Me: Where are you?
I sneak a peek from under my desk at the text I sent David during fourth period when there was a substitute in his class. I’ve been waiting all day for his response, but none has come, and there’s only an hour left until the final bell rings.
“No phones, Cam. You know the rules,” Mrs. Gillespie scolds from the front of the class.
I shove it in my pocket at the same time a call from the intercom system sounds.
“Mrs. Gillespie?”
“Yes.”
“Could you please send Camellia Hale to the principal’s office with her belongings ready for check out?”
“Sure thing,” she responds and then looks at me. “Don’t forget about your homework assignment that’s due tomorrow.”
A few student’s turn in their desks and give me a quick look of curiosity as I grab my backpack, and I wonder if this has anything to do with my mom. Her court appearance about the house was scheduled for earlier today. To say I was shocked when I came downstairs this morning to see her sober and dressed for the occasion would be an understatement.
When I walk into the lobby of the office, Mr. Sanders is waiting for me.
“How are you today?” he greets.
“Good.”
He motions for me to follow him into his office, and the moment I see a police officer, the blood drains from my body, rendering me still. There’s another woman, dressed in black pants and a blazer, standing next to the cop, both faced in serious expressions.
“Go ahead and take a seat,” the principal tells me after he closes the door, and I do, but it isn’t him that speaks next.
“Hi, Camellia. I’m Officer Colfax and this is Julie Sutton from Child Protective Services.”
“Has something happened to my mom?” I blurt out, worried that someone said something about how neglectful she has been.
Mr. Sanders’s eyes shift from the police officer to me. “No, dear. This isn’t about your mother.”
“We’ve been trying to get ahold of her,” the officer says.
“Why? What’s going on?” I look around the room at the three of them with terrified confusion pounding through me.
“There’s been an allegation made that we are going to need to ask you some questions about, but since you’re a minor, we need your mother with you.”
Oh my God. Do they know?
“An allegation ab-about what?”
“Would you like to try contacting your mom yourself?” the officer inquires instead of answering me.
With clammy hands, I pull out my cell and fake call my mom as I go into panic mode. After a few seconds, I lower the phone to my lap and lie, “Sometimes she leaves her cell in her car.”
Reaching into his pocket, he pulls out a card and tells me, “This has all my contact information. When you get home, have her call me.”
The card almost slips from my jittery fingers when I take it from him.
“You’re not in any sort of trouble,” he then adds. “You’ve done nothing wrong, okay?”
I nod, muttering an uncertain, “Okay,” because if this has anything to do with David not being in class today, I don’t know what I’ll do.
“We just want to talk, that’s all.”
I nod again as fear hooks its claws into me, releasing a violent chill through my veins.
“I’m going to allow you an early dismissal,” the principal says.
“I’m not going back to class?”
“It’s best that you go home and have your mother call me,” Officer Colfax says. “I’ll walk you to your car.”
I give a look to Mr. Sanders, the man my father worked so many years for, the man who has been to my home with his wife for dinner countless times. I’m sure he can see my trepidation when his eyes soften and he gives me a reassuring nod. But nothing can reassure me when no one is telling me anything.
Officer Colfax doesn’t say a word as he escorts me through the halls, catching the eyes of a few students who are wandering aimlessly, and I want to run. I force my feet to move in pace with his as he walks me all the way to my car, as if I’m some sort of criminal.
He stresses once more that I’ve done nothing wrong and reminds me to have my mom call him as soon as possible.
The moment I’m off school grounds, I race as fast as I can to David’s house, rolling through stop signs and yelling at red lights. I quickly call my mother and leave a voice mail when she doesn’t answer.
“Mom, I need you to not answer the phone from any numbers you don’t recognize.” The words fall from my mouth in a frenzy. “I’ll be home later.”
There’s a slick, black car parked in the driveway in front of the third garage of David’s house. It should be enough to stop me, but I can’t even think straight in this moment. I pull my car in and shut the garage behind me before bolting into his house in a sheer panic.
He immediately stands from the kitchen table, where he was sitting with another man, and comes straight toward me. I know in this very moment, with the terror in David’s eyes, that everything is all wrong.
“What’s going on?” My voice trembles over the words.
“Is this her?” the man says as David scoops me in his arms, hugging me in a way he’s never done before.
“They know,” he whispers in my ear, and I burst into tears.
“She has to go,” the guy barks from across the room. “For Christ’s sake, what if someone sees her car?”
“She parks in the garage,” David says as he holds me.
“David,” I choke out through my tears. “The police came to the school.”
His arms are solid muscle around me, unrelenting. “I know.”
“You’ve got to get her out of here.”
David breaks his vise grip on me and turns to the guy, snapping, “Give me a fucking minute with her.”
“Who is that?”
He squeezes my shoulders with shaking hands. “Liam. He’s an old buddy of mine who’s an attorney. I called him after I left school this morning.” He drops his head to mine before adding, “They put me on administrative leave.”
“What?”
He moves me to the couch when my legs almost give out, and he sits next to me.
“I don’t know how they know, but they know.”
Tears free fall down my face. “How?”
