NORMAL (59 page)

I need to find Cam!

"Rory, please calm down!" Sheriff Chipley loud whispers into my ear as Chip looks on in stunned horror. But he's not looking at me like I'm crazy, no, because even though he is more composed, I know he shares my distress. Cam is one of his best friends, too.

But Cam isn't just my best friend. He's the only person in the world who really knows me, who I trust. And I need him! Especially now - he knows that.
He knows that.
I finally take a deep breath. Yes, he knows that, and he promised I'd always have him, that he'd never leave me, and Cam would never break a promise.

But I need to find him, to see that he's okay with my own eyes, to tell him I'm sorry he got hurt because of me.

I scream his name as loud as my vocal chords will allow, and out of the corner of my eye, I see a doctor rush out of a door halfway down the hall. I turn toward the white coat and see that it's Michelle. I pull myself away from the sheriff, who finally releases me, and run to her. She throws her arms around me and I cry into her scrubs.

"Come on," she says weakly when I've begun to calm down, and she nods for the sheriff and Chip to follow us as she leads us to the doctors lounge.

There's only one other person in there, a doctor I recognize as a friend of Dr. Foster. Michelle tells me that Cam is in surgery. He's suffered extensive internal injuries and subdural hematoma, which translates to bleeding in his brain. It's touch and go. I don't ask her if he's going to be alright. From the expression on her face, I can feel her fear, and I'm not sure I could handle the answer.

I know I've gone white as a sheet, and I still haven't quite caught my breath. The doctor's lounge is empty save for the five of us, and I sit there, frozen, gripping Cam's mom's hand as time barely seems to pass at all.

I couldn't begin to guess how long it's been when the landline in the doctor's lounge rings and we all jump. I release Dr. Foster's hand as she gets up to answer. I can only hear her side of the short conversation.

"Okay... sure... show them to the lounge," she murmurs, her voice weak and shaky, nothing like the Dr. Michelle Foster I've known almost my whole life. She's scared,
really
scared, and that knowledge terrifies me all the more.

God, please let Cam be okay! I'll do anything!
I silently plead, bargain, negotiate, and beg.

Michelle is back on the phone asking someone about Cam's status in surgery, but judging from her face she isn't getting any useful information, so I just sit there trying to breathe.

And then the door to the lounge opens and my eyes widen in horror. Robin is here.

God, no!

I stare in shock as he rushes over to me and wraps his arms around me in attempted comfort. Lacey hangs back, her eyes glistening with tears as Cindy Forbes rubs her back in consolation.

And suddenly, I can take no more.

"Don't touch me! Don't you fuckin' touch me!" I screech, wriggling from Robin's arms and shoving at his chest to get him away from me. I shoot out of my chair as soon as I'm free of that monster's hold and back away from him.

I'm vaguely aware that everyone in the room is staring at me like I've lost my mind, but I don't care. I can't let him touch me - never again. Robin looks stunned, and I resent him all the more. He approaches me cautiously, and I back away until my back hits the wall, but still he stalks toward me.

"Sweetheart, it's okay," he coos. I hold out my hand to stop him.

"Don't you '
sweetheart'
me! Don't you come near me! This is
your
fault!" I rant, and I know I sound insane, blaming Robin for Cam's car accident, but it
is
his fault! He's the reason Cam was driving in the storm - the reason he was distracted.

Robin doesn't relent, he takes two slow steps so he's right in front of me, and when he reaches out to touch me again, I lose it.

I swat at him and scream as he tries to placate me, telling me everything is okay and that I don't know what I'm saying. But I know exactly what I'm saying.

"No! Don't touch me! Why are you even here?! You hate Cam!"

Sheriff Chipley, suspicious of the entire exchange, gently puts his hand on Robin's shoulder in warning, and when Chip takes hold of my upper arms from behind me, I realize I hadn't stopped hitting Robin. I try to wrench from Chip's grip, but my friend whispers for me to calm down and tightens his hold, and I wince as my injuries are aggravated.

"I'm here for
you
, sweetheart! Why are you actin' like this? I love you!" From Robin's expression one might believe that he is truly innocent - genuinely confused at my outburst.

"You
love
me?! You don't love me!
Cam
loves me! He would never hurt me! I hate you! This is your fuckin' fault! I told him what you did to me and he was comin' to confront you! He's hurt because of you!" I scream, and continue to rant, and Chip releases my arms and steps in front of me, his face hard and inquisitive as he grabs one of the sleeves of Cam's hoodie, and shoves it up my forearm.

There is a collective gasp as my wrist is revealed, and I just continue to glare at Robin with bitterness and rage.

This is all his fault!

Sheriff Chipley takes hold of Robin's shoulders.  

"You need to come with me, son," he mutters, his voice is deceptively calm, professional, and though I don't move my eyes from Robin's even for a moment, I can sense the sheriff's hostility.

Robin, the fool, resists. "She's lyin'! I never hurt her!"

He actually has the nerve to deny it! I am livid, breathing so hard my injuries smart with every rise and fall of my chest. Slowly and purposefully, I unzip Cam's hoodie, just enough to reveal my neck, never once taking my eyes off Robin's.

I watch as his expression morphs from anger at my accusation, to fear that he's actually going to be exposed for what he's done. Everyone will know what a monster he is, and I know I'm striking him where it will hurt him most - his reputation.

Dr. Foster is instantly at my side, examining my bruised neck, though I hadn't even noticed her move toward me. Her lovely features, so much like Cam's, are etched in grief and worry,

"Fuck, Rory," Chip breathes, his eyes wide.

