44. Lenni
FORTY-FOUR
lenni
It’s the first week of May, and the orchard is bursting with pale-pink petals and the delicate sweetness of apple blossoms.
Cam and I lie in the grass behind the old house that once belonged to his grandparents while Liam plays nearby. The sunshine and fresh breeze are doing wonders for my hangover, the cumulative effect of the past week’s end-of-year parties and last night’s celebration of my new role as Arts and Lifestyle editor for the Daily Phantom. I watch wispy clouds morph slowly in the sky and will my mind to match their casual pace.
Cam folds his arms behind his head, drawing my eyes to the curves of his muscles. “What were you scowling up at the sky about?”
“I wasn’t scowling.” He taps his fingertips on my tensed forehead, and I realize he’s right. “Nothing. Thinking about the group mostly.”
Back in February, not long after the publication of my article about sexual assault on campus, I worked with Shafer faculty to open our own chapter of a national sexual assault survivor’s support group. It was an idea formed suddenly but with such urgency that it was my entire lifeblood spring semester.
The response to my article had been quiet but immense, most of it coming in the form of emails written directly to me by students—female and male—who wanted me to know they felt seen by what I’d written, and who insisted an article wasn’t enough. It all seemed so obvious then. One article couldn’t contain the millions of words students needed to say and hear. We needed to see each other and tell our stories face to face.
“What about it?” Cam asks.
“I feel like I’m jumping ship for the summer. I don’t know how to keep the group going if I’m not here or whether it’s fair to ask someone else to keep it going for me.”
“It’s not your group.”
This is true, reassuring, and aggravating all at once. I don’t have the qualifications to lead the group—we have a faculty sponsor and two trained grad students in those roles—and I’m only in the beginning stages of working through what happened to me. But I feel responsible for making sure this support space doesn’t fail any student who needs it. And I haven’t told Cam about the email I received this morning from Sasha James.
I’ve still never met Sasha in person, but we corresponded a few times through email last winter when she sent me a brief quote she wanted included in the article. I never heard from her after that. But this morning she emailed me asking about the support group and whether it would continue through the summer. I don’t have an answer for her. We started small, just a few students, and only managed two meetings before the school year ended. I’m proud of that and worried about what’s to come. And I think I just realized how much I’ve already come to rely on the group for my own needs.
“It feels like mine. Two months is a long time to go without it.”
Cam smiles, and I know what he’s thinking because I’m thinking it too. We couldn’t have imagined just a few months ago me being so eager to talk about my past, especially to strangers. “You’ll have your therapist at home. And I know it’s not the same, but you’ll have me.” That last one is the most reassuring idea of all. Cam extends his arm on the grass, and I lay back against it. “You still feeling okay about spending the summer at home?”
“Okay is a good way to describe it.” I ended up taking the job offered to me by Mr. Clemmons, the one Mom was trying to sell me on back in the fall. It pays pretty well, and because the company is brand new, I’ll be taking on far more responsibilities than I’d be given at any established media outlet, which is even better.
“Which part aren’t you feeling?”
“I guess I’m scared to walk into that town again. I’m ready to stop running away from it, but I don’t know what I’m in for. I never pictured myself there again.”
Before I took the job back home, I found the courage to be honest with my mom about how broken I still felt by what those high school boys had done to me and why I stayed away from home. It wasn’t what she wanted to hear, but she did hear it, and she didn’t reason away my pain. So, with some hesitation, I took her up on her offer to live with her and Gus in their new apartment. She’s been sober since rehab last November and seems to be in a better place than her last attempt at sobriety. Still, I know there’s no such thing as “From now on” in recovery. Life is day by day. I guess that’s true for all of us. And I’ve reassured myself that even if the summer job and living at home is a flop, I’ll have an extended visit from Jade to look forward to. She and Sam have waded back into togetherness, and even though they’re keeping it more casual this time around, Jade’s fiery spirit has returned.
“You’re going to blow the whole town away,” Cam assures me. “A place like that can’t even hold you.” When I don’t answer, he leans close so I can feel the warmth of his lips on my ear. “It’s okay, Lenni.”
I remember these words and the same tender way he said them to me that awful night in Reeve’s bedroom. I think that was the precise moment my heart fell for him, even if my head didn’t know yet. And just like then, something deep inside me believes him.
“And if things get too hard, come stay with me in Atlanta. Or hell, I’ll come to you. Just say the word.” He turns and looks up at the sky.
I kiss his cheek, but it doesn’t diminish the faraway look in his eyes. “What is it?”
He blinks. “This isn’t what I wanted for this summer.”
“Stop. This is exactly what you wanted.”
“Being a plane ride away from you?”
“Working in Atlanta. Being something other than a football player for a few weeks and seeing how it feels.”
