Chapter 6 #2
Remember where you came from, baby. You can wear the suits. You can play the game. But you're still trash. Send the money. Or the press gets the album.
Blackmail.
My own mother was blackmailing me.
The room started to spin. The walls of the penthouse—my pristine, white sanctuary—felt like they were closing in. The air was too thin. I couldn't breathe.
Trash. Dirt. Filth.
I felt dirty. I felt the phantom sensation of grease on my skin, the smell of cat litter in my nose.
"Cameron?"
Camila’s voice sounded like it was coming from underwater.
I dropped the photos on the kitchen island.
"I need to clean," I choked out.
I grabbed the spray bottle of disinfectant from under the sink. I grabbed a rag.
I started scrubbing the counter. The marble was already clean. It didn't matter. It was dirty. Everything was dirty.
Scrub. Wipe. Scrub.
"Cameron, what are you doing?" Camila walked into the kitchen. "You cleaned that this morning. It's spotless."
"It's not," I rasped, scrubbing harder. "It's filthy. Can't you see it? The germs. The dust. It's everywhere."
My movements became frantic. I sprayed more cleaner. The chemical smell filled the air, burning my nostrils. It was the only smell that could drown out the memory of the trailer.
"Cameron, stop," Camila said, her voice alarmed.
"Don't touch me!" I shouted, flinching away when she reached for my arm. "I'm dirty! Don't you get it? I'm trash!"
I moved to the floor. I started scrubbing the polished concrete. My knees hit the hard surface. Scrub. Scrub. Scrub.
I was hyperventilating. My vision was tunneling. All I could see was the stain that wasn't there.
"Hey," a soft voice said.
She was on the floor with me.
Camila.
She didn't try to stop me. She didn't try to take the rag away. She just sat down on the cold concrete, right in the puddle of disinfectant I had created.
She ruined her jeans. She sat in the mess.
"Show me," she said softly.
"Show you what?" I panted, my arm still moving in jerky circles.
"Show me the dirt," she said. "Because I don't see it. But you do. So show me where it is."
I stopped scrubbing. My hand hovered over the floor. I was shaking so hard my teeth were chattering.
"It's inside," I whispered, pointing to my chest. "It's in the blood. She put it there."
"Your mother?" Camila asked.
I nodded. I looked at the island where the photos were scattered.
Camila followed my gaze. She stood up and walked over to the counter. She looked at the pictures. The squalor. The neglect. The evidence of a childhood that should have killed me.
She didn't gasp. She didn't look away in disgust.
She picked them up, stacked them neatly, and turned them face down.
Then she came back to me. She sat down again.
"That's not you, Cameron," she said. "That's a little boy who survived."
"She wants money," I said, my voice breaking. "She wants to sell the story. 'The Ice King's Trash Origins.' It will ruin the draft. The scouts... they want stability. They don't want a trailer park kid with a junkie mom."
"The scouts want a goalie who can stop a puck," Camila said fiercely. "And you are the best there is."
"I can't stop this," I said, tears pricking my eyes. "I can't control her."
"No," Camila agreed. "You can't. You can't control her. You can't control the weather. You can't control the past."
She reached out. She took the wet, chemical-soaked rag from my hand.
"But you can control this moment," she said.
She tossed the rag aside. Then, she took my hands. Her hands were small, soft, and warm. My hands were red, raw, and smelling of bleach.
"Look at me," she commanded.
I looked at her.
"You are Cameron Vance," she said firmly. "You are twenty-one years old. You are in your penthouse. It is clean. You are safe. You are not there anymore."
She squeezed my hands.
"Breathe with me. In for four. Hold for four. Out for four."
I tried. My breath hitched.
"Again," she ordered. "Come on, Vance. You're an athlete. Do the drill."
I closed my eyes. In. Two. Three. Four. Hold. Two. Three. Four. Out.
We sat there on the kitchen floor for a long time. Five minutes? An hour?
Slowly, the tunnel vision receded. The walls moved back to their original positions. The smell of bleach started to fade, replaced by the scent of her. Vanilla.
I opened my eyes.
She was still holding my hands. She was sitting in a puddle of cleaner, her jeans soaked, her hair messy.
"You're making a mess," I whispered.
She smiled. It was a sad, soft smile. "I know. I'm good at that."
"Your jeans are ruined."
"I have others."
I looked at her. Really looked at her.
She had seen the ugliest part of me. The part I hid behind the suits and the silence. The terrified, broken boy.
And she hadn't run.
"Why?" I asked hoarsely. "Why are you sitting here?"
"Because," she said, squeezing my fingers. "Everyone thinks you're the Wall, Cameron. They think you're unbreakable. But walls don't feel. And I know you feel everything. Probably too much."
She reached up and touched my cheek. Her thumb brushed away a tear I hadn't realized had fallen.
"It's okay to crack," she whispered. "That's how the light gets in. Isn't that what Leonard Cohen said?"
"I don't know," I said. "I only read textbooks."
She laughed. A genuine, warm sound.
"You're safe with me," she said. "I won't tell the scouts. I won't tell the team. Your secret is safe."
"Why?" I asked again.
"Because," she looked down at our joined hands. "You saved me from the cold, Cameron. I'm just returning the favor."
I stared at her bent head.
In that moment, the lust that had been consuming me changed. It didn't disappear—if anything, it intensified—but it shifted. It gained weight. It gained roots.
I didn't just want to fuck her.
I wanted to protect her. I wanted to give her everything she had lost. I wanted to burn the world down if anyone ever made her feel small again.
I pulled my hands from hers.
She looked up, startled, thinking I was rejecting her.
But I reached out and grabbed her face between my palms. I held her like she was precious. Like she was the only clean thing in a dirty world.
I leaned my forehead against hers.
"Thank you," I breathed.
"You're welcome," she whispered.
"You need to change," I said, my voice gaining some of its strength back. "You're wet. You'll get sick."
"I'm fine," she said.
"Go change," I ordered gently. "I'll... I'll make tea."
She smiled. "Tea sounds good."
She stood up. She looked down at me.
"Are you okay?"
"I will be," I said. And for the first time in my life, I actually believed it.
She walked away toward the guest room.
I sat on the floor for a moment longer. I looked at the pile of photos on the counter.
I stood up. I walked over to them.
I didn't shred them. I didn't burn them.
I opened a drawer—the junk drawer, the one place I allowed chaos to exist—and I put them inside.
I closed the drawer.
Then I filled the kettle.
As the water began to boil, I realized the terrifying truth.
The Wall was gone. Camila Sterling had taken a sledgehammer to it, not with force, but with kindness.
And now, I was standing in the rubble, completely exposed.
And I didn't want to rebuild it.
I just wanted her.