Breaking In

Chapter 49:

I woke up on the next morning drooling on Ron's shirtless shoulder. It took me a few minutes to realize I had fallen asleep on the couch. Ron had his arm wrapped around my shoulders and I was curled against his chest laying next to him. I must have gone searching for Cameron in my sleep and ended up finding the nearest warm body.

Ron's deafening snores were ringing loudly in my ear as I started coming to my senses. They weren't like those cute little snores Cameron gave when he was really exhausted. Ron's sounded like a chainsaw biting into the trunk of a tree.

I watched him sleep a little bit longer, thinking about how weird all of this must be for him too. He seemed to like her really liked Gabby, well Jenna, I guess. I had really thought she had genuine feelings for him too. It wasn't until I saw her desperately clinging to my dad that I realized how far she went in this game she was playing. While she smiled and lovingly held on to Ron, she looked like she was going to suffocate without my dad's affection.

It was so fucked up. Poor Ron had become her victim too.

When I looked over at the clock, it was a few minutes past eleven. Cameron had left for work hours ago and wouldn't be back until this evening. I was already missing him even if I was snuggled warmly into Ron's protective shield. Ron made me feel safe too, but it wasn't the way I felt next to Cameron. If Ron was a parachute to keep me from smacking face-first into the ground, Cameron was the gravity that kept me firmly planted there. Without Cameron, I was floating free, biding my time until another tornado came to send me flying.

I always thought of myself as my own, independent person before the last year and a half happened. Being with Cameron had flipped my own self-awareness on its head, challenging everything I had ever known. It was only now that I was realizing how wrong I had been about my perceived strength. I had never been independent and powerful. I was the furthest thing from that. I had always relied upon others and even blamed them when I messed my own life up.

I always needed every person in my life more than they needed me.

The wild girl struggling inside of me wanted to prove the newly enlightened portion wrong. The urge to find out who I really was started nagging at the back of my head. It seemed like such a strange time for all these feelings to stir up inside me, but my whole world had been changed after seeing that video of my mom almost losing it all. It made me question everything. If I looked back on my life, would I be happy with the person I was, or would I regret not trying harder to be the person I wanted to be?

Growing up sucks. I wish I would have known that all the years I spent pretending to be an adult instead of realizing I was just a confused little girl who just wanted to be normal like everyone else. When I couldn't fit in with the people around me, I started doing big girl things with all the wrong people to cope even though I wasn't ready. I naively thought that if I acted a certain way and gave them what they wanted, they would accept me for who I was.

I let people like Nathan use me because I felt like I was beneath them. It was also why I never thought I deserved Cameron in my life. I had never been good, even though I wanted to be.

I was a muddled whirlwind of emotions sleeping on a couch next to my boyfriend's shirtless best friend. Funny enough, his bare skin against me was the least confusing part of my life right now.

My body was starting to remind me how uncomfortable the sleeping position I was in felt. My bladder chimed in too and was threatening to burst at any second. It was time to get up for the day. I started to try to pull away from Ron and move his arm off my shoulder.

Fuck, his arm was heavy. No wonder my back was killing me.

He snorted out a loud groan and shifted his weight. His hand started moving as he continued to saw logs. I felt his hand move over my breast and start gently kneading it. He started moaning in between his snoring.