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I toss the blanket off me and get out of the bed with the phone still pressed to my ear. I know that I have to do this, to tell her what Damon did. I have to. Not only would she never forgive me later when she found out, but I would never forgive myself. If the tables were turned I would want her to tell me.
But not over the phone. This is a mandatory face-to-face discussion.
“Can you meet me for coffee in an hour?”
Silence.
“Uhh, yeah, sure. Are you sure you’re alright? I was so worried. I thought you got kidnapped or something.”
“Natalie, yes, I’m …” I’m totally not fine. “Yes, I’m fine, OK. Just meet me in an hour and please come alone.”
“Damon’s passed out at his house,” she says and I detect the grin in her voice. “Girl, he did things to me last night I never knew he could do.”
I shudder at her words. They’re like screaming entities blaring at me on the other end of the phone but I have to pretend they’re just words.
“I mean I couldn’t even think about sex until I knew you were OK. You wouldn’t answer your cell so I called your mom at like three and she said you were asleep in your bed. I was still so worried because you just left and—”
“One hour,” I interrupt before she goes off on another tangent.
We hang up and the first thing I do is look at the missed calls on my phone. Six were from Natalie, but the other nine were from Damon. The only voicemails though were left by Natalie. I guess Damon didn’t want to leave any incriminating evidence behind.
Not that I need evidence. Natalie and I have been best friends since the bitch stole my Corduroy Cool Barbie Doll at a sleepover.
I’m fidgeting by the time she shows up and have drunk down over half of my latte. She plops down on the empty chair. I wish she wasn’t smiling so much; it’s only making it that much harder.
“You look like hell, Cam.”
“I know.”
She blinks, stunned.
“What? No sarcastic ‘thanks’ followed by your famous rolling eyes?”
Please stop smiling, Nat. Please, just take my strange UNsmiling behavior serious for once and look at me with a serious face.
Of course, she doesn’t.
“Look, I’m just going to cut right to it, OK?”
There it is: finally the smile starts to fade.
I swallow and take a deep breath. God, I can’t believe this happened!
“Cam, what’s going on?” She senses the severe measure of what I’m about to tell her and I can see in her brown eyes how already she’s trying to figure out if this is something she wants to hear, or not. I think she knows it has something to do with Damon.
I see the lump move down the center of her throat.
“Last night, I was out on the roof with Blake—”
Her worried face is suddenly assaulted by smiles. It’s as if she’s grabbing a hold of the opportunity to mask the inevitable news with something she can joke around about.
But I stop her before she has a chance to comment.
“Just listen to me for a minute, OK?”
Finally, I’ve reached her. The natural playful spirit that always exudes from her face drains right out of her.
I go on:
“Damon thought Blake took me out on the roof to have his way with me. He stormed out and blew up on Blake; beat the shit out of him. Blake left understandably pissed off and then it was just me and Damon. Alone.”
Natalie’s eyes are already giving away her fears. It’s like she knows what I’m going to say and she’s starting to quietly hate me for it.
“Damon forced himself on me, Nat.”
Her eyes grow narrower.
“He kissed me and tried to tell me he’s had a thing for me since seventh grade.”
I can tell her heartbeat has sped up just by how heavy her short breaths have become.
“I wanted to tell you—”
“You’re a lying bitch.”
I feel punched in the gut again, except this time it completely knocks the breath out of me.
Natalie shoots up from the chair, shoulders her purse and glares down at me through ravenous dark eyes framed by equally dark hair.
I still can’t move, stunned by what she said to me.
“You’ve wanted Damon since I started dating him,” she hisses down at me. “You don’t think I’ve seen it all these years, the way you look at him?” Her mouth stretches into a hard line. “Shit, Camryn, you’re always taking up for him, bitchin’ at me when I joke around about other guys.” She starts motioning her hands out in front of her and imitating me in an exaggerated, nasally voice: “You’ve got a boyfriend, Nat—Don’t forget about Damon, Nat—You should think about Damon.” She slams her palms down on the table, causing the table to sway precariously side to side on its base before becoming still again. “Stay away from me and away from Damon.” She points her finger in my face. “Or I swear to God, I will beat you senseless.”
