Chapter 22
chapter twenty-two
Twelve Years Ago
It was time. I’d put off telling him the story for too long, and though he’d been understanding with all my flaws, Callum didn’t understand the why. Why Crew and I were so close, or why I was so distraught when he ran during the snowstorm. He knew something had happened, but not at length.
While Crew sought therapy to heal and seemed to get better day by day, I sat in the dark and waited for things to get better by themselves.
And they weren’t. I didn’t think our relationship could really go anywhere until I told him, either.
We were close. We were in love. But how deep could that love go if I didn’t let him truly understand me?
I’d gotten permission from Crew to explain. All I had to do was tell Callum.
My chest felt tight. No matter how much I wanted to tell him, no matter how ready I thought I was, it still hurt. The words still felt like molten lava on my tongue, and no amount of water could make the burning sensation stop.
The door opened as Callum walked through, a big smile on his face when he spotted me. “Hi, baby.”
I wished I could return his smile. “Hi.”
His eyebrows came together, and he started to walk slower, approaching the couch almost cautiously. “Is everything okay?”
It was time. Time to spill one of my secrets. The others could wait. “Um, no. Not really. I…I wanna talk about somethin’, but it’s real hard to talk about.”
“Okay. Where would you like for me to sit?”
Always so understanding. Always so caring. Even if I didn’t deserve it for how much I kept secret from him, he always thought of my comfort first, no matter what. “Can you sit over there? If I feel comfortable later on, you can sit beside me.”
“No problem. Just let me know.” He took a seat on the small chair off to the side.
I’d been waiting for him to come home. He’d been visiting with Grandpa Stanton and helping him fix something at his house. “You remember the snowstorm when Crew ran off?”
“Of course. How could I forget? That was terrifying.”
“Yeah. It was. I know I was upset, and I’m sure you could tell there was somethin’ more to it than just me bein’ worried about him.”
Callum tilted his head and shrugged. “I kind of thought so. You seemed really worked up, but I didn’t want to press until you were willing to say something to me.”
I huffed a short laugh, trying to stave off the churning in my gut.
A flash of heat swept over my face and up my back as my fingertips started to tingle and almost went numb.
“I’m the reason he ran off. Er, well, not really.
It ain’t my fault, he says. But I told him somethin’ that really freaked him out, and that’s why he ran. ”
He leaned back in the chair, nodding along as he listened. He was being patient with me. So patient, despite me being such a mess.
I could do this. It was time. Looking down at my hands, I tried to distract myself by picking at my fingernails.
“For you to get the full story, I had to get permission from him to tell a part of his. For him, it started when he was thirteen, and he went to Tiger Claw Camp for the first time. For me, it happened a couple of years later when I was thirteen, and he was around fifteen. My first and last year at Tiger Claw Camp.” I had to stop, swallowing past the enormous lump in my throat.
I didn’t want to cry, but I hadn’t told this story in a long time.
Not since I first told Mom, and she took me home.
Even then, I didn’t get to tell many other people about it.
The police didn’t pay any mind to my report.
I learned not to say anything in the future because of how little everyone had listened to me.
Taking a deep, shaky breath, I closed my eyes and let the memories form as the tears built up.
“There was this camp counselor named Mr. Thompson. Well, he had us just call him Thompson. Anyway, Crew had invited me to…to spend time with ‘em in Thompson’s lodge. When I got there, I found out why Thompson made us keep it a secret.” I could still smell it.
The way the lodge smelled like wood, pine, and paint with a hint of Dubble Bubble Bubblegum.
“Crew had taken years of Thompson’s abuse, and Thompson wanted me to be a part of it, too.
I was his next victim. He did real bad things to us, Cal.
Real bad things. Crew handled it for longer than I did, and I don’t have no idea how 'cause it about broke me.” I stopped myself, opening my eyes as tears started to fall.
“Hell, it did break me. Crew had to take me back to my room and tuck me in, and I didn’t speak for a long time.
I knew what it was—I knew it was abuse. I told Crew that, but he didn’t believe me back then, and who could blame him?
