CHAPTER 12
Reed
I ’m barely aware of Lila following me out of the room with Haniyah.
She leads us to the main hall, where a commotion of kids awaits us. One of the volunteers is talking to Cameron near the garden doors.
“What happened?” I ask calmly, not wanting to freak the boy out.
Veronica, a volunteer and retired teacher, looks at me like she already knows I’m not going to like her next words. She’s right. “He got into a fight with Sean because he made fun of Melody. Not the first time it’s happened, either, but this time Cameron did punch him. Kelly went to the infirmary with Sean.”
“He kicked me first,” Cameron spits out angrily at nobody in particular.
“Thanks, Veronica. I got it from here.” Ignoring everyone and everything else around me, I turn to meet his stare. He’s sitting on the ground, arms crossed, a pissed-off expression on his face. “Tell me what happened.”
He doesn’t look at me, doesn’t talk.
His angry gaze stays locked on the ground, his breathing agitated and his shoulders rigid.
“Cameron,” I insist in vain.
I know him well—if he doesn’t want to talk, he won’t. The more he feels pressured, the more he’ll retreat, so I let it go for now.
As the volunteers clear the room, the voices and chaos fade away, but Cameron is still inside his own head. Lila takes me aback when she sits on the cold floor next to the boy.
And starts talking.
“Hi, Cameron. My name is Lila. I’m new here,” she says in a friendly voice. Cameron doesn’t respond, but that doesn’t stop her. “I met your sister, Melody, the other day, in a group session I did with Reed. She didn’t know how to spell a word, and she asked me for help.”
Cameron still says nothing, but I can tell he’s listening.
And I can’t take my eyes off her.
“It was my first day here, and I was really nervous. So much so that I couldn’t even eat breakfast that morning,” she explains. “Because I was scared you guys wouldn’t like me or talk to me. But then your sister came up to me and told me that she really liked my hair. It may sound like such a dumb thing, but it made me feel better. Not because of the compliment—which I’ll admit was nice—but because she trusted me enough to ask me about the spelling. She said she was scared of looking silly in front of the other kids, but I thought it was brave of her to ask for help. I instantly liked her.”
Cameron’s shoulders aren’t shaking anymore, but he still doesn’t meet Lila’s gaze. Once again, being ignored doesn’t seem to faze her because she keeps going.
“She’s your twin sister, isn’t she? I’m not a twin, but I’ve heard twins share a very strong bond. Is that true for you and Melody?”
To my surprise, Cameron nods.
“That’s amazing. I’m a little jealous,” she jokes. “I guess what I’m trying to say is that Melody looks like a strong girl who isn’t afraid to stand up for herself and ask for help when she needs it. Sean did a bad thing when he made fun of her, for sure, but I bet she doesn’t want you to get into trouble because of her. Why don’t you tell me your side of the story so we can fix this?”
I’m fully expecting Cameron to retreat into his shell even more. Lila is a stranger to him, after all.
But then he asks in a quiet voice, “You’re new here?”
“Yeah. I want to be a counselor after college, so I’m learning from Reed.”
“Why?”
Lila doesn’t miss a beat, but my heart does when she glances at me. “Because he’s a great teacher.”
I hold her stare for a beat too long until Cameron’s voice breaks the silence.
“Melody was doing her homework, and Sean started calling her names because she didn’t know what the word bride meant,” he explains. “He always messes with her when she’s doing homework. I told him to leave her alone. He kicked me on my shin, and then I punched him. He deserved it.”
It takes me a moment to realize that whatever Lila has just done worked. But I can’t dwell on it for too long before I jump into action.
“Thanks for telling us. Haniyah is calling your parents, since you got into a fight, which you know is what happens to everyone who gets into trouble here,” I tell him, still in a calm voice. “You and I will talk tomorrow.”
I’ll talk to his parents when they get here and convince them to give him space today so he doesn’t come in even more agitated tomorrow. I’ll have to speak with Sean’s parents, too, and deal with the aftermath of a physical altercation between two members of the youth center. We’ll be lucky if we don’t get sued, which is the last thing we need.
“Where’s my sister?” he asks, glancing around the room.
“With the other kids. I’ll go find her when your parents get here,” I tell him. “Do you need anything? Water? Show me where Sean kicked you, please.”
If he’s bleeding and we don’t get him to the infirmary, we could get into much bigger trouble.
Wordlessly, he rolls up his sweatpants, and indeed, there’s a bruise forming on his shin.
“We have some ointment for that. I’ll go get it,” I say, not wanting him to come to the infirmary, since Sean will be there. “Lila, do you mind staying with him?”
For the next hour, my brain is on overdrive as Haniyah and I try to fix what went down this afternoon.
Sean admitted to kicking Cameron first, and his parents forced him to apologize to him and to Melody for having made fun of her.
When the twins’ parents got here, I had to take them to a private room to prevent Cameron from seeing his dad’s reaction.
“That boy doesn’t know what’s coming for him,” he hissed, ignoring his wife as she pulled at his arm, begging him to calm down. “We raised him better than this, damn it.”
My brain forced me to internally recoil at the hardness of his words, his gestures, his demeanor. And no matter how many times I tried to convince myself I wasn’t dealing with my father because that fucker is dead, it took a while to register.
It’s an unfair comparison, because Cameron’s father, despite his temper, isn’t a violent man toward his family—we keep a close eye on signs of abuse.
He isn’t my father, goddammit.
It’s been three decades. Get it together.
When I finally did, I explained to Cameron’s parents that the best strategy would be to tell him that what he did was wrong and ground him if they felt like it but to stay calm. They agreed, and his father apologized for having lost his temper.
The adrenaline, paired with my lack of sleep, wears me down two hours later. All the kids are gone for the day, but I’m still restless, answering emails in my office because I don’t want to go back to an empty house for some goddamn reason.
That brief interaction with the twins’ father brought back memories I fight every day to keep buried. Because, unlike him, my own father didn’t stop at verbal lashings.
The skin on my back burns, and I curse under my breath.
He’s dead. He can’t hurt me.
And whose fault is it that he’s fucking dead?
A knock on my office door startles me. I’m not mentally or emotionally prepared to deal with anything or anyone else today, so I don’t answer.
But then I hear her voice. “Reed? It’s Lila. Are you in here?”
I curse under my breath again, hating myself for ignoring her when all I want is to get my head out of my ass and tell her how amazing she was with Cameron out there. How she shouldn’t doubt, not for a second, that she’s meant for this job.
I shut my eyes, begging the memories of my father to go away after three decades of raw torture. Yet her voice is the only thing that manages to break through the fog in my brain.
“I wanted to tell you that I need to leave, but I’ll see you tomorrow.”
A pause.
“Today was hard for you, I could tell. I’m really sorry about Cameron. I know you care for him… You may not even be in there, for all I know, so maybe I’m talking to a wall, but I still want to say that you handled it well. Altercations are something our professors always say we should prepare for, but they never actually prepare us. This may sound wrong, I hope you get what I mean, but I’m glad it happened when you were here. I watched how you handled the parents and the rest of the staff, and it was… It was amazing. I’m learning a lot from you.”
I’m locked inside my office, with my heart beating too damn fast, wishing I was strong enough to open the door and face her.
“I just wanted to tell you that you were great, and everyone respects you a lot. Me included. Don’t beat yourself up too hard over it. I know how it can affect counselors when the kids get into a fight, but you handled things well. Not that you need my reassurance, because you’re you, but… Okay, now I’m rambling. Sorry. Have a good night, Reed. Or good night, wall. See you tomorrow.”
It isn’t until I hear distant voices down the hallway that I realize I’m smiling like a goddamn fool.