The girl and the boy lay beside each other on his trampoline, staring up at the night sky that looked like a sheet of ink with tiny jewels affixed to it. The trampoline wasn’t good for jumping anymore thanks to the hole in the corner that had gone unpatched since Camden broke it years ago, but it was the perfect spot for them to spend the warm summer evenings.
There was one thing that happened that night that made it different from all the other nights they spent on it. That night, Camden had reached for the girl’s hand and the girl had let him hold it. That night, in the sweet June air, the girl fell victim to her hormones. She fell to the hopes that maybe she could love this strange beast, even though she was more of a monster than he was. She believed that maybe the affection of the weirdest boy in school—her friend—was better than no affection at all.
But nothing more than hand-holding had happened yet between them. They just lay side by side, staring up at the stars and listening to Soundgarden’s “The Day I Tried to Live” on his portable speakers, watching for satellites and enjoying that feeling that they, in their fourteen-year-old tragedies, were the center of the universe. His hand gripped hers and despite how sweaty her palms felt, she didn’t take it away.
She was about to remark, perhaps because it was true or perhaps because his hand was making her nervous, that Chris Cornell sang an awful lot about the sun when they heard the sound of the backdoor being flung open. They both tensed up, their hands jerking back to themselves on some untested reflex.
“Camden!” his father bellowed from the door. They sat up, ramrod straight, and twisted around to face the house. His large, formidable silhouette was in the doorway. In that blackness, the girl couldn’t see eyes to judge her, or features to fear. But she knew that Camden feared him and that was enough for her.
“What are you doing out there?” he continued to yell.
“We’re just laying here,” Camden answered anxiously.
“Are you with that Watt kid again? The girl?”
The girl and Camden exchanged a quick look. She’d been over to Camden’s house a few times but they usually hid in his room where they could talk, listen to music, and be themselves. His younger half-sisters loved annoying him and his step-mother was so drugged up on medications that she couldn’t control them.
“Her name’s Ellie!” Camden shouted back. The girl felt a shawl of pride wrap around her, loving his protectiveness.
There was a pause and she could see the man, Palm Valley’s Sheriff, hesitate in the doorway.
“Well I guess I should be happy you’re not the faggot I thought you were,” Camden’s father spat out before going back in the house and slamming the door behind him.
The girl’s face immediately went red over the father’s offensive choice of words. She swallowed hard and looked at Camden. His pale face looked even whiter in the darkness and his blue eyes looked down at his hands.
“Does your father think you’re gay?” she asked him.
“Who doesn’t?” he said with a laugh but kept his eyes away from hers. “You forget my nickname is The Dark Queen. If I’m not threatening to blow up the school, then I’m trying to rape young boys.”
The girl grimaced, feeling sorry for him. “Even if you were gay…”
“I’m not,” he said quickly.
She smiled softly. “I know. But even if you were, that’s a terrible way for your dad to act toward you.”
He sighed and lay back down on the trampoline. The moonlight glared in his thick glasses. “Yeah, well that’s my dad.”
The girl started running her hands over the trampoline’s gritty surface. “Have you ever thought about, you know, not dressing the way you do?”
She could hear his breath catch in his throat and knew she’d struck a chord.
“What’s wrong with the way I dress?”
“Well, nothing, to me. But maybe if you didn’t look so scary and wear makeup, the other kids wouldn’t make fun of you.”
“But then I wouldn’t be who I am. I don’t want to hide myself. I’m not ashamed of being Camden McQueen. Are you ashamed of being Ellie Watt?”
“Yes,” she said softly.
He sat up and leaned in close to her, his eyes searching her face. “You’re serious?”
She frowned. “Of course I am. You have a choice, Camden. You can start acting normal and not like a freak and you’ll be fine. I can’t hide who I am, even if I wanted to, even though I’m trying to. I can’t change the way I walk and I can’t get rid of the scars on my leg.”
Camden continued looking at her with fervent intensity. It started to make her a little bit uncomfortable and she wiped her hands on her jeans. “You’ve never shown me your scars.”
The girl swallowed hard. “And I’m not about to.”
“Can it be so bad?” he whispered. “How can someone as pretty as you have anything that would make her less?”
She glossed over the fact that he had called her pretty. “It can. I’d give anything to be normal, to live a normal life, to be like everyone else.”