WINTER’S FIRST SNOW MADE ITS appearance earlier this morning when I woke up in David’s arms. I watched as the flakes fell outside his window while he dropped kisses along my shoulder blades; kisses so hot I swear I can still feel their burn marks on my flesh as I now sit in my room, staring at the pile of envelopes I’ve been avoiding.
Another month has passed, bringing us that much closer to freedom, but I wonder what freedom will look like as I run my hand over the stack of paper that hides the ink of the future.
Last year, when I broke the state record for the fifty-yard free, there were several scouts in attendance. Along with my four-point-oh grade average, I knew it was only a matter of time before letters of intent would start showing up. The first one arrived in September. I didn’t open it though. It’s been a little over three months, and five others have joined the stack. All from schools my dad and I used to talk about me attending, and now here they are, sending me letters with whatever scholarship packages they are offering me.
I’m scared to open them. Scared and sad, because I’m supposed to be doing this with my father.
This was our thing. Everything was our thing.
The other player in this is David. Even though one of the letters is from the University of Oklahoma, a big part of me wants to get out of this state and far away from the memories this place now holds. But moving means leaving David, and that isn’t something I want to face. The thought of not having him is practically debilitating.
Time isn’t on my side in this case. I’m going to have to open these letters soon and make my choice, otherwise these offers might be pulled off the table.
Snow continues to float down to the pillowy, white blanket that now covers the ground, and when I look at the time on my cell phone, I drag myself to the bathroom to start pulling myself together.
Winter Formal is tonight, and when Kroy asked me to go with him, I originally said no. He assured me we’d just be going as friends, but it still felt weird because of David. When I told him Kroy had asked me, his response came as a surprise.
“Has anyone asked you to the dance?”
Hanging out on David’s couch with my head on his lap, I look up from below and giggle. “Would you be jealous if someone did?”
He smirks. “You want me to be jealous?”
“Depends.”
“On what?”
“I mean, if you’re going to go all psycho . . .”
“Just answer the question.”
Lifting my head off his legs, I sit up and face him. “Kroy asked me last week. I told him no.”
“He’s still hanging on to you, isn’t he?”
“I don’t think so. He insisted we’d just be going as friends, and I believed him when he said it.”
“And you still said no?”
“Yeah. Why?”
He picks up the remote and mutes the television before saying, “I don’t want to be the reason for you to miss out on these things. It’s your last year of high school.”
“Even if there were no you, I still wouldn’t want to go.”
“Did you go last year?”
“Yes. It isn’t the same as it was last year. I’m not that girl anymore. And at this point, most of my friends have given up on me.” David opens his mouth, but I quickly shut him down. “Before you say anything, I get that it’s my fault. That I’ve shut them out. But whatever the reason, it is what it is.”
He turns to face me. “You should still go.”
“Why?”
“I’d hate for you to look back one day and have regrets.”
“Regrets about not attending a dance? My God, I hope my future isn’t so pathetic that I’d be torn up about not going to a stupid high school dance.” I laugh at the thought, but he isn’t amused.
“Well then maybe you should go as a safeguard for us.” When I furrow my brows in question, he adds, “Not that I think anyone is suspicious or anything, but if anyone were, you going to this dance with Kroy would serve as a good cover.”
“You’re kidding, right?” He doesn’t respond, but the look on his face tells me he isn’t. “So, you want me to go to this dance with my ex-boyfriend?”
“Why not?”
I held out for a little while longer, but when he better explained his motive, I gave in. I know his real reasoning for wanting me to go isn’t for the safeguard he tried to convince me of though. David doesn’t want the guilt of my possibly having regrets, even though I told him I wouldn’t.
Most girls are at the salons getting their hair and makeup done. Winter Formal at our school is a big deal, almost as big as prom. The girls from the group Kroy and I are going with invited me along, but I couldn’t muster up enough excitement to join them. It would’ve only taken away from the time I was able to spend at David’s house this morning. I’m never quick to leave his bed when I spend the night. Leaving him is always the worst.
Once my makeup is done, I slick my hair back into a low ponytail before slipping on the knee-length lacy, deep green dress I picked up earlier this week. I pair it with nude heels and a conservative dabbing of nude lipstick.
