NORMAL

by Danielle Pearl

  But there is no dear life. Not anymore. I wail uncontrollably, but there's no stopping it - no relief. My mind races at a thousand miles per minute and yet I can't hold onto a single thought.

  With no Cam, I am completely untethered from a world that I, quite honestly, want nothing to do with. My shoulders heave and I hold Cam's mom even tighter, only vaguely aware that her grip on me is just as strong. I don't know what else is happening, what anyone else is doing, because my eyes remain clenched shut. I don't want to see a world that doesn't have Cam in it. I don't want to exist in that world.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Present Day

  Sam has held me tighter and tighter as I regaled him with the story of the worst fucking day of my life. Now, I lay in his arms as I tell him how at first I clung to that untethered feeling, as hard as it was, because it felt as if I could leave the world along with Cam. But as the minutes went by and reality sunk in - that he was really gone, but that I was still stuck here, in a world with no Cam, but one with Robin Forbes - I couldn't breathe. The feeling of injustice was despairing, the fear of having to deal with Robin without Cam's support terrifying, but the simple knowledge that I would have to continue to exist in that world was utterly unbearable.

  I don't remember the rest of that day. I woke up more than twenty four hours later, still in the hospital, but now admitted as a patient. Cam's mom never left my side, and I found out later that when my parents arrived late that first night, she informed them of everything that had happened. When my father tried to brush off my outburst as a grief induced rant, my mother was horrified, and then my father admitted what I'd told him earlier that week. He recited the same response he'd given me - that it must have been a misunderstanding, that I'd asked for it by dressing in "skimpy skirts", and that Robin loves me and would never have hurt me intentionally.

  My mother threw him out of the house as soon as I was released from the hospital and he went to go stay with the Forbes, in the same bedroom, in fact, in which Robin had stolen my virginity and forced himself on me all those other times.

  It was more than two weeks before Robin was arrested. The rumors started before I even left the hospital and Robin was sure to build the foundation for his defense early. His story was that we had gotten into an argument on Friday and he had broken up with me, which is why I didn't accompany him to Gainesville. My accusation that he'd hurt me was simply my revenge for his dumping me, mixed with grief over Cam's death. The story was that I was being irrational - misplacing my grief, and my panic attack and consequential hospitalization, along with the fact that I didn't speak to anyone for more than a week after Cam died... people took Robin at his word.

  At the same time though, Robin spread the word that he still loved me. That we were going to get back together. I didn't know it then, but he was laying the groundwork to explain the text messages. The thing that was "maybe a little extreme" that happened on Friday did not refer to raping me in the school locker room, but to breaking up with me. It helped his story that he really did try to get back with me. Again and again.

  But I didn't hear about any of this until later. After I was released from the hospital, I holed up in Cam's bedroom, and didn't leave for nearly two whole weeks. I didn't speak to anyone for the first week, except brief one word exchanges with Michelle or my mother. I had no idea what was even going on in the outside world until Chip came to visit me.

  That was when I first realized how fucked up I was. When my friend since childhood entered Cam's bedroom and I cowered in a corner, terrified of being alone with him. Chip was horrified, but he was one of the few people who believed me. He had seen my wrist and my neck in the hospital, and he knew me, he knew I'd been telling the truth.

  Chip didn't know how to handle me, which wasn't surprising since I didn't know how to handle myself. He cooed at me, bargained with me, and in the end, shouted at me that I needed to make my statement about Robin. He yelled at me that I was allowing Robin to spread these rumors about me, and that I was just letting him get away with it. And while I was too petrified to even leave my corner, let alone respond to him, I knew he was right.

  The problem was, with Cam gone, making Robin pay for what he did to me didn't feel as important anymore. If I'm being honest, nothing felt important with him gone. Everything just felt so... empty. Hopeless.

  Once I even imagined - no, not imagined, fantasized about - Robin coming back for me and strangling me, but not stopping this time. It would solve everything, I'd thought. Robin would be put away for murder and I would be with Cam. I don't tell Sam this though.

