“No wonder Jake thought you two were together again. Look at the two of you,” my dad comments, reminding me he is still standing in the room with us. Holden doesn’t flinch; he only holds me tighter.
“She’ll always be my girl, Mr. D. If she’s upset, I’m going to be here.” Holden’s words mean more than he can possibly know right now. I need to feel safe right now, and the way he has me securely wrapped in his muscular arms makes me feel like I’m impervious to anything Jake can do to me.
“For Heaven’s sake, was that Jake Waters I saw just walk out of here? Please tell me his god-awful mother isn’t here.” My mom walks through the doors with a handful of papers.
“No, Nora, she isn’t. Let’s get the last of the boxes and lock this place up before they close Route 35.” My dad simply turns around and takes one last look at his pride and joy. “Stay strong, little lady.”
Holden smoothly slides his hand back into mine and leads me out the door behind my parents. “You’re coming with me.”
It’s not a question, and I know there will be no avoiding him, or the barrage of questions I am sure to have ahead of me after my virtual nervous breakdown. His grip on my hand tightens and he pulls us to a sudden stop. “Hey Mr. D, I’m going to bring Cam with me and go take one last look at our houses. Do you need us to get anything else from your place?”
“No, Holden, we’re all set. You two be careful and be sure to call after the storm is over.” He kisses me on my head and shakes Holden’s hand. “Make sure my little girl stays out of trouble. I still don’t like the idea of you staying down here during the storm, even if it is to get a good story.”
“I’ll be careful, Dad. This is a chance of a lifetime! Besides, I would never take risks that would keep me away from Ellie and Sophie, you know that.”
“Be careful, sweetheart. We love you both,” my mom yells, waving from the car, already anxious to get on the road and beat the traffic.
Holden drives us the two miles back to his house without asking me about my freak-out. He is holding my hand in his so tightly, it is almost uncomfortable. I know he is all in his head right now, trying his best to find a logical reason for my panic attack. I can almost hear the questions swirling in his head as he grips the wheel of his car so tightly his knuckles have turned white. When we pull in the driveway, I turn quickly, trying to get out and avoid the inevitable onslaught of questions that are about to explode out of Holden. He immediately grabs my leg, forcing me back down in my seat and looks at me with the most unbelievably vulnerable and pained expression on his face.
“What the hell was that back there, Cam?” He leans his head back in his seat and rubs his other hand through his hair. “You completely freaked out. I thought you were going to faint—your face went as white as a ghost. Why did that happen when you saw Jake? You have to tell me because…” He pauses and clutches his hair so tightly, I’m afraid he’s truly tearing it out. “I have some ideas right now and I’m about to hunt him down and fucking kill him.” He slams his hand against the steering wheel, making me jump in my seat and sending his hand off my leg. The physical separation stings. His touch was calming, something I want so badly right now.
Before I can answer him, there is a loud pounding at his window. Holden leaps up out of his seat and on top of me like he is shielding me from something horrible. Jess is standing there with Dave, high-fiving and laughing at our startled reactions, clearly unaware of the serious conversation they had just interrupted. We both laugh at ourselves and break apart.
“This conversation isn’t over.” Holden’s eyes tell me he is serious. I honestly don’t think I have ever seen him so serious. The confusion he is feeling is searing into me, making me feel things that I don’t want to.
“You guys are such pussies.” Jess opens the door and hands me a beer. “Surprise! We’re having a Hurricane Sandy party at our place tonight. Charlotte is safe and sound at my cousin’s. Dave is off duty until the morning, and you don’t officially have to hunker down until tomorrow either, Cam. So no saying no!”
Saved by Jess again! “That actually sounds great. Just let me give the girls a call and say goodnight first.” I look at Holden, shrugging my shoulders and holding my beer up to him before taking a long swing. Not tonight. I am not going to tell my darkest secret to Holden tonight. I am too afraid what Jake is still capable of and I am not going to put my girls in danger just so Holden isn’t pissed off at me.
It wasn’t until recently that I started to remember the night my life was forever changed. I have always had a keen talent for pushing any unwanted thought or experience far back into the depths of my psyche. It must be some sort of inherited trait because my mom is certainly the queen of denial. I have tried with every inch of my being to erase the horrible, debilitating fear and shame the enveloped my soul every time I think of that night. I was successful at it most of the time. But seeing Jake brought every detail flooding back.
It happened on a summer night right after graduation. I was at an enormous party, celebrating the end of the school year before heading off to college, and I felt like I was about to begin the best time of my life. The party was the typical high school get-together, filled with tons of inebriated teenagers making shady decisions that they don’t realize can affect the rest of their lives. If I only knew back then what I know now, my life may have taken a different path.
It was odd for me to be at a party without Holden, but he was out with some of his college friends that night. I remember he said he was over going to high school parties, and that I should go alone. He was a year older than me and had fallen into a frat boy life. I went to the party at the insistence of Jess, who was never one to miss a party, and this one was supposed to be the party of the century. Was it ever.