He was just a kid, like I was. He just didn’t know what I did. ”
When I looked up, Callum looked blurry. I had to swipe some of the tears out of my eyes to see he was crying almost as much as I was. His hands wrung together in his lap, and his knuckles were going white. “Did he…” His lower lip trembled. “He touched you guys?”
I nodded slowly. “Yeah, Cal. Touched us. Beat us. All in the name of teachin’ us some sorta lesson?
I don’t know. He was fucked up. Crew was so brainwashed by the time this happened, he thought it was for his own good.
Both of our good.” Sometimes, when I looked down at my legs, I could still see the blood.
The blood along my skin from when Thompson hurt us. The blood from beneath us. I could still feel it—his hands. The anger. The chill from the AC he had turned on.
I rubbed my hands over my thighs, trying to get rid of the imaginary blood on them.
How many more years would it take to scrub it all away?
“I told my mom. She took me out. Now I know that Crew never went back after that summer. His mama had seen all the bruises and thought he’d gotten into fights or somethin’.
My police report never went anywhere, and Crew never told no one.
He internalized it. Started doin’ sex work to make sense of it. ”
Shaking my head, I found a thread on my jeans to pull at.
“Crew was so traumatized and felt so much guilt for bringin’ me into it that his brain erased me from his memory entirely.
His brain erased quite a few things about Thompson and his time at Tiger Claw.
He’s workin’ on it in therapy now. Anyway, he done forgot about me, but I never forgot about him.
Ever. So when I saw him workin’ with all of us, I kinda freaked out.
I didn’t plan to tell him nothin’, but during that storm, before we knew it was comin’, I told him.
I told him who I was. And he remembered.
And I watched the life drain from his eyes. And then he ran.”
“That wasn’t your fault, Tobi.” Callum leaned forward, his voice shaky and unsteady.
It was like he was desperate to be near me.
His body was reaching out toward me, even if he couldn’t physically touch me.
“Fuck. Please tell me that fucking bastard is dead or in jail. If he isn’t, I need directions to your hometown so I can kill him myself. ”
“He’s dead, Cal. He died a long time ago. Never spent a day in jail. We ain’t the only victims. I know that. I’m sure people tried to say somethin’, but small-town cops like we had? They’d believe the abuser over us any day.”
“Let me kill all of them too, then. What the fuck do you mean they didn’t believe you?”
I looked him in the eyes as much as I could. Mine burned along with my chest. “That’s just how it was.” I sniffled. “And he wasn’t the last person to ever hurt me, either.”
Callum made some sort of choked cry sound.
It sounded like it hurt. It hurt me to hear it come from him, which was wholly unfair.
“Damn it, Tobes. Fuck. I had an idea that was the case, but hearing it? Knowing it? God, I just want to burn the whole world down and murder anyone who ever hurt you. Everyone who ever failed you. Who didn’t protect you. ”
He meant it. I could tell. I could feel the simmering rage in him, ready to boil over. “You don’t need to burn the world down, Cal. Just…” I sniffled and moved over a bit on the couch. “Just come hold me, please.”
“Always.” He got up immediately, sitting beside me and wrapping his arms around me gently. I trusted him, so I let him easily. I let Callum hold me, despite it feeling like razor blades on my skin when someone else did it. “I’ll always hold you, baby doll. Always.”
I shoved my face into his shoulder, holding him much tighter than he was holding me. “You mean that?”
“With my whole fucking heart. I’ll never let you go.”
I believed him. He had me. He’d see the dark parts of me, and he wouldn’t shy away from them. He’d love them as a part of me, just as I loved him.
“Thank you for trusting me, baby.” Callum sniffled. “Thank you for telling me. I’m so sorry, and I’m so goddamn angry for you. But I’ll be here, no matter what.”
“I know you will.”
“Good. Because we’ve got a long, long future together ahead of us.”
Even though my face was streaked with tears, I still managed a smile. Yeah, we did. Just like Crew and Price, we’d found each other, and we’d love each other until the end of time. Maybe even after.