“The principal couldn’t say—”
“This is a bad situation,” Liam states when he walks into the living room. He takes a seat in a chair across from us.
David never lets go of me as my body trembles against him.
“What do we do?”
“I can only advise David on that. If charges are pressed, I don’t want to be accused of tampering with the victim.”
I dart my eyes to David before going back to Liam. “A victim? Of what?”
“You’re a minor . . . and his student. He’s looking at a possible charge of second degree rape.”
I belly over in a wave of nausea, heaving in shock that severs my capacity to take in a decent breath.
Rape. How could anyone say that about David? About us?
“We don’t know what the allegations even are just yet,” he adds, and when I lift my head, he continues, “They are going to question you before they question David. So, at this point in time, we don’t know what was said or who said it. But if it’s substantial enough, if someone saw you two kissing or anything of that nature, then we have to prepare for the worst.”
I look at David from over my shoulder, and he takes his hands from me, raking them through his hair in distress.
“He could be looking at prison time. So, whatever this is between the two of you, it stops right here. No more texting, no more talking, no more seeing each other. No contact at all.”
“I’m so fucking sorry,” David says through painfully sad eyes.
“It’s over.” I look to Liam when he says this, his face, which is a stone wall of fervency, distorts through my tears. “I’m going to step outside. Say whatever goodbyes you need to say, David, and then send her home.”
A sob rips through me so loudly I don’t even hear the door shut as Liam heads out to the back patio. I fade entirely too fast in a wicked storm of emotions that splinter my heart. Their shards drop to the pit of my stomach, and I feel sick. When the pressure in my chest becomes too much to bear, ribs snap and lungs puncture. I can’t breathe through my agony, but I feel it when David lifts me from the couch, carries me to his bedroom, and sets me down on his bed.
Our bed.
The bed that has become a place of safety for me, because it’s here that, piece by piece, he put me back together, mending the unmendable.
He hunches over my collapsed body, covering mine with his, and it’s through my shattered heart that I hear him crying too. His tears soak through my shirt and dampen my back as our bodies wrack in excruciating pain.
“Don’t make me say goodbye,” I wail, begging for just one more wish to be granted in my favor.
But it’s out of our hands, and I know it. Maybe we were foolish to believe that nothing could ever part us. That we were invincible. Untouchable. Unbreakable. Because here we are, crumbling apart at the hands of the law.
“Look at me,” he eventually says, and when I sit up, I wipe my fingers across his face and collect his tears. “You can’t say anything. They can’t force you to talk, so don’t. No matter what they say they know, promise me you won’t ever tell them about us,” he begs in terror, and the thought of him being punished and going to prison for this kills me.
“I won’t say a word,” I tell him, unable to stop myself from crying. “I promise you.”
He runs his hand, his amazingly loving hand, down the side of my face. “You were never a kid to me. Never did I see you as anything other than everything I was missing inside myself. You’ve given me what no one else ever could. And I need you to know that you are so special and so beautiful”—he kisses me—“and that no matter what they might try to say about me, you were never a conquest. You were never preyed upon”—he kisses me again—“I swear to you, with all of my fucking heart, I love you. I love you in a way I never thought I could love, and nothing will ever change that.”
“I can’t be without you, David. I can’t,” I weep. “I’m nothing without you.”
“You’re everything. You always have been.” He takes me in his hands and dips his head to look me straight on. “I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I will do everything I can to protect you from suffering any more pain. If I take the fall, don’t you dare feel guilty for that, because I have no regrets about falling in love with you.” Another kiss from him spurs more tears from me. “And listen, this might not amount to anything. We might be fine, but if the worst comes, I need you to make me a promise.”
“Anything.”
In an unwavering tone, he says, “Promise me that you won’t let this destroy you. That you won’t hurt yourself.”
My face crumples because we both know I’m not capable of that.
“Try,” he begs.
“I’m so sorry. This is all my fault. I never should have—”
“You did absolutely nothing wrong, do you hear me? Don’t you ever blame yourself for this. We fell in love. That’s all. And only you and I will ever know the truth to what we are.”
I choke down his kiss through fear and love, clinging to him with fractured hope that this won’t be our last. That somehow we will come through this. That our love for each other will be strong enough to survive whatever awaits us.
“I’d stay here forever if I could,” I whisper against his lips.
“I know you would.”
“I love you.” Our tear-filled eyes lock, and I give him the goodbye I never thought I’d have to give him. “A part of me wanted to die before you came along. My world was so dark, and then there you were, and I swear to God, David, you saved me. You opened me up and showed me a love I felt so undeserving of, but you gave it to me anyway.”
“You’ll always have that love. With or without me, I can’t image living in a world where I don’t love you.”
With my insides drowning in heartbreak, he helps me out to the garage where we touch and kiss and cry, all while praying with everything we have that nothing bad will come of this. That this isn’t our goodbye. That we will come through this, because how could we not with a love as powerful as ours?
I then drive away with a heart that no longer beats inside me because I left it on the ground at his feet. And I know that my soul will be forever stained by his like a piece of art, forever marked in his love.