Beneath His Darkness (Healing Hearts #3) (41 page)

The wind lightly floats by, brushing my hair off my cheek.  It’s a warm breeze and I think how much I would love to show Grant the farm in the summer when it’s in full crop.  It’s a sight to see.

“I’m sorry I sent you away,” he says in a low tone.

“I’m sorry I went.”

He turns to face me.  “You have nothing to apologize for, Cammie.”

“Don’t I?  I could have stayed.  I could have made you see we were worth fighting for, but I walked away because my feelings were hurt.  Like a spoiled child, I ran away.”

I’ve thought a lot this the past week.  Yeah, Grant told Tucker he wanted me to go home and it was for the best, but I never had to agree to it.  He wasn’t my boss, nor my parent.  He didn’t control me.  Why did I listen so easily?  It was a simple truth.

Ego.

I wanted the fairy tale ending.  The dragon had been slayed and now I wanted Prince Charming to ride in on the white horse and whisk me away.  Well, he didn’t fucking do that.  Turns out, my prince was a toad.  That’s how I felt the day he sent me away.  I was angry and I had a tantrum.

I thought of all the things Grant had done wrong and I acted like a wronged girlfriend.  I had no right to.  We were never a couple and that was my own doing.  I told him we were just friends and I loved him enough to be okay with that.  Again and again, I told him I accepted him that way and when the going got tough, I ran because I didn’t like the mood he was in.  I should have known he would push me away.  That’s classic Grant behavior.  Guilt makes him do crazy shit.

But, I ran.

And I blamed him for me running.

It was easier to believe he was the reason I hurt so much.  This past week has been an eye opener for me.  Spilling the beans to my dad made me see that he didn’t do anything but try to protect me.  That’s what he was always trying to do.  Maybe not the Melanie stuff, but even then, can I really get mad?  Do I have the right?  We were never a couple.

“I kicked you out of my life and when you tried to contact me, I ignored you.  It wasn’t right.  In my mind, I was protecting you, but now that I see you, those excuses don’t make sense.”

“We both screwed up.  Do you really want to sit here and go over all the things we did wrong?”

He shakes his head no.

We talk about his life, his relationship with his grandmother, and the positive influence she’s having on him.  His eyes light up and he smiles talking about their conversations.  I’m glad he has her.  He and Mikos aren’t doing as well, but things with Tucker are getting better.  It’s nice to know he’s trying to have family in his life.  Unfortunately, he still doesn’t have a relationship with Gloria.  This saddens me.  I had hoped the recent tragedy in his life would offer them a truce.

Although he seems a little embarrassed, we chat about his lead in Eddie’s film.  His love for baseball shines through when he gets going and when Sian’s name comes up, my jealousy comes flaring to life.

He squeezes my hand and when I glance at him, he says, “There hasn’t been anyone since you.  No one else makes me think of buttercups and sunshine.”

Yeah, he may have made me swoon and lose my breath for a second.

He starts in on me, about how surprised he is that I didn’t go back to school or find my way back to the theater.  I don’t know how to tell him I was too heartbroken to chase any dreams.  He goes on and on about how talented I am and I finally have to tell him to stop, that I just needed a break.

“But a diner, really?”

I chuckle.

“Although…you know that shirt would much look better if it said girl under there.”

I look down to see I’m still wearing my
Grant’s
t-shirt and I smile at the irony of not having the chance to change from work.

My mom’s voice chirps through the window, “Now, that’s how you woo a woman.”

“With that lame line?” my dad snorts.  “Back in my day…”

I tune them out as I launch into Grant’s arms.  I don’t care what they say or that they heard everything we said.  Grant just made me the happiest girl in Ohio.

“Grant’s girl sounds good to me,” I whisper before I place my lips to his and feel myself begin to heal.

Epilogue

Grant

It’s been nine months since I made the trip to Ohio.  Cammie and I are dating.  If you were expecting to hear married or that she’s pregnant, you’re more messed up than I am.  We’re both young and fucked up.  We have a lot of shit to get past, especially me, and we want to handle that before we deal with major life decisions.