  I do tell him how Chip came to visit me again the following day, and finally got through to me when he reminded me that Cam would never want me to let Robin get away with this. That Cam risked his life to make Robin pay for what he did to me, and ended up losing it. It was all Robin's fault.

  This woke me from my daze. Blaming Robin was all I had, and getting justice gave me a purpose - a reason to continue to exist when the only person who mattered to me was gone. It lit a fire in me, forcing my mind onto this single track, and I clung to it desperately. Because I knew if I allowed myself to think it through, I would return to my initial conclusion - the real truth: that Robin wasn't the one responsible for Cam's death. I was.

  I'd let Robin do what he did to me again and again. I'd gone back for more. And then, only when I feared for my life did I confide in my best friend. My best friend who had been insanely protective of me for as long as I could remember. Who I knew loved me fiercely, even if I hadn't known he was in love with me.

  And I didn't protect him. When it counted, I let him fall victim to my own weakness, and risk his life. And lose it.

  I finally made my statement to Sheriff Chipley after those weeks, in Cam's bedroom, with Michelle present, but not my mom. I couldn't bear to be alone in a room with a man, even a man I should trust, but I also couldn't allow my mother to hear the details. It was a selfish thing, putting Cam's mom through hearing all that when she was grieving for her only son, but I wasn't thinking straight at the time.

  My injuries had mostly faded by then, and there was no forensic evidence that Robin had done anything at all. Even the evidence they collected when I was unconscious in the hospital was circumstantial, save for the bite marks, which Robin claimed were just a result of "rough sex", which he claimed I'd had a thing for. And this, too, made its way around the entire town.

  After Robin was arrested, I went from being a crazy girl who'd reacted irrationally to a tragic loss, to someone who was threatening the life and career of the town's beloved golden boy.

  I was a pariah.

  A few days after I finally made my statement, I had to go into the station to file the restraining order. My mom had to be in court, and I insisted I was fine to drive myself. And I almost was. But Lacey and my "friends" were waiting for me when I left, hurling awful accusations, and I ran back into the station and hid until the sheriff drove me home. When he dropped me off at my house, the car door was locked and when he turned to me - probably just to offer some words of comfort - I panicked, hyperventilated, and ended up back in the hospital for two more days.

  The harassment worsened. I had to delete any social media accounts, and leave school permanently - not that I was well enough to attend. My mother had to take an immediate leave of absence from work to homeschool me before I got too behind to finish the year.

  I couldn't even go to Cam's funeral.

  The entire town was there, Chip later told me, and though Michelle offered to have a private service - just family, me and a few of Cam's closest friends - I couldn't be that selfish.

  My selfishness had cost Cam his life.

  In the end, I sobbed hysterically in Cam's bed, hugging his pillow, sniffing it frantically - desperate to inhale what remained of his scent - while the town that hated me said their final goodbyes to the boy who loved me.

  Michelle had found photos of my injuries on Cam's phone from the night before he died -
taken while I'd been asleep - and they are the only reason Robin didn't get off completely scot-free. They are what got the judge to sign my restraining order, and despite the best efforts of Robin's father and mine, they couldn't cover everything up. But the case wasn't strong enough and even my mother, who acted as my lawyer, knew our best hope was a plea deal. My father, being the DA, of course, is the one who negotiated the deal, and there was nothing either my mother or I could do about it.

  Robin agreed not to fight the restraining order if he could get away with community service and probation, and I couldn't risk losing the restraining order. Without it I had no he'd never leave me alone. Ever.

  But before the judge signed it, my father summoned me to the DA's office and distracted my mother with legal paperwork while he set me up in a conference room that Robin just happened to wander into. He begged me to drop the whole thing and take him back. He still loved me, he said, he'd do anything to win me back, he was "so sorry" I was upset, and he would never do anything to upset me again. He was careful not to admit to any specifics, though, about how it was that he'd upset me. He accused me of "ruining both our lives", insisted that we were "meant to be together" - that I was going to be his wife one day and I just needed to trust him. But I barely even heard him, I was too busy crying and hyperventilating against the wall in complete terror.