The doorbell rings, and when I walk down the stairs, my mother’s beaming smile and obnoxious camera are nowhere to be found.
That woman used to live for helping me get ready for dances. There hasn’t been a single one she’s missed until now.
The limo is parked along the curb when I answer the door.
Kroy eyes me from head to toe. “You look amazing,” he says softly with a hint of melancholy.
We’ve always gone to these things as a couple, and his longing for our relationship to go back to the way it was hangs in the air between us.
“Are you ready? Everyone is in the limo waiting.”
“One second,” I tell him, and he steps inside while I slip on my ivory cocktail coat.
“Where are you off to?” my mother calls from the top of the stairs.
“Just a dance,” I scoff, annoyed that she’s even pretending to care about where I’m going. “I’ll be back later.”
“Good to see you, Mrs. Hale,” Kroy acknowledges, and I roll my eyes when she responds in total fakery, “You kids have fun.”
“Let’s go,” I murmur as I loop my arm through his.
When Kroy helps me into the limo, all the girls are laughing and singing along to the music that’s blaring. It wasn’t that long ago I was one of those girls, giggling and having a good time. But now . . . now I’m a fraud among friends. As I watch them, I wonder what they’d think of me if they knew what I was doing with our teacher. I look to Linze, but she doesn’t so much as glance my way, and when she throws her arms up and belts out the chorus to the song, everyone laughs and cheers her on—even Kroy. I smile an awkward smile, but the tension between me and her is impossible to ignore.
“You okay?” Kroy whispers when he dips his head down to my ear.
I plaster on a smile for his sake and nod.
Arriving at the dance is exactly what you’d expect. Half the girls ditch their dates to gossip and fawn over how good everyone looks, while others dance to the up-tempo song the DJ is playing.
“Cam!” Ming squeals. “You came!”
“I love your dress,” I respond as Kroy slips my coat from my shoulders.
“I’ll be right back,” he tells me before heading to the coat check.
Ming’s eyes follow him and then come back to me when he’s out of earshot. “Are you two back together?”
Not wanting to confirm or deny, I go along with David’s idea, saying, “It’s complicated.”
A few girls call Ming over to them, leaving me alone at the back of the room. The group we came with is already out on the dance floor, and as I watch them, a drop of jealously lands on my shoulder. What I wouldn’t give to feel as free as they do.
Kroy’s hand slides around my waist, but he doesn’t say anything. We simply stand together, watching another passing moment of our senior year. Moments David thinks I should be enjoying, but how can I enjoy something I don’t fit into? With so much separating me from them, I’ve become an outsider looking in. Plagued by fears that are anything but adolescent, there isn’t a single person in this room who knows the real me anymore.
When the music slows, everyone pairs off.
“Dance with me.”
The adoration Kroy’s eyes still hold for me is merely a product of my deception, and the thought brings on a twinge of guilt. If he knew my truth, knew I had given myself away so quickly to someone else, he’d never look at me again the way he is right now. I doubt he’d ever look at me at all, and that very thought punctures me deep inside. It’s the realization that just because life turned the tables on us, I still care about him.
He holds out his hand, and I take it, harboring the fear that if he ever found out about me, he’d never offer me his hand again. I follow as he leads me out to the dance floor, and when he holds me in his arms and sways us with the slow melody, I birth a small hate for myself.
Kroy deserves so much better than me.
Maybe David does too.
I lied to him when I suggested that Kroy wasn’t hanging on to hope, because he is. And he shouldn’t be, because I’m not the girl he used to know. I’m a liar and an imposter. Every day I get out of bed and pretend to be something I’m not. It’s only when I’m with David that the truth emerges from behind the façade, and I’m safe to be me.
With my head on Kroy’s chest, I savor what’s fading before my eyes: a lifelong friendship between innocent hearts that eventually fell for each other. And although his innocence remains, mine no longer does, and when the song ends and a faster one begins, I cling on to his disillusionment for a while longer. We continue to hold each other, dancing slowly against the quick-paced bass, and somewhere, amidst the chaos, there dwells a mutual sadness.