She walks away and right out the tall double glass doors, the ringing of the little bell at the top of the door echoes around the space.
Once I finally snap out of the shock, I notice about three customers watching me from their tables. Even the barista behind the counter looks away when my eyes fall on her. I just look down at the table, letting the patterns in the wood grain move around in my unfocused vision. I rest my head in my hands and sit here for the longest time.
Twice I go to call her, but force myself to stop and just set the phone back on the table.
How did this happen? Years of inseparable friendship—I cleaned up after the girl’s stomach bug for Christ’s sake!—and she tosses me out like moldy leftovers. She’s just hurting, I try to tell myself. She’s just in denial right now and I need to give her time to let the truth sink in. She’ll come around, she’ll dump his ass and she’ll apologize to me and drag me back to The Underground looking to find both of us new guys. But I don’t really believe anything I’m saying, or rather, the less rational, wounded part of me won’t let me see past the angry red.
A customer walks by, a tall older man in a wrinkled suit, and sneaks a glance at me before walking out. I’m totally humiliated. I look up again and catch the same pairs of eyes as before looking, only to look away. I feel like I’m being pitied. And I hate being pitied.
I grab my purse from the floor, stand up and throw the strap sloppily over my shoulder and storm out almost as indignantly as Natalie had.
It’s been a week and I haven’t heard a word from Natalie. I did eventually break down and try to call her—several times—but her voicemail always picked up. And the last time I called, she had changed her greeting to: Hi, this is Nat. If you’re a friend—a real friend—then leave me a message and I’ll call you back, otherwise, don’t bother. I wanted to reach through the phone then and punch her in the face, but I settled with chucking it across the room.
So, I stopped calling. I purposely avoided our favorite coffee shop and settled with the crap at the closest convenience store and I went two miles out of my way to go into my job interview at Dillard’s, just so I didn’t have to drive past Natalie’s apartment.
I got the job. An assistant manager’s position—my mom put in a good word for me; she’s good friends with Mrs. Phillips, the lady who hired me—but I’m as excited about working at a department store as I am about drinking this craptastic coffee every morning.
And it hits me as I sit at the kitchen table and watch my bleach-blonde mom sift her way through the refrigerator: I’m no longer moving out on my own and in with my best friend. I’m going to either have to find an apartment and live by myself, or be stuck here for a while longer with my mother until Natalie comes to her senses. Which might be never. Or, it might take so long that I become unforgiving and tell her to screw off when she does.
The room feels like it’s swaying.
“I’m going out with Roger tonight,” my mom says behind the refrigerator door. She lifts up from leaning inside and looks across at me, wearing too much eye shadow. “You met Roger, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I met Roger.” Really I didn’t, or maybe I did, but I’m getting his name mixed up with the last five guys she’s gone out on a date with in the past month. She signed up to one of those weird speed-dating things. And she sure speeds right through these guys, so I guess the term is literal in her case.
“He’s a nice guy. It’s my third date with him.”
I squeeze out a smile. I want my mom to be happy even if it means getting remarried, which is something that scares me to death. I love my dad—I’m Daddy’s little girl—but what he did to my mom is unforgivable. Ever since the divorce four months ago, my mom has been this strange woman who I only know halfway anymore. It’s like she reached inside a drawer that has been locked for thirty years and pulled out the personality she used to wear before she met my dad and had me and my brother, Cole. Except that it doesn’t really fit anymore, but she tries her damnedest every day to wear it.
“He’s already talking about taking me on a cruise.” Her face lights up just thinking about it.
I close the lid on my laptop. “Don’t you think three dates is a little soon for a cruise?”
She purses her lips and waves the notion away. “No baby, it’s just right. He has plenty of money so to him it’s as casual as taking me to dinner.”