She did, however, move out to L.A. to pursue her acting career, and no, she doesn’t live with me.  With how much we’re together, it feels like she does at times, but we also know when to give each other space.  It’s great that we have that trust between us.

I started therapy after that fateful trip to Ohio.  Cammie told me she had been in therapy for months and though she didn’t feel like it was doing much yet, she felt it would start to help if she kept with it.  She felt with all her heart that I needed to seek help, not just for what happened with Davyd, but for my teenage years as well.  I couldn’t argue with the points she made, so when I got home, I made an appointment.

The first therapist I saw was a damn nut job.  The guy didn’t even bother to get to know me.  In fact, he didn’t ask me a single question.  He looked at the form I had to fill out—I guess there were questions on there—and told me he recommended group therapy.  Had he taken a couple sessions to get to know me, he would have known I’m not a big people person, despite the fact that I’m an actor.  I can fake it because…well, that’s my fucking job, but deep down, people make me antsy.

I left after a few minutes of that session.  You just know when something doesn’t fit.

I like my new therapist.  She reminds me of Cammie and not because I think she’s hot...she’s in her fifties.  It’s her smile.  During the first session, she sat back and let me decide what I was comfortable saying and when she gave me that smile, it was genuine.  It told me she cared about my healing.

I have started healing, enough so, I now do counseling with Tucker and Mikos.  My therapist set us up with a family counselor—a conflict of interest or some shit like that—for her to shrink all our asses and see me privately, too.  Oh yeah, shit is crazy in that room.  Bet that therapist gets fucking hammered after each session.  It is one hell of a cockfight with all the testosterone flying around every two weeks.  I thought I had a lot of resentment toward these two over the years.  Turns out, Tucker has me beat…by a damn landslide.

Is it horrible that I enjoy not being the only fucked up one in the family?

I asked Grams that one day and waited for her to start yelling, but all she did was sigh through the phone and tell me, “We all hope there’s someone more messed up than us.  We need to feel powerful and how we do that is by seeing other’s weaknesses.  It’s one of the ways our society is flawed.  You can rise above it if you choose to.”

That day, I poured my heart out to her more than I ever had.

I admitted the reason I couldn’t bring Cammie back for so long was because I was scared of myself.  I was afraid of what lurks inside of me and what I know I’m capable of doing.  She was quiet on the other end while I told her that I was disappointed Davyd’s death didn’t come at my hands and how much I loathed myself that day because I could feel my strength waning.  It felt good to wrap my hand around his throat and I wished my other hand had been free because I know I could have finished the job.  I wanted to know what it felt like to see the life drain from his eyes and see his soul depart his body, if he even had one.  It frightened me because I didn’t then and I still don’t feel bad about wanting to kill him.  If he were in front of me, I’d go straight for his throat now.  I’d like to say he made me a killer, but Cammie’s dad is right…a man makes his own decisions.

I learned that day, in Davyd’s storm shelter, I am capable of murdering another human being.  I believe most people are, but what shook me to my core was realizing I didn’t care.  I think I even enjoyed the rush of watching him struggle for air.  It was short lived, but for that one moment, when his eyes bulged, I felt pleasure.  If I weren’t about to pass out, I think I would have gotten an erection.  The revelation of the darkness still lingering in me causes me such panic that I leave Cammie alone in bed many nights and pace my apartment.

Grams didn’t judge me, she never does.  When I told her I’m afraid I may snap one day and hurt Cammie, she full out guffawed.  I find no humor in my statement, but she laughed for several minutes until I heard her sniffling.  She finally apologized for her outburst and told me what I said was about the most ridiculous thing she’d ever heard.  I asked her what made her so sure and her next words will always stay with me.

“Love is not something to fear.  It is the greatest gift we have to offer because we give it from our heart.  If you give yours completely to Cammie, I promise you will never harm her.”

Cammie has my heart.  I guess I just have to trust she knows what she’s doing with it.