When feelings start to build, I pull back and disconnect the way I’ve trained myself to.
“I need to go to the ladies’ room,” I tell him, needing space to pull myself together.
I make my way through the crowd and duck into the bathroom. A few girls stand at the sinks as they freshen up their makeup, so I close myself in one of the stalls for a moment of privacy. Leaning against the door, I focus my thoughts on the cold metal piercing into my bare back. The contrast in temperature is a sharp bite to my system, giving me something else to think about aside from high school angst.
I grow irritated as I stand here in these heels and this stupid dress, locked away with the damn toilet when I didn’t even want to come here in the first place. But here I am, hiding and so very unworthy of the guy I came with. I’m a travesty, and he has no clue—and that makes me feel like complete shit.
When I hear clicking heels walking out, I unlock the door only to lock it again when another group shuffles in.
“I can’t believe Kroy brought her.”
My ears perk up when I hear Christine’s voice, one of the girls that’s in our group.
“He can do so much better than her,” another girl says. “She’s not even fun to be around anymore.”
“Oh, I know. And that scar . . . nasty.”
“Right?” a third voice chimes in. “Seriously gross.”
I stare down at the toilet, wishing it was big enough for me to dive into, because that’s how desperate I am to escape right now. I’d swim through the gutters of hell to get myself as far away from here as possible. I doubt my heart could sink any lower as I fight tooth and nail to keep my scalding tears from falling. I might cry over my father, hell, I’ll even allow myself to cry over David, but I refuse to give these bitches my tears.
“Oh. My. God. I saw her mother last night at the Gaillardia Country Club. I was with my parents for the annual Christmas auction, and she was wasted.”
“For real?”
And when I think my gut can’t twist any further, it does, wringing out the bile of secrets hidden. It floods my system in a tidal wave of mortification.
“Yeah. She was with some guy too, hanging all over him.”
“Mr. Hale, like, just died!”
“I know. So trashy.”
Biting my lips together, I hold my breath, swallowing an ugly sob threatening to erupt from the base of my throat.
How is this my life?
How have I fallen so far that I’ve become the school’s bathroom gossip?
“Someone should tell Kroy to stay away from Cam before she ruins his reputation.”
“No joke.”
“She rode in the limo with us,” Christine says. “She wouldn’t even talk. She just sat there like a disgusting lump on a log.”
“What does he even see in her anyway? Give him one night with me, and I promise you, he’d forget about her in an instant.”
“You are so full of yourself.”
They all bust out laughing.
Embarrassment fades into sadness, and when sadness dissolves to anger, I can’t hang on any longer. The moment I step out of the stall, four girls stare at me in horror of being caught, but I don’t stick around long enough to say anything. What would I say anyway? Apparently, I’m worthless and someone forgot to update me on my status change.
Anger feeds the blood in my veins, and I stumble slightly on weak knees as I make my way over to Kroy.
He sees me and rushes over. “Are you okay?”
“Can you take me home?”
“We just got here. What happened?”
“Nothing. I just want to go home.”
“We all rode together, Cam. No one is going to want to leave,” he says. “Seriously though, what happened? Your face is sweating.”
“I’m not feeling good.” I’m too humiliated to tell him what people are saying about me.
“Well can you just sit down? I’ll get you some water.”
“Can you call me an Uber or something? I really don’t want to be here.”
He puffs a heavy breath of frustration at me. “Why can’t you just have fun?”
“I tried, Kroy. Even when I didn’t want to, I did anyway,” I argue when he becomes annoyed with me.
“Why do you have to even try? You should be happy. You love coming to these things and hanging out with our friends.”
“These people are not my friends.”
“They are.”
How can he be completely naïve to how disgusting they truly are?
“No, Kroy, they aren’t. And even if they were, I just don’t fit in with them anymore.”
“Because you don’t want to,” he snaps. “You don’t even want to try. This summer happened, and ever since, you’ve been doing nothing but making up excuses to avoid everyone.”
“I wouldn’t have to make up excuses if you’d just accept the truth for what it is. But you don’t! Everyone just rolls their eyes at me and takes every damn thing I do personally. Well, news flash, it wasn’t that I didn’t want to be around them because I didn’t like them—I was sad! I still am, but it’s not enough for you all to accept.”
