Chapter Five #2
"Sure," she replies, and then says into the receiver "Rory wants to
say hello."
Also practiced? Her smile,
and she keeps it carefully played on her face while she listens to
whatever Michelle's presumably surprised response is.
My mother hands me the
receiver and makes to head into the kitchen to give me a false
sense of privacy. She can, of course, hear every word I
say.
I rally my courage. I tell
myself that I really am the strong girl Sam used to believe in.
That I am safe and in control. That my fears, rational and
imagined, can't touch me now—not here.
"H-hi," I stammer, then
hold my breath.
I hear a rush of breath
before Michelle replies. "Hi, Rory, honey."
I inhale deeply, trying to
settle my nerves. I've known this woman since before conscious
memory. "How are you doing?" I ask. I hold my breath again. I don't
mean to test her, but that's exactly what my question is. I don't
know if she'll bullshit me with platitudes or tell me the truth. Or
something in between.
Michelle sighs. "It's been
hard, honey, you know."
Strangely enough, a
whisper of relief flows through my veins at her honesty. Because
yes, I do know. "I do," I tell her.
"It's so good to hear from
you though, Rory girl. I won't pretend I don't ask your mom about
you all the time," she admits.
Old memories surface. Ones
never forgotten, but never at the forefront of my mind
either. Rory girl was Cam's nickname for me, and I'll associate it mainly with
him for the rest of my life. But it didn't originate with
him.
I may have been a tomboy,
but with Cam and me both being only children, I was the closest
thing to a daughter Michelle Foster had. She was the one who
started calling me Rory girl
when I was three. She was the one who braided my
overlong waves into pig tails so they wouldn't catch on one of our
fishing hooks, who taught me how to pull my ponytail through the
back of my baseball cap.
"I'm sorry I haven't
called." My voice cracks with guilt, and I squeeze my eyes shut to
try and get ahold of my emotions.
"Shh, honey," Michelle
coos. "You just take care of yourself, okay? That's what he would
want."
My breath catches at the
mention of Cam, the emptiness in my stomach rolling and swirling
until it encircles my heart, amplifying the perpetual ache there. I
know that Cam would want me to take care of myself. There's a lot
of things Cam would want, like being here, for one. But I also know
he would have wanted me to check in on his mother, to make sure she
was doing okay, and I hadn't done that. I can't help but feel as if
I've let him down in some profound way.
I hear a faint gasp on the
other end of the line, as if Michelle has just realized what she'd
said. As if she hadn't meant to bring him up. But why shouldn't
she? Am I really so fragile that she's meant to pretend he never
existed? That there isn't a giant Cam-shaped hole in each of our
lives, one that can never be filled. How is that honoring
him?
"I miss him so much," I
whisper shakily. My eyes fill with tears and my breath comes too
fast. But this isn't my anxiety. I'm not panicking—I'm just
grieving.
"Me too, honey," Michelle
replies. "He loved you so much."
She has no idea exactly
how much Cam loved me. She can't possibly know that he'd been
harboring romantic feelings for me all that time, that he'd
confessed he was in love with me the night before he
died.
"I love him, too," I
reply, my voice hoarse and weak. I don't use the past tense. Cam
might be gone, but my love for my childhood best friend is still
very present. I expect it always will be.
Michelle sighs. "I know
that, Rory girl. And so did he," she assures me.
I know that, too. I'd told
him I loved him plenty over the years, if not that I was in love
with him. My feelings for Cam were very real, but also very
complicated, and I'll never know how I really felt about him
romantically, what those feelings would have evolved into. Not that
it matters now.
"I know," I
murmur.
"Look, no rush, but when
you're ready, I gave your mom some things I thought you might want.
I know you're still dealing with a lot, so take your time," she
says in a rush.
She gave my mom some
things? Like, there are things of Cam's here? In this house?
I want to ask a million
questions, but all I can say is "okay".
We end the call, each
promising to speak again soon, though we both know the onus will be
on me to make good on that promise.
I take a deep, settling
breath, and turn to find my mother right behind me, watching me
warily. I blink back lingering tears as she wraps me in her
embrace. We hold each other for long minutes, just remembering,
grieving.
I'm conflicted when I step
back. I know she wants to ask me about our conversation, short as
it was, though she must have heard enough to have gotten the gist.
I'm sure we'd both intended on making some small talk and hanging
up—not to talk about how much we love and miss Cam, though I'm glad
she didn't walk on eggshells because of my issues.
"You okay, honey?" my mom
asks. I don't answer, there's no point.
"You have something of
Cam's?" My voice comes out accusatory, and maybe unconsciously I'd
meant for it to. How could she never have mentioned
this?
She nods slowly, still
watching me carefully.
"And you were planning on
telling me this when, exactly?"
"When you decided it was
time you were able to talk about him," she retorts.
I deflate, my shoulders
sagging with the loss of my confidence, and my mother
sighs.
"Of course I wanted to tell
you, Rory," she says, her arm sliding around my shoulders. "But I
wasn't about to risk triggering a panic attack, and then after
Miami… it didn't exactly seem like a good time."
"Yeah," I breathe.
Fair enough.
My mother takes pause, as
if considering her options. "There's a box in the closet in the
guest bedroom," she says. "It's on the top shelf. When you're
ready, it's there. I haven't gone through it. Michelle thought you
were the one who should have it, not me."
"Okay."
I take my dinner upstairs
and spend some time reading. I go through my evening routine, and
get ready for bed. Part of me wants to race to the closet in the
guest bedroom, to dive into whatever are the last bits of Cam I
didn't even know I had left until a couple hours ago. But I have to
be cautious.