His brow creases. “That part’s good, I guess.” He turns to me and the tension in his face lightens. “You think I’ll like it?”
“Being a working stiff?”
“Yeah, that.”
“Probably.”
Early in spring semester, Cam committed to the internship in Atlanta, and I’d hardly seen him happier. Maybe not dancing-in-the-streets happy—Cam only dances when he’s wildly drunk and even then, only when a song comes on that reminds him of high school. But he was walking around like a weight had dropped from his shoulders.
I see it creeping back in though, his mind venturing past this summer and into next year when he’ll have to decide whether football is his future or his past.
“What if I hate the internship?” he asks.
I shrug. “Then you’ll have narrowed your life down to ninety-nine career options.”
“What if I don’t make the draft? Then what’ll I be?”
“Mine. You’ll be mine.”
Cam’s eyes are awash with color in the sunlight. He wraps his fingers around my wrist and strokes his thumb in small circles over my pulse. “I was always going to be yours.”
Liam stands up amid a pile of plastic trucks and runs over to us, an inflatable beach ball clutched between his hands. “Let’s play, Cam!”
“You got it, dude.”
Liam has zero interest in football, a fact that Cam relishes for some reason I don’t quite grasp. Liam likes to tell everyone his favorite sport is “beach ball,” which consists, predictably, of tossing a beach ball back and forth. Though with Cam, the game takes a more interesting turn. I watch while Liam throws the ball this way and that, laughing and cheering as Cam breaks and dives for the ball so his end of the game looks more like beach volleyball.
I check the time and feel a wave of melancholy. In less than twenty hours, Cam will be on a plane to Atlanta, and we’ll begin our longest separation. For the dozenth time, I wish we weren’t obligated to dinner at Minnie’s house tonight. Reeve will be there too, probably with some girl he met in the last twenty-four hours. It’ll be a good night—being in the company of people that Cam loves is never a bad time—but if I’d had my way, we would have spent this whole weekend alone, stretching out the hours so they felt like days. Maybe Cam would have preferred that too, but he’s not saying.
Sometimes I wonder if he can feel the difference between what he wants and what the people who are precious to him want. Loyalty runs bone-deep in this man, and every time I think, For better or for worse , I have to stop and correct myself. For better. Cameron loves few and he loves deeply. Of all the things I am, being one of those few is my favorite.
That night, after dinner and a long goodbye to Minnie and Reeve, Cam and I get into his truck. I slide right up against him, and he puts his arm around me, driving with one hand like having me practically in his lap is only natural.
Cam is glowing. Minnie had only positive things to say about his internship, and when the topic of football came up, his eyes were bright with excitement about football camp and his senior season. I love that he’s still holding tight to the things that have brought him so much happiness. It also didn’t hurt that Reeve was crowing about a juicy bit of gossip: Mason Connery is talking about quitting the team before the start of football camp. Apparently, most of the players turned on him after finding out how close he came to foisting a scandal on them.
“So are you and Reeve definitely making the trip to see his mom?” I ask as we get on the road.
During dinner, Reeve announced his plans to visit his mother a few hours outside of Shafer. They haven’t seen each other in months, and Reeve’s anxiety was palpable. He and Cam’s seven-word exchange on the matter— You want to come, Cam? Reeve asked, to which Cam said, Yeah, man —made me wonder how many times they’ve discussed this before.
“As long as he doesn’t back out.”
“Do you know his mom well?”
“Pretty well. She’s sweet.”
“You’re the sweet one. Going with him to see her after all this time? You and Reeve are so stinkin’ cute.”
Cam smiles. “Thanks, honey. ‘So stinkin’ cute’ is just the kind of compliment dudes love.”
I laugh. “I’ll just add it to the list. Alongside ‘romantic’ and ‘supremely bad planner of first dates.’ So when’s the trip?”
“August. We’ll take a weekend during football camp.”
“I thought he said July.”
“He did. We have other plans that weekend.” He looks over at me and there it is, that gaze that catches you and won’t let go.
“What plans?”
“We’ve got an anniversary to celebrate.”
“Whose?”
He chuckles. “Ours. July seventeenth is the night we met.”
I stare at him. “It is?”
“So glad it was as memorable for you as it was for me.”
“Oh, I remember that night. I remember every detail.”
“Like what?”
“I remember your perfect hair.” I reach up and drag my fingers through a thick wave of his hair. He’s let it grow out since football season ended, and he’s never been more popular with girls on campus. “And the way your eyes never dropped below my neck.”
“Never worked so hard in my life,” he says.
“I remember thinking you were the most perfect guy I’d ever met. And then when I didn’t see you again, I almost didn’t believe you could be real.”
“Dream boyfriend up in smoke. I always knew you were high that night.”
“No, I was right the first time.” I put my hand on his, wrapping it tighter around me. “The smartest thing I ever did was believe you were for real.”