NORMAL (41 page)

I hesitate. Rationally I know he's right. But Robin was my first date, my first kiss. My only romantic encounters. "That shit", as Cam calls it... it's all I know. And none of it is Cam's fault.

I reach up to caress his devastated face, to offer him comfort. "I know you won't listen to me, Cam, but I mean it, this just wasn't your fault. Not even a moment of it was your fault." Like I predicted, he doesn't listen. His features are still shrouded in guilt as he looks down. "You even told me to say 'no' when he asked me out, remember?"

But he doesn't respond. He doesn't even hear me.

It's only then that I realize that when I reached out to touch him, the movement caused my sweatpants to ride down just a bit. Cam has noticed the small white piece of medical tape peeking out from my waistband. This time he doesn't ask for permission, silently or otherwise. He gently grasps the cotton and slides it down, just a little. He swallows nervously when he sees the bandage, and realizes it just keeps going and going. When he reveals my panty line, he finally meets my gaze.

He says nothing as he slides his fingers softly over to my left hip, and pulls my waistband down so that they still cover the most intimate part of me, but my whole hip is exposed.

Not long ago, he was kissing me, and it was the best kiss of my life. It was the best
anything
of my life, and I wanted more. Now I'm sitting topless in front of him, my pants pushed down, my hip bare, and I wonder if, for him, our kiss is now long forgotten. I can't believe he can see me that way anymore. Certainly not right now. And the irony is that his kiss was the only thing that made me forget all about Robin and what he did to me, the only thing that distracted me.

"Cam..." I whisper, but he says nothing.

He carefully peels back the tape and removes the bandage.

He swallows his gasp.

I look down and see that my cut is already healing. I could probably even remove the butterfly bandages and just cover it with gauze. Cam slides his finger gently down my hip, alongside the cut, careful not to touch it.

"What the fuck..." His voice is a whisper. His eyes don't lift from my hip. I know he's trying to temper back any major reaction, but the furrow of his brow, the clench of his jaw, and the wetness in his eyes give him away.

A full minute passes before he meets my gaze again. I don't speak. I wait. I don't know what's left to say.

"He use a knife on you, Rory?" Cam asks hoarsely.

"No."

"
God
, Rory!" He jumps up and starts pacing again. I hurriedly grab the gauze and replace it on top of my injury, knowing as long as it's visible, Cam will never let it go. I pull my pants back in place.

I'm startled when he turns away from me and slams his fist into the wall at full force, obliterating the sheetrock in its way.

"Cam!" I shoot up off the bed, but before I can even reach him he throws two more punches until there is a gaping hole in his bedroom wall.

I grab his bicep to stop him and he turns to me, enraged. I jump back. I've seen Cam mad, but never this mad.

Cam is beside himself that he's frightened me, but I'm not afraid of him, I'm afraid
for
him. I can see his knuckles have already begun to swell.

He thrusts his fingers into his hair and pulls. He's jumping out of his own skin, at a loss for what to do with his fury, unable to unleash it in front of me because of my pathetic reactions.

He turns away from me and takes several deep breaths to calm himself before staggering over to the corner of his bedroom and sitting on the floor, knees bent, with his elbows resting atop them, his head hanging down, his hands in his hair.

"How, Rory? How did you get that fuckin' gash? Is there anything else? Where else did he hurt you? Tell me everything. No more hidin'. Please, I can't take anymore. Just get it all out, whatever else there is. Now. Please, Ror. Just tell me, please." He's rambling and begging and I'm destroyed by his pain. I'm not sure I've done the right thing for Cam by telling him any of this at all. But it's too late to turn back now, he's seen the cut, and truly, there is nothing else, and I can't know what other horrors he must be imagining.

I walk tentatively to where he's sitting. I don't know if he hears me approach, but I'm afraid to sit too close, afraid how he'll react when I tell him this last part, and I don't want him to have to hold in his steam for fear of frightening me. I sit down on the floor a few feet away, facing him, and lean against his bed. He doesn't lift his head.

"He tried to rip off my underwear like-" I'm about to say "like usual" again, but Cam has said how it affects him to hear me talk about these things so matter of factly, so I catch myself. "I had my uniform on, so they were covered by my spankies. He couldn't just tear through them and he got real frustrated. He, uh, used his house key."

I'm aware of Cam's knuckles fisting in his hair, so tight they're turning white.

"I don't know if he even knew he was cuttin' me. He was just tryin' to get them off," I offer. I'm defending Robin.
Why the hell am I defending Robin?

All of a sudden, Cam shoots up from his corner. "Stay here," he murmurs, and stalks toward the door.

"Cam-" I go after him, of course I do. He stops in the doorway and turns; I nearly smack into him.

"I'll be right back, I promise. I don't want to scare you, Rory girl, and I just really need to yell and hit something right now, okay?" He follows my gaze to the giant hole in the wall he'd made just minutes earlier.

"Something else," he amends, and then leaves, roughly closing the door behind him.

****

I cry face down on Cam's comforter that right now offers me no comfort whatsoever. I know Cam's in the garage taking it all out on a punching bag. I can hear his yells and grunts, and he doesn't stop for at least thirty minutes, and neither do my tears.

I don't hear him reenter, but I feel the bed dip as he sits beside me. I turn my head to find him shirtless and dripping with sweat and am reminded that I'm still topless but for my bra. Cam's holding a first aid kid.

"You gonna let me redress that?" he asks softly, his fingertips gently grazing the side of my hip over my pants.

"It's fine," I murmur.

"Come on, Ror," he pleads and I relent. He's right. The gauze should be changed. I roll over and sit up, wincing when he starts to roll down my waistband. "These are pressing on the wound, Ror," he chides.

