Page 27 of Reclaim
And I hated him that much more because he’d made it so easy to let my guard down that I’d ultimately failed myself.
As green leaves filled the trees and the azaleas began to bloom again, I turned twelve and my body started changing. With boobs came attention from boys. Camden didn’t want me, but plenty of other boys did. Desperate for the high their attention gave me, I started sneaking out and going to the freshman and sophomore bonfires. Being Ramsey’s little sister came in handy; nobody questioned why I was there, even when he wasn’t.
Cue Josh Caskey—ninth-grade high school quarterback with all his straight, blonde hair and blue eyes. They weren’t as nice as Camden’s, but unlike somebody else, Josh had actually chosen me. That was all I really needed back then: to feel special and important.
As the mayor’s son and one of the few rich kids in town, Josh could have had any girl he wanted.
But he wanted me and that filled my lonely soul in ways nothing else could.
We started hanging out after school, and because I was still in middle school, he made me swear not to tell Ramsey. My brother was so wrapped up in making out with Thea any chance he got, keeping a secret wasn’t all that hard.
Besides, he knew Josh. They’d been in school together for years. It wasn’t a big deal.
At first, my time with Josh was innocent enough. We’d meet up in the empty dugouts after his baseball practice and talk and get to know each other until it got dark.
He loved taking pictures of us together on his cell phone. I thought it was so cool that he had a cell phone—and that he wanted to fill it with pictures of me.
One Friday about two weeks before the end of school, he got brave and stole a kiss. Like most girls my age, I’d dreamed about my first kiss for years. Wondered what it would be like or how it would feel. My heart stopped when he roughly shoved me against the wall, a board from the dugout digging into my back, and jabbed his tongue into my mouth.
It should have been a red flag.
I should have told my brother.
I should have kicked him in the balls and run as far away from Josh Caskey as I could get.
Yet I went back the next day.
And the next.
And the next.
A few days before school let out, Mr. Leonard tracked me down and asked if I wanted my summer job back. His feud with Old Man Lewis was still running strong and he’d somehow managed to drag half the town into it. True to his threats, he’d set up a bait stand in his driveway complete with at least a dozen “Screw Dale Lewis” signs lining the main road and a scarecrow dressed in a clown costume wearing a Lewis Tractor Repair, Bait, and Booze T-shirt. It was a small-town elderly TKO at its finest.
It had been a while since I’d really sat down and thought about Camden Cole. In some ways, it seemed like it had been a million years since we’d played in that creek together, laughing for hours on end. But as the summer started and I once again found myself sitting at the edge of the water every day, it also felt like it had been just yesterday when he had been there, sipping a Coke and grinning over at me with those vibrant baby blues.
I was still hurt, but while time had not healed the jagged gash Camden had carved in my heart, it had at least allowed it to scab over so the ache was no longer devouring me.
Nevertheless, I was a ball of nerves when I arrived at the creek for the first time that summer. Just a year before, Camden had appeared with a wicked grin and a bucket of worms. He obviously didn’t care about me, but money was money and selling worms to Mr. Leonard was as easy as it came. I didn’t know what I’d say to him if he showed up again. Fuck off seemed appropriate, but I had a whole lot of pent-up What the hell happened to you? that I wouldn’t have minded having answered, either.
It was all moot. He didn’t show up that day, and the most confusing mixture of earth-shaking relief and heart-wrenching disappointment rocked me to my core.
I didn’t care about Camden.
Fuck him. Fuck his stupid life in Alberton. Fuck every single thing about the boy who didn’t even care enough about me to say goodbye.
I hated Freaking Camden Cole.
Or so I’d thought.
The very next day, while I sat with my toes in the water halfway through Seventeen Magazine’s “Does he really love you?” quiz, the deep rumble of three words changed my life forever.
