I was out the door at seven, due to still being somewhat on my school sleeping schedule, but it still worked. I was wearing my normal apparel; light sun faded jeans, with a t-shirt from the place in Minnesota that my family always vacations at every summer. Unlike so many mornings before this, I was not barefooted, so I decided that flip flops would be the best, slipping on my blue pair. And seeing as it was somewhat warm for end of May, I rolled up my jeans to my knees. Instead of my normal long, beautiful, flowing blond hair, I had gotten it cut over spring break so it was now only just touching the tips of my shoulders on either side, and stick straight because I straightened it before I felt, making sure it wasn’t going to cause any trouble. Before I left I made sure everything was perfect; seeing as I wanted to make a good impression.
As I walked across my backyard, Cam came out of his backdoor and we meant in the middle, at the property line. He had on his normal too; darker jeans and a nice light blue t-shirt that fit him nicely; not too snug but not too lose. His hair was shining in the sunlight, as it sometimes did, and it made it look like it was lighter than the shade of brown that it really was, when really over the years I had noticed it getting darker and darker. His eyes were the same piercing sky blue eyes that I loved to death. They were the same color as the sky was now, with a hint of gold and orange from the sun hitting the clouds in the sky as it came up.
He had his hands in his front pockets, and his long stride was always two of mine, so he always slowed down for me when we took a trip together. “Are you ready?” He asked, his voice ten times deeper than it was that first summer I meant him.
I felt the smile creep onto my face and I nodded. “You bet ya,” I tugged at the shoulder bag, that I had turned into my purse, a nervous habit that I had devopled over recent years.
He shook his head at my joke, but I followed him as we made our way to his garage. He took his seat as the driver, and I sat next to him, ready for this trip to begin before I lost the nerve to go through with it.
For my Biology project, I needed to get and test some samples from the nearby lake to prove that it was somewhat polluted; in order to get into this biology class for next year. Seeing as how Cam was my best friend and the best person at biology this school has ever seen, I got him to help me with this project so I wasn’t doing it by myself. Besides, we were allowed one outside help for this project and still get into the class if the teachers liked the report. Cam had put everything he thought we would need into his car the night before, so we were set to go once we got in, so he pulled out and we were on our way.
Neither of us were our normal chatty selves that morning; two days ago was the last day of school, and the head cheerleader – Nikkie – had just announced that she was totally on love with Cam. To the whole school. Of course Cam didn’t do anything that day about it, but he hasn’t brought it up, and I wasn’t going to ask. It was one of the few things I’d learned about him over the years; sometimes it’s just better to leave things where they are than to pick them up and dust them off. Yeah, Cam was the all-star football player too, so all the more reason they should be going out, right? Wrong. Why would he want to go out with someone like that, when he could be in love with someone who was normal and not a snob, tramp, and everything else like that? Why would he want to go out with someone like that when he had someone right under his nose that was perfect for him? I could feel a slight tension building between us in the car.
Once we turned out of the neighborhood, he turned on the radio and flipped channels, then giving up and turning it over to me to find a station. I flipped a few times before coming up to a station that was playing Somewhere Only We Know by Keane. At the moment it was one of the songs I could replay so many times and it would never get old, so I stayed on that station and started to sing along. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Cam start tapping his fingers on the steering wheel, and I barely heard him start humming along too. I smiled as he glanced my way. “What’s so funny?” He asked, trying to sound defensive but not trying hard enough because I could tell he was faking it.
I sighed, and looked over at him. “You and your musical abilities. You have a voice, yet you don’t ever use it. Why? I would kill for a voice like yours, and you never use yours. A lot of other people would kill for it too if they knew you had it,” I added, feeling the need to do so because if he didn’t know that already, he needed to know it sooner rather than later.
“How did you ever find out about it anyways? I can’t remember. And when?” Just by the way he was staring at the road ahead of him, I could tell he really didn’t remember how I found out about his amazing voice that he had.
