SOMEONE SAID HIS NAME TODAY. It was an insult to hear it muttered so flippantly, because when I say his name, I swear it cripples me. I stay up most nights thinking about him when I’m trying not to think about him, pining for him when I’m trying not to pine for him, agonizing over him when I’m trying not to agonize.
There is nothing beautiful about missing David. It’s ugly and filled with so much torture. It’s like being constantly poked by a fire-spitting torch, and I wonder how much longer I can deal with everything before it burns me to ash.
Every day is a punishment. I’m selfish for even thinking about it that way, considering what David is facing, but it’s the truth.
I’m the school’s outcast. It’s a never-ending assault of teasing and judgment. I was right when I thought that Kroy probably would never talk to me again, because he hasn’t. Not that I blame him, but it still hurts. The few friends I had this year won’t even speak to me because in no way do they want to be linked with the school’s leper and risk being ostracized themselves.
I’m so alone. The isolation is unbearable.
Never could I have imagined that my world would come to this. My senior year was supposed to be the best yet. There was so much I was looking forward to before the crash happened: football games, prom, pep-rallies. When I think about those things now, they seem so frivolous. The day my dad died was the day I forever changed. But it was David who stepped in, and with his unfaltering love, he was able to heal parts of me I thought would be forever damaged. He made my senior year a little better, a little easier, a little tolerable.
And now all that is gone, because he’s gone, because they say our love is a crime. But he did nothing wrong. He never took advantage of me. He never preyed upon me. He never raped me. It’s all lies. Lies everyone is now using to crucify him with.
The devastation is beyond words incapable of being spoken. The more it rips my soul open, the sweeter death sounds. The past two months have been spent drifting in and out of cycles of crying and sleeping and cutting. And here I am, nothing but a weak little girl in dire need of the arms of the only man who’s strong enough to love me.
Suffering in desolation, I sit on the edge of the pool with my feet dangling in the water while I stare lifelessly at nothing in particular. I then close my eyes and hang my head back to allow the May sun to kiss my cheeks in its warmth, but it doesn’t even come close to the heat of Lost Love’s kisses.
This was supposed to be such an exciting time for me and David. Graduation is only two weeks away. We held the future by the tips of our fingers, but it wasn’t enough for us to keep in our grip, and now, everything we were looking forward to is gone.
I didn’t even buy a cap and gown. What’s the point? It isn’t as if my mother would show up, or anyone else for that matter. Plus, there’s no use sitting among everyone just for them to gawk and whisper when I walk across the stage.
“That’s her. That’s the girl who slept with the teacher,” they’ll say.
They can mail me my diploma.
When my cell phone rings, and I see it’s Randall, my stomach sinks the way it always does when he calls to update me on the case. It’s the anxiousness of the unknown.
“Hey, Randall.”
“Hi, Cam. Are you enjoying your Sunday?”
“You know better than to ask me questions like that at this point,” I respond in dull jest.
“Today is different.”
I sit up a little straighter. “How so?”
“You told me I should call you if there were ever anything you could do to help David. Today is that day.”
A rush of urgency comes over me. “What is it?”
“Last month, against my better judgment, I relayed your message to Liam, David’s attorney. Well, he called me a little bit ago. Seems the prosecution has been wavering and just asked the judge to grant more time in order to prepare for trial.”
“Why?”
“Since it’s the tax payers who are affording this trial, they want to ensure a solid case, especially since you and your mother haven’t been cooperative. My guess is, they are going to use this time, mainly, to get you on board with helping them. So if they haven’t already called you—”
“They did,” I tell him. “Yesterday, but I let it go to voice mail.”
“And this is where you come in.” He takes a pause and then explains, “Do not answer when they call. Liam wants to throw a deal on the table while he has the prosecution in a weak moment.”
My heart thumps in blind hope. “What kind of a deal?”
“It’s a Deferred Judgment Agreement.”
“Dumb it down, Randall.”
“It involves David pleading guilty to a felony on the three counts of second degree rape and the one count of soliciting sexual conduct or communication with a minor by use of technology. Now, when David does this, the court will not enter a judgment of conviction.”
“I’m still confused by what this actually means.”
“Basically, it means he will be guilty of the crimes, but the court will hold off on actually convicting him. He will remain under court supervision for X amount of time and with any restrictions imposed. If David can abide to the terms of the deferment for the length of supervision, they will drop the conviction.”
“So he would just be able to be free?” I question through growing hope. “No more house arrest?”
“More than likely. But absolutely no prison time. However, if he fails to abide by the stipulations, they would then convict and he would go to prison.”
I pop up to my feet and water drips down my legs as I start pacing anxiously. “What do we do to make this happen?”
