We slipped back into silence. I tried to go back to my book. There was another long
exhalation. “What’chu reading?”
I put my book down. “Philosophy.” I had found a whole shelf dedicated to ancient philosophers
—worn books, many of which I had already read in my first-year philosophy class.
“What’s that?”
“Philosophy? Aristotle. Plato. Descartes. Rousseau. Ethics. I think, therefore I am.”
There was a blank look on his face.
“It’s the rational investigation of existence, truth, beliefs, all that stuff.”
He looked even more confused.
“It’s supposed to help you understand why we are the way we are … why we do the things we do
… why we think the way we think.”
“Who’s we?”
“Humans.”
“Oh,” he said and went back to his bag of Cheetos.
More days passed. Some days it seemed like tending to Meatball’s needs was the only reason I
ever left Cameron’s room. Other days, I would just lounge around the house in my pajamas all
day. The insomnia was getting to me.
In the middle of the night, I heard my door squeak open, and then it proceeded to slowly squeak
shut again. I opened my eyes to see a tall figure in the moonlight that was leaving the room and
closing the door behind him.
Chapter Ten:
About Taking Risks
“Cameron?” I was so confused, and I was so tired. I was sure my eyes were playing tricks on
me, making me see what I wanted to see most.
After a dazed second, I turned the switch of my ballerina and confirmed the apparition.
“I didn’t mean to wake you,” he whispered.
“I wasn’t sleeping,” I confessed.
A rush of joy—and relief—filled me. I was suddenly wide awake and energized, but I kept my
composure, as far as I knew.
Cameron stood on the threshold, debating. When he made up his mind, he advanced to my bedside.
He looked like he had been dragged to hell and back. His clothes were crumpled and he had dark
circles under his eyes; he was his other, older self.
We stared at each other for an awkward while. I gazed up, he gazed down. His lips were pressed
together tightly, and his face was hard, unreadable.
It upset me to see him like that. Whatever he found in my face displeased him too.
“You haven’t been sleeping,” he accused.
I shrugged innocently and wiped my hair away from my face. A speckle of warmth reached his eyes.
He brought his hands to his face and rubbed it with exhaustion. When he reappeared, the warmth
had spread to the top of his cheeks, and his shoulders had seemed to relax a bit, like he was
slowly defrosting. I exhaled.
“Is everyone back?” I asked him, listening for the shuffles and banging of doors.
The house was dead quiet.
“No. I came back early,” he admitted. “It’s just me.” He gave me a tired smile. The square
of his jaw and his dark eyes stood out under the shaded light of my ballerina.
A radiant smile escaped me before I had time to measure it and scale it down to normal, then I
took a gamble … and scooted over so that he could sit down.
Fatigued, he took me up on my offer without hesitation. Embarrassed silence fell upon us.
My head was propped up on my elbow, my eyes watching him; Cameron sat with his back to me, his
head veering from one side of the room to the next, resting with interest on the bedside table.
When he reached over, I followed his movement. My gaze reached my brother’s ID card before his
hand did.
It was too late to try to hide it, so I had to anxiously await his reaction. I was expecting to
get in trouble for snooping around.
He glanced over the picture, chuckled, and shook his head as if he remembered some private joke.
I exhaled again.
“I see you kept yourself busy while I was gone.” His voice was calm. He put the card back
where he had found it and turned to me.
“You were gone a long time,” I reminded him.
“Yeah. Things took longer than I thought they would.”
My arm was too tired to hold up my head. I grabbed the pillow from the other side of the bed and
folded it under my head. “What kind of things?”
“Just business stuff,” he said with a yawn.
“Like what?”
“Inventory, orders, negotiating prices …” He sighed. “You know … normal business stuff.”
“I know that whatever stuff you’re involved in, there’s nothing normal about it,” I blurted.
“I mean, I know that your business,” I amended with emphasis, “involves some or maybe a lot
of illegal stuff.” It didn’t sound any better the second time around.
“Oh?” He arched his eyebrows and took interest. “How do you know this?”
In my mind, I replayed what Griff had noted to me, and tried to make it sound like it was
something I would have come up with all on my own. “I’m not blind. I see the armed men walking
around.”
“That just proves that I’m taking every measure possible to keep everyone safe.”
“From what? Lions? Tigers?”
“… and bears,” he finished for me.