by DC Renee
“Uh-oh. No. It’s the first day of school. We can’t have a party already,” I whined.
“Save it. We’re going. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. But we should decide what we’re wearing.”
And in true Amanda style, we spent the rest of our lunch discussing outfit options we’d probably not even end up wearing. We said goodbye as I went to my next class and she went to her work study. As I walked to my class, I couldn’t help but think about how different my life was now than in high school. There, I was nobody. Here, I was someone. I was beautiful, I was strong, and I’d survived.
CHAPTER FOUR
Past
Cameron
Fifteen years earlier …
I NEVER KNEW my dad. I just had bits and pieces of fragmented memories. A shadow, a silhouette of a tall man, a strong man, and a happy man filtered through my mind occasionally.
I had memories of a gentleman patting my shoulder, his hand dwarfing my small frame. I had memories of laughter—a deep, rich baritone I hoped I emanated when I grew older. I had memories of kind words; encouraging words filled with phrases such as “good job” or “I’m proud of you,” and even “I love you.”
I was five years old, and I hadn’t had a father since he died when I was three. My mom had tried to sugarcoat it; she’d tried to tell me he was in a deep sleep, and he was up in heaven with God watching over us. I believed her when I was three, I asked her when we could wake him up when I was four, and I finally understood he was dead when I turned five.
A heart attack, I’d heard people whisper. I didn’t know a heart could attack you, and for weeks after his death, I’d pressed my hand to my heart several times a day and asked my own heart not to attack me. I didn’t know how to fight a heart. I didn’t think I wanted to know. I was afraid I’d lose as my father had.
My mother saw what I was doing one day and asked me about it. When I explained, I could literally feel her pain, could feel her own heart attacking her. I put my hand on her heart and asked it to leave her alone. She cried like I hadn’t seen her cry before, not even after my father had died.
“There’s no heart left to attack. Your father took mine with his,” she said very quietly. I didn’t understand her words, but they scared me even more than heart attack did. She quieted her cries as she held me, holding me so tightly I actually squirmed in her embrace before she explained what a heart attack was.
That was the day I stopped pleading with my own.
For the past two years, when my friends had fun with their dads, I was jealous, angry even, that my dad had left me. I remembered when he used to play catch with me; he’d toss me a tiny football and say things like, “Good arm, son” or “I see football in your future.” I wanted more of those times. I wanted someone who would do all the things little boys did with their dads.
It didn’t help that I watched my mom fade away slowly; like the last embers of a dying fire, just patiently waiting for their turn to cease existing.
She was there in body, but her spirit was broken. She wasn’t the mom I used to know.
A few months ago, though, I noticed glimpses of her old self. She looked prettier at times like she’d put on makeup.
You thought kids didn’t notice those things? They did. They noticed their parents’ moods, their parents’ tone, and even their parents’ outlook on life.
I had some hope, some small hope I hadn’t at least lost my mother if I couldn’t have a father.
And I had just learned what had changed in my mom.
“Honey, I want you to meet someone,” she told me as she stepped into the living room with a man following her.
He towered over her, especially over me. He had a presence about him that made me step back, unable to be so close to so much overwhelming power.
“This is my son,” she told him then turned to me. “This is Charles. He’s important to Mommy, so he’s going to be around quite a bit.”
I nodded as if I understood, but I didn’t really. My mom smiled, and then Charles cracked a smile and kneeled down to my eye level. “Hi, there,” he said and put his hand on my shoulder much as my father had. I could feel the heat of his touch. It was comforting and scary at the same time.
“Will you play ball with me?” I asked him.
He chuckled and then answered with a crooked smile, “Sure, kiddo. Any time you want.”
I smiled back, feeling truly happy for the first time in a long time. I finally had a daddy again, a daddy who would do all the things my friends’ dads did, a daddy who would be there for me and tell me how proud he was of me and teach me to play football. I had a daddy.
CHAPTER FIVE
Present
Genevieve
THE PARTY WAS in full swing by the time we’d gotten there.
“Oh good, we’re here right on time,” Amanda said beside me, and I giggled. To her, “on time” meant we could just walk right in and party right away. No need to wait for others to arrive and make it fun. I was fine with that because that usually meant less time at these things. Not that I didn’t enjoy them, but it was still an adjustment for me. Amanda had been going to parties from the time she was fifteen, so this was nothing for her. Each time, I got a little bolder, a little more comfortable, but it was still a tad bit overwhelming.
I followed Amanda through the throng of people, elbowing our way through to the kitchen where she pulled some beers out of a cooler, popped the caps off on the edge of the counter, and handed me one.
“You going to have two this time or just the one?” Amanda asked.
I wasn’t a stranger to alcohol. My parents’ philosophy was if they made it forbidden, I’d crave it more, so if they had wine with dinner, they let me have some too. If my dad had a beer in his hand, I took a sip. That didn’t mean I liked to get shitfaced like a lot of other people did at these college parties. I usually nursed one, sometimes two, beers all evening. I didn’t get the appeal of being sick or hungover. I also didn’t want to be so out of it that I wasn’t cognizant of my surroundings. Forget being responsible; I still had lingering fears.