“Liam is hesitant that the prosecution will entertain this plea deal if they think they have any chance at getting you on board with the case. This means that you and your mother will need to be firm and final that in no way will you assist in the prosecution of David. Once they know there is no hope, it will be unlikely that they will want to go to trial with an uncooperative victim,” he explains. “But this means that you’re going to have to convince your mother.”
“How long do we have?”
“Honestly? This needs to happen yesterday.”
Without allowing another second to slip by, I hang up and run inside the house with the adrenaline of hope detonating through my veins. David was the one who saved me this year, so I’ll do whatever I need to in order to save him. I’ll give my life to save him.
The guilt and responsibility I endure for being so foolish and clumsy with our love will forever weigh on my shoulders.
My heart pounds so unbelievably hard it feels like it might just explode, but it’s when I burst into my mom’s room that anger starts to spit its infection.
It’s two in the afternoon, and of course, she’s in bed with her manipulative vice. Her clarity dwells at the bottom of the bottle on her nightstand instead of in the nightmarish reality of our lives.
Reaching down to where she lies on the bed, I jostle her shoulder. “Mom, I need you to wake up.”
She rolls over and blinks.
“I just got off the phone with Randall, and I need your help.”
The undeniable insistency in my voice stirs her enough to sit up. Last night’s eyeliner is smudged haphazardly under boozy eyes as her head sways in an attempt to appear lucid.
No, officer. I haven’t been drinking at all.
She’s a horrible faker.
“Did you hear what I said?” My voice pitches through heart-pounding anxiety.
“Hmm?”
“This isn’t a joke, Mom! I’m serious. You need to call the DA. Tell him you won’t help the prosecutor. That you’re in full support of David. It’s the only chance we have to help him. If they don’t have us on their side, they’ll most likely go for a plea deal.”
Her face contorts in disgust when I say his name. “That man deserves to be punished for what he did.”
“Are you kidding me?” I berate. “Don’t you dare pretend to have morals about right or wrong.”
“So you admit it happened then?”
“I’ll admit whatever you want me to if it means you’ll help me.”
“And what about what your father would want?”
How dare she bring him into this.
“Dad wouldn’t want this lingering over us, Mom. He wouldn’t want more lives destroyed. His was enough.” I take a disparaging step back. Agony over the thought of this woman being the one who could possibly stand in the way of David’s fate guts me. “I can’t go on like this.” I strain to get my words out through the emotional noose around my neck. “Help me. Please. I’m begging you so that I don’t have to suffer any longer than what I already have. No good can come of this, only prolonged pain, and I’m done! I’m done with this pain, and I know you are too. This is doing nothing but making everything worse. The sooner this is over, the sooner the media will move on so we can too!”
“So he just gets away with this? That’s what you want?”
Emotions well up, flaring at the base of my throat as I hang on to my tears.
“You’ve let me down more times than I can even count this year, and here I am. I’m still here with you. I haven’t left you yet, so please, all I’m asking for is this one thing. For me. Do this for me.”
She stares at me as if I’m poisonous, and my fear for what will happen if she refuses sears through my chest.
“For once, put me first,” I beg, and the tears finally surface. “I’ll do whatever it takes to make you see this is the right thing to do.”
“Tell me the truth then.”
She asks the impossible. I can’t do that—won’t do that. I don’t trust her not to take my truth and use it against me, punishing me for her misery.
“You already know the truth.”
“I want to hear you say it.”
I shake my head as panic terrorizes my pulse. “I can’t do that.”
“Then I suggest you leave my room.”
“I love him,” I blurt out in near hysteria, depleted in my desperation as my cheeks coat in tears. “Is that enough, because that’s all I can give you. I love him, and I won’t say anything else, but just know that he is a good man just like dad was to you. Please . . . please don’t destroy his life just because you hate me.”
August
(3 months later)
A bead of sweat rolls down my forehead and into my eye, temporarily blinding me with its sting.
“Why on earth does summer have to be so hot?” I whine as I wipe my forehead on my sleeve and load one more box into the trunk of my car.
“I still can’t believe you’re leaving.”
Linze hands me the box she’s holding, and I add it to the others before turning to the only person who helped me get through the past few months. I don’t know what I would’ve done without her. This summer has been nothing but a chamber of anguish stuck frozen in time. The only light that kept me going was the countdown to today: moving day. And even though I’m sad to leave the only lifeline I have left, she isn’t enough to keep me here in Oklahoma.
