Camden, page 9
I guess it was a habit. If not of everyone's, then of mine.
To get stuck in a mood then pile on, compound it, do and say and listen to things that reinforce that sensation, that made it impossible to think of anything else.
So I walked down the lonely beach, the waves as tumultuous as the feelings crashing within me.
I sat down on the sand, staring off at the sea, wallowing in my emptiness, in the potentials I had to leave behind, the seemingly hollow future that was before me.
No roots, no connection, no relationship, no kids. No nothing.
"Honey, you okay?" a gruff, older, masculine voice asked, making me jerk out of my swirling thoughts, and making me acutely aware that the tears had never really stopped, that they may never, that the well inside was much deeper than I ever could have known.
"I, ah, yeah," I assured him, swiping at my cheeks, forcing a smile I didn't feel.
"Sometimes you just gotta let it out," he agreed, eyes knowing. "It's getting late, though," he added, fatherly concern in his voice before turning and walking away, leaving me to scrub my face, sniffle pathetically, then get myself up off the sand, making my way back toward the town, ready to start over.
God, I was so sick of starting over.
--
It took three days of staying at the cheapest motel in the area, it reeking heavily of mildew, mold in the grout in the bathroom, sheets that had likely never been cleaned, yet somehow still taking a giant chunk out of my meager savings before I finally found a place that would work.
For now.
If I made it through the off-season, I would need to figure out something else come the on-season. Which was, again, a problem for another time. Who knew if I would even make it that long without him finding me.
But I had lucked upon a really sweet older couple, while I was hanging up flyers in the local eateries and coffee shops, that was in town to try to get their income property ready to be shut down for the winter. They were planning on heading down to Florida to avoid the cold and snowy Jersey winters for the first time, and were nervous about leaving the house empty when they would be so far away.
By the time we stopped talking, it almost felt like they thought I was doing them a favor by staying at the place instead of the other way around. All they wanted from me was to pay the electric and water bills when they came in, keep the place clean, and shovel the driveway.
"You'll be saving us money!" Clark, the husband, told me, grinning at the prospect of not having to pay someone to do the sidewalks and driveway.
"And giving us a lot of peace of mind," Louise added, giving me a maternal smile.
They had then taken one of my spare flyers, flipping it over, filling out the back with a list of phone numbers to reach them at and little house quirks to keep in mind in case I ran into any issues. They'd even left me their loyalty cards for the local food stores since they didn't have those chains in Florida, and asked me to clean out the pantry since they were worried about it going bad.
They were giving me a house, free of charge, and a whole pantry that ended up being loaded down with my usual essentials - rice, beans, pastas - along with a ton of canned goods, including soups that - when paired with a roll could be a whole meal.
They'd given me a tour, handed me the keys, then hugged me before leaving.
I'd never been quite so grateful in all my life.
I still didn't have much money to live on, but I figured that if I kept my showers short, and ate only what was in the pantry, it would buy me enough time to start getting some jobs in the area off the books.
It was always off the books.
Because, I learned early on, as soon as I had a trail - even one as simple as a job and a bank account - Thomas was able to track me down much more quickly.
Life would be so much easier if I could just get a job serving tables, manning the counter at a convenience store, pumping gas, but those on-the-books jobs weren't an option for me. Which made finding work much harder.
I was adaptive, though.
I had been a dog walker, house sitter, guitar teacher, leaf raker, Christmas present wrapper, babysitter, the person who drove elderly people to do their errands, house cleaner.
You name it, I did it.
And it got me by.
If I lived in a busy enough area with people who had more than enough disposable income, I could even get by well. My first move into California left me with a hefty savings that got me through the two next moves in smaller towns where I could just barely scrape by.
I couldn't seem to make myself settle in, unpack, feeling completely detached from this new life, this unwanted fresh start.
There had always been moments of anger directed at Thomas. It was hard not to have it when he was the sole reason I could never finally find a place and call it home. As a whole, the fear of needing to flee was chased with a smidgen of anger as I drove to my unknown next destination. After that, though, it was all pure survival mode once again. Find shelter. Find food. Find work. Settle in. Get to know the area. Find more work. Save money. Prepare, prepare, preparing.
Because before long, it would be time to move once again.
This was the first time I seemed wholly stuck in the anger phase - the sensation of heat boiling in my belly, this strange tightness in my hands, in my jaw, never going away.
Because he had finally stolen something new from me.
Over the years, it had really just been new towns he constantly took away, the small connection I felt toward clients. Nothing profound, nothing worth raging over.
This time, though, he took away Navesink Bank.
He took away Camden.
He took away any possible future I could have genuinely found there.
For that, I hated him.
It was a new feeling, hatred. I'm not sure most people - even ones who think they had - have ever felt pure, undiluted, all-consuming hate before.
But I hated him.
With every waking moment.
With every dominant thought.
With every breath I took.
