“For the same reasons he never trusted your brother, even before Bill and Carly met.”
All of a sudden, I had this sick sense in the pit of my stomach—I somehow knew that I wouldn’t
like what Cameron was about to tell me … and he took his time telling me, prolonging the agony.
“People like you, like your brother—people who come from money like you … will always have
your family money, your family name, your family power to fall back on and protect you, cover
you when things get bad.”
I tried to keep my voice normal, though the storm was raging inside me. “Bad as in getting
caught, arrested.”
“Amongst other things,” he continued, refusing to look at me. “When people like Carly and
Spider and me get into trouble, the only thing that people see is that we come from the streets.
They’re happy when we get caught, because we deserve whatever comes to us. There aren’t any
search parties when one of us goes missing. No one cares if we turn up dead—just another crime
statistic. If the ship starts to sink, we go down with it. No one will be there to throw us a
life raft.”
I couldn’t imagine ever going to my parents for any kind of life raft. My family was more apt
to stand on the luxury cruise ship beside the sinking ship, entertaining, diverting other guests
so that no one would notice that one of us was drowning.
“Do you think the same way that Spider does? Do you see me as one of those people who skips
town when things get hard?” I said, my temper flaring up.
“I think that you have a lot more options than anyone else I know.”
“You’re judging me because of the amount of money my parents have in their bank account?”
Cameron finally looked at me through narrowed eyes. “I’ve been judged my whole life because of
the money my parents didn’t have.”
“I am not my parents’ money, and neither was my brother. I didn’t get to choose who my
parents were going to be or where I grew up.”
“Neither did I,” he snapped. “You can run away from your big house, pick the crappiest school
you can find and live in the ugliest house in the worst neighborhood … none of that changes
where you come from, Emmy. To the rest of the world, you and your brother will always look like
two confused rich kids who are trying to slum it because of their issues with their parents. But
when you’re done slumming it, you get to go back to the big house and the bank accounts. I don
’t have that comfort. This,” he said bitterly, extending his arms out, “is it for me. I have
nowhere else to go. Fancy schools, rich friends didn’t change the fact that I’m just another
street kid.”
The sky exploded and buckets of rain came pouring down. I hadn’t realized that Cameron and I
had stopped in the middle of the road, and that was where we stood, glaring at each other,
getting drenched.
“So you don’t trust me … just because my parents have money.”
“I didn’t say that,” he said sullenly.
“What are you saying, Cameron?” I kept staring angrily at him through the water. “Why did you
say that Spider doesn’t trust you with me?”
“Because he’s smarter than me,” he blurted, his voice a worthy opponent for the roaring
thunder above. “He knows that I like having you around too much when you shouldn’t even be
here in the first place. And, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I tend to spill my guts when
I’m around you. I’m in a type of business where people who talk too much disappear.
Permanently. And people like you get taken out even before they can get the chance to snitch on
people like me.”
His eyes were fierce, and the muscles of his face were pulled tightly. He looked like he meant
every word of what he had told me. All of this was enough for my chin to start quivering. No
matter how hard I bit my lip, I couldn’t help but give myself away.
Cameron suddenly dropped his head into his hands. “Emmy … God, I’m sorry … I don’t know
what’s wrong with me. I—” When he glanced up, he looked heartbroken. “Emmy, I didn’t mean
to scare you. It’s just so confusing for me to have you here,” he resigned, shaking his head.
The rain dripped from his straggly hair into his eyes. He looked dismal and beautiful, all at
once. I found myself wanting nothing more than to make him happy again. This scared me more than
the words that had come out of his mouth.
I smiled at him. It took him a while, but he did smile back, faintly.
I wished that I had never decided to clear the air about Spider. “Can we start over?”
“I don’t know,” he said with awareness. “Can we?”
I considered and smiled wider. “What’s your last name, Cameron?”
He smiled a little wider too. “You know, no one has dared to ask me that question in a really
long time. I don’t think anyone here knows my real last name, except for Rocco and Spider.”