I doubt there’s a person in this town that doesn’t know that I’m the girl David Andrews “raped”. And why shouldn’t they when cameras were allowed in the courtroom the day he stood in front of the judge and pled guilty to raping me. I, along with countless others, sat glued to the television as my love lied to the court. Hearing such repulsive words come out of the same mouth that used to kiss me so sweetly was a dagger to my heart, and I bled for weeks.
I was so conflicted afterward—I still am—it’s hard to know whether I should be happy or sad that they settled on the plea deal. It’s a mixture of emotions that I still haven’t been able to work through, but above all, I am forever grateful that my mother stepped up for me. I can’t even explain the shock when I woke up the following morning after begging her to help David.
“What are you doing?” I ask when my mom walks into the kitchen, sober and dressed.
She takes a bottle of water from the fridge and then turns to look at me. She doesn’t speak right away as I watch tears puddle in her eyes.
“I’m going to the DA’s office . . . for you.”
A blissful exhale of relief deflates my lungs, and I want to run into her arms and thank her profusely, but I don’t. I just stand, too shocked to move. When I open my mouth, I can’t even speak. My chest aches in unbounding gratitude, and when a tear falls down my face, she reaches over and wipes it, touching my scar for the very first time.
“I’m doing this because I love you,” she says, her voice trembling in emotions she’s buried so deeply I didn’t think I’d ever see them again. She grabs her purse and starts to walk away, but then she stops and turns back to me, adding, “And just because your father was better at loving you than I was, it doesn’t mean that I never wanted you. I did. I wanted you very much—I still do.”
Her confession that morning touched every exposed wound she ever gave me. Her words did nothing to heal the damage she had already done, but they did remind me that, underneath all the sorrow, misery, and alcohol, my mother was still there. That I hadn’t lost her entirely.
After that day, she went right back to drinking. I don’t know if she has it in her to stop, but I’d like to think that, with me leaving, maybe she’ll be a little better—a little happier, because no longer will she have me to serve as a reminder of everything her heart weeps for.
“Okay, say goodbye to me before I start crying,” Linze says.
I look to Wild Blonde who, at one point, was practically my sister. We’ve never gone back to the friendship we had before my dad died, not that I was expecting to. I’ve changed way too much for things to ever be the same between us, but I fear the harm I might have done to myself if she hadn’t come back for me.
I probably wouldn’t be standing here right now.
I wrap my arms around her in a sincere hug. “I don’t know how to ever thank you.”
“Just promise me that you’ll go to North Carolina and have fun. Pretty soon, all of this mess will be a distant memory.”
“I’m going to miss you.”
The minute her eyes water, she lowers her sunglasses. “Drive safe,” she says, trying not to cry. “Call me when you get there, okay?”
“I will.”
I watch as she walks to her car, and when she opens her door, she says, “Remember . . . fun!”
“I got it. Fun!” I tell her before she drives away, but I don’t know if I can follow through on that promise.
I have no clue how I’m supposed to start a new life and forget about what I’m leaving behind. I doubt I’ll ever forget about David. How can I? He’s the first and only man I’ve ever truly fallen in love with. He’s my first everything. My skin still feels his hands when I’m lying in bed at night because he was the first to touch me the way he did—with unyielding love and affection and adoration. God, he was so good at loving me. I have to move on though. I have to somehow let go, but I’m so scared to be free of him. I want to hang on to him for forever, but the law stole that from us.
Our dream was to go to North Carolina together, but now I have to do it alone, while David stays behind per the order of the court. The plea deal was that he will be held under court supervision for four years and that he has to attend weekly sex offender treatment. He’s also not allowed to leave the state for two years. After that, he can only leave with the permission of the district attorney. In addition, there is a no-contact order in place for anyone under the age of eighteen. But the worst part is . . . they put a no-contact order against me—for four years.
Four years!
With everything loaded in my car, I close the trunk and head back to my room one last time. It’s hard to think about what these four walls have seen this past year. It’s hard for me as well so I won’t. I grab the paperback I eventually bought of Cosmopolis from my dresser. I read it every night before I go to bed as a way to feel connected to David, even though I shouldn’t, knowing it’s things like this that will make it impossible for me to move on, but I’m just not ready to let go yet.
I’d say goodbye to my mom if she were here, but she went out a couple nights ago and hasn’t returned. So, I lock the house up behind me, and after I toss the book next to my purse in the passenger seat, a familiar black car pulls up along the curb.
I watch as the driver’s side door opens and Liam steps out. Even though Liam stayed in communication with Randall for my sake, I haven’t seen or actually spoken to him since that day at David’s house.
“What are you doing here?”
“Something I shouldn’t be,” he says as he approaches my car, and when he steps in front of me, he adds, “But when it comes to you, David is insistent.”
My stomach flip-flops at the mention of his name, and I wonder when that feeling will begin to fade.
