded.

  We stared at each other for a long beat, making no effort to move away, his hypnotizing blue eyes holding me captive.

  His Adam’s apple bobbed, and I licked my lips.

  I didn’t know what was running through his mind in that second. But I knew what was running through mine. And it had not one damn thing to do with me going on a date with Josh Caskey.

  Camden cleared his throat and suddenly walked away, leaving me standing there, holding our ten-dollar bill in midair, the pen still poised over it.

  “How long until you have to leave?” he asked, walking to the same big rock he’d spent at least half of last summer perched on top.

  “Like an hour.”

  He smiled. “All right. Well, fill me in on all things Nora Stewart before you go.”

  Now, that I could do.

  Camden stripped leaves on the rock beside me while we caught up. I strategically left out all the pissed-off, bitter, and depressing parts of my year. It didn’t leave a lot to be told. He filled me in on the happenings in Alberton. To hear him tell it, it still stunk literally and figuratively. He hadn’t had much luck in the making-friends department, but he’d read a couple of really cool books. This digressed into long, animated stories of complex sci-fi plots I didn’t care about in the least.

  But I listened, rapt and with a smile on my face, for no other reason than it was Camden talking. He was so excited to tell me about aliens and distant planets he didn’t even notice when I slipped the ten-dollar bill into his pocket.

  I’d really missed that nerd.

  Choices. Everyone makes them.

  And my choice that day was to leave the best, truest friend I’d ever had to go out on a date with a boy I no longer cared about in any way, shape, or form.

  And in a matter of hours, that choice would ruin us all.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Josh hissed as he opened his grand front door complete with two golden lion head knockers. I’d always thought they were hideous and kind of snobby, but so was the six-foot-tall iron fence that surrounded the mayor’s mansion. In a world where you could buy anything, why get golden lion head knockers? Being rich must have been weird.

  I smiled at my date. “I had to pass here to get to the baseball field. I figured we could walk together.”

  Josh slid outside and quietly shut the door behind him. “Have you lost your mind? People might see us.”

  “Excuse me?”

  He nervously glanced around. “Ramsey can’t find out about us. You’re still in middle school. And if people see you over here, you know word will get back to him before you can sneak back home tonight.”

  “Why are you so worried about Ramsey? I bet if we just talked to him, he—”

  “Nobody can know!” he whisper-yelled. “I already told you that, like, a million times.”

  “Okay, okay. Sorry. Relax.”

  He let out an irritated huff. “Just go wait for me in the dugout. I need to grab my stuff. You didn’t tell anyone where we were going, right?”

  I rocked back on my heels, not at all impressed with his tone. “No.”

  “Good. Now, get out of here, and I’ll meet you there.”

  I nodded, and as soon as I turned away, I rolled my eyes. Great. He was in a bad mood. Just what every girl dreamed of on their first real date. I should have just canceled and hu
ng out with Camden or not shown up at all. I’d felt like a jerk leaving him at the creek on his first day back, and if I was being honest with myself, that’s where I would have rather been anyway.

  I’d spent months obsessing over Josh. Did he like me? Did he think I was pretty? Did he want to be my boyfriend? I liked that he was older and part of the cool crowd. He was super cute in a football uniform and soccer uniform and baseball uniform.

  But he wasn’t Camden, and at first, that had been his greatest quality.

  Now that Cam was back though…

  But Camden returning was temporary. In a few months, he’d be gone again and I’d be alone in Clovert again, for an entire school year without him. No, Josh wasn’t currently ready for people to find out about our relationship/non-relationship. But he’d get there eventually. And when Camden inevitably left, life would be a lot easier if I still had a way to fit in. Josh was that ticket for me.

  Though, if he was in a crap mood and we rushed through this picnic in time for me to get back to the creek before nine, I wouldn’t be too upset.

  I waited for at least fifteen minutes before Josh came sauntering into the dugout with a duffel bag thrown over his shoulder. His blond hair feathered out from beneath a Clovert High baseball cap and not surprisingly, he had on his summer uniform of a polo shirt and cargo shorts.

  “Hey,” he said, setting his bag down on the bench beside me.

  “You know we can hang out somewhere other than the baseball field, right?”

  “I thought you liked it here.”

  Yeah. A stinky, dirty dugout where during baseball games over a dozen sweaty boys sat trapped like caged animals. Every girl’s dream.

  I looked at my watch. It was only six. I still had about three hours before Camden had to be home. “No. It’s fine. Soo…what’d you bring for our picnic?”

  “Shit,” he breathed, snatching his cap off. He ran a hand through the top of his hair before turning it around and replacing it on his head backward. “I forgot to pack food.”

  “Oh,” was what I said. Jesus Christ, seriously? was what I thought.

  “But hey, look what I did bring?” He dug through his bag and pulled out his phone. “I need a new picture of my girl for my wallet.”

  I usually swooned when he called me his girl. That night, I just rolled my eyes. Maybe I was the one in the bad mood and not him.

  “Don’t you already have one of those?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “Yeah, you’re probably right. But you know what I don’t have?” He lifted a camcorder out of his bag.

  My heart stopped immediately and the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end like some sort of sixth sense, but my brain wasn’t nearly as quick. “Wh-what’s that for?”

  “You know how I like pictures of us and stuff.” He opened the flip screen and angled it just right before setting the camcorder on top of the bat holder at the end of the dugout. “This is better than pictures. This way, when I can’t see you, I can watch the real thing.” He clicked a button and a tiny, red light illuminated at the corner. “Wave to the camera, sexy.”