  People heard me screaming and crying and when my father tried to calm me down because I was "overreacting", I made it clear that I wanted nothing more to do with him ever again. That was the last time I ever saw my father and the third time I wound up in the hospital that month - this time with an anxiety disorder diagnosis and a pocketful of prescriptions for anxiety, depression, and insomnia.

  Even after all that, the Forbes and my father did everything they could to hide it all from UFL, but my mother took that into her own hands. I learned later that she sent them a copy of the police report, including the photos of my injuries, and spoke personally with the athletics director.

  Robin lost his scholarship and his place on the team.

  The town hated me even more.

  When they started showing up at my door to shout obscenities at me, and spray painting my driveway with the same malicious words, my mother put the house on the market. I spent the rest of my time in Linton numbed by a myriad of prescription medication. Only when I realized the effect it was all having on my mother did I resolve to try and put on a brave face. I weaned myself off of the antidepressants. I never did rely too much on the sleep medication because they didn't help my nightmares, they only trapped me inside them. I came to rely less and less on the anti-anxiety meds until I only had to take them in the case of a panic attack, which have happened less and less since Sam came into my life.

  I realize - as I finish explaining about Cam and the aftermath of it all - how big a role Sam has somehow already managed to play in my recovering, in reattaching me to this world. In giving me a reason to want to be attached to it. I realize how just knowing that such an incredible man exists in this world has changed my entire view of it. He hasn't replaced Cam - no one could ever do that - but he has renewed my faith in people. The world in which I exist is that much less awful, and while I loved Cam more than anything, I'm in love with Sam, and somehow, in the short time I've known him, he has become the center of my universe - my anchor to it. I'm no longer just surviving, as he said, I'm living.

  And Sam is the reason for that. His faith in me, his patience, his loyalty and his affection, inspire me.

  I cuddle closer to him and he tightens his hold on me even more and whispers how brave and strong I am, and I let him.

  "I'm so sorry about earlier, Ror. I had no idea. I don't know what I was even accusing you of - I was just being jealous and paranoid. And possessive...." he murmurs introspectively. "You should know, I have no fucking clue what I'm doing," he confesses through a small sheepish smile. "I've never been in a relationship - never had a single jealous feeling over a girl. But with you..." He shakes his head in self-condemnation. "I overreacted when I should have just trusted you. It helps knowing we're on the same page, but look, I shouldn't have pushed you."

  I shrug, conceding my own blame for our argument as well. "It's my fault, Sam. I should've just told you. I just... It's just... hard to talk about,"

  Sam's fingers brush my cheek, and I think he wants to kiss me, but he doesn't. Tonight has been too intense. Between Robin's attack, and telling Sam about Cam, a strange, wistful mood lingers.

  "I'm glad you told me," Sam admits.

  "Hey, tell me somethin' about you no one else knows." After all, I've confided in him like no other.

  Sam considers me, his eyes revealing emotion so profound that I'm sure my attempt to lighten the mood did not have the desired effect. He bites his lip, seeming to think it over.

  "How about I tell you something everyone else knows... apart from you, apparently," he counters, and I just blink at him. "Rory..." His voice has dropped to a whisper, his gaze locked intently on mine.

  "Yeah?" I breathe.

  "I fucking love you."

  I gasp. I don't know what to do, what to say. Despite all his words, all his romantic confessions, never did I imagine hearing this. My heart is racing, but not in panic. I am exhilarated. Sam loves me!

  His fingers slowly find their way into my hair, and he tentatively pulls my face to his. I realize he's hesitating because of what I went through tonight with Robin, and I refuse to let that bastard ruin one more moment of my life. I surprise Sam when I kiss him hard before he can even finish leaning in.

  His lips feel like home, and I love the feel of them on mine. I love him, of course, and hearing that he loves me has both shocked and thrilled me.