I was feeling a little tipsy by the time I decided to walk home after being there for a few hours. I clearly had one too many of some stiff fruity concoction everyone was calling Jungle Juice and was beginning to feel a little dizzy. I had only been drunk one other time in my life before that night, and it wasn’t a good experience. Rather than go down that road again, I made the fateful decision to leave. I unassumingly hugged all my friends before leaving, making plans to go to the beach the next day, unaware of the monster watching me, waiting to make his move. I was almost out the door, but when I started to shut it behind me, the door was suddenly jerked in the opposite direction, sending me tumbling unsteadily backwards. I would have fallen on my back if Jake hadn’t been there to catch me. And that would have had a far better outcome.
“Easy there, cowgirl,” he said with a sideways smile. Jake was beyond handsome. Back then, he had light, unruly blonde hair that accented his blue eyes and tan skin. I always felt a little nervous around Jake, even though our dads were best friends and we have known each other since we were kids. He was a year older than me, like Holden, but always seemed so much more mysterious.
I knew I was blushing and looked away, smiling. “Sorry about that. I was just on my way out.” I turned and began walking down the deserted street towards my home a few blocks away.
He was right in step next to me. “Let me walk you, Camryn.”
I smiled shyly and shrugged my shoulders as if to allow it. My heart raced being this close to Jake; it felt exciting and wrong all at the same time. We were always at parties together through high school and when he visited from college, but we never really talked at them. He never once in all these years engaged in conversation with me willingly on his own. There were times when he would even leave a group at a party if I walked up to them. A quiet voice in my head told me not to let him walk with me and go back inside and grab Jess. But I didn’t listen to that voice. I wish I had.
Jake didn’t talk at all while we walked. I looked over at him to see that his brow was furrowed and he was scowling down at the gravelly street. He must have noticed my gaze because he looked up at me and smiled nervously. I remember thinking right then that maybe he looked so upset because he liked me, but kne
w I had a boyfriend. I couldn’t have been more wrong.
Jake surprisingly wrapped his arm around my shoulder when we neared the end of the street; the tiny voice in my head telling me to go back to the party became louder, setting off alarms throughout my body. I still did nothing, though, because I didn’t want to offend him, so I just continued to walk, pretending his arm wasn’t on me in this intimate way.
Then my nightmare really began.
His grasp on my shoulder tightened when we came upon the Conroy house. His fingertips dug deeply into my bare shoulders, almost hurting me, but I still didn’t realize what was about to happen.
I tried to pull away from his tight grasp with a smile, assuming it must have been unintentional since we both had been drinking pretty heavily. Before I could react, Jake slammed my body against his and placed his sweaty hand over my mouth, stifling the scream that was about to escape. He roughly dragged me to the side of the abandoned house while I tried in vain to kick and punch at him. Stifling fear swathed me when I looked around at my surroundings. I knew the Conroys wouldn’t be showing up for a few days, and there was no one else in sight. All of the houses at this end of the street were still vacant, not yet occupied by the summer owners. No one would be saving me from whatever was about to happen.
Jake pinned me up against the wall, yanking my arms violently over my head. I can still remember the stale stench of beer oozing from his mouth when he tried to kiss me. At this point, I was still trying to tell myself he was acting this way because he was just an overzealous drunken frat boy, so when he took his hand off of my mouth, I tried to act as if everything was going to be okay.
“Jake, please stop. I can’t. I love Holden. I like you, but I can’t hurt Holden.” I forced a smile through my fear.
Jake grunted rather than responded. He took both my hands in one of his large muscular hands, and threw me crashing down onto the stones below. My head was aching from the sheer force of the impact of my body hitting the jagged rocks. There was never a time that I hated the stones that decorated the yards of Mantoloking more than when they stabbed me in my back that night. Jake came down on top of me with a sinister look, and it was then that I knew I was not going to be able to stop him from doing what he wanted with me. My heart was in my throat and I could feel the bile start to rise from my stomach when I saw that Jake was now holding a knife in his other hand.
“If you scream, I will kill you. If you tell anyone, I will kill Holden, your family, and then you.”
His eyes were dark and showed no emotion. They were not the bright blue eyes I was used to seeing on him. My head was pounding and my heart was racing, making it difficult to process the gravity of what was happening. I instantly felt sober while I tried to kick him and pull my hands away.
He pressed the tip of the knife to my throat, breaking the skin, instantly stilling me. The pure evil I saw in Jake that night was unmistakable. There were several times during his painful attack when I let out an agonizing cry, unable to mask the pain of him doing those unimaginable things. To quiet me, he pressed the knife, slicing into my skin at the inside of my thigh, my breast, my neck, leaving small gashes….every time he cut me, I thought he was going to kill me.
“Holden,” I whispered as a plea. For what I didn’t know…to be saved, to be forgiven.
“Holden will never love you after I’m done with you, Camryn,” Jake slithered in my ear while he violently stole my innocence.
He left me lying there, half naked, bleeding, not caring who saw me. I stumbled home, replaying his words in my head, shaking violently from the terror of what had just happened to me.