  It could have been as innocent as he’d said. Just a kid wanting to record funny videos with a girl he liked. But even at a completely inexperienced, naïve twelve, I knew it wasn’t. The alarm bells didn’t just start ringing in my head; they screamed like blood-curdling sirens.

  He prowled toward me, and the smile I’d only weeks ago thought was charming and cute suddenly appeared sinister and cruel.

  I quickly stood up, backing toward the exit on the other end, my pulse thundering in my ears. “You know what? I just remembered I told Ramsey I’d be home by six.”

  “You can be late. I’m sure he’s doing the same thing with Thea.”

  “If I’m not there, he’ll come looking for me.”

  “Not here, he won’t.”

  In a miscalculation that measured in mere inches but would alter the course of my entire life, instead of backing out of the dugout, my back hit the wall.

  He was on me in the very next beat.

  I’d spend years trying to forget that evening.

  The feel of his fingers biting into my flesh.

  The screams burning my throat.

  My back on the cool bench, deep splitters driving into my skin.

  His teeth mauling my neck and shoulders.

  The overwhelming panic of being pinned down beneath him.

  I kicked and hit and punched, but it was useless. I opened drawers in my head at lightning speed, shoving the blistering pain and devastating emotion inside them until I finally gave up. My body went slack as I mentally crawled into a drawer myself like it was a morgue, the absolute darkness my only reprieve.

  I don’t remember a lot about what happened in the minutes after he let me go.

  I know he talked to me, though not everything was clear to my panic-stricken mind.

  He told me how hot I was, how good it had been for him.

  He asked if I’d liked it. I was too frightened to say no, so I nodded.

  He told me not to tell anyone. He winked and said that if I did, he’d show everyone all the pictures and video he’d taken of us over the last few weeks. I wasn’t sure what exactly the camcorder had caught, but I knew how filthy I felt, and I was mortified at the idea of someone else seeing it too.

  Smiling and making chitchat, he was in no rush as he packed his bag up. I was wilting into nothingness, but it was just another take-whatever-you-want day for Josh Caskey.

  Just before leaving, he stopped in front of me, and used one finger to tilt my head back, forcing my gaze to his. “Let me know if you want to hang out again.” He winked and it was all I could do not to throw up on him.

  My whole body shook—trembling all the way down to my soul—as he walked away. The second he disappeared, I took off out of the other side, sprinting as fast as I could in the opposite direction.

  I ran and I ran and I ran, my lungs burning and my feet aching. My dad was lounging on the couch when I got home, but I raced past him.

  The man who should have been my hero would never help me.

  I slammed the door to my room, and when I was positive I was alone, the way God had so clearly intended for me to spend my life, I put my back to it, sinking down so nobody could get inside.

  Only then did I cry.

  She didn’t show up the next day at the creek.

  We’d left things on good terms before her “date.” That sneaky girl had even managed to slip the ten back into my pocket at some point before she took off.

  I might not have known this new, older version of Nora Stewart, but I knew when she was lying or faking a smile, and when she’d left me at the creek, the one gracing her beautiful face was one hundred percent genuine.

  The good news was I didn’t think she was avoiding me.

  The bad news was I still had no idea where she could be.

  I wasn’t jealous or anything, but her boyfriend was a total fucking idiot who would never deserve her. And no, I didn’t need to know what he looked like or who he was to know that.

  Maybe her stupid boyfriend had convinced her I was lying about the way I’d left last summer. Or maybe he just didn’t want her hanging out with me in general. If she’d even told him about me at all.

  He was a douchebag, so I wouldn’t put anything past him.

  Yeah, okay, maybe I was a teensy bit jealous.

  I told myself not to flip out. After all, hadn’t we just had a long conversation about giving each other the benefit of the doubt? She probably had something come up. I tried to preoccupy my swirling mind with scenarios where she’d caught a cold or had to help her family around the house.

  Then I remembered her house.

  And her dad.

  I’d never prayed so hard in my life for someone to have a stuffy nose and a fever.

  I bought worms and turned them in so she didn’t miss out on a day of cash, but when she didn’t show up the next day, either, money was the least of my wor
ries.

  We’d made a deal. If either of us disappeared again, we’d know how to find each other. And being in Clovert and not three hours away in Alberton, I could actually do something about it.

  So, armed with nothing but a Coke, a Snickers, and an indelible memory of how to get to her house, I set out to find her.

  Over a year had passed since I’d been there, but in the daylight, the house looked worse than I recalled. The grass was cut, but weeds had overrun the patches of dirt that I assumed had once been flowerbeds. The tan shutters hung crooked, each one leaning in a different direction, and the post beside the door was completely rotted out. Thankfully, her dad’s truck wasn’t in the driveway, but even if it had been, that wouldn’t have stopped me from getting to her.

  Rocking from one foot to the other, I knocked on the door and then cleared my throat. I was nervous, and she was probably going to yell at me for worrying, but the last two days without her had been miserable. I was more than willing to take my tongue lashing if it got her to come back.

  The door cracked open with a deafening creak, a single brown eye appearing in the one-inch gap.

  I leaned to the side so she could see me and waved because what the hell else was I going to do with my sweaty palms? “Hi!”

  “Camden?” she breathed, pulling the door wide, a mixture of surprise and embarrassment heating her cheeks. “What are you doing here?”

  I thrust the Coke in front of me, saving the candy bar in my back pocket in case I needed a backup bribe. “I brought you this.”

  Stepping outside, she attempted to shut the door behind her, but it jammed and she had to tug it three times to get it to close. I narrowed my eyes at her sweatpants and oversized hoodie. It had to have been a hundred degrees that day.