“I think just this one. It’s the first day of school, after all,” I responded with a shrug.
“Well, then I’ll drink your second one,” Amanda said with a smile and wink. She grabbed me and pulled me back into the living room so we could dance. I always let her lead me. If it wasn’t for her, I’d probably have no social life. Also, she liked to keep an eye on me, and I liked to make sure she didn’t make any stupid decisions when she got drunk. As I said, we balanced each other out.
We hadn’t been dancing together for long when a guy Amanda had a crush on for a couple of months asked to cut in.
She asked me to stay, but I could tell by her giddy tone that she wanted some up-close-and-personal time with her guy. I waved her off, told her I would be fine, and walked away before she could protest. And I knew she would because she was that good of a friend.
I made my way outside with my beer still in hand, more full than not. The backyard was darn big. Big enough that I could find a spot to the side where I could just sit and people watch without anyone bothering me. Or at least I thought so.
I had only been sitting for a few minutes when a guy wandered over to me—more like swayed over to me. It didn’t take a genius to tell just by his walk, his glazed-over eyes, and the smell of beer surrounding him that he was piss drunk.
“Hey, beautiful,” he said as he approached, slurring his words a little.
“Hi,” I responded because I didn’t have it in me to ignore him. He was drunk, but I wasn’t rude.
“Why are you here by yourself?” he asked as he tried to lean on the fence nearby. He missed it a little and stumbled before catching himself.
I couldn’t help but giggle.
“Sorry,” he said with a slight smile.
He wasn’t a bad looking guy, and he seemed harmless enough but so had Marc. And even if this guy was nothing like Marc, I didn’t think anything serious could come o
ut of this seeing as he could barely stand on his own.
“You don’t like to party?” he asked, clearly trying to start a conversation with me.
“I just needed a little breather,” I responded.
“Breather’s over, let’s go dance,” he said as he pushed off the fence and stumbled toward me.
“Whoa, there,” I said as I got up and practically caught him. “Maybe you’re the one who needs a breather.”
“No, no,” he said as he tried to straighten up. “I’m good. Let’s dance,” he repeated as he held me and tried to pull me with him. I wasn’t budging.
“I think I’ll just stay here for a bit. But you go ahead and dance.” He probably needed to find a bed and sleep, but I doubted he’d do that. So sending him off to be someone else’s problem seemed like the best bet for me.
I walked with him so I could hopefully shove him toward the door. “You go on ahead. I’m going to head back,” I said as I stepped away and motioned toward the spot I’d previously occupied.
He opened his mouth to protest when I heard my name being called. “Genevieve?” It sounded more like a question than a name. I looked up to see Cam staring straight at me, his expression slightly confused.
The drunk guy apparently had a little sense left in him because he looked at Cam then back at me and simply said, “Oh,” before he patted my arm like I was his buddy and walked away. The entire exchange would have been hilarious from the outside perspective, and I covered my mouth to stifle a laugh.
“You okay?” Cam asked as he walked over to me.
“Yeah,” I responded. “He was drunk. I was trying to help him get back inside without having to actually go with him.”
“So you could say I saved you the trouble, huh?” he asked with an amused smirk.
“You could say that. Is saving girls from unwanted attention a side job for you?” I asked, my tone playful although he had saved me earlier that day.
“Oh yeah, definitely,” he said with a laugh.
“Well, uh, thanks again,” I told him and walked back to my little spot. He followed.
“Have you been here long?” he asked as I sat down.
“About an hour.”
“Huh,” he mused. “I didn’t see you.”
“I was in the middle of the dance floor before I snuck out here,” I explained.
He nodded. “So what are you doing out here by yourself then?”
“My dance partner got hijacked,” I said.
“Fucker,” he muttered under his breath. I could practically feel his tension.
I shivered—but not from the cold—before I barked out a laugh. “My dance partner is my best friend. A guy she likes asked her to dance, and I took the opportunity to come out here.”
“Not much of a partier?” he asked.
“Not really.” I shrugged.
“Yeah, it gets old,” he said.
“I guess that explains why you’re out here by yourself too.”
“Actually, I was passing by the window, and I could have sworn I saw you out here. I wanted to come say hi.”
“Really?” I asked—more like squeaked. It wasn’t as if I liked the guy, so why did that little fact thrill me so much?
He chuckled. “Yeah, really. I wanted to make sure you were okay. No more run-ins with the fucker from earlier.”
“Oh,” I said and tried desperately to hide my disappointment. I was being stupid. If I didn’t know better, I’d say I didn’t have to worry about Amanda making mistakes while she was drunk—clearly, it was the other way around … and I wasn’t even drunk. “That’s sweet of you. And nope, no more run-ins. Just some drunk guy you scared away,” I said with a wave like it was no big deal. “Nothing I couldn’t handle.”
“I don’t like that,” he responded, his jaw clenching as if he was angry. “I don’t fucking like that at all.”
“That’s just the life of a college girl,” I mused.
