by DC Renee
“Got it?” he repeated. I could only nod in response, afraid of what I’d say—or squeak. “Good. Call me when you land,” he said—no, scratch that, he ordered. “And then call me when you get home, and then text me after that, and call me the next day, and the next. And you can bet I’ll be doing the same.”
Say something, my mind urged. I had no words. Say something, it encouraged again. I took a small breath, willed my heart to stop beating frantically, begged my body to stop responding to Cam, and found my voice.
“So bossy,” I teased as I stepped back.
My response got a slow, lazy smile from Cam.
“Damn right,” he responded with a wink. Then he wrapped me in a hug again, holding me a little longer than I anticipated, and when he pulled back, his words were soft. “I’m going to miss you, Gen.”
How could a girl respond to that?
“I’ll miss you too.”
And really … it was the truth.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Past
Cameron
Three years earlier …
“WATCH WHERE YOU’RE going, you fucking loser.”
That’s not you, I told myself for what seemed like the billionth time. I wasn’t a nice person. Not at all. I hadn’t wanted to become Charles, and in most of my characteristics, I was the exact opposite of him. I had drive, I had dreams, and I worked hard for those things. Did it matter that the main part of that was because I wanted to cleanse myself? I didn’t think it did.
Yet when Charles lashed out at me, I lashed out at others. No, not others, just one person. I didn’t even know how it started. No … wait, I did. It all started with that one day … I couldn’t even bring myself to finish that sentence in my head. I didn’t acknowledge what occurred, what festered inside me. I was the loser, not anyone else. But if I thought about it, I’d probably break, and not the “tell someone about my shitty home life” kind of break, the “slit my wrists” kind of break. I wouldn’t do that. I wouldn’t go out like my mom did, biding her time until she could join my dad. I still loved her, even after everything she had or, rather, hadn’t done to protect me, but I knew she had been a coward. Not like I wasn’t, but I tried to tell myself I was better than that. I could survive. I would survive.
Before my mom died, I at least had the excuse I wouldn’t leave her. Now that she was gone, you could ask why I didn’t report Charles. I couldn’t. I just couldn’t. It was a mixture of fear, embarrassment, disgrace, and the feeling I deserved what I got somehow. He’d done that to me—made me believe I was a “fucking loser.”
So what did I do with that? I tried to push those thoughts away and project them on anything else … anyone else.
She was always there when I was at my worst, when I felt hopeless, when Charles had called or texted that I had to get home. When I thought about what awaited me at home, I realized what a coward I was, what a piece of shit.
It was like someone wanted to give me an outlet, and it was always the same damn person. I felt bad, I truly did, but the minute she was there, it was like any rational thoughts and any normal feelings went out the window. It was only anger, pain, and frustration that came out—and it came out directed at her.
She cowered like she always did.
“I’m … I’m sorry,” she practically stuttered. She made a move to leave, to run away, and I blocked her way.
“You’re always in my fucking way,” I told her.
“I’ll go the other way,” she whispered so quietly that I barely heard her.
Sometimes, I taunted her longer; sometimes, it was one sentence, and I left her alone. She turned to go around the long way, across the entire campus to the other exit, and I let her. I watched her walk away and wished for a moment that I was her. She wasn’t popular, wasn’t particularly pretty, had a tad bit too much weight on her, pimples waiting to be treated, glasses that looked they like were from the eighties, and chunky braces, and I tortured her. Yet she could take another way out. Be it a longer, more complicated way but she could always turn around and leave. No matter what I did, I couldn’t. Not while Charles was in my life, not while he ruled my life, not while he ruled me.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Present
Genevieve
I’D HATE IT IF I didn’t love it, Cam’s text read. I had asked him how his football practice had gone. We hadn’t seen each other all summer. I was home for the summer, spending time with my family. Taking a couple of community college classes to get ahead, I even worked part time as an admin in an accounting firm. Cam had stayed in Los Angeles because he had nowhere to go. I knew this, and I actually felt bad for him. He also had an internship, and football practice started in the middle of summer break.
It didn’t stop us from talking just about every day. Sometimes it was through text, sometimes it was phone conversations catching each other up on what our days were like, and other times, we even Skyped so we could “see” each other—his idea, not mine—and damn if that didn’t make me warm and fuzzy.
“You so like him,” Amanda told me on more than one occasion. It was only with her that I could actually admit, “If I was a different person and he was a different person, then, yeah, okay, I like him. But deep down, I knew his true colors, and who he really was isn’t someone I could like.”
“People change,” she always argued.
“They don’t change what’s deep inside them.”
“Yeah, they do,” she’d say, “but I know there is no point in arguing, so let’s stop.”
The conversation always ended there, but it didn’t stop us from having the same one practically every week. I think she was hoping eventually my answer would change. As long as Cameron Dents was really Tyler Haywood, my answer would be the same.