But I remembered like it was yesterday. It was the week I was supposed to be on vacation, and I was. But we came home a day early so I could go to my softball tournament. He was sitting out in his backyard, under the tree, with a guitar. I had only seen it a few times before that moment, and I didn’t even know that he owned one to begin with, so I stayed where I was to see what was going on. Then he opened his mouth, and out came the most beautiful sound I had ever heard. As a matter of fact, this was the song he had sung that day, and it must have been like two years ago. “When you were under the tree when I was supposed to be on vacation, but I came home early that summer for softball. Remember now?” I asked, the smile creeping back on my face.
“Yea, I do actually,” He whispered, then turned the radio up a little more, and let his voice ring out. Again, I let him sing, just looking and watching him to make sure it was him singing and not something else happening. It was one of the rarest times when he did sing, because he almost never did it, even in front of me after I found out about it. I joined in with the chorus, but that was all. I was a decent singer but nothing special like Cam was turning out to be.
“Cam,” I started when the song was over. “When did you start singing? I mean to be that good then, you would have had to practice or something right?”
He sighed, and turned to look at me for a second, then turned back to the road. “I’ve always been singing. Ever since I can remember. The closest thing I’ve ever come to practice is the church choir, which I was only in for a year because my parents made me.”
“How come you never told me you could sing?” I asked. I had never thought about this before, and I realized that this may not have been the best time to bring it up because of the whole Nikkie thing, but I wanted to know. Besides, Cam knew me enough that I would never pick a fight with him, so he should know I mean no harm, I just want to know.
“I never told you because I thought for a while you would think there was something wrong with me, because before I moved here, I sang a song to a girl I liked, and she called me a loser. So naturally, I never sang here because I was afraid of getting the same reaction out of people.”
“Even me?”
“Especially you, Mary. You were my only friend here for the longest time, and if I told you I could sing, and you turned me away, there was nowhere else for me to go. So in order to not go through that process, I just didn’t tell you. And I had also always hid the guitar in the closet whenever you came over so you wouldn’t see it.” He said, throwing me his famous I-got-you looks.
I had always seen the guitar in the corner of his room ever since he was fourteen. I knew he played it, but I didn’t know he sung at that time. To me, he had always seemed like that football guy, not the musician dude who hid under all the footballness because he was afraid of what people might think of him. I still think of him that way, even if I’m the one who is against stereo types. Just because I’m in band, doesn’t mean that I’m a total loser. Well to some people it does, but to me, band is my outlet. I can play my alto saxophone well and I love to play it all the time. People in my section tease me because I’m always practicing something new. Cam seemed to be the only person who totally understood my need to practice all the time, because during football season, that’s all he does, is condition. Even before that, leading into the season. While I’m at band camp, he’s at football camp, both of us outside nine hours of the day, from nine to six, for seven days in a row. The only time I ever got to see him that week was lunch, because we ate at the same time, though we were the only people who crossed over to the other sides of the lunch room, so we were by ourselves in the middle. And I have to say, I never minded it that way either, just the two of us, with no one else around. Some people were surprised I was such good friends with the star football player seeing since I was a freshman to his junior, and that I was in band and he football. The two activities never seemed to mix, even when the band did play at the football games at half time.
“Well you of all people should know that I wouldn’t have ditched you, because I don’t believe in the stereo types. Besides, a guy who can sign is hot. It’s just a fact of nature. A guy who can play the piano is also hot too,” I added in there, on a joking note. I was never one for a serious conversation, that had always been Cam.
He laughed. “So I guess I need to learn how to play the piano too?”
“Got that right,” I said, smiling to myself. We still had about fifteen minutes left of the ride, and neither of us said anything after that.
The lake we were going to was a public beach too, so we were bound to see people we knew there, that’s part of the reason why I wanted to get this over right after school got out, so there was less of a chance of running into anyone. I got lucky too, because when we got there, we were the only ones there. Working together, the two of us got everything we needed out of the back of his car, and started walking to the shore to get it all set up. I knew a little bit about what we were going to do here, but what I didn’t know was where Cam came in. I would walk through it step by step with him, and he would give me a few pointers, tell me what I missed, and add to whatever I said.
