Rise and Fall

19 - As you can see, it's going to be a pretty gnarly scar.

Then.
Camden wore the same expression skating as he did whenever there was a pencil or paint brush in his hand. He was always completely absorbed in what he was creating or expressing, and there seemed to be very little that ever broke his focus. Apparently I was one of those rare things that could, because as soon as he saw me, he stopped and rolled right over to me. I had been standing there for ten minutes before he noticed me.

He again lifted his shirt up to his forehead to wipe the sweat away, revealing all the gloriousness that lay underneath. I was sure he knew the effect it had on me, especially after he did it a few more times, even when there was no more sweat in sight.

"You wanted to talk," I said, desperate for a distraction from the heavy influence of his physical charm.

"I always want to talk to you," he smiled slyly, sitting down on the same bench and facing me.

I bowed my head to the side in exasperation, my eyebrows reaching to the skies. He knew perfectly well what I meant and was just playing with me. I get it. You're charming. Just get to the point.

"Okay, okay. What exactly would you like to talk about?" he asked.

What did I want to talk about? Well, I wanted to know what the hell happened last week; why he did it and why he thought it was an acceptable thing to do. I wanted to know whether he was okay, why he cut himself like that, how long he's been doing it for, and what made him want to do that to himself to begin with. And I wanted to know what he actually wanted from me, and what we were going to do now.

I didn't say any of that though, because I didn't know whether these were socially acceptable things to ask someone. I also didn't know how to ask them. I had never had to before. This was completely new territory for me and I had no idea where to start.

"Surely I'm not so horrible that it's that hard to talk to me?" he joked, but there was definitely a little apprehension in his tone too. He should be nervous.

"I want to know about what happened when you were in Adelaide, and about your other scars. But I don't know how to ask, and you don't seem to want to freely offer up that information, which I actually thought would have been the first thing you did instead of just handing me flowers, beautiful though they may be," I said, looking to the sunflowers now laying carefully on the table next to me. They were actually the first flowers I had ever been gifted, perhaps causing me to attribute more sentiment to them than I should have, given the circumstances. Whenever Ruben had bought me flowers, he always bought ones in pots with roots that remained alive instead, so much so that my bedroom was starting to resemble Greenies in that way.

Without looking back at Camden, as I was sure I was probably sounding a little rude and didn't want to face him when I apologised, I added, "Sorry, but yeah. It is a little hard."

He sighed deeply. "I guess I was hoping that we could just move forward and forget it ever happened. I don't even remember much of it, I was so pissed," he said.

"Yeah, I gathered that. But I remember. You made sure of that, and it was a pretty fucked up thing to do," I said, still angry about it.

"I know. I'm sorry. I just thought, before I left, that there was something unspoken going on between us. I knew I liked you, and I thought you were into me, too. I mean, we were talking a lot, and it was going so well, and then you cancelled our plans and my head automatically assumed it was for another guy. I got jealous, and then I got mad, so I just didn't talk to you because I didn't want to face the possibility you were with someone else.

"When I got to Adelaide I was hanging out with my old mates a lot, just drinking and having a good time, like we used to when I lived there. I tried really hard to just forget about you, but that obviously wasn't working.