I sat there, staring at my phone. Anger still boiled inside me, but some of what she had said had sunken through the red haze and it made sense.
“You cling to your silence because you’re a coward! You’re still the same scared, fourteen year old girl pretending to be over it years later!”
She was right.
God, she was so right. All these years and I had never uttered the words since that night. I was too scared to tell anyone, to even tell Cam. And that was why he’d walked out of here, because he had also been right. I hadn’t let go of the past and there was no future unless I did so. All I’d been doing this entire time was pretending—pretending to be okay, to be completely happy, to be a survivor.
And I wasn’t a survivor. For too many years, I’d been nothing more than a victim on the road.
Molly didn’t know the whole story. Probably wouldn’t change anything if she did, but surviving and being a survivor were two different things. That’s what I’d been doing this whole time. Just surviving, waiting for the day when what Blaine had done to me would not tarnish everything that was good in my life.
I dropped my head into my hands. Tears welled up in my eyes.
Instead, there were things I could’ve done differently. I couldn’t change what had happened to me, but I could’ve changed the way I reacted, especially now when I was so far away from those who had hindered any attempts to overcome it. But to be honest, it was more than that. It had always been more than Blaine. It had been my parents—it had been me.
The only way I could truly move on was to confront what had happened, to do something I had been punished for doing in the first place.
It wasn’t the past that was coming between us.
It was the present.
Cam had been right.
Suddenly, I shot to my feet. I was moving before I knew what I was doing. It was when I stood in front of Cam’s apartment door that my heart leapt in my throat. It was probably too late for us, but if I told him—if I could explain myself—then that was a start. Either way, I owed it to Cam.
I owed it to myself.
I knocked and heard footsteps a few seconds later. The door swung open, revealing Cam. His eyes immediately closed and his mouth opened, and I knew he was going to tell me to leave.
“Can we talk?” I asked, voice cracking halfway through. “Please, Cam. I won’t take up much of your time. I just—”
Cam’s eyes flew open and then narrowed on me. “Are you okay, Avery?”
“Yes. No. I don’t know.” Part of me wanted to turn and go back to my apartment, but I refused to allow myself to run. Not anymore. “I just need to talk to you.”
Taking a deep breath, he stepped aside. “Ollie’s not here.”
Relieved that he hadn’t shut the door in my face, I followed him into the living room. Cam picked up the remote, muting the TV as he sat on the couch. “What’s going on, Avery?” he asked, and his tone suggested that he didn’t expect me to answer truthfully, and that hurt.
It hurt because he had no reason to expect me to be upfront about anything.
I sat on the edge of the recliner, unsure of where to start. “Everything.” And that was all I could say at first. “Everything.”
Cam scooted forward, twisting the cap he wore backward. An adorable habit that said he was paying attention. “Avery, what’s going on?”
“I haven’t been honest with you and I’m sorry.” My lower lip started to tremble and I knew I was seconds from losing it. “I’m so sorry, and you probably don’t have time for—”
“I have time for you, Avery.” He met my gaze with a steady one. “You want to talk to me, I’m here. I’ve been here. And I’m listening.”
As he held my gaze, fight or flight kicked. Instinct. Run. Don’t deal with it. But Cam kept holding my gaze and something unlocked inside me. It wasn’t easy, but the words were tumbling up. I wouldn’t run.
Calmness settled over me and when I took a breath, it came out slowly. “When I was fourteen, I went to this party on Halloween,” I heard myself saying, sounding as if I were in a tunnel. “I was there with my friends. We were all dressed up and there was this guy there. It was his house and… and he was three years older than me and friends with my cousin.”
I took another deep breath, my gaze dropping to my hands. “He was really popular. So was I.” A dry, humorless laugh came out. “That might not seem important, but it was. I never thought someone like him could do—could be like he was. And maybe that was stupid of me, like a fatal flaw or something. I don’t know.” I gave a little shake of my head as I looked up. “I was talking to him and I was drinking, but I wasn’t drunk. I swear to you, I wasn’t drunk.”