Once everything was ready, I started telling what I was trying to get out of this whole thing, that I was doing it to get into the biology class for next year, and how I planned to do this project. Since I had the best science guy on my side, I figured I could do no wrong under his watchful eyes, which is part of the reason as to why he is here. The other, is just so I could spend more time with him, like we used to way back when, when we only had each other to play with in the backyard every day.
After I was done lecturing him on what I was trying to do, the two of us started to collect water from the lake, which required actually going into the lake. I, being a smart person, thought ahead, and wore my swimsuit underneath my clothes, so all I had to do was strip. Cam, not think this morning, didn’t bring anything, so he stripped down to his boxers. As I waited out by taking little baby steps from the shore, Cam decided that if he was going to do this, he needed to jump off the dock right away. He splashed me in the process, and in turn, made me colder than I was just a moment. For how warm it was outside, the water was so much colder.
I guess I should have seen this coming, but I didn’t, and I think that’s the sad part. I’ve known Cam for about eight years, and I can’t believe I didn’t see this coming. After he jumped off the end of the dock, he came back to shore, and grabbed a test tube, like he was going to start collecting water. But at the last second, he came up behind me, and swooped my up in his arms. Against mine, his skin was cold because he was still wet from the water. I tried to break free from him, but even if I tried, I would fall onto the dock, which was made out of wood and I think it would hurt more than it was worth the risk, so I just held on tightly, my arms linked around his neck, as I was cling to him, in an attempt of not to get dropped in the lake. But the plan wasn’t just to drop me in the lake, apparently. The plan was that he was going to jump in the lake with me in his arms, as to make sure I really went in the lake. Once I realized what he was doing, at the last second, I held my breath, and the two of us went under, Cam still holding tightly onto me. I held my eyes tightly shut, so the lake water couldn’t get to them, and I could feel Cam start pulling us up toward the surface and after a moment, we broke through. The two of us immeadtly broke into a fit of laughter, and I started to splash him as much as I could, but he seemed unaffected but it. As soon as I gave up, I saw it in his eyes that he was thinking about how to strike back at me for splashing him. I watched him carefully, feeling a smile creeping on my face and watching one appear on him, and the moment he tensed, I ducked and went under water, totally out of the way of his splash. But as soon as I came back up, he struck again, and I swallowed a mouth full of lake water.
Screaming mu girlish scream, I swam over to him, and dunked his head under water for a few seconds, then let him come back up for a breath. Of course he let me dunk him, there was no physical possible way that I would have been able to if he didn’t want me to in the first place. I stayed above the water while I pushed him under and after a moment, I felt his fingers wrap around my waist. I tried to pull away, knowing what was coming, but he held on tight, and when he came up, he picked me up, and tossed me back across the water. I landed in the water, my back hitting it first, and held my breath as I went under. When I came back up, I held my hands up. “I surrender,” I yelled, making sure he heard me before he picked me up again.
His laughter rang out above the sound of the waves, and I soon joined in, when I realized how stupid I sounded. He swam towards me and opened his mouth to speak, as I resist the urge to splash water into his mouth, due to the fact that it would start World War Three. “You surrender hum?”
This time I pushed him, knowing what he was getting at, but knowing that we were just friends and he would never do that to me. “You know what I mean,” I said, as he grabbed my hand and started to bring me towards the shore. “Yeah, that’s right, we have work to do here,” I added, making it sound like it was me pulling him instead of the other way around.
He laughed, and when we got to shore, a group of people started walking towards us. Cam ignored them and started working on collecting the water, tossing me a test tube in the process of getting back into the lake. It didn’t occur to me that he was ignoring them because he didn’t want to talk to them until I realized who they were. It was Nikkie, Sam, and Carry, the head cheerleader and her two winged women, the head cheerleader that told the whole school she loved Cam not two days ago. I quickly tried to follow Cam’s example and ignore them, but they got to me before I could get back into the water. “What are you doing here, short stack?” Nikkie sneered at me, tossing her hair back in the process and using the nickname she came up for me, short stack because I was still shorter than her, where as she was really tall for a girl in general.