I'm not me anymore. I have
to consider the consequences, and I'm not sure what I can and can't
handle anymore. I half think I should ask my mother to go through
it before me after all. Maybe even ask Dr. Schall to look at the
contents and give his approval first.
It's ridiculous of course.
Only I will know if and when I can handle going through Cam's
things, and a month ago I might have felt close, but now… I just
don't know.
I'm so exhausted I find my
eyes closing before ten, and I fall asleep with my reading lamp
on.
****
I wake up screaming, still half trapped in that horrible dream.
Robin had come after me. Sam was there. He wouldn't believe me that
there was danger. Robin attacked me, and then went after Sam,
driving head-on into his Escalade.
I gasp for air, still
stuck living the emotions of suffering events that haven't actually
occurred.
And yet they have. Perhaps
not exactly as my dream portrayed, but close enough, with a
slightly different cast.
Cam.
My mind races, the
guestroom closet beckoning me. Holy
shit, I have a piece of Cam left. Just
sitting there, waiting. I find myself suddenly unable to follow my
own reasoning from earlier, and every second I don't open that box,
it's like I'm just willingly giving him up.
I throw off my comforter
and scurry across the hall. My mother's room is at the end of the
hall, and though she used to sleep like the dead, she's learned to
sleep lighter. She's always half listening for one of my
nightmares, and though I always try to be quiet once I awaken, she
still gets woken up a few times a week.
The shelf is higher than I
can reach with the box pushed all the way back like it is. I have
to drag an ottoman over to get a good handle on it.
It isn't big, or especially
heavy—maybe just big enough for a microwave or small appliance—and
I set it on the full size guest bed that's never been used. I can't
even imagine who it would be for.
I stare at the lid a long
time. I'm not sure if I'm hesitating out of uncertainty, or if I'm
trying to make the moment last, to savor getting some small piece
of Cam back.
My name is written on the
top, but it isn't taped shut. The tabs are folded in like a four
sided accordion so the box stays closed, though, and I sincerely
believe it hasn't been opened since Michelle packed it.
I brush my thumb under the
seam between two tabs, and pull out the first one. The rest follow
quickly, and my eyes land on the item neatly folded on top. Cam's
varsity tee shirt. Linton Tornadoes number twenty two. I run my
fingers over the fabric, and pull the shirt out of the box, lifting
the material to my nose.
I breathe deeply, and I
don't know if the faint scent of Cam is really there or just
imagined, but I smell it all the same.
I sigh. It's not likely
the scent is actually him since I was the last person to wear it.
The day he died. He slipped it on me after cleaning the wound from
Robin's house key the night before, and I was still wearing it at
the hospital the next morning.
I let the material absorb
my tears. I let them flow freely. I miss my best friend. I loved
him. Love him.
And it's not fair that he's not here—that because of my decisions
with Robin, Cam had to die.
"I miss you," I breathe
into the fabric. I hug the material to my chest, and let the sleeve
dangle over my shoulder as I reach for the next item in the
box.
It's a small photo album
from about three years ago. Our parents took countless photos of us
when we were kids, but as we got older, most of our photo sharing
was done online. But when we were in ninth grade, we took a
photography elective and at the end we made this album.
I recall the photos with
utter clarity before I even open it. Photographs of the sky, of the
school grounds. But mostly we took pictures of each other, and
ourselves—making ridiculous faces, or with wide smiles, or rolling
our eyes at one another. It's a bittersweet feeling, these
memories. Because although it hurts that Cam's not here to look at
it with me, I love remembering that time.
We had so much fun in that
class. Often we were directed to pair off, which was obviously
always with each other, and go photograph certain assignments. I'd
always loved our time just the two of us.
It'd been like that when we
were kids, but during middle school we became more social. Well Cam
did, and so I followed. There were always times when we'd hang out
with Chip, Nick, and Perry, but by then the boys and girls had been
hanging out together on Friday nights. And then that became
progressively more frequent. I still saw Cam plenty, but there were
definitely a lot more people around a lot of the time. So that
photography class was something of a reprieve for me—a set time
where I was certain to get my best friend all to myself.
I smile at the memories.
That class came and went with our freshman year, but Cam always
made sure to carve out time for the two of us, and he never let me
feel left out, or as if his popularity was more important than our
friendship. The opposite, in fact. Cam always put me first, with
everything, and I wallow in regret that I allowed my hopes for my
relationship with Robin to ever come between us.
I remember the morning
after I'd overheard Robin tell his friends that he was hooking up
behind my back. After Cam retrieved me from my hiding place in the
woods, after he took me home and cared for me. I picture his face
after I told him I wanted to hear Robin out. The hurt and betrayal
in his honey-brown eyes. But also the love and support—the
loyalty.
Cam always had my back,
even if he didn't agree with my choices. I picture him standing on
his front porch as I climbed into the passenger seat of Robin's
car. Him calling out for me to call him if I needed him—that he'd
come get me. He'd always come get me, I knew. I never doubted that
for a moment. Until he was gone.
I lay down in the guest
bed hugging Cam's varsity shirt desperately, letting myself feel
the loss. I think about how lucky I am to have had him in my life
at all. That despite the unbearable loss, that I wouldn't give up a
moment of knowing him, of loving him.
I think about Sam. About
their similarities, and their differences. I was once put off by
how ostensibly similar Sam and Robin seem, but I know now that what
makes them alike is barely surface deep. That where it matters, Sam
is far more like Cam than he is Robin—that he's more like Cam than
anyone else I've ever known. But then again, he is very much
uniquely himself.
They would have liked each
other, I have no doubt of that. In another life, they could have
been great friends, and I drift back into sleep with these wistful
thoughts of a world I will never know.