Page 45 of A Matter of Time
“I’m really sorry to call you so late, but Tonia’s got her phone off and I need to talk to her. Can you get me her address?”
“What year is this?” he grumbled, but I could hear the bed creak as he got up. He must know I wouldn’t be calling if it weren’t important. “Hold on a sec.”
I did my best to hold on, though I felt just about ready to jump out of my skin, anticipation and nerves battling inside me. Whatever happened when I went to her apartment would settle this madness between us once and for all, I felt pretty damn certain of that, but which way it might go, I truly couldn’t guess.
“Here you go.” Dex read out an address to me and I repeated it back twice, making extra sure that I hadn’t missed anything.
“Thanks, Dex. I really appreciate it.”
“No problem.” There was a slight pause before he added a few more words, said with almost brotherly compassion. “Good luck, Cam.”
~Tonia~
As I rolled over in bed for the hundredth time, trying to get comfortable in my bed that normally felt perfect for me but that night didn’t seem to suit me at all, the buzzer rang for my apartment. When someone buzzed up to my apartment from the building’s front door, the notification would go to my phone first, but if the person waiting hit it again within the same minute, then it rang out on the building’s intercom system.
That meant someone had to have hit the button for my apartment at least twice, but it must have been a mistake. I wasn’t expecting anyone, and as I rolled over yet again, I could see the clock on my bedside table telling me it was almost midnight.
Convinced that the notification wasn’t really for me, I tried once again to close my eyes, but before long, the buzzer sounded again. Whoever was down there meant business, and my stomach suddenly sank as I wondered if something had happened to Shawna? Maybe my family had been trying to reach me and couldn’t because I had left my phone off.
That was stupid and selfish of me, I admonished myself as I jumped out of bed and ran to the intercom by the front door. “Hello?”
“Tonia, it’s Cam.”
His was pretty much the last voice I expected to hear, and for a moment, I wondered if I might be dreaming. Maybe I had actually fallen asleep after all. “How do you know where I live?”
“It’s a long story, but I’m here now and we need to talk.”
He was right, and Iknewhe was right, but the way he disappeared earlier still stung. “You were supposed to come back and talk to me at the bar tonight.”
“I know that.” The frustration in his voice came through loud and clear even through the tinny speaker. “And I know you’re hurt and defensive because I didn’t. I know you, Sugar, but I can explain everything if you just give me a chance.”
Those words sent me hurtling back into the past, to the last time he said something like that to me, almost word for word.
Standing in the school hallway, my whole body froze as Kara Beckett walked up and announced to me and everyone else within earshot that Cam would be taking Marley Stevens to the prom.
“I just got it straight from the horse’s mouth,” she said, barely able to contain her glee at being the one who got to break the news to me. “Looks like you’ll need to find yourself a new date, though anyone worth going with is already taken.”
The words went into my ears, but they didn’t fully register. An odd ringing sensation had taken over my head as my heart pounded and my limbs went weak. Could I be having a heart attack, I wondered? Or maybe the explanation was less dramatic but just as painful; maybe my heart was simply breaking.
Although I had gone to school that morning full of fire and ready to give Cam a piece of my mind for lying to me and what I’d seen at Marley’s house the night before, a part of me still hoped he had a good explanation for all of it. Deep down, I hoped that he would tell me I had it wrong, that I’d make a mistake, and the rest of what he’d always said to me about us being meant to be together and standing the test of time, those were the things that were true.
Now, those hopes lay shattered at my feet, crushed beneath Kara Beckett’s high-heeled boots as she and her friends smirked and whispered, bearing witness to my heartbreak like it had been designed for their entertainment.
The fire that had been raging in me was engulfed in ice-cold humiliation, and when the two met, they solidified like lava hitting the sea, turning into something hard and permanent, encasing my broken heart in stone.
The whispers grew louder around me and the crowd parted as Cam appeared at the end of the hall and made his way over to me.
Every eye was on him, but if he noticed, he didn’t seem to care. His attention was fixed entirely on me, his deep brown eyes conflicted and troubled.
“Tonia, I need to talk to you.”
His voice was quiet, making it clear he did, in fact, know that everyone else was listening. Perhaps going somewhere in private with him to talk would have been the smarter option, but I didn’t want to give him the easy way out. He lied to me and he cheated on me, and if he thought I would let him get away with it and break up with me without a scene, then he didn’t know me very well at all.
Everyone already knew what he’d done and how I’d been pushed aside. My mortification had already gone about as deep as it could go; I’d been cut down so low, all I could think about was taking him down with me.
“Is it true? Did you ask Marley to the prom?”
My voice wasnotquiet; it rang out loud and strong, making sure not a single person in the unnatural silence of the hallway missed a word I said.