“I’m working on my science project, what’s it to you?” I jabbed right back. In all the attempts to build me into a nice young lady and all, my parents failed to make me nice to Nikkie. But they didn’t care because she wasn’t nice to anyone. Nikkie and Cam were in the same grade, both seniors to my sophomore, and any other senior, I would have been nice to regardless of whether or not they were, but this was Nikkie, and I have seen her take down to many people to be nice to her in any way possible.
“So if you’re working on a project, you wouldn’t mind if I borrowed Cam for the rest of the day.” She didn’t even ask, she just stated it like it was a fact of life that she could have Cam for the rest of the day. She didn’t even wait for me to respond. “Cam! Cam, do you want to come with us do get some ice cream?” Nikkie shouted out to him, and for a second he didn’t respond, and I thought that he was just going to keep on ignoring them. But at the last second, he started making his way to shore.
“Hey I didn’t know you guys would be here,” He said, handing off the test tube that he filled with lake water to me, with a smile on his face. Then without a second thought, he tossed me aside like I wasn’t even there to begin with. After a few minutes of just standing there waiting for him to say he had work to do, I gave up and started getting all the lake water myself. All in all we needed twenty samples of lake water from twenty different areas of the lake, one at the end of the dock, one right by shore, one from the middle of the lake, and so on. Of course there were a few that we wouldn’t be getting today, but with Cam not getting any, it was going to be a long day for me.
When I came back the first time, he was still talking and two test tubes were done in ten minutes. When I came back twenty minutes later, only three test tubes were done. Forty minutes later, five were done, and Cam was still standing there talking to Nikkie and her crew. Whenever I looked at the four of them standing there, I could see that Nikkie wasn’t looking at his face, she was too busy checking out him to look and pay attention to whatever he was saying, which bugged me even more. When I noticed that my hands were turning into fists at my sides, I told myself to take a few deep breaths to calm myself down a little bit. Finally, after what seemed like forever, Cam started walking back towards me. I noticed that he put his shirt and jeans back on too. “Hey I’m going to go back into town with Nikkie to pick us up some lunch. What do you want?”
I paused to think it over, and smiled. “The normal, please.”
He returned the smile, and headed back to them, and they made their way to Nikkie’s car in the parking lot. And just like that, I was alone, working on my science project that Cam promised he would help me with. At that point, I called it quits, and just sat down on top of my towel I had thrown on the sand before we got into the lake. On a whim, I decided to stuff a book in my bag before I left to meet Cam, so I pulled it out now, and started reading, leaving the science stuff Cam brought with him still set up. The book I pulled out was the book I had to read for English, so it wasn’t the greatest, but it kept me entertained long enough to realize that it was long past lunch time and Cam still hadn’t brought back my lunch. He hadn’t showed up yet either. So much for getting lunch, but again, I planned ahead, and pulled out an apple from my bag, and started snacking on it. I went back and forth from laying on my back and laying on my stomach so if I got some sun, it wouldn’t be all on one side. When I finally broke down and checked what time it was on my phone, it was almost three in the afternoon. Cam left with Nikkie at about quarter to eleven. Where in the world was he?
I gave up on the whole science project thing a while ago since Cam wasn’t here to walk me through it all, so I pulled my jeans back on, and pulled my book out again, already two hundred pages into it. The next time I looked at my phone, it was already four. I gave in, and called Cam on his cell phone to see where he was and when he was getting back.
It rang three times, and then a girl answered. “Hello,”
“Who is this?” I asked, getting up and taking a few steps down the beach. Cam would never give his phone to someone else to answer.
“Well, you called me so you should know who this is. But who are you?” She asked, and I thought her voice sounded like Nikkie’s, but I wasn’t hundred percent sure so I didn’t say anything.
“Forget it,” I said and hung up.