I hold back from spewing some suggestive comment like "so take them off" and let him put ointment on the cut and redress it. I silently grumble to myself about the direction the evening has taken and wallow in resentment over the fact that in such a short span of time, Cam has gone from seeing me as something to be desired, to a pitiful, pathetic, abused puppy.

I shiver when Cam lightly runs his fingers from my hip up my side. He stops under my bra.

"God, you're beautiful," he murmurs as his eyes rake me from head to toe.

I can't help but roll my eyes before glancing down, my gaze lingering on the particularly excessive damage to the limited cleavage of my right breast. I look anything but beautiful.

"I mean it, Ror," he says, obviously guessing the root of my skepticism. His thumb gently brushes over the offending injuries - an especially vibrant bruise flanked by slightly lighter, smaller marks, all just under a perfect mold of Robin's teeth, all in black and blue.

His touch makes me tremble, and it's such an alien feeling - to be trembling from desire and not fear.

"Even with his marks all over you, you're the most beautiful thing I've ever laid eyes on... This?" He strokes my bruises again, then gestures to my cut. "It'll heal, Rory girl, but until it does, it still doesn't change how I look at you. How I've been lookin' at you since we hit fuckin' puberty, okay Ror?"

I blink at him, trying to process how he can find me attractive in this moment, but even more so, trying to figure out how he always knows exactly what it is that I'm thinking. My every concern, my every fear.

Cam leans in slowly, and kisses me softly, but pulls away before I can deepen the kiss, leaving his forehead pressed to mine.

"This sure ain't how I imagined gettin' you topless for the first time," he murmurs, and we both laugh.

"I had no idea you'd ever imagined it at all," I admit, and he laughs again.

"Only every five minutes since we were like twelve," he replies. "And that ain't all, either." He raises his eyebrows suggestively, and instead of laughing, I feel my pulse quicken.

"No?" I ask, willing him to elaborate.

"No," he mouths.

Cam stands abruptly, walks over to his dresser, and takes out his Linton football tee shirt with his last name and his number, twenty two, on the back. He slips it carefully over my head and I push both arms through the sleeves. Cam pulls the rest of it down to cover my waist and hips. Then, he gingerly reaches under the hem for my sweatpants and carefully tugs them down over my hips, and I lift my backside to help him get them down.

The shirt comes almost to mid-thigh, and once he knows I'm comfortable now that my pants aren't pressing on my cut, his hands don't return under the shirt again.

"We're gonna get you all better, Ror. We're gonna deal with Forbes, and everything he did. And then, when the time is right, I'm gonna show you how it's supposed to be when you have a boyfriend. How a man is supposed to treat the girl he loves, okay?"

My throat is completely dry, I can't speak, so I only nod. I wonder how long it will be before Cam decides the time is right. I also wonder what exactly he means about dealing with Robin. I don't want to think about that, though. I only want to think about the rest of it, because the idea of having Cam be my boyfriend, it's thrilling in a way I couldn't have imagined, and yet also calming. Like it was always supposed to be this way.

"When's he supposed to get back?" Cam asks.  

I hesitate, an instantaneous battle waging internally. The need to keep Cam with me, from going after Robin and likely getting arrested, wins out.

"Tomorrow night," I mutter, not meeting his eyes, forcibly resisting the urge bite my lip. I tell myself it isn't really a lie. Robin is
supposed
to get back tomorrow night, he just happened to have come back early. I tell myself that this little semi-fib will give me time to figure out what to do. I know I have to do something, but
what?
File a police report?

Cam takes my hand. "And your parents?" he asks.

"Same." They will
actually
be returning tomorrow evening, as always, and since the storm is expected to rage on until the afternoon, they will probably be back late.

"You have to tell your daddy, you know that, right?" Cam asks meaningfully, and I look down again.

I shake my head. "It won't-"

"Ror, he's the DA. If you go straight to the police it's gonna be passed on to him anyway. I know how hard it is on you, I really do, but I'll be with you the whole time, okay?

"Tomorrow I'm gonna go see Forbes,
alone
, and then we're gonna tell your daddy what he did. He's never gonna hurt you again, I swear to fuckin' God, you hear me?"

He's being so supportive, of course he is. He's always been here for me, my whole life, no matter what's happened, but in this case, I don't think his support is enough. And I can't let him go "see" Robin, I know what that means. But I have all day to prevent that confrontation from taking place, and right now I need Cam to help me figure out how, because obviously my father isn't going to be any help. Not for me, anyway.

"You don't understand," I breathe, pausing to swipe at my tears with the back of my hand. "My daddy, he's not... we gotta figure somethin' else out, okay?"

Cam lifts my chin so that our gazes lock. He doesn't say anything, we are having another one of our silent exchanges. He's asking me what it is I'm holding back and I'm telling him it hurts to say. He doesn't relent, and I know I have to tell him why going to my father isn't an option.

"Look, he's not gonna help me. I already tried, okay?"

Cam narrows his eyes, but doesn't release my chin. "What do you mean?" he asks carefully. I know he's going to get angry all over again, and I question why I'm holding back my own anger. My own father betrayed me, I know it, and yet, every time I think about it, his words haunt me all over again, and I question, for the millionth time, how much of this I actually brought on myself.

"I tried to tell him. No, I
did
tell him. He wanted me to go with Robin this weekend, and I hadn't even asked if I could because I didn't wanna go. But Mayor Forbes told him, I guess, and he told me what a good idea he thought it was to tour the campus since I'd be there next year. I told him I wasn't even sure I wanted to go there and he, uh, told me about Robin talkin' about proposin', and marriage and all that. Said I had to go to Gainesville otherwise Robin and I wouldn't work out...

"I told him that it wasn't what I wanted anyway. But he said that there was somethin' wrong with me, that I was lucky Robin chose me and... I panicked, and I told him! I told him that Robin hurt me, that he forced me.