You love getting your ass kicked … good to know, I responded to him then tacked on a winking smiley face after.
I’d be lying if I said our little banter that bordered on flirting didn’t put a smile on my face. And whenever I saw him with Skype, it apparently put a smile on his face too.
I knew that when I made it back to school in the fall, he’d be hard pressed to turn me away. I had heard his words—his heartbreaking words—before I left, but that just made it that much more obvious that he did have feelings for me. I didn’t know what happened to him that made him think he couldn’t be with someone like me … and maybe he shouldn’t have. Given what an asshole he was in his past, maybe it was karma, but for my goals, he needed to give in to me. He needed to realize that being my friend wasn’t enough for him. He needed me as more than just a friend.
I felt like we were getting there. He texted me out of the blue just to say “Hi.” He called when he was having a bad day just to hear my voice. He sent me emails of things that reminded him of me. If that didn’t sound like a guy at least on the verge of being smitten, then I clearly had the wrong definition of the word.
He had said I was his friend, but even friends didn’t depend on each other the way he had all summer. He called me ecstatic when the first day of his internship was over.
“My boss said he was truly impressed with how quickly I had picked things up on my first day. My first day, Gen.”
I laughed at his enthusiasm and was genuinely proud of him.
He called me when his coach told him he was damn happy he transferred to USC. He called me when he celebrated his friend’s birthday and got tipsy, telling me he thought he’d have a better time if I was there.
“He likes you too, you know,” Amanda would tell me after I described each phone call.
“Good. That’s the plan,” I responded.
“Is it really still the plan?” she’d question. “Are you sure you aren’t doing this for the wrong reasons? Maybe him liking you is a good thing.”
“It is,” I told her.
“Not for your revenge scheme, but for you, Gen. For you.”
“Same thing,” I’d tell her.
“Ugh, it’s like arguing with a wa
ll.”
And then we’d stop the conversation just like the one where she tried to convince me I liked him.
“God, why do I help you?” she asked when I asked her what I’d do when I came back to school.
“Because you love me,” I replied sweetly.
“Which is why I shouldn’t be helping you, but you’re hopeless, so yeah …”
“Okay, so what do I do when I get back? Make a move?” I asked.
“Yeah, that would be good, but you need one final push to make sure he accepts your advances.”
“Like?”
“No guy wants to imagine the girl they like with another guy.”
“Okay ...” I responded, thinking I knew where her train of thought was headed.
“So make him jealous.”
“How?” I asked.
“Tell him you got a date, maybe even tell him you liked the guy at the end of the night. Tam will be all but begging to claim you after so no other guy can get a date with you—only him.”
“You think that will work?”
“Come on, Gen. Every time you ever talked to another guy, who swooped in and saved the day?”
“You’re right. This might actually work. You’re a genius!” I cried out.
“Yeah, I know,” she responded, and I could actually hear her smirk.
My revenge scheme had just gotten a little more interesting. I just hoped Amanda was right because in just a few short days, I’d be seeing Cam for the first time in a few months, and I needed it to go to the next level.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Past
Cameron
Two years earlier …
YOU’D THINK I’D be out from under Charles’s thumb when I finished high school. You’d think since I was an adult, I could go somewhere, do something, do anything to get away, but it wasn’t that easy. I was starting college in the fall, so what could I do until then? Get a part-time job? Check. Practice football like crazy to be out of the house? Check. Fool around with anything that walked to remind myself I still had some control of my life? Check. Sleep with even more girls just so I felt like a man in those few moments? Check. But then what? It wasn’t like I could get my own apartment. You needed rent money for that. You needed credit. You needed a whole slew of things I could probably get if I had the guts to tell someone about Charles, but I didn’t. It was my shame to bear.
I slept over at my friends’ places every now and then, claiming I was too tired or drunk or even stoned to drive home. That helped, but how often could I do that without someone getting suspicious? Especially since I had been doing it for most of my high school life.
My friends weren’t stupid, though. They knew they had never been to my house for a reason. I’d make jokes and snide remarks about my stepdad being a strict asshole. It stopped them from asking questions, but it didn’t stop the questions in their eyes. But guys didn’t discuss shit like that. We talked about cars, sports, and women. Home life wasn’t on the table.
I was grateful for that. And it made it easier to deny that people knew what a piece of work Charles was. But no matter what they thought or figured out, they could never know the extent of what I endured. Never. I’d die before I let that part out.
At least I thought I’d die before anyone ever got wind of what a pussy I was. What a coward and what a brainwashed worthless piece of shit I’d become.
So I took the abuse because I wasn’t worth more than what he said I was worth. I deserved the agony he gave me. I deserved it all for being a worthless piece of shit.
So here I was … an eighteen-year-old adult on the verge of starting college, starting the rest of my life, and I was a scared little boy letting Charles degrade me every chance he got.