I just look away and nibble on the edge of the sandwich I made, though I’m not at all hungry.
“Don’t forget about Saturday,” she says as she starts to load the dishwasher, which is a surprise.
“Yeah, I know, Mom.” I sigh and shake my head. “Though I might take a rain check this time.”
Her back straightens up and she looks right at me.
“Baby, you promised you’d go,” she says desperately, tapping her nails nervously on the countertop. “You know I don’t like going inside that jail by myself.”
“It’s prison, Mom.” I casually pick off a few pieces of bread crust and drop them on the plate. “And they can’t get to you; they’re all locked up, just like Cole. And it’s their own damn faults.”
My mom lowers her eyes and a huge ball of burning hot guilt knots up in my stomach.
I sigh deeply. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say that.”
I totally meant what I said, just not out loud and to her because it hurts her whenever I talk about my older brother, Cole, and his five-year sentence in prison for killing a man in a drunk-driving accident. This happened just six months after Ian died in the car accident.
I feel like I’m losing everybody …
I get up from the table and stand in front of the bar and she goes back to loading the dishwasher.
“I’ll go with you, OK?”
She pushes out a smile still masked by a thin layer of hurt, and she nods. “Thanks, baby.”
I feel sorry for her. It breaks my heart that my dad cheated on her after twenty-two years of marriage.
But we all saw it coming.
And to think, my parents tried to keep Ian and me away from each other when I confided in my mom at sixteen, telling her that we were in love.
Parents have this twisted belief that anyone under the age of about twenty simply can’t know what love is, like the age to love is assessed in the same way the law assesses the legal age to drink. They think that the ‘emotional growth’ of a teenager’s mind is too underdeveloped to understand love, to know if it’s ‘real’ or not.
That’s completely asinine.
The truth is that adults love in different ways, not the only way. I loved Ian in the now, the way he looked at me, how he made my stomach swim, how he held my hair when I was puking my guts up after eating a bad enchilada.
That’s love.
I adore my parents, but long before their divorce the last time my mom was sick, the most my dad did for her was bring up the Pepto-Bismol and ask where the remote control was on his way out.
Whatever.
I guess my parents really screwed me up somewhere along the line because as good as they are to me, as much as they do for me and as much as I love them, I still managed to grow up terrified I would end up just like them. Unhappy and only pretending to live out this wonderful life with two kids, a dog and a white picket fence. But in reality, I knew they slept with their backs facing each other. I knew my mom often thought about what life would’ve been like if only she had given that boy in high school who she secretly ‘loved’ another chance. (I read her old diary. I know all about him.) I know that my dad—before he cheated on Mom with her—thought a lot about Rosanne Hartman, his prom date (and first love), who still lives over on Wiltshire.
If anyone’s delusional about how love works, what real love feels like, it’s the majority of the adult population.
Ian and I didn’t have sex that night he took my virginity; we made love that night. I never thought I’d say those two words together: ‘make love’, because they always sounded corny, like it was an adult-only phrase. I winced when I heard someone else say it, or when that guy sang Feel Like Makin’ Love from my dad’s car stereo every morning on the classic rock station.
But I can say it because that’s exactly what happened.
And it was magical and wonderful and awesome and nothing will ever compare to it. Ever.
I started my job as assistant manager the following Monday. I’m grateful to have a job because I don’t want to live off my dad’s money the rest of my life, but as I stood there dressed in a cute black pants suit and white button-up shirt and heels, I felt completely out of place. Not necessarily because of the clothes, but … I just don’t belong there. I can’t put my finger on it, but that Monday and the rest of that week when I woke up, got dressed and walked into that store, something was itching the back part of my consciousness. I couldn’t hear the actual words, but it felt like: This is your life, Camryn Bennett. This is your life.
And I would look up at the customers walking by and all I could see was the negative: snooty noses in the air, carrying expensive purses, buying pointless products.
That was when I realized that everything I did from that point on produced the same results:
This is your life, Camryn Bennett. This is your life.
Five
The day when everything changed was yesterday.