“I’m doing the best I can here, Cam.”
“I can’t do this right now,” I tell him and then walk away.
“Where are you going?”
“Home.”
“Cam, wait.”
“Just leave me alone,” I toss over my shoulder, giving up on the night. Even if my heart had wanted to be in it, there’s no way to salvage it.
So, I collect my coat, walk out into the bitter cold of night, and call for an Uber. When my phone flashes that the closest car is twenty-five minutes away, I curse this bleak town and start to walk.
In a matter of a minute, my limbs are shivering. Cold and alone, walking down the snow-lined sidewalk next to the dark street, I pull out my cell with nearly numb fingers not even my anger can heat and text David.
Me: Don’t ever ask me to do something like this again, because I won’t.
I slip my phone down into the pocket of my coat as I concede to despair. The first tear bites my flesh, leaving an icy cold trail down my face. My coat vibrates with his text, but I don’t have it in me to read it. I can’t keep pretending I’m tougher than what I really am.
I don’t want to cry. I don’t want to feel anything at all. But the strength needed to bury it down and keep it dormant is more than what I have in me.
Another text vibrates.
I try so hard every day. I fight against everything, but all I’m doing is allowing it to eat away at the delicate flesh that’s struggling to keep me together.
Wiping the tears the moment they surface, I grow more and more angry. Angry at my dad for dying. Angry at the guy who drank too much and got behind the wheel. Angry at my mother for allowing her broken heart to destroy her. Angry at David for being my teacher. Angry at Kroy for not having enough life experiences to understand me. Angry at Taylor for making my life a worse hell than what it already is. Angry at the piece of glass that dug in too deep, leaving me with this freakish scar.
Buzzing ripples in cadence from my pocket.
He’s calling.
The tip of my nose and ears sting from the freezing temperatures, but I’ll take this pain. I’ll take it and nurture it, because it’s so much more tolerable than the pain my soul is forced to bear.
Clenching my wool coat around me even tighter, I continue to walk, my frozen toes curling inside my heels. Cars zoom past, one after the other, their engines barely audible over my chattering teeth. But it’s when I catch David’s SUV slowing along the curb that I stop in my step. He flies out of the vehicle, and in less than one second, opens the passenger side door and puts me in.
“What the fuck are you doing?” he barks when he closes his door and pegs the heater.
“P-please don’t y-yell at me.” My voice shatters around my body’s violent chills.
David rips off his coat and uses it as a blanket, laying it over my chest. He throws the car in drive and whips it behind a small strip mall that’s beside us.
When he has us hidden away next to a dumpster, he does what he can to warm me, wrapping me up in his arms. The streetlight above us flickers as it strives to stay alive, much like my heart right now.
“What are you doing walking in the freezing cold? Where the hell is Kroy?”
My bones wrack against his arms that attempt to soothe.
“I want to go home, David.”
“I’m not taking you anywhere until you tell me what has you walking alone on the goddamn streets when it’s twenty degrees outside.” His words come out in tempered fury.
“I’m so scared.”
“Of what?”
“Of feeling what I’m trying not to.”
“God, baby. Don’t be. I swear to you, no matter how much pain you’re in, I won’t let you drown in it.”
“You promise me?”
“Come here,” he says, tugging me toward him, and when I crawl over the center console, he gathers me against his chest, cradling me in his lap. “I promise you, you’re safe with me. If you need to cry, then cry. And if it’s still not enough, cry some more. Cry as hard as you need. Hit me if it will help you get the pain out. I swear to you that I’ll be here with you so that you don’t have to go through this alone.”
I hang on to every little piece of him as his body thaws mine, but my earlier tears are gone. For some reason I can’t explain, I don’t know how to cry right now. So, he takes me back to his place, tucks me in bed with him, and holds me while I tell him about the fight with Kroy and the girls in the bathroom. He never lets go of me as he listens and whispers sweet everythings into my ear. And when he asks me to cry and I tell him I can’t, he’s accepting, never pushing me. Instead, he wraps his body around mine as we drift to sleep.