Chapter 8 – Camille
Erich listened carefully as I explained who I was and how he came to find me.
He wasn’t fiddling with anything or staring off at the walls.
He was focused, hands clasped in his lap, though I imagined his fist was starting to ache from throwing punches at the man from the bar.
He was giving me the space to say what I needed without interruption.
“I grew up very privileged,” I started. “The Chambers family is old money. Traced back to the antebellum South. They pride themselves on their name, their money, and their opinions. They’re hypocrites who care only about themselves and their wealth.”
I could feel the bitterness creeping in, but I pushed through. I had to tell someone, and if that someone was a shady con man, so be it.
“I was raised to know who I could talk to, who I couldn’t, why we were better than everyone else, and what was expected of me as a child in that family.
It was implied my whole life they’d decide how my future unfolded—where I would go, who I would become.
I always assumed it would be an arranged marriage with one of their friends’ sons.
And if it wasn’t that… maybe I’d be a duchess of England or something.
” I let out a hollow breath. “I didn’t question it.
They were my family. I lived to make them proud.
I trusted them. Who doesn’t trust their parents growing up? ”
Erich finally spoke. “You ran away because of an arranged marriage? Is that even legal?”
Under different circumstances, the irony of him questioning legality might have made me laugh, but I wasn’t in the mood. I had more to say. I didn’t think he was trying to challenge me—but instead trying to understand.
I ignored the question and kept going. He’d piece it together soon enough.
So I did it. I stepped back into the past and laid everything out—the humiliation, the degradation, every detail of the night up until we met. I told it from the moment I woke up to the point I ended up outside the bar. It felt detached, like I was watching it happen to someone else.
My nails dug into my palms again, falling back into the same pattern from earlier.
By the time I finished, my eyes burned and tears slipped down my face. My throat tightened until my voice barely worked. I tried to wrap it up with a bitter attempt at humor.
“My parents delivered me to be raped by my older brother to ‘keep it in the family.’” I let out a hollow scoff. “That’s so disgusting, right?”
“Shit,” Erich muttered. “That’s some true southern-fried horror.”
He flexed his injured hand, stretching out the swelling. He wasn’t fidgeting—he was trying to figure out what to say. I couldn’t blame him. I wouldn’t have known what to say either.
“If I stayed,” I continued, forcing myself to stay steady, “it wouldn’t have stopped. I know it wouldn’t have gotten better. I would’ve been married to him, and no one would care. No one would say a word as I disappeared into that house, doing exactly what I was told.”
I swallowed hard.
“I would’ve been forced to have his children. Smile through it. Pretend it was normal. No one would have helped me… so I had to help myself.”
I wiped at my face, rougher than necessary.
“I don’t even know if they’re looking for me,” I added, quieter now. “They might be more worried about what I’ll say. Or how people would react if I told the truth. I don’t know what they’re doing. I don’t know what they care about.”
I stood up, needing to move. To do something. Anything to take the weight off my chest. I couldn’t bring myself to meet his eyes.
I paced slowly around the room, feeling out of place in my own skin. Erich stayed seated, letting it sink in. I knew he was connecting the pieces—my bruises, the way I acted, the clothes I wore.
“I won’t let them find you,” he said finally, his voice steady.
I caught my reflection in the scuffed mirror.
Bloodshot eyes, swollen, and smudged with the black of mascara.
The tear tracks were drying, but not before they washed away bits of the face I painted on to get through the night.
There was no sense in fixing it now. Erich surely thought I belonged in an asylum… Now I looked the part, too.
I said nothing. The embarrassment sat heavy in my chest. I had told him everything after barely a day of knowing him. There was no deep connection—he was only convenient.
“We’re leaving in the morning,” Erich said, shifting the conversation. He stood up from the bed. “Anywhere you want to go?”
I shook my head. Anywhere new was fine. Anywhere that wasn’t Mississippi.
He shrugged off his jacket and hung it by the door. Then he picked up the wallet again, holding it up.
“This should last us a few days,” he said. “You did a good job.”
It sounded awkward coming from him, but he followed it with a crooked smile.
“I didn’t get much done. Missed more shots than I hit. So you’re the big winner tonight.”
I tried to accept the praise, but it didn’t land. The smile I gave him felt hollow, and it came back to punish me when my lip split under the stress I put on it all night.
The open wound was a jolt of pain I wasn’t prepared for. I winced and reached up, wiping away a dramatic gush of blood. I pulled my hand away to find it staining the back of my hand with a vibrant streak of crimson.
I turned toward the bathroom, but Erich was faster.
He came back with a washcloth and, without asking, reached for me—one hand in my hair, thumb behind my ear. The sudden contact made the hairs on my neck stand on end.
Then he pressed the cloth gently to my lip, holding it there.
He was focused on my injury, gazing down at where his battered hand was on my mouth. The same way someone might tend to something fragile.
The blood from my lip was soaking through the washcloth and staining his own fingers.
I couldn’t speak around it, but I didn’t think I would have, anyway.
My heart pounded so loudly I could feel it in my ears. As if it was pumping my head like a balloon. I wondered if he could feel it too, under his thumb.
I didn’t know anything about him. Not really.
Where he was from. His full name. What his life looked like before he turned to petty theft in small-town bars.
I had told him everything.
Did I have the right to ask for the same?
Or should I just let it come—if it ever did?
After the bleeding was under control, I escaped to the bathroom and washed my hands, staring at myself in the mirror as I tried to steady my heart rate.
Even after splashing cold water on my face, I could still feel his hand in my hair and see the way the dim motel light framed him as he focused on my busted lip.
His expression had softened as he held my mouth closed—a gesture I should have pulled away from, but couldn’t, even as my trauma twisted in my stomach.
Erich insisted I take the bed and said he’d sleep on the couch.
I’d never had to sleep in the same room as a man before—let alone anyone.
I wasn’t allowed sleepovers growing up, no matter how much I begged.
My parents saw them as sinful, even with girls they approved of.
Looking back, maybe they imagined something out of a movie—girls whispering about boys, sneaking alcohol, experimenting with each other.
But I had just wanted to play with dolls, do makeup, and be normal. They never believed it could be innocent. They didn’t even let me learn what sex was until I overheard older girls talking about it—because they mentioned Reed.
Funny. Look at what their version of “growing up” meant for me.
So, to avoid any awkwardness, Erich took a pillow and blanket and settled onto the worn floral couch, despite my telling him it didn’t matter. It felt like an unnecessary line to draw. The bed was big enough—I could have stayed on one side and not touched him.
But sleep didn’t come easily. My mind kept circling the same thought: I was in over my head. Erich didn’t owe me what he did in that parking lot, and I still didn’t understand his motives.
Whether I could keep up with him was another question entirely. I wasn’t comfortable with this life—not even close—but it was better than the alternatives.
Going home.
Or being on my own and hoping for the best.