We got out, and Meatball excitedly led us to the door.
Inside, the cottage was simply furnished. There was a small kitchen table with two chairs in the
middle of the room, a tiny kitchenette on one side, and a black woodstove on the other. A narrow
wooden staircase led to a small square loft at the top. Through the railing that surrounded the
loft-square there was a single bed. All of the barren walls were made of exposed wood. It
smelled of Cameron. It all made me feel a little warmer.
Cameron took me by the hand and led me into a minuscule bathroom that was off the kitchenette.
He pulled the blanket away from my shoulders, stood me in front of the mirror and started the
shower. I didn’t recognize the person who was staring back at me through the mirror. This girl
had a horrifying, petrified look to her. There were scratches all over her face, and her hair
and skin were muddied and red. Her eyes were wild and shocked. This couldn’t be me, I told
myself.
Cameron’s reflection appeared behind mine. He didn’t look like himself either. I noticed that
his face was as muddied and scraped as mine and watched through the mirror while he pulled the
leaves and dry brush from my hair. His gaze caught mine, but this time, he didn’t look away.
The steam from the shower started to fog up the mirror. Cameron went to grab a towel and told me
to get undressed.
“I promise I won’t look,” he said with a weary smile, trying to recall a more carefree time
when we had stripped out of our soaking clothes at the farm.
I undressed and entered the shower as Cameron left the room. For a while, I just stood there
while the water burned my frozen skin. The water hit my head, and I watched the remaining debris
from my hair wash down the drain. Slowly, the feeling came back, inside and out. I could feel
the throbbing in my bruised and bloodied legs. I could also feel the fear and the pain that were
lingering deep, slowly rising to the surface.
I wrapped myself in the towel that Cameron had left for me and walked out to the kitchenette
where Cameron was waiting by the small table.
“Here,” he said as he gently handed me a stack of his clothes. “These will keep you warm.”
Like a robot, I dressed myself while Cameron took his leave for the shower. The clothes he had
given me smelled like him. By the time I was dressed, Cameron was already out of the shower,
dressed in jeans and shirtless. I noticed him and his tattooed bullet wounds. I could feel my
drowned emotions bubbling up.
Always keeping an eye on me, he went to the stove where the kettle was now boiling and poured
hot water into two cups. He walked back, placed the cups on the table, and sat in the chair next
to mine.
I picked up the mug, cupped my hands around it, and looked up at him. He kept my eyes. When I
tried to reassuringly smile back, my vision blurred with the tears that had been dammed up for
too long. I had trouble breathing, and I could feel something erupting inside of me.
The cup started to shake in my hands. Cameron pulled it away like he had been expecting what was
happening to me.
I started quivering. “Rocco was right there …,” I whispered. “I didn’t know what to do … I
lost him …” And I started to fall.
He lunged out of his chair and took me into his arms while long, hard sobs escaped me. Cameron
hushed me and held me tightly while images of Rocco’s grinning face and his dead body lying on
the floor flashed through my head in a swirl. My heart felt like it was being squeezed into a
rock-hard fist.
Leaning into Cameron, I cried until the tea grew cold and the room dark. I cried until my
shoulders, my arms, and my lungs ached and until the tears had long dried. When I was done, and
all I could do was whimper, Cameron carried me to bed. My head on his chest, he stroked my hair
until I fell into a dreamless sleep.
It was the middle of the night. My throat was throbbing, and Cameron wasn’t next to me. The
pain that was in my heart was unbearable. The cottage was quiet, and I could hear the crickets
lamenting their lullaby outside. I heard a chair creak down in the kitchen, and I tiptoed to the
edge of the loft. Through the rails I saw Cameron sitting at the table with his head in his
hands and his fingers raking in and out of his hair. His shoulders were heaving in quick
sequences. It took me a moment to realize that he was sobbing, silently, alone.
I knew I was witnessing something never seen. I thought about going down there. But then I let
Cameron grieve the loss of his little brother in peace.
After a while, the chair pushed away from the table, and the wooden stairs groaned. Cameron
crawled back into the single bed and lay next to me. Feigning sleep, I exhaled, took his arm,
and brought it under my arm to my other shoulder, fitting myself into him. Cameron didn’t push
me away. He clasped his fingers through mine and pulled me even closer to him. He stuffed his
face in my hair and sighed, and we fell asleep as we became one skin.
Chapter Twenty-One:
I Never Said It Was a Good Plan