“Cheer her up, ma’am?” I don’t know why I feel the need to play dumb, but I’m going with it right now. It feels wrong, but Cammy obviously hid the truth for a reason.
“Oh, I’m not sure who knows what these days, so I’ll let her explain to you if she wants to.”
“Oh okay. Got it.”
I take the stairs two at a time until I reach the top. Looking at each door in the hallway, I realize I don’t actually know which bedroom is hers because the only times I’ve been in her bedroom were when I climbed up onto the back porch roof and snuck in through her window, which obviously happened one too many times.
While I debate whether to knock on her door, I mentally juggle the consequence of doing it or not doing it. If I do, she may ask who it is, but she’ll likely assume it’s her mom. If I don’t, I could catch her at a bad time, and she might scream, or something else along those lines. I lightly tap the back of my knuckles against the door a few times, waiting to hear her say come in.
“What?” she says coldly.
I’ll take that as my cue to go inside. Slowly, I open the door and poke my head in. Cammy is in bed, with the dusty-rose colored sheets and white comforter pulled up to her neck. Her focus is locked on her TV hung on the opposite wall, and she’s clenching the remote in her hand. “Can I come in?” I ask.
She shrugs and continues clicking the channel button on the remote. I close the door behind me and cautiously walk over to her bed and sit down. “How are you feeling?” I know it’s a question that deserves a punch to the face after disappearing for the last few days, but she made it clear she didn’t want me around in the hospital, and I wasn’t going to argue with her after the decision she made without me.
“Like shit,” she says. Her gaze finally breaks from the TV, and she peers over at me. Tear marks have stained her cheeks with a salty residue, and the whites of her eyes are tinged with tiny, swollen red veins. Her pretty hair is tied up on the top of her head and she looks pale, washed out, and sick.
It’s taking everything I have inside not to ask her again, why she let her parents do this to her—make such an awful decision for her and without me, but if I don’t want to be kicked out of this house, I have to play my cards right. Regardless of everything that has happened, I still love her, even if my heart has been put through a meat grinder.
“I get it,” I tell her. But I don’t.
“No you don’t,” she says. “Because I don’t get it.”
“You don’t get what?” I ask, feeling confused.
“You still think I wanted to do that? Do you have any idea how much emotional agony I’m in right now?” she asks, loud enough that I’m afraid her mother might hear, but at the same time so softly that I can hear the weakness pouring through her voice.
“I don’t know what to think, Cam! You never talked to me about it,” I say, trying to hide the sternness raging from my gut.
“Shh. Keep your voice down,” she scolds me. “I wasn’t allowed to talk to you about it.” She mutters the last part, keeping her focus locked on the door knob.
I don’t understand any of this. “No one forced you to do what you did, though.” I shouldn’t have said that. It’s exactly what I promised myself I wouldn’t say if I got the opportunity to talk to her again.
“That’s not entirely true, AJ,” she says with tears bubbling in the corners of her eyes. “I was forced to make the decision I did. If I hadn’t, I would be living on the street with no money, no support, no job, no way to feed our daughter, and no way to keep her safe.”
“I don’t understand.” For so many reasons, I don’t understand. I wouldn’t have let that happen. We had this discussion a million times throughout the last few months. I was going to give up my scholarship and put off college, get a job, find an apartment—do everything I could to support Cammy and our daughter. She was okay with it and on board with every plan.
“If I kept her, my parents were going to kick me out. They were going to hunt down the father—you, and destroy your life, keep us apart, and make you pay every dime you ever earn to our daughter. Both of our lives would have been destroyed, and I was scared.” I want to argue with her, but I’m seventeen and she’s seventeen. Her parents could do whatever the hell they want to do until the end of August when she turns eighteen. Then at eighteen, they’d have no obligation to help her out, and if I didn’t help her out, she would be on the street if that was their punishment. While I can understand her fear, we’re talking about our daughter who we just mindlessly handed over to two strangers we know nothing about.