Total pages in book: 104
Estimated words: 98264 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 491(@200wpm)___ 393(@250wpm)___ 328(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98264 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 491(@200wpm)___ 393(@250wpm)___ 328(@300wpm)
“You mean, kinda like what you did to me?”
My head snapped back. “I never judged you.”
“Oh, so when you started bringing me lunch and splitting the worm money with me, it had absolutely nothing to do with the time you saw my dad fighting with me and Ramsey in the front yard? Come on, Camden. You told me yesterday that you checked me for bruises when we went swimming. That’s not judging me?”
“That was me being concerned.” I waved a hand over her turtleneck. “Which, based on those bruises, I clearly had the right to be.”
It was the wrong thing to say. I knew it the moment the words left my lips.
I just had no idea that it would cost me everything.
“You did this to me!” she roared.
I tried to dodge her words, but they hit me square in the chest, stealing my breath.
She tore the turtleneck over her head. She was already wearing her bathing suit—proof that she did, in fact, trust me enough to go swimming in the creek later, bruises and all.
Or at least she had trusted me when she’d gotten dressed that morning.
Now, she was a tornado spiraling out of control, and I was certain I’d never survive her wrath.
She stretched her arms out to the sides and spun in a circle. “If I had known Josh was your cousin, I never would have had anything to do with him. Because while you were gone last year, living in the Alberton mansion, I was still here. Alone. Missing you. Hating you. Desperate for even a tiny bit of the way you used to make me feel. You know, if I stop to think about it. It makes sense that I found him. He had your blue eyes and the same easy smile that made me feel safe. And I was so fucking broken I took whatever scraps of you I could get.”
“Nora, I didn’t leave you.”
“But you did! Everyone leaves me. And everyone lies to me. And everyone hurts me. I can’t take it anymore. Do you understand? I can’t do this! I never want to see you again. Never!”
I was gutted—nothing but a corpse standing in front of her. Hollow and empty without the first way to fix it.
But I loved her, even if I didn’t understand it yet. So I stood there, ready to fight an impossible battle. “You don’t mean that. Please. Come on. Let’s go to the creek and figure this out.”
She drew in a shaky breath and stared me right in the eye, twin rivers streaming off her chin. “You think I’ll ever be able to look at you again without thinking about what he did to me?”
I frantically shook my head. “I’m not like him. You know that.”
She slanted her head, and with an eerie calm, she moved in close and dealt her final blow. “You both lied to me and used me until you got what you wanted. You’re more of a Caskey than you know.”
I felt her push something into my front pocket, but I was too panicked to figure out what.
“Nora, please,” I begged as she spun on a toe. I didn’t have much time. The door would stick, but she’d get it open. And then she’d be gone. “Jesus, stop. Please just listen to me. I would never knowingly hurt you.”
She stopped at the door and looked at me over her shoulder. “Prove it.”
A surge of relief flooded my system. “Anything. I’ll do anything.”
“Then go home and leave me alone. Don’t make this hurt any worse than it already does. I don’t have anything left to give you, Cam.”
Cam.
My stomach knotted.
All I wanted was to be her Cam. But at what cost?
My cousin had raped her. That much was clear. Did I really want her to relive that every time she saw me? She was my friend, and I cared about her on levels I couldn’t yet process. It would kill me to walk away, but that was my pain. Not hers.
I was only thirteen and already sure I would bear that cross for Nora Stewart every day if I had to. I couldn’t change my DNA or what Josh had done to her, but I could leave.
For her, I would do anything.
I fisted my hands at my sides to keep myself from stopping her as she opened the door. The overwhelming desire to pull her into a hug and tell her it was all going to be okay was almost more than I could take.
It hadn’t even been twenty-four hours since she’d trusted me enough to sleep at my side. I could still feel her in my arms, and now, I was letting her go for what I feared would be forever.
When the door closed behind her, I reached into my pocket and found our ten-dollar bill she’d tucked inside.