Bad Things

2. Shattered Innocence

Yeah. This was best. He'd just push it aside, pretend it didn't happen. He'd forget about the girl with soft brunette hair and sexy black boots. He'd forget the way she clung to him, and sunk her nails into his shoulder. He'd forget the fact that he had no idea whether or not he'd had a barrier between himself and her. And he'd definitely forget that he didn't even know her name.

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Camila sat alone, dressed in only a thin paper gown, the chilly air in the sterile, clinic room giving her goose bumps. She shifted on the table, the paper liner sticking to her skin and crinkling beneath her. Her bare, pale legs hung over the end, not even reaching half way to the ground. Her eyes shifted to the chair near the door where her pile of clothing lay. A pair of purple panties with a small bow on the front peeked out from the fold of her jeans. Irrationally, she wanted to jump up and tuck them down inside so no one would see them. She knew it was stupid, the doctor would be seeing a lot more of her in a few minutes than her preferred brand of underwear. But somehow it felt like if she at least hid them, she'd hold onto a shred of her dignity.

When she'd first come into the room, a nurse took her paperwork—which she'd fudged to say she was eighteen—then took her vitals and asked her a few questions. Things like family history of disease, whether or not she was on any sort of medication, blahblahs. But when the nurse asked if she was currently sexually active, Camila almost choked on her tongue. She actually didn't know how to answer the question. The most truthful answer would be: no. Other than the night before, Camila hadn't done more than get felt up in the back of her last boyfriend's car. Did doing it once count as 'sexually active'? She guessed it probably did.

On the way out of the room, the nurse gave Camila the gown she wore now and told her to strip—completely. No bra. No panties. They wanted her completely naked under the oversized napkin. Then she'd left and Camila was alone. Hailee sat out in the waiting room, and Camila knew she'd come back if she wanted her to, but this was embarrassing enough without an audience. Still, she couldn't help but wish she wasn't all by herself. In one weak moment, she even wished her mom was there to hold her hand. But she knew that was an impossibility. Her mother would never understand. How could she? Her only daughter went against everything she was taught and got so drunk she lost her virginity to a stranger against a bathroom door. That was not a conversation Camila wanted to have anytime soon.

Since she'd woken up hung-over and sicker than she'd ever been at Hailee's that morning, little things about the night before were coming back to her. It wasn't much—certainly not as much as she needed, that was for sure, but she did remember arriving at the party on the north side of the city. It was loud and packed. Mostly with kids that attended Ashford Institute, so she didn't know many of them. The drinks flowed heavily, and Camila indulged. She shouldn't have. It had been stupid, but at the time she just wanted to loosen up, to fit in and have a good time. Well, apparently, she'd had a really good time.

She still didn't remember much about what happened inside the bathroom or what preceded it, but there were a few more things that were becoming clearer. She was now pretty sure the boy she was with was brunette, and had a lot of hair. The feel of it between her fingers was one of the memories that stood out the most to her. It seemed like a really stupid thing to remember, but she couldn't force her mind to give her the images she desperately wanted. She was also pretty sure he was a lot taller than her. Not that that was hard to do when she barely reached five foot three in shoes. But she recalled herself looking up at him, way up, and seeing that smirk. Yes, she remembered that too. But all his other features: nose, forehead, jaw, and eyes ... it was like someone had poured acid over just those part of his face in her memories and they were nothing but a blur. She couldn't see anything but that smile, and a hint of the color of his hair. It wasn't enough to identify him, and she had no idea if he'd even told her his name.