One thing I struggle with that Cammie has been pushing, is having a relationship with Gloria.  But, after taking Cammie to Kansas to see our buttercup field, I caved.  Making love to my girl in the spot that held so many fond memories for me, made me realize I’d been angry for too long.  So, I called her.  She wept and thanked me, but I didn’t truly know what to say.  I did thank her for taking me to the buttercup fields for all those years.

I still haven’t seen Gloria face to face.  I’m not ready for that, but I take her weekly calls.  I don’t insult her anymore and I stay calm when she asks about my relationship with Tucker.  It’s still hard to have her ask about him.  It feels like a betrayal to me and to the memory of my dad.  I’m working on that.  Maybe someday, I’ll ask her to come to a therapy session.  The family sessions seem to really help.  I just need to work up to being able to see her face first and part of that is getting over the guilt of how poorly I’ve treated her for years.

Yes, I’m still hurt over what she did to my dad, to both of them, and to me, but everyone makes mistakes.  Look what I’ve done.  I acted like a child having a tantrum for so long and she put up with it because she loves me.  She’s still putting up with it.  I understand that, but it still doesn’t make me any more ready to take the next step in our relationship.

My therapist says I’m improving and I suppose in some ways I am, but I get frustrated with all the work still in front of me.  Many days, I want to crawl back into the corners of my mind and pull the dark blanket over myself that used to comfort me.  I want to shut out the world and be cruel.  But that’s the man I became from being a frightened, angry boy.

I’m trying to find the fun, carefree kid I buried years ago.  The person who laughed at life and had dreams.  Back then, it was simple and I didn’t believe in monsters.  I miss that kid.  He was kind of awesome.

For now, I’m going to keep on keeping on.  I’m going to have movie nights with my buttercup and argue with her that I’m much hotter than any blue alien out there.  I’m going to keep blowing up the big screen until she agrees with me.  Let’s see, what else sounds good?  Grams is a must in my life, so I guess that means I have to keep Tucker and Mikos, too, right?  Yeah, I thought so.  Besides, watching our therapist’s eyes bug out of his head is great entertainment.  And, I still have to make a trip to Kansas to say hello to a special lady and say a proper goodbye to great man.

I don’t know whether I’ll ever be the old me again and I don’t know whether it’s something I ever want.  The direction I’m heading in feels right.  Cammie by my side, a new family, and finally having some friends, it’s a pretty great start to the new me.  Don’t think that doesn’t mean I can’t be a dick or that I’ve suddenly gone soft—wait, I shouldn’t say those words together.

Mess with someone I care about and let the dickery begin…

Life is about choices.  You have to make them.  Decide who you want to be, but remember you can’t take them back.  Some can be forgiven and some can’t.  Never blame others for yours—it just makes you look like an asshole.

Don’t be an asshole.

I’m glad I stopped being one…well, most of the time.

I am a survivor of sexual abuse and rape.  Different times in my life, by different men.  Writing the scenes with Grant and Cammie were not easy for me, but they will not be the last scenes I  write in this series about these topics.  Although we’ve come a long way in the over twenty years since I went through those two terrible ordeals, we still haven’t come far enough.  Victims of these crimes are still made to feel like victims and too often aren’t helped to understand that we can be survivors.  The scene where Grams speaks to Grant about being a survivor was based off a real conversation my mother had with me after the rape happened.  I was already broken down from the abuse I had previously endured and I saw no way to heal.  My mother saw differently.  I thank God every day that I have her in my life.  She gave me the strength I needed to face my demons, to stand tall, try to find some part of the person I was before these tragedies took over, and took away my innocence.  I write this message now to tell any of you out there suffering in silence, you are not alone.  Please never feel ashamed of yourself.  You did not do anything wrong.  This was done to you.  It took me many years to understand that.  Please reach out, speak to someone close to you, or get help if you can.  You are worthy of having a great life.  Don’t ever let anyone tell you differently, no matter what the situation was.  There is never a reason anyone has the right to force themselves on you.