My mother hadn't raised me that way. She'd been forgiving, good, kind. She was the type who believed in third and fourth chances, no matter how many times she got hurt because of that. She always told me that people were constantly having their own personal evolutions, and that just because they hurt you in one phase didn't mean they would hurt you in the next.
I wanted so badly to be like her. And, for a good part of my life, I truly believed I had been. I didn't hold grudges. I didn't often take offense. I just let people be who they were. I saved myself when that meant that some people were in a toxic phase, but I didn't yell, didn't lecture, didn't toss half-hearted hatred their way.
There was no way, though, that I could find anything even resembling kindness or compassion or understanding for Thomas anymore.
All he had, all he would ever have from me, was a bone-deep loathing, a burning rage, an untethered hatred.
It didn't lessen.
As the days turned to weeks. As I got a set of odd jobs. As I made a life of this new place.
Every single day, I woke up with it.
And every single night, I went to sleep with it.
I coddled my hatred like a baby that needed constant care, constant attention. I fed, nurtured, and watched it grow. Until it was a bigger part of me than I ever was. Until ugly, violent thoughts started invading my head.
Ideas of staying put, refusing to run.
Prepare, prepare, preparing.
But not in the old way.
Not in the way that constantly made me the fox being chased by the teeth-bared hunting dogs.
No.
I entertained the possibility of waiting him out, drawing him in, and finally putting an end to it all.
I'd never been a violent person. I was someone who relocated spiders, who cried if a squirrel ran out too quickly for me to brake in time. I couldn't even fight back when someone had once sucker-punched me on a playground. I had looked at my hand, knowing what I was supposed to do, but unable to raise my arm to do it.
I'd never hit anyone. Never hurt anyone. Never even given it any thought before.
But, God, I wanted to hit him. I wanted to hurt him.
I obsessed about it.
I convinced myself that carefully placing various things I found in the shed - a pickax, a spear, a baseball bat - around the house, always within reach, was what I needed to do. Even though I had never needed to in the past. I fantasized about picking one up, hitting him with it. Once, twice, three times. Over and over and over until I couldn't lift my arms anymore.
I did, one-hundred-percent, want to kill him.
Because he had killed me.
Little by little over the years, steadily shaving bits away, taking more and more and more from me. Safety, security, a life, a future.
Somehow, I had convinced myself that he deserved to die because of that.
Some time a few weeks after arriving, on a chilly early October day, I was walking through the house, feeling my belly drop as something passed in my peripheral.
I was so sure it was a stranger.
And, as it turned out, in a way, it was.
It was me, reflection caught in the mirror on the wall across from the dining room table.
Except, I barely recognized myself anymore.
There was a hollow, vacant look to my eyes, lined in deep pockets and purple smudges from my lack of sleep. My hair was lackluster, greasy at the roots, carelessly swept up into a bun at the top of my head. My arms looked almost skeletal, my cheeks a bit sunken.
Whoever this woman was, it wasn't who I was supposed to be. It wasn't who my mother had raised.
She would burst into tears if she saw me.
If she knew the ugly places my mind had been.
If she realized how I had let the darkness win.
That had never been what she wanted.
Even on her worst days, she found a way to radiate light, joy. She made sure I never settled too long in one attitude, reminding me how much there was to be joyous about, to be grateful for.
This woman who had her eyes and her chin, but a brain and body made unsightly by the swirling, vile thoughts she had nurtured in her heart, in her soul, she was not someone my mother would have been proud of.
That realization was like a healing rain suddenly opening up over my head, washing away the hatred, the murderous thoughts, everything that had never been a part of who I was before, everything I vowed to never let myself become again.
No matter what he stole from me.
I refused to give him that.
On that thought, I turned around, turning on the hot water for a shower, believing very little in the world worked to make you feel renewed so much as a hot shower, some good soap, and a slathering of lotion.
I had just pulled off my lumpy, oversized sweatshirt, leaving me in an ugly gray ribbed tank top, when there was a knock at the door.
There was a second of expected fear, trepidation. I had gotten too used to never hearing anyone at the door over all these years. But as things turned out, there was a set of elderly neighbors to the right who really liked having a new neighbor around and stopped by often to drop off leftovers or tell me the weather forecast, just chat.
So the fear slipped away as I headed toward the door, already calling out to Allen.
"It sure looks like rain today, doesn't it? I can only talk for a minute," I added, reaching for the locks. "I have the water trying to get ho..."
The door swung open.
It wasn't Allen. Nor his wife, Mary.
It wasn't even Thomas.
No.
It was the last person in the entire world I expected to see there.
It was Cam.
SIX
Camden
It was straight out of a cheesy fucking movie.
The misunderstanding, the explanation, the invite, the meal and movie, the discussion, getting called away, then the kiss.
I was still fucking shocked that music hadn't played while it happened. That was how perfect the whole damn thing was.
I couldn't even be mad that the club called me away since that was likely what had led to the kiss in the first place. If the night had gone on, maybe she'd have gotten awkward, or I would have chickened out.