He looks over my shoulder and sees the boxes stacked in my backseat. “You getting out of this town?”
“There’s only one thing here for me, but I can’t have him, so there’s no point in staying.”
“It’s probably for the best. And I’m not saying that to be a dick. I’m saying that so you two aren’t tempted to do anything stupid.”
“I’d never do anything to jeopardize that plea deal.” I know Liam means well, but the accusation in his voice is sharp.
He pulls out a white envelope from his suit jacket and holds it out for me.
“What’s this?”
“Something I advised against,” he says, and I take it from his hand. “It’s a letter.”
“Obviously, but I—”
“Like I said,” he interrupts. “You leaving is the best thing for him. He doesn’t need temptation living five minutes away.”
I stare down at the envelope, running my hand over the fibers of the paper that his hands touched, and my heart grows heavy.
“How is he?”
Liam shoves his hands in the pockets of his pants and sighs. “He’s destroyed, which is probably putting it mildly. The media was relentless, but aside from that, he wanted me to tell you that he misses you and that everything else you need to know is in the letter.”
I give him a nod, because if I try to speak around the knot in my throat, I’d only burst out into tears.
“I’d wait to read it though. At least until you get to where you’re going.”
I nod again, holding the closest thing I have to my forbidden love in my hands.
Before he leaves, his lips lift in a subtle smile. “I’ve never seen a love as intense as what that man has for you.”
“Will you tell him something for me?”
“Of course.”
A million words flood my head at once, but I go with what I never got a chance to say. “Can you tell him I said ‘Thank you for not being afraid to love me’?” With no control, tears are already streaming down my cheeks. “And tell him that I love him. That I really love him.”
Liam nods and gives me a second to regain my composure before saying, “Good luck with wherever you’re headed next.”
I just gave him the last remnant of myself to take back to David, and it’s nearly debilitating. So, when I slip in behind the steering wheel, I drop my head and expel harrowing sobs into my hands. I cry as I teeter on the knife’s edge of two extremes—loving the universe for giving me someone as special as David, and hating the universe for ripping him away from me so violently and without any warning.
I don’t know how long I sit here and cry, but it’s long enough that the crests of my cheeks burn from the saltiness of lost love. When I can’t take it anymore, I slip his envelope into the book, turn the key, and set off to the east coast.
I roll down the windows and breathe in a lungful of fresh air. And with the wind in my hair, I know that, no matter what they say, no matter how wrong we were for doing what we did, together all those wrongs created the most exquisite right.
So, this is it.
This is how our love story ends.
Cam,
I have so much to say but not a clue where to start, so I guess I’ll start with this: I’ve never been scared of freedom. I only became terrified of it once it meant living without you.
God, Cam, I have no idea how the hell I’m supposed to get over you.
I knew I had no right to you, but I was selfish and took you as if it were my eternal right. You amazed me from the very beginning, but I never imagined how hard I would wind up falling in love with you. You touched my soul. You touched it and left your prints all over it. Never have I let anyone get that close to me, but it’s not like you gave me a choice. It was never a question whether I wanted to open myself up as much as I did with you, it just happened. Somehow, you burrowed your way into my heart, and I haven’t been the same since.
I will never forgive myself for what loving me has done to you. I’m a constant wreck, wondering how badly you must be hurting and if you’re scared. I worry about you, because if I’m not the one taking care of you, then who is?
All I can do is hope that you’re coping and finding a way to heal from all of this. I just wish I could be there for you.
But there’s something else I need to say. I need you to make me some promises.
I know you’re hurting right now, and I’ll forever be sorry that our love got turned against us and now only causes pain.
I don’t want what has happened to destroy you any more than it already has.
I love you. There is no denying that. I love you so much that I don’t want to be the reason you hold yourself back from living. I need you to be happy and to move on from this.
With that said, go to UNC. Don’t do it for us, do it for you. Open yourself up to making friends. Go to parties and let loose, but be safe. Take this time to make mistakes and have fun. Keep swimming, because you’re amazing at it. But most importantly, I don’t ever want you to be afraid of falling in love again, because you do it beautifully.
One more thing, years from now, when you’re happy and settled, if I should ever cross your mind, I want you to remember all the times you made me smile. Because I will always remember you as the vibrant girl, hanging out of the sunroof of my car with that crazy beautiful smile on her face. They’ve stolen enough from us, don’t let them take away what we both know was real. Always remember what we were before they turned our love into something ugly.
You are the best thing that ever happened to me, so don’t ever doubt that my love for you was one of the realist things I’ve ever felt in my life. I will never forget you.
I miss you more than you will ever know.
I love you. I always will.
David