I close my eyes, and, finally, the tears I've been holding back flow out like white water. I cling to Michelle, sobbing desperately, and my legs give out as we both slide to the floor, still holding on to each other for dear life.
But there is no dear life. Not anymore. I wail uncontrollably, but there's no stopping it - no relief.
With no Cam, I am completely untethered from a world that I, quite honestly, want nothing to do with. My shoulders heave and I hold Cam's mom even tighter, only vaguely aware that her grip on me is just as strong. I don't know what else is happening, what anyone else is doing, because my eyes remain clenched shut. I don't want to see a world that doesn't have Cam in it. I don't want to exist in that world.
TWENTY-FIVE
P R E S E N T D A Y
SAM HAS HELDme tighter and tighter as I regaled him with the story of the worst fucking day of my life. Now, I lay in his arms as I tell him how at first I clung to that untethered feeling, as agonizing as it was, because it felt as if I could leave the world along with Cam. But as the minutes went by and reality sunk in - that he was really gone, but thatIwas still stuck here, in a world with no Cam, but onewithRobin Forbes - I couldn't breathe. The feeling of injustice was despairing, the fear of having to deal with Robin without Cam's support terrifying, but the simple knowledge that I would have to continue to exist in that world was utterly unbearable.
I don't remember the rest of that day. I woke up more than twenty-four hours later, still in the hospital, but admitted as a patient. Cam's mom never left my side, and I found out later that when my parents arrived late that first night, she informed them of everything that happened. When my father tried to brush off my outburst as a grief induced rant, my mother was horrified. My father admitted what I'd told him earlier that week. He recited the same response he'd given me - that it must have been a misunderstanding, that I'd asked for it by dressing in "skimpy skirts", and that Robin loves me and would never have intentionally hurt me.
My mother threw him out of the house as soon as I was released from the hospital and he went to go stay with the Forbes, in the same bedroom, in fact, in which Robin stole my virginity and forced himself on me all those other times.
Two weeks passed before Robin was arrested. The rumors started before I even left the hospital and Robin was sure to build the foundation for his defense early. His story was that we'd gotten into an argument on Friday and he broke up with me, which is why I didn't accompany him to Gainesville. My accusation that he'd hurt me was simply my revenge for his dumping me, mixed with grief over Cam's death. The story was that I was being irrational - misplacing my grief - and my panic attack and consequential hospitalization, along with the fact that I didn't speak to anyone for more than a week after Cam died... people took Robin at his word.
At the same time though, Robin spread the word that he still loved me. That we were going to get back together. I didn't know it then, but he was laying the groundwork to explain the text messages. The thing that was "maybe a little extreme" that happened on Friday did not refer to raping me in the school locker room, but to breaking up with me. It helped his story that he really did try to get back with me. Again and again.
But I didn't hear about any of that until later. After I was released from the hospital, I holed up in Cam's bedroom, and didn't leave for nearly two whole weeks. I didn't speak to anyone for the first week, except brief one word exchanges with Michelle or my mother. I had no idea what was even going on in the outside world until Chip came to visit me.
That was when I first realized how fucked up I was. When my friend since childhood entered Cam's bedroom and I cowered in a corner, terrified of being alone with him. Chip was horrified, but he was one of the few people who believed me. He'd seen my wrist and my neck in the hospital, and he knew me, he knew I was telling the truth.
Chip didn't know how to handle me, which wasn't surprising since I didn't know how to handle myself. He cooed at me, bargained with me, and in the end, shouted at me that I needed to make my statement about Robin. He yelled at me that I was letting Robin spread these rumors about me, and that I was just letting him get away with it. And while I was too petrified to even leave my corner, let alone respond to him, I knew he was right.
The problem was, with Cam gone, making Robin pay for what he did to me didn't feel as important anymore. If I'm being honest, nothing felt important with him gone. Everything just felt so... empty. Hopeless.
Once I even imagined - no, not imagined,fantasized about- Robin coming back for me and strangling me, but not stopping this time.It would solve everything, I thought. Robin would be put away for murder and I would be with Cam. I don't tell Sam this though.
I do tell him how Chip came to visit me again the following day, and finally got through to me when he reminded me that Cam would never want me to let Robin get away with this. That Cam risked his life to make Robin pay for what he did to me, and ended up losing it. It was all Robin's fault.
It woke me from my daze. Blaming Robin was all I had, and getting justice gave me a purpose. A reason to continue to exist when the only person who mattered to me was gone. It lit a fire in me, forcing my mind onto this single track, and I clung to it desperately. Because I knew if I allowed myself to think it through, I would return to my initial conclusion - the real truth: that Robin wasn't the one responsible for Cam's death.I was.
I'd let Robin do what he did to me again and again. I'dgone back for more.And then, only when I feared for my life did I confide in my best friend. My best friend who had been insanely protective of me for as long as I could remember. Who I knew loved me fiercely, even if I didn't yet know he wasinlove with me.
AndIdidn't protecthim. When it counted, I let him fall victim to my own weakness, and risk his life. And lose it.
I finally made my statement to Sheriff Chipley after those weeks, in Cam's bedroom, with Michelle present, but not my mom. I couldn't bear to be alone in a room with a man, even a man I should trust, but I also couldn't allow my mother to hear the details. It was a selfish thing, putting Cam's mom through hearing all that when she was grieving for her only son, but I wasn't thinking straight at the time.
My injuries had mostly faded by then, and there was no forensic evidence that Robin had done anything at all. Even the evidence they collected when I was unconscious in the hospital was circumstantial, save for the bite marks, which Robin claimed were just a result of "rough sex", which he claimed I had a thing for. And this, too, made its way around the entire town.
After Robin was arrested, I went from being a crazy girl who reacted irrationally to a tragic loss, to someone who was threatening the life and career of the town's beloved golden boy.
I was a pariah.
A few days after I finally made my statement, I had to go into the station to file the restraining order. My mom had to be in court, and I insisted I was fine to drive myself. And I almost was. But Lacey and my "friends" were waiting for me when I left, hurling awful accusations, and I ran back into the station and hid until the sheriff drove me home. When he dropped me off at my house, the car door was locked, and when he turned to me, probably just to offer some words of comfort, I panicked, hyperventilated, and ended up back in the hospital for two more days.
The harassment worsened. I had to delete any social media accounts, and leave school permanently, not that I was well enough to attend. My mother had to take an immediate leave of absence from work to homeschool me before I got too behind to finish the year.
I couldn't even go to Cam's funeral.
The entire town was there, Chip later told me, and though Michelle offered to have a private service - just family, me and a few of Cam's closest friends - I couldn't be that selfish.
My selfishness had cost Cam his life.
In the end, I sobbed hysterically in Cam's bed, hugging his pillow, sniffing it frantically, desperate to inhale what remained of his scent, while the town that hated me said goodbye to the boy who loved me.
Michelle had found photos of my injuries on Cam's phone from the night before he died, taken while I'd been asleep, and they are the only reason Robin didn't get off completely scot-free. They are what got the judge to sign my restraining order, and despite the best efforts of Robin's father and mine, they couldn't cover everything up. But the case wasn't strong enough, and even my mother, who acted as my lawyer, knew our best hope was a plea deal. My father, being the DA, of course, is the one who negotiated the deal, and there was nothing either my mother or I could do about it.