I just hoped that when fall semester started and I was away at school that things would be different … that I would be different. That was what I hoped for. That was all I hoped for. Because without hope, what good were dreams?
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
Present
Genevieve
“HEY, YOU GOING out?” Cam asked after I answered his Skype call.
I had known he would call, and I did as Amanda had instructed. I got all dolled up like I was going on a date. “Trust me, he’ll notice the difference,” Amanda had promised. I guess she was right.
“Um, yep,” I responded somewhat nervous.
“Good,” he said and nodded. “Where to tonight?” he asked.
“Oh … uh … I don’t know.”
“Just going to wing it?” he asked, slightly confused by my answer.
“Not quite. He said to dress nicely but comfortably, but I’m not sure where he’s taking me.”
“He?” Cam asked, his brow creasing. “Gen, are you going on a date?” he asked after a beat as if it had just hit him what I was saying.
“Yeah,” I said with a shrug like it wasn’t a big deal.
“Oh,” Cam said, and I swear I heard his disappointment. It took everything in me not to smile in triumph. “Who’s this guy?”
“I met him in line at the coffee shop yesterday. We started talking, hit it off, and when he asked me out, I said sure.”
“A stranger?”
“Don’t worry,” I said as if I was trying to placate a big brother. “Josh seems like a really nice guy. And he’s picking me up from my house, so he’ll meet my parents. They’ll know what he looks like if he tries anything funny,” I said with a wink.
“Seems nice,” he repeated. “A strange guy hits on you, and he seems nice. Well, okay, yeah, that makes me feel really assured.”
“Cam, seriously, girls go out with strange guys all the time, have a fantastic time, then go on another date, and another, and the next thing you know, they’ve got a boyfriend. That’s kind of how this thing works.”
“I don’t like it.” Because he was a “stranger” or because he didn’t like me going on a date?
“If it makes you feel any better, I’ll text you when I get home safely so you know I’m okay.”
“That wasn’t even an option,” he practically growled. “I don’t think you should go. What if something happens? I’m not there to help.”
“I’m a big girl,” I retorted.
“And what’s the point of going out with him? You’re going to be coming back here soon,” he added.
“That’s the best part!” I cried excitedly. “He goes to UC Riverside, so he’ll actually be down there soon too.” Thank you, Amanda, for prepping me! She had pretty much nailed this conversation when we practiced together. God, the way she knew men’s minds was kind of scary.
“Great,” Cam mumbled.
“Oh, crap. Hey, I have to finish getting ready. I’ll text you when I get home. Bye,” I said quickly before he could get in another word and then turned off Skype.
I went out that night. I just went out with a couple of girlfriends I had made over the summer. It was nothing too crazy, but Cam didn’t have to know that.
I got home fairly early, but I waited until around one thirty in the morning before texting him per Amanda’s suggestion.
Home safe. You’ll be happy to know he was a perfect gentleman. I had a blast. My parents liked him.
Great, Cam responded. So you’re going out with him again? he added after.
Yeah, definitely, but I’m not sure if I’ll have time before I leave. Still need to finish up some stuff, so I probably won’t go out again until I’m back in So. Cal. Josh seemed bummed about it, but I think he understood.
Great, Cam sent again, but I had a feeling that meant anything but great. I smiled wide, sighing into my pillow.
Good night, Cam. I’ll text you tomorrow.
Good night, Gen. Sweet dreams. ☺
You could bet your ass I had sweet dreams that night. The problem with those dreams? They featured Cam and me having a great time together … with no revenge scheming involved. But when I woke up, I knew that was all they were—dreams.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
Past
Cameron
One year earlier …
THEY SAID A MAN was only as good as his word. I already knew I was no good, so I didn’t know why I was surprised my word didn’t mean shit—even if it was what I’d promised myself. I was the hometown football hero. It had been expected of me to go to State and make the community proud, so that was what I did. I could have used any excuse in the book to move away, but I was afraid people would wonder why, ask questions, and then things would get out.
The good thing, though, about going to college was even if it was just an hour away from home, I was still away. Playing football meant I had a scholarship, which included room and board. I didn’t have to come “home” for the entire school year except for the few times that Charles would call and make a fuss. And even then, I’d only go home because I was afraid he’d show up at school and make a scene. Each time, I took the abuse, but that was nothing compared to what I’d lived through before. Even for winter break, my dorm was open, and I could stay. If anyone asked, I used the excuse of needing to catch up on schoolwork and my stepdad visiting family out of town.
It was an entire school year away from him. I felt different; I felt better, lighter. I thought I was stronger and could take him on when the time came.
I had nowhere to go for the summer break after freshman year. I didn’t get aid during the summer, and I still didn’t have money for my own apartment, but I thought that was okay. I thought I’d be okay because I promised myself that when I had to go home for the summer, I wouldn’t let him take advantage of me.