I know they're all shocked. I know no one ever thought that hometown hero and all around golden boy, Robin Forbes, would hurt any girl - certainly not me, whom he's claimed to love so fiercely. But the marks on my skin tell a different story, and though they've faded a bit since Friday, they still speak volumes. Especially the dark shape of Robin's huge open palm around my throat.

I don't reveal the rest of my injuries - not now, when Cam is fighting for his life. I just need Robin away from me or I wouldn't have caused this distraction at all.

"Robin," Sheriff Chipley says more sternly, "You need to come with me.
Now
."

Robin huffs indignantly, still glaring at me murderously, but puts his hands up, palms forward, and allows the sheriff to lead him out of the room. His mother and sister, eyes wide with shock, follow him without so much as looking back.

"Rory," Chip starts, but I shake my head.

"Not now." My voice is barely a whisper, and my friend nods in understanding.

I stand there, in the back of the doctors' lounge, trying to force my breathing to slow back to normal, or as close to normal as it's been today, as Michelle, her doctor friend, and Chip stand there gaping at me, at a loss for what to do right now.

And then the door opens again, and my heart races in fear that Robin has returned.

But it's not Robin. It's a surgeon, still in his sullied medical scrubs, and as Michelle grips my hand tightly, I immediately wish that it was just Robin returning. Because I know, before the surgeon even shakes his head, that Cam didn't make it.

I can feel it. Deep in my soul, I can feel that he's gone. That my anchor to this world has vanished. And I'm already utterly lost when the surgeon I already hate with every fiber of my being makes that small gesture with his head that confirms that I am truly, forever, alone.

I close my eyes, and, finally, the tears that I'd been holding back flow out like white water. I cling to Michelle, sobbing desperately, and my legs give out as we both slide to the floor, still holding on to one another for dear life.

But there is no dear life. Not anymore. I wail uncontrollably, but there's no stopping it - no relief. My mind races at a thousand miles per minute and yet I can't hold onto a single thought.

With no Cam, I am completely untethered from a world that I, quite honestly, want nothing to do with. My shoulders heave and I hold Cam's mom even tighter, only vaguely aware that her grip on me is just as strong. I don't know what else is happening, what anyone else is doing, because my eyes remain clenched shut. I don't want to see a world that doesn't have Cam in it. I don't want to exist in that world.

Present Day

S
am has held me tighter and tighter as I regaled him with the story of the worst fucking day of my life. Now, I lay in his arms as I tell him how at first I clung to that untethered feeling, as hard as it was, because it felt as if I could leave the world along with Cam. But as the minutes went by and reality sunk in - that he was really gone, but that
I
was still stuck here, in a world with no Cam, but one
with
Robin Forbes - I couldn't breathe. The feeling of injustice was despairing, the fear of having to deal with Robin without Cam's support terrifying, but the simple knowledge that I would have to continue to exist in that world was utterly unbearable.

I don't remember the rest of that day. I woke up more than twenty four hours later, still in the hospital, but now admitted as a patient. Cam's mom never left my side, and I found out later that when my parents arrived late that first night, she informed them of everything that had happened. When my father tried to brush off my outburst as a grief induced rant, my mother was horrified, and then my father admitted what I'd told him earlier that week. He recited the same response he'd given me - that it must have been a misunderstanding, that I'd asked for it by dressing in "skimpy skirts", and that Robin loves me and would never have hurt me intentionally.

My mother threw him out of the house as soon as I was released from the hospital and he went to go stay with the Forbes, in the same bedroom, in fact, in which Robin had stolen my virginity and forced himself on me all those other times.

It was more than two weeks before Robin was arrested. The rumors started before I even left the hospital and Robin was sure to build the foundation for his defense early. His story was that we had gotten into an argument on Friday and he had broken up with me, which is why I didn't accompany him to Gainesville. My accusation that he'd hurt me was simply my revenge for his dumping me, mixed with grief over Cam's death. The story was that I was being irrational - misplacing my grief, and my panic attack and consequential hospitalization, along with the fact that I didn't speak to anyone for more than a week after Cam died... people took Robin at his word.

At the same time though, Robin spread the word that he still loved me. That we were going to get back together. I didn't know it then, but he was laying the groundwork to explain the text messages. The thing that was "maybe a little extreme" that happened on Friday did not refer to raping me in the school locker room, but to breaking up with me. It helped his story that he really did try to get back with me. Again and again.

But I didn't hear about any of this until later. After I was released from the hospital, I holed up in Cam's bedroom, and didn't leave for nearly two whole weeks. I didn't speak to anyone for the first week, except brief one word exchanges with Michelle or my mother. I had no idea what was even going on in the outside world until Chip came to visit me.

That was when I first realized how fucked up I was. When my friend since childhood entered Cam's bedroom and I cowered in a corner, terrified of being alone with him. Chip was horrified, but he was one of the few people who believed me. He had seen my wrist and my neck in the hospital, and he knew me, he knew I'd been telling the truth.

Chip didn't know how to handle me, which wasn't surprising since I didn't know how to handle myself. He cooed at me, bargained with me, and in the end, shouted at me that I needed to make my statement about Robin. He yelled at me that I was allowing Robin to spread these rumors about me, and that I was just letting him get away with it. And while I was too petrified to even leave my corner, let alone respond to him, I knew he was right.

The problem was, with Cam gone, making Robin pay for what he did to me didn't feel as important anymore. If I'm being honest, nothing felt important with him gone. Everything just felt so... empty. Hopeless.

Once I even imagined - no, not imagined,
fantasized about
- Robin coming back for me and strangling me, but not stopping this time.
It would solve everything
, I'd thought. Robin would be put away for murder and I would be with Cam. I don't tell Sam this though.