  And terrified me.

  I pull away abruptly.

  He can't love me!

  How can I let him do this to himself? Why would anyone want to be stuck with the crazy girl with the panic attacks? Only Sam and his twisted perspective of my issues - his unique ability to acknowledge only the best in me - would blind himself to the reality of what a relationship with me would mean. And blind me, too. apparently. God, how easily he makes me forget myself - all that is wrong, all that is broken.

  "Ror?"

  "You... you can't," I decide. No, I've always known Sam deserves better than me, even if he can't see it himself right now. His brow furrows, in that adorable way, and my heart wrenches.

  "I can, baby girl," he counters, the corner of his mouth quirking up into an amused half smile at what I'm sure he thinks is just my disbelief at his proclamation. I pull out of his arms and stand, needing some distance from the source of my confusion - and of my happiness - and try to steel myself against my own selfish wants.

  Sam becomes visibly worried now, scared even, but I can't let him do this to himself.

  "No, Sam-"

  "It's okay if you don't feel the same, Ror, I didn't mean to pressure you, or-"

  "No, it's not that! Of course I love you, Sam!"

  Shit! I hadn't meant to say that out loud.

  "Damn it!" I rub my face with my palms and take a deep breath. "Sam, I... I do love you," I admit again, this time intentionally. "Which is why I can't do this. Why I can't let you do this. You - you're amazing. You deserve a normal girl, with a normal life, and normal problems. Not..." I gesture to myself, "Me. A broken mess."

  Sam stands, tense with obvious anger, but I feel no fear. Instinctually I know he would never hurt me. "Don't talk about yourself like that! We've been over this!"

  I shake my head. "Yeah, everyone has issues, I know, but mine are worse, remember? No matter how strong you think I am, I'm still-"

  "You're still my Rory. And I fucking love you. If I'm so damn amazing then don't I deserve to be with the girl I'm fucking in love with?" His voice lowers, his expression softening. He reaches out, cautiously, and brushes my hair behind my ear. "I know what I want, Ror. Maybe even more so because it's not something I've ever wanted before - something I ever even thought I
could want. But whatever you say, whatever you want, whatever you decide - it isn't going to change how I feel.

  "I'm not just going to move on and find someone else because you still think you don't deserve this - that you're not normal. Because what you don't get is that you're right, you're not normal, but not because you have fucking anxiety. Because you're better than normal, Ror, you're fucking incredible. You're beautiful and smart and strong and loyal. You're fucking everything to me. If you don't want this - me, then that's one thing, but if you do... don't let him win, baby. After everything... you deserve to be happy, Ror, we deserve it."

  And what can I do? I want to protect him, but when he says these things to me, I start to believe him, and when he looks at me like that, I melt.

  Sam really loves me.

  Why didn't I see it before? My eyes prick with tears, but his thumb wipes them away before they fall far, his brows pinched together with worry - as if he's awaiting the deliberation of a jury. And I'm the jury. What will it be? Exonerate us from our demons, or punish us both for crimes committed against us, not by us...

  "I still think you deserve better," I whisper, and Sam takes a step so we stand flush against one another and I have to look up at him through my lashes.

  "There's no such thing, Ror," he rumbles in that perfect deep timbre of his, and then his lips crash against mine - his mouth capturing mine in a kiss that is loving and passionate and makes it impossible to doubt the sincerity of his words.

  I moan into his mouth as I try to push all my love for this boy into this one kiss. He's the one to pull away this time, breathlessly, and scoops me up to carry me back inside with renewed purpose. He lays me gently on the bed and after hastily tugging off his jeans, follows me as I scoot under the duvet, pulling me tightly to his side and I sigh contentedly. This is where I want to be. Tucked neatly against him, my head resting on his shoulder, my face conveniently pressed into his neck where I can savor his intoxicating scent with my every breath. I slide my leg over his, settling until I don't know where he ends and I begin, our limbs tangled, our hearts beating in sync with one another, echoing our confessions of affection.