I will admit, I had to fight back the tears that were trying to overflow my eyes. What was that girl doing to Cam that made him totally forget about me, hand his phone off to someone else, and not come back to at least get his car and me to bring us home?
Then my saving grace came along. “Mary? Is that you?”
Turning to see who it was, I saw Jade, one of my junior friends, who could now drive only one person. I smiled, and ran over to the fence to meet her. “Jade, I didn’t think I’d see you here,” I said rubbing my eyes to make sure I really wasn’t crying.
“Mary, what are you doing here by yourself? I thought you were going to be hanging out with Cam all summer long?” She smiled when she asked, but when she said Cam, I could feel my expression drop and she noticed too. “Oh honey, what happened?”
I thought about making up a story, but decided against it, just in case she ran into him if she went back into town. “Well we were working on my science project, and then Nikkie came along and she snatched him up like a fly to a light. I got five things done, but I need help with the rest from Cam and, well, he’s not here so I can’t do anything for the rest of today until he gets back. But I don’t know when that will be. I tried to call him, but Nikkie answered his phone and I don’t want to talk to her of all people. So here I am, getting more English homework done than science.”
She looked both ways, then hopped over the fence, coming over to my side of the beach. “Oh, honey. He’s a guy, picking up girls is what he does. How many other girlfriends has he had over the years?”
I tried to count in my head, but ended up counting on my fingers because there were just that many. “I don’t know, maybe eight. Besides the only reason why I don’t like this one is because of the last one, and because Nikkie is nothing but mean to other people and he doesn’t need someone like that in his life.”
“But he doesn’t realize that she is mean to everyone else! That’s where you come in. If he has been friends with you since forever, then there is no way he will be able to stand someone like Nikkie for even a minute. Trust me honey, it’s the way of friendship,” She whispered and looped her arm in mine, taking me with her as she walked towards the water.
“That’s the problem. I feel like lately we haven’t been as close as we used to be. I feel like he is pulling away from me, but it could also very well be me pulling away from him without even knowing it. Jade, I’m – I don’t know what to do. I mean do I talk to him about it, do I see if it’s just going to blow over, what do I do?” I sighed, letting go of her arm and looking back at Cam’s stuff to make sure it was still standing and not in pieces and what not.
For what seemed like the longest time, she just stared at the lake, at the waves coming in to shore, and the water that could bring you in and never let you go. But then she spoke. “I think you need to do whatever you feel you need to do. If you think you need to talk to him, talk to him. If you think it will blow over, then leave it be. No one can help you with this except you, so as much as I hate to say it, you’re on your own kid.”
As much as I didn’t want to hear it, I’m pretty sure I could have already told you that no outside help would have been helpful in this situation. If I don’t know what I’m doing, then who else would? I know him the best, I’ve known him the longest, I will know him like the back of my hand until the day I die. It’s one of those things I just had to ask, even if I already knew the answer was deep down inside me. I just had to make sure. After that, we kept the conversation light, until Jade had to go, so we said our goodbye’s and she was on her way home while I was stuck here waiting for Cam’s return.
At that time, it was already almost five, but just as I got settled in again, I heard a car. Looking up to see who it was, I saw Nikkie, Sam, Carry, Cam, and three other girls I didn’t know. Cam was the only guy, and I’m pretty sure Nikkie was only supposed to be driving one person at least until school started again in August. Cam climbed out, bid goodbye to all the girls, and finally made his way over to me. “I’m in trouble, aren’t I?” Was the first thing he said, without even taking a glance at me, running his hand through his hair like he did when he was nervous.
“Oh yeah. And let me tell you, you are in deep buddy.” I said, not in the mood to talk to him now, or any time soon at least. I stood there and watched him take down his thing because one, he ditched me, and two it’s the least he can do, considering he ditched me. When he had everything packed up and ready to go, he looked at me.
“Oh my God, I forgot to get your food. Mary, I’m so sorry, you probably haven’t eaten all day, I am so, so sorry,” He said, as we started walking to his car, which was the only one in the parking lot.