“Look at me,” he said, and I turned to face him. His tone was rough, edgy even, but when I looked at his eyes, they were soft. I could get lost in them, lost in his gaze, which was now directed at me as if I held the answer to all the world’s problems. In the dim lighting, they looked darker, almost black and sort of menacing, but they didn’t scare me. He didn’t scare me. He’d technically saved me twice already, and I was sure if I told him that my dance partner had been some guy, he would have put him in his place for ditching me. “If anyone harasses you, you come find me. I’ll take care of it. And if you can’t find me, call me. And I don’t just mean tonight,” he told me. His words were a promise; a promise I wanted to believe would come true if I needed it. I needed to believe it. I needed to believe there were guys out there who didn’t hurt girls just for sport, who didn’t put them down and make them think they were nothing like Tyler had.
I didn’t respond. I couldn’t at that moment. I was too taken by the way Cam was looking at me like he needed me to believe his promise. Like he needed me to trust he’d take care of my problems. I decided right then that he was one of the good ones. I think I might have even leaned in, my face coming a little closer to his, my body overpowering my mind.
“Cammy.” I heard what sounded like a screeching hyena. That broke me out of my Cam-spell, and I moved away from him. “Cammy,” the girl screamed again, and that second one seemed to wake Cam up.
“There you are,” she sang as she came over to us. She was a tall, shapely blonde, but it looked ridiculously processed as if she’d dumped an entire bottle of bleach on her head, and let’s not forget the melon-sized boobs she had vainly tried to force into a kid-size t-shirt. She scowled at me as she came closer. I smiled brightly in return even though I wanted to scowl right back.
When she reached us, she ignored me completely. I was fine with that. She faced Cam and spoke as if I wasn’t even there.
“Come on, Cammy. My favorite song is on. You have to dance with me.”
“In a minute,” he responded gruffly.
“But then the song will be over,” she whined. “And we’re going to head out soon anyway, aren’t we?” she asked as she batted her eyelashes and pushed her boobs out further—as if they needed help sticking out.
Cam rolled his eyes, but he didn’t argue. Maybe it was more trouble to ignore her than indulge her. Or maybe he wanted to appease Miss Double-D so she’d appease him later. That thought made me cringe.
“Remember, Genevieve, if there’s any trouble,” he said before he got up and followed Boobie Barbie inside.
I couldn’t say his departure didn’t disappoint me. And I couldn’t say it didn’t make me want to vomit to realize what Cam was doing with her. And I couldn’t say those two thoughts didn’t make me uneasy. They made me uneasy because that made me sound like I was jealous. They made me uneasy because that made me sound like I cared about his love life. They made me uneasy because that made me sound like I liked Cam. I didn’t like Cam. I didn’t. Yet … I did.
CHAPTER SIX
Past
Cameron
Fourteen years earlier …
I LIKED CHARLES. He played football with me, he took me to get ice cream, he called me “kiddo” like I was special, and he made my mommy laugh. She still wasn’t the mom I remembered when my dad was alive. She still had dark circles under her eyes, she still got a faraway look as if her mind had gone somewhere else, and she still seemed so lonely even though she wasn’t; it was almost like part of her was missing—but at least she didn’t seem as broken as she had the first two years after my father’s death.
I didn’t think I’d ever get that Mommy back, but I was okay with the one I had now. She loved me, she took care of me, and she was my mom. And Charles—he never wanted me to call him anything but Charles. I’d tried Chuck, Chuckie, even once asked if he would be my new dad, but he said, “Just call me Charles, kiddo.” He did all the things a daddy would do, so I was happy.
My mom had just patted my shoulder like my dad used to do. “Turn the TV off
,” she said softly, but it was a command. “We need to talk.”
I turned the TV off and faced her. You’d be surprised at how many little details kids notice. She looked so pale as if maybe she’d seen a ghost. Her lip quivered, and I had the urge to comfort her.
“It’s okay, Mommy,” I said even though I didn’t know what her next words would be.
She pulled me to her, and I felt her tears falling on my head. She pulled away and straightened herself up. “You know how sad I was when daddy left?” she asked. I nodded. “It’s been very hard without him, but Charles has helped me the past year.” Again, I nodded. “He’s helped me stay strong every day. And he’s helped me with the bills. He’s also been great with you, right?” He had been, but even if he wasn’t, she had asked her question with such desperation that I felt like I would have said yes anyway. I nodded. “Good,” she said as she let out a relieved sigh. “So Charles and I are going to get married. Do you know what that means?”
“Will he be my daddy?” I asked.
“In a way, I guess,” she said. “But no one will ever replace your real daddy. Charles will just be there for you while you grow up. Is that okay?”
It was okay, but I would have said anything was okay to get the silent tears to stop trailing down her cheeks. “Yeah, Mommy, that’s okay,” I told her.
She hugged me again and held me close for what seemed like hours. I let her because I felt like she needed to keep me close. I didn’t understand grown-ups. She seemed to like Charles, but the way she cried right then made me think she didn’t like him as much as I thought. Maybe she just missed my daddy so much she needed someone to take his place. I didn’t think Charles looked or acted like my dad, but maybe he did to my mom. Maybe she needed help with the house or even with me. And Charles was the one who could help her.
As long as she was happy, I was happy.