“Holy shit,” Cam whispered hoarsely.
“It happened so fast. I couldn’t believe what my parents were telling me to do. They hadn’t really talked to me about it before, but they… they had been so worried about what everyone would think if the whole thing went public—the pictures and the fact that I had been drinking. I was just so scared and confused and you know, I’m not even sure they believed me.” I tugged my hair back, hating what I was about to admit. “So I signed the papers.”
Cam said nothing.
“I agreed to take the money, half of which went into my account so that when I turned eighteen, I had access to it, and I agreed to pull the charges and to not speak about it again.” I dropped my hands to my sides. “That makes me a terrible person, doesn’t it?”
“What?” Cam’s brows flew up. “You’re not a terrible person, Avery. Jesus Christ, you were fourteen and your parents should’ve told them to fuck off. If anyone is to blame, beside the fucker who did that to you, it’s them. You don’t have any fault in this.”
I nodded slowly as I sat on the recliner. “Within days, everyone at school turned on me. Apparently, there was nothing in the agreement about Blaine keeping his mouth shut. He told people that I had lied. That I had done all those things with him willingly and then falsely accused him. Everyone believed him. Why wouldn’t they? I dropped the charges. I wouldn’t talk about it. School was… it was terrible after that. I lost all my friends.”
Cam ran a hand over his jaw. “This is why you stopped dancing?”
“Yes,” I whispered. “I couldn’t stand people looking at me and whispering about what they’d heard or talking openly about it in front of my face. And I did this...” I raised my left arm. “My mom was so pissed.”
He stared at me, as if he couldn’t comprehend the last thing I had said. “She was mad because you…” Trailing off, he shook his head. “No wonder you don’t go home to see them.”
“It’s why I picked here, you know. It was far enough to just get away from all of it. I thought that was all I needed to do—to distance myself.”
“That message I saw? It was someone who knew about what happened?
I nodded again. “Whoever came up with the saying you can’t escape your past really knew what they were talking about.”
The muscle popped faster in Cam’s jaw. “What else has been going on, Avery? You said this Blaine,” he spat the name out, “was in jail? But who’s been messaging you?”
Leaning forward, I pressed my forehead into my open hands. My hair slid forward, shielding my face. “I’ve been getting these messages since August. I just thought it was some asshole and ignored it. And my cousin has been trying to reach me, but I ignored him too because… well, for obvious reasons. I finally talked to my cousin over winter break, the night before I came over to your apartment.”
“The night of the fight?”
“Yeah,” I said. “He was trying to get in touch with me to tell me that Blaine had been arrested for doing the same thing to another girl at the start of summer. He actually apologized. That meant a lot to me, but… I didn’t know that this girl had been the one whose been contacting me this entire time.” Taking a deep breath, I told him how it all came about with Molly.
When I was done, Cam was shaking his head. “What happened to her is fucking terrible and I’m glad that bastard’s ass is going to jail. Better yet, he should be fucking castrated, but what happened to her isn’t your fault, sweetheart. You didn’t make him do that to you or her.”
“But by me not telling anyone allowed him to do it again.”
“No.” Cam stood, his eyes full of fire. “Don’t fucking tell yourself that. No one knows what would’ve happened if you didn’t drop the charges. You were fourteen, Avery. You did the best you could in the situation. You survived.”
I lifted my head then. “But that’s it, you know? All I’ve been doing is surviving. I haven’t been living. Look at what I’ve done to us. And yes, I’ve done this! I pushed you away again.”
His expression softened. “But you’re telling me now.”
“I’ve let what happened to me five years ago still affect me! When we almost had sex? I wasn’t afraid of you or if there’d be pain. It wasn’t that. I was afraid that once we started, that what Blaine had done would ruin it for me or that I would ruin it for myself. I am coward—I was a coward.” Coming to my feet, I folded my arms across my waist. “But it’s too late, isn’t it? I should’ve been honest with you months ago so you knew what you were getting into and I’m so sorry that I wasn’t.”
“Avery…”