“Yeah, you should be. But I had an apple, my English book – that I finished if you care to know – and Jade stopped by to chat for a while. All while you were too busy to even think about me, let alone answer my phone call. But no, you had to hand your phone off to some chick you spent your afternoon with when you were supposed to be helping me with my science project!” I didn’t mean to, but I ended up raising my voice and yelling at him. It wasn’t the first time, but I never yell at anyone, so he knows it’s really, really, really bad when I start yelling at him.
Again, we knew each other well enough when it was time to leave the other alone, or when to talk about something. Cam knew better than to push when I started yelling at him so the two of us got in the car and we started home, in silence. Much to my surprise, I could hear the constant hum of Cam as he drove down the road, and in few cases, I could hear his voice sing out above the noise of the car and everything else. Although, thinking it over, it could be a way for him to get me to try to talk to him, because he knew I loved it when he sang, and he knew I could never stay mad at him for a long time to begin with, so it was a brilliant way to get me to talk faster. And I almost did, at least until I thought about that, then I closed my mouth, and sat there, keeping the silence going, and making sure it lasted on my end, until we got home. I had told him many times before, not to bother to pull into my drive way when we lived next door, but today he did and I didn’t say anything about it. I got out of his car, slammed his door shut, and walked up to the front door and into my house.

Later that night, my parents came up to my room, knocking on my bedroom door first. But just because they knocked doesn’t mean that they waited until I answered them to let them in; they just opened the door and walked in and sat on the side of my bed. “Honey, what’s wrong? Cam stopped by, and he wanted to know if you would meet him by the tree. Maybe you should go talk to him for a while, see if the two of you can sort out what’s bugging you,”
My mom could never overlook the fact that Cam was a boy and I was a girl. She usually never encouraged me to talk to him, but this time it was different. She was telling me to go talk to him, and no matter how many times I had been this sad she never told me to go talk to Cam. I stared at her, really looking at her to make sure she was okay. “Mom, what’s wrong?”
She smiled, and sat back against my headboard next to me. “Honey, there was a little mix up with our vacation this year. We are going up a week earlier than we normally do. Which means -”
“Which means that we won’t be up with Kevin? Mom, what the heck? He is the only person that I know up there!” On top of everything that just happened with Cam at the beach today, this was the last thing I needed. Kevin was my best friend next to Cam. The two of them had gotten me through my last seven years.
The first year I meant Kevin I was about ten or so, the second summer I spent with Cam. Turns out that Kevin is the same age as Cam, so when I played with Kevin it was no different than playing with Cam. After that first year, I didn’t think I would see him again, like so many other people I had come across up there. But when I saw him the next year, our parents talked, and turns out that our two families plan on booking the same week for the next few years. I have always looked forward to my week with Kevin because when I’m up north with him we don’t talk about our problems from home, we talk about the resort and how beautiful it is and what it reminds us of. I’m not even really sure where Kevin lives. Not being able to see Kevin up north this summer is like not being able to see Cam for like two months here. We have been two peas in a pod when we are up there, I almost couldn’t think of my vacation without him. “Mom we have to get that week back. I don’t care what cabin we are in, but I want that week back. I want to see Kevin.”
She sighed, and looked at me, brushing a piece of my hair out of my face. “Then I guess it’s a good thing that your dad saw this, and saved the last empty cabin that they had for our normal week hm?”
I looked at her and just burst out laughing. I couldn’t believe it. She out me through that just to tell me that there was no reason to worry in the first place because dad already saved another cabin? I was kind of mad, but at the moment I was too happy to even think about being mad. “Mom! Oh my goodness, thank you!” I said giving her a hug. “Thank you so much!” Our normal vacation week is just one week away!
“You’re welcome sweetie. Now do me a favor and go talk to Cam. He seems really upset about something or other,” She mumbled as she got up and walked towards my door.
I knew she was right, I should go talk to Cam, but I really didn’t want to. I was happy and I didn’t need Cam to bring sown my mood like he has been lately. But I knew she was right, so a few moments after she left, I put my laptop - containing my newly half written English paper – aside and opened my bedroom door and made my way outside to the tree where Cam was waiting for me.
