Desperate

~ sixteen ~

        There was one thing that Cameron could not stand, and that was pity.

        He and I had basically spent the entire summer together, soaking up the sun, reading by the pool, even tanning on the beach. Every week was a new book. We alternated every time: classic, modern, classic, modern. However there had always been one constant. Self-pity.

        All summer I had been trapped in my cage of guilt, and as the guilt built up, so did the self-pity. Every time I related a character’s problems back to mine, Cameron would only get more annoyed. After a while he started to call rain checks on our poolside reading time, then I was rotating books without him, and then I was simply reading alone.

        Not only had the guilt of what I had done eaten me up from the inside, but it had destroyed the only healthy relationship I had in, well ever. Cameron was everything to me, and losing him was like losing an arm.

        I really needed my arm back.

        “Cameron?” I called through his garage. He had been working on refurbishing his garage into a bedroom all summer. I guess he finally got around to doing it. “Cam? You in here?” I yelled a little louder. Nothing.

        Well, I came all the way here. I made my way around the garage and into his backyard. His pool took up at least 80 percent of his backyard, and as I got closer to the water I started to notice a pile of something at the bottom of the pool. I stepped closer to the edge.

        They were books. Title after title was obscured by the ripple of the water. Fitzgerald, Marquez, Rowling. I started to sense a trend. They were all the books we read together.

        “Scarlett?” Cameron came out of the house dressed in swim trunks and an old Muse t-shirt. He seemed surprised to see me.

        “Why are there so many books in your pool? Why are our books in your pool?”

        “They were terrible.” He sighed. “They deserved to drown.”

        “I thought you loved The Great Gatsby.”

        He trudged his way towards me. I looked away as he stopped right in front of me, preparing for the awkward break up, or the it’s-not-you-it’s-me speech. But it never came. His hand reached up to brush hair out of my face. “They were terrible without you.”

        I was so confused, and angry. He was the one who always missed our dates; he was the one who always cancelled our beach weekends. The tears started to flow before I could feel them coming.

        I really hated that I cried when I was angry or so confused I was angry.

        He softly wiped my tears away. “Scar, I love you, but I think we need to take a break.”

        I knew that in this moment, words wouldn’t come, so I did the best I could.

        I nodded, and it seems as though I had truly lost everything.