That itch in my brain compelled me to get up. And so I did. It told me to put on my shoes, pack a small bag with a few necessities and grab my purse. And so I did.
There was no logic or any sense of purpose except that I knew I had to do something other than what I was doing, or I might not make it through this. Or, I might end up like my parents.
I always thought that depression was so overrated, the way people toss the word around (a lot like the L-word that I will never say to a guy again for as long as I live). I never like to see someone hurting, but I admit whenever I heard someone play the depression card, I’d roll my eyes and go about my business.
Little did I know that depression is a serious disease.
It’s not only about sadness. In truth, sadness really has little to do with it. Depression is pain in its purest form and I would do anything to be able to feel an emotion again. Any emotion at all. Pain hurts, but pain that’s so powerful that you can’t feel anything anymore, that’s when you start to feel like you’re going crazy.
It bothers me immensely to realize that the last time I actually cried was that day at school when I found out that Ian was killed in that crash. It was in Damon’s arms that I cried. Damon, of all people.
But that was the last time I ever shed a tear and that was a little over a year ago.
After that, I just couldn’t anymore. Not over my parents’ divorce, or when Cole got sentenced, or when Damon showed his true colors, or when Natalie stabbed me in the back. I keep thinking that any day now I’m going to break down and bawl my eyes out with my face buried in my pillow. I should be puking from crying so much.
But it never comes and I still feel nothing, except this sense of breaking free from it all. That itch, although vague and stingy, compels me to obey it. I don’t know why, I can’t explain it, but it’s there and I can’t stop myself from listening to it.
I spent most of the night at the bus station, sitting there waiting for that itch to tell me what to do.
And then I walked up to the counter.
“Can I help you?” the woman said blankly.
I thought about it for a second and said, “I’m going to see my sister in Idaho because she just had a baby.”
She looked at me awkwardly, and I admit, it felt awkward. I don’t have a sister and I’ve never been to Idaho, but it was the first lie that popped into my head. And she had been eating a baked potato. It was sitting behind the counter in a buttery bowl of foil and sour cream. So, naturally Idaho was the first state I thought of. It doesn’t matter where I choose to go really, because I just don’t care.
I thought, once I get to Idaho I’ll just buy another ticket to somewhere else. Maybe I’ll go to California. Or Washington. Or, maybe I’ll just head south and see what Texas is like. I always imagined it a giant landscape of dirt and roadside bars and cowboy hats. And people in Texas are supposed to be some kind of badasses, or something. Maybe they’ll stomp the crap out of me with their cowboy boots.
I won’t feel it. I don’t feel anything anymore, remember?
That was yesterday, when I decided to just get up and go, to break free from everything. I had always wanted to do it, to break free, but I never imagined it happening like this. Ian and I, before he died, planned our life in an unconventional way. We wanted to steer clear of anything predictable, anything that made us the same drones of society that get up at the same time every morning and duplicate yesterday. We wanted to backpack across the world—it’s why I brought it up to Natalie that day in the coffee shop. Maybe a part of me hoped she’d share the passion for the idea that Ian and I had and she’d do it with me, but like everything else, it didn’t exactly turn out like I hoped.
Tennessee slips by my window in a blur. Night falls and I eventually fall asleep, too. I don’t have any dreams; haven’t had a single dream since Ian died, but it’s probably better that way. If I have dreams they might provoke emotion and I’m done with emotion. I’m starting to get used to this feeling of not caring about anything. Aside from a few shady bus station dwellers, I’m really not afraid of anything anymore. I guess when you just don’t care it kind of makes fear your bitch.
I never used to curse this much, either.
I ride all the way to Kansas with the double-seats to myself, finally getting to lay more horizontally across the seats instead of upright with my face pressed against the window.
Everything looks the same. Between home and Missouri, it seems the only things that change are the license plates. There’s always a hitchhiker and a guy wearing a wife-beater carrying a gas can from his truck to the nearest exit where all the gas stations and fast food restaurants congregate. And there’s always, always a single shoe on the shoulder somewhere.