It felt right to leave with us both wanting more.
I figured I would do my guard shift, catch some sleep at the club, then head back home in the early afternoon. She had a regular guitar student, so it would give me a chance to shower, get my mind together, then I could go back over.
It seemed like a mistake, but I had left the laptop on purpose. It gave me an excuse to show up at her door once again.
Then, yeah, we were going to pick up where we left off.
I actually had trouble sleeping in anticipation. Like some starry-eyed fucking virgin.
Eventually, I managed, waking up ready to get moving.
Only to be derailed by Liv and Astrid barging in, trays of coffee and a two dozen boxes of donuts in hand.
"We figured we would try to even out the breakfast run thing," Astrid told me. "One down. About three-thousand left to go."
My brows must have been furrowed, finding them there, together, no kids around, no Roderick, because Liv gave me a small smile.
"You'll never guess who I ran into while running early morning errands today," she said, finding my coffee, holding it out to me.
I had a feeling I knew who.
Since he was coming out of the kitchen with a bowl of cereal in one hand, the spoon raised in the other.
West.
"He said the damndest thing," Astrid continued, struggling to get the little circle of tape off the tab tuck closure.
I was sure he did.
My gaze went to him, likely accusing, making him hold his spoon-hand up. "Didn't say shit that wouldn't be obvious if they were around here," he said by way of defense. If I wasn't completely mistaken, there was a hint of accusation in his voice as well.
It never would occur to me that West would feel - even in the slightest bit - protective of me. At least outside of a life-or-death sort of situation. But just as a person, protective of my feelings and such.
It seemed pretty clear, though, that he was irritated with Liv and Astrid. For what? For getting their own lives? For not coming around as much as they used to?
A part of me bristled, the side that was defensive of the girls no matter if they were right or wrong.
The other part, though, felt a bit, I don't know, thankful toward West. For seeing - despite how hard I tried to bury it so that even I didn't see it - that the distance from the girls bothered me more than I cared to admit. That he knew I was struggling with the separation, with feeling connected to anyone the way I was with them.
Picking up on the tone, Liv's eyes went sadder than I had seen them since she settled down with Roderick.
"There really isn't any excuse," Liv said, shaking her head. "I'm busy, but I'm not so busy that I can't find a few minutes to check in with you more often. I've been a shit friend."
"You?" Astrid asked, face scrunching up. "I don't have the kid excuse. I'm just a selfish bitch," she said, shaking her head as she gave up on the tape, ripping the top off of the donut carton instead before moving toward me, wrapping her arms around my body.
Astrid was not big on affection. She had her issues. They made her cautious. They made her standoffish when it came to physical contact a lot of the time. Over the years, it had lessened when we lived back in the city. She would lean on me when watching movies, throw her legs over my thighs. Comfort came with familiarity when it came to Astrid.
But since we had all moved to Navesink Bank, since she moved up to Hailstorm, she'd gotten increasingly more physically distant once again.
I got it. I understood her. I knew she had to be met at her level. You couldn't go to her with your expectations when it came to something that made her uncomfortable.
So getting an unprompted hug from her was unexpectedly welcome, sweet, and fucking needed.
My arms went around her immediately, giving her a tight squeeze.
"I'm sorry I am a shitty sister sometimes. You deserve better."
"Guys, you're killing me. I'm gonna cry," Liv said, already sniffling.
"She won't admit it," Astrid said in my ear. "But I think she's knocked up again. Hence the waterworks."
One arm released Astrid to summon Liv over. She came easily, quickly, colliding with the two of us, nearly knocking me off balance.
"Okay, enough of that," Astrid said a breath later, untangling from us, shimmying her shoulders like she needed to shake off the warm feelings. "So, you'd never believe what that pain in the ass told us," Astrid tried again, handing out donuts.
"Who is she?" Liv blurted out, biting into a Boston Cream. Which pretty much confirmed Astrid's suspicions since Liv cringed at the cream filling in the past.
"And don't try to shrug or furrow your brows," Astrid demanded. "We won't fall for that. You have a girl?"
Was there any reason to pretend I didn't?
Because, even though we hadn't had any discussion about it in any way yet, there was no denying that was what was going on with us.
I didn't hand out my number to women. I didn't sit around and wait for them to text me back. I didn't try to go out of my way to get them coffee, donuts, takeout. Just because I knew it would make their day.
That was the shit I saved for Liv and Astrid.
My family.
And the guys.
My brothers.
I didn't do it for random women.
I didn't need to do it to get a woman in bed.
That had been all I wanted from women in my life. A relationship seemed like a perfectly asinine idea. I didn't figure most women were down to have one-sided conversations from now to eternity. Assholes might quip about how women just wanted someone to talk at. But after living with Liv and Astrid for so long, I knew that was bullshit. They wanted a deep connection. It wasn't exactly easy to connect with someone when you couldn't speak with them.