After that night I did as Jake instructed: I didn’t tell anyone. I believed every word that he said to me. There was no doubt in my mind that Jake would kill me if given the chance. From that day on, I tormented in my pain alone, afraid to think about it, so I took the memories and pushed them into the black hole of my mind. Every day since, I’ve tried to pretend it didn’t happen. I closed off my heart, too afraid to let people in and see the real me. But by doing that, I’ve seemed to only push out every person in my life who I love. I was broken.
Chapter Five
November 2, 2012
Devastated. There is no other word I can think of to describe how I feel when I’m finally able to enter Mantoloking with Dave, Jess, and Holden. My parents went up to my apartment in the city with Ellie and Sophie after the storm passed and they realized that they would not be able to go back home for a while. The restaurant has been completely destroyed by the storm, along with over fifty other homes and businesses in our town. There is literally not one home in our town that didn’t sustain some damage. The ocean has made a new inlet to Barnegat Bay, virtually demolishing everything in its path. The damage from the sea is just staggering to see in person. I never in all my dreams thought that my little town could experience this type of devastation from a storm. Mother Nature has reaped her fury, and the results are overwhelming. All of us have tears in our eyes as we silently survey the unrecognizable town surrounding us. There is no doubt in my mind that we have lost everything as we make our way down the bay. Our homes, the restaurant, our entire town is decimated. It is like a war zone. Holden, Dave, Jess, and I can only stand there, holding onto one another and taking in our surroundings. We know most every person in town, and what we are now witnessing is the total destruction of their livelihood.
I hide my head against Dave’s chest when he steers the boat up the lagoon to our homes, as if looking will change the fact that there may be nothing left to see. Jess is on the other side of him, clutching my hands when she begins crying. I grip his shirt even more tightly, too afraid to look at what Jess is reacting to.
“They’re standing. How is it possible? Look, Cam.” She is pulling at the back of my jacket, forcing me to look up before I can make sense of what she has just said.
Holden is standing in front of me with his hands twisting through his hair. “Well, I’ll be damned. The entire street is still standing.”
We are staring dumbfounded at our lagoon. Dave pulls up to where my family dock had once stood, but is now nowhere in sight. There is some pretty bad damage to the shingles on the roof and side of the house, but shockingly it looks like the bulkhead stood up through the storm. It’s a miracle.
Holden pulls himself up to his dock, followed closely behind by Dave. “I’m going to run over and check out our house. Holden, you check your place then head over to the Dades’.” Dave turns and faces Jess and me, giving us his best “Officer Dave” expression. “You girls stay put. And I mean it, Jess. I shouldn’t have even taken you out here with me today, so don’t screw it all up and go exploring. It’s still dangerous out here.” Dave gives us another you better listen to me, I’m a police officer look and hops over some debris towards his house.
Jess and I stand there for a moment and hug each other, too relieved to honestly do anything but be thankful that everything isn’t lost. Holden and Dave walk around the homes, climbing over debris, taking pictures of the property, and securing back up the houses the best they can right now. Dark clouds begin to blow in swiftly from the east, prompting the guys to head back to the boat and to get us all back to the shelter. The area is still extremely vulnerable and another storm is heading our way.
I snap a few more pictures before we take off, wanting to show the world this little piece of Mantoloking that isn’t destroyed. I have more than enough pictures and information about the storm for my article and only hope it will help bring attention to the long road we all have ahead. Too often the victims of acts of nature like this are forgotten after a week and a new hot story emerges. I smile to myself, thinking about the strong will and determination the people of New Jersey have, knowing if there is ever a place that can get through a tragedy like this, it’s Jersey.
After a long, draining day of surveying the damage, Holden and I decide to take the train back into the city, not wanting to deal with the roads. Jess and Dave are going bac
k to Cherry Hill and we all need to start getting back to our lives.
“Why haven’t we ever done this before?” Holden asks, snuggling in to the seat next to me.
“Done what?” I ask while scanning the train schedule to check what our next stop is.
“Gone to the city together? We only see each other here, never in the city. Isn’t that weird?” He hands me a bottle of water and turns in his seat, facing me.
“Um, not really. We have our separate lives. Ellie and Sophie have a lot going on, and I’ve been busy with my new job. I don’t see when we would’ve even had the time.” I take a drink from my water, not able to imagine what it would be like to have Holden in the city with me. Our life together has always only ever been in Mantoloking.
He tips my chin up so that I am looking at him. He always does that when he thinks I’m not listening to him. “Would you want to see me in the city? Who knows how long it will be until we can get back to Mantoloking. I will miss our weekend get-togethers.” He smiles shyly.
I haven’t really thought much about it before now, but Holden and I have spent every weekend together since the summer. If we aren’t going to be heading down to the shore every weekend, it only makes sense to hang out up here every once in a while. I’ve gotten used to having Holden and Jess back in my life consistently again, and don’t want to lose that.
“Yeah, totally. I can invite Jess and Dave up, too. It will be fun. Just give me a ring when you want me to set it up.” I stretch out across the seat, laying my legs on top of Holden’s, quietly praying that he’ll take the hint and start massaging them. Maybe if I think about it really hard, he’ll read my mind. I closed my eyes and concentrate. Massage my feet, massage my feet, massage my…
Dust to Dust: A Broken Fairy Tale Page 7