The two hours drag by endlessly and when my next bus finally pulls into the station, I’m among the first small group of people to get up and stand in line. At least the seats on the bus have padding and I’ll be able to get somewhat comfortable again.
The bus driver reaches out for my ticket and tears off his portion, handing the rest back to me. I tuck it safely down into my bag and board the bus, searching both rows of seats to find the one that feels like the one. I take a window seat near the back and instantly feel better once my body hits the comfort of the padding beneath me. I sigh and hold my bag close against my stomach, crossing my arms over it. It takes ten minutes or so for the bus driver to be satisfied that he has all of the passengers he’s supposed to have for this round.
The driver goes to close the doors but then pulls back on the lever and they squeal open again. A guy gets on carrying a black duffle bag on his shoulder. Tall, stylish short brown hair and he’s wearing a tight-fitting navy tee and a sort of crooked smile that could either be genuinely kind, or something more confident. “Thanks,” he says to the driver in that laid-back way.
Even though there are plenty of empty seats for him to choose from, I still make it a point to slide my bag over onto the one next to me, just in case he decides it’s the one for him. It’s not likely, I know, but I’m a just-in-case kind of girl. The doors squeal shut again as the guy walks down the aisle toward me. I look down into the magazine that I’d found inside the terminal and start reading an article about Brangelina.
I sigh with relief when he passes me up and takes the pair of empty seats behind me.
I doze off after staring out the window next to me for an hour.
Muffled headphone music blaring right behind me wakes me up sometime after dark.
At first, I just sit here, hoping maybe he’ll notice the top of my now fully awake head bobbing over the seat and decide to turn the music down.
But he doesn’t.
I lean up, reaching back to rub a crooked muscle in my neck from sleeping on my arm and then I turn around to look at him. Is he asleep? How can anyone actually sleep with music blasting in their ears like that? The bus is pitch dark except for a couple of dim reading lights shining down onto books and magazines from above the passengers’ seats and the little green and blue lights at the front of the bus in the driver’s dashboard. The guy sitting behind me is covered by darkness but I can see one side of his face lit up by the moonlight.
I contemplate it for a second and then push myself up with my knees on the seat and I lean over the back of it, reaching out and tapping him on the leg.
He doesn’t move. I tap him harder. He stirs and slowly opens his eyes, looking up at me hanging over the top of the seat.
He reaches up and pulls the earbuds from out of his ears, letting the music funnel from the tiny speakers.
“Mind turning it down a little?”
“You could hear that?” he says.
I raise a brow and say, “Uhhh, yeah, it’s pretty loud.”
He shrugs and thumbs the MP3 player for the volume button and the music fades.
“Thanks,” I say and slide back down in my seat.
I don’t lie down across the seats in the fetal position this time, but lean against the bus and press my head back against the window. I cross my arms and close my eyes.
“Hey.”
My eyes pop open, but I don’t move my head.
“Are you asleep yet?”
I raise my head from the window and look up to see the guy hovering over me.
“I literally just closed my eyes,” I say. “How can I already be asleep?”
“Well, I don’t know,” he whispers. “My granddad could fall asleep in two seconds flat after closing his eyes.”
“Was your granddad narcoleptic?”
There’s a pause. “Not that I know of.”
Wow, this is awkward.
“What do you want?” I ask as quietly as he had.
“Nothing,” he says grinning down at me. “Just wanted to know if you were asleep yet.”
“Why?”
“So I can turn the music back up.”
I think about it for a second, uncross my arms and lift the rest of the way from the seat, turning at the waist so that I can see him.
“You want to wait until I’m asleep to turn the music back up so that you can wake me up again?” I’m having a hard time getting this.
He smiles a crooked smile.
“You slept for three hours without it waking you up,” he says. “So, I’m guessing it wasn’t my music that did it, must’ve been something else.”
My eyebrows draw together. “No, I’m pretty sure I know it was the music that did it.”