I made my way over to our tree where Cam sat, perched on one of the branches overlooking his yard, not noticing that I was on my way over to talk to him. Once I was under the tree, I stood there for a moment, just looking at him. Cam was still in his clothes from earlier today, the dark jeans and light blue t-shirt. His hair now looked close to the actual shade of brown that it really is. He sat with his feet hanging off the side, swinging them in the air in such a way that it reminded me of all those times when he would sit up there and swing me from his feet because we never had an actual swing that we could swing on. “Cam,”
At the sound of my voice, he stopped swing his feet, but he didn’t turn to look at me, he stayed where he was perched in the tree like a bird in a nest. It was weird for him to give me the silence treatment when I was the one who was mad at him in the first place. So I tried again. “Cam, I think we need to talk,”
He wasn’t that high off the ground, his feet maybe to my shoulders, so he jumped down and looked at me. “Okay, what’s up?”
This is getting old. Why is he acting like nothing happened between us today? Why is he acting like ditching me at the beach for the whole afternoon never happened? Why? “Look my mom sent me out here so if you have nothing to say, I’m going to go back inside and work on my English paper. I actually finished reading the book so I can get the paper started today, because someone ditched me when we were supposed to be working on my science project.” I didn’t raise my voice like I did at the beach, but I talked in a tone of voice that told him that I was mad at him and he needed to realize that before I did start yelling at him.
At first all he did was look at me like I had totally lost my mind. But then, a look crossed his face that I had never seen on him before, and I didn’t know what to think of it, so I waited for him to say something first. And after a few moments, he did. “Look, Mary, I think this summer we can branch out, you know, hang out with different people, talk to different people. Stuff like that. I just think we need a little space because today I was out having a good time, and then when I came back, you totally ruined my mood, and today was the day that set my mood for summer vacation, and you just started it off on a bad note. So tomorrow, I can’t take you to the beach, or any other time this summer.”
Now it was my turn to give him a wired look, and I think he noticed too. “Cam, if you remember, you took me to the beach to help me with my science project, not to have fun. And if you also recall, we did have fun playing around too. So yea, I think you do need to take me to the beach until I get the science project done because you promised you would help me with it. The Cam I know would never back away from a promise. The real question is, are you the Cam I know, or are you the Cam who would do anything not to ruin his image because he was hanging out with a sophomore band geek?” It was mean of me, I know, but I couldn’t help it. Earlier this past year, Cam had slipped into a mode where for two months he wouldn’t talk to me or anything at school. When I first realized what was happening, I stopped talking to him when he would come out to the tree, when he tried to call me to get me to come out. He didn’t talk to me again until someone had patched it up between us, and that someone was Jade. She had gotten my friend back for me when I couldn’t bring myself to do it in the first place. In many ways, I owed Jade a lot for just doing me that one favor, because in doing that one thing, she has made it so that she is now my go-to-person besides Cam. And as I’m seeing now, it’s better to not tell all your secrets to one person, but to have a few people you confide in. Before I only had Cam. Now I have Cam and Jade. I was getting better.
Cam cocked his head, like I had seen him to many times before whenever he got stern with someone else. As many times as I had seen him do it, he has never done it to me, until now. “Mary, I can’t help you with your science project so I guess you’ll have to find a different helper, and a different driver too,” And just like that, he walked away.
“Cam,” I said in an even tone, when on the inside all I wanted to do was crawl on my hands and knees and beg him not to leave me again. But I couldn’t let him see me like that, not at that magnitude. “Cam, I hope you know that if you walk away now, there is no going back. This happened once already, I don’t need to keep going through it over and over again, so if you turn around now, everything changes. Everything,”
He didn’t even look at me, he just started walking again. He kept going until he walked in his back door, and closed it tightly behind him. I turned away too, kicking myself for crying over someone who had caused me so much pain before when, somewhere in the back of my mind I knew it was just going to happen again.