"OKAY, LISTEN, I'M SORRY FOR...WHATEVER I HAVE TO BE SORRY FOR."
Tatum Quinn rolled her eyes once again and entered the next room of her old home. The smallest space in the house filled with two bunk beds and four huge piles of clothes, leaving absolutely no space for walking. Leroy and Joe on the left; she and Thomas on the right. She still found it hard to believe that only a few months ago all four bunks were full. All four siblings would drift to sleep at the sound of guns and violence. All four siblings would try to imagine their lives being ordinary in order to dream.
Cameron followed after her, a disgusted frown on his face at the sight of the chaotic 'bedroom'. Large holes put through every centimeter of the walls, springs coming out of the mattresses, insects climbing through the floorboards, and that smell - was that...blood? There was no way people actually lived in here.
Hearing his footsteps as he stepped into her old room, Tatum turned around and shot Cameron another nasty glare. She didn't care what Leroy said. She didn't care that what she used to want was a big, happy family. She already had that with the pouges. And with Thomas. She didn't need this posh bastard strolling in and trying to take his place.
"Okay, look, I'm sorry if I'm a bit insensitive at times," he said with a little sigh, his legs growing tired from all the standing up, but he refused to sit down in fear of what he might be sitting on. "I just say what comes to my mind in the moment, you know? I'm socially awkward, seriously. Autistic, actually. I can mask it sometimes but when things get uncomfortable, I just..." He shrugged, not really knowing how to explain it, not really understanding how his mind works.
Tatum didn't seem to care much, anyway, as all she did was sit down on the right bed's bottom bunk rather than saying anything.
Another few moments went by, and the birthday kids stayed in complete silence. The girl fiddled with a sharp spring on the mattress while she boy played with the strings on the hoodie he borrowed from Leroy. A brown, stained hoodie wouldn't have been his first outfit choice, but he didn't exactly have time to pack before bailing his mom and uncle.
"So, what was it like...having the life me and my brothers should've had?" asked Tatum eventually, bitterly. Cameron was glad she was so highly dosed on meds, because if she wasn't, he'd seriously be fearing for his life right now from the way she was looking at him.
The boy shrugged, too scared of disease to even lean against the wall. "The money was good," he admitted with a shrug, "but the people weren't. They didn't get me. I never fit in in their perfect world."
Tatum's eyes slowly rolled their way up to meet his, a bored look on her face.
Cameron sighed sadly. "I get you've been through a lot - trust me, JJ screamed it all in my face yesterday - but Mom wasn't exactly sunshine and rainbows, either," he told her, trying to be as sympathetic as he could, but it was hard for him to properly express feelings.
"In what way?" asked Tatum, surprising him a little. She didn't seem like she cared that much, but like he grew up wishing for a dad, she probably grew up wishing for a mom. Now, the two of them were finally realising that both their parents were terrible people, and they weren't missing out on anything by not having one in their lives.
"I first came out as a lesbian when I was thirteen," he begun, crossing his arms, sucking it up and finally sitting on the dirty, disgusting bed beside his sister. He shrugged. "I always knew I liked girls - I think everyone did - but Mom wasn't happy about it. You know, she paid these really old people to try and do conversion therapy on me?"
Tatum's mouth dropped. "What the fuck? I thought that stopped, like, years ago."
Cameron shrugged again. "Rich people can do anything," he said sadly, reminded of all the ways his own mother had discriminated him and his lifestyle, but got away with looking like the angel of the story all because she had people to pay off for it. "Anyway, that ended quickly when I punched a nurse in the face."
A small laugh escaped its way out of his sister's face, because she knew she'd do the exact same in that situation. She quickly disguised her amusement with a cough, though, too stubborn to admit she seen herself in the boy beside her.
"I went to normal therapy for three years," he continued, face turning serious again, but he had to bite back the smile on his face at the realisation his sister was finally starting to warm up to him. "At fourteen, I started doing things with my girlfriend. My body had always made me feel sick, but by this point, I thought it was normal. The first time she touched me, I pushed her off. I vomited for three days straight. It felt so unnatural...like my mind and my body - they weren't connected. They weren't the same person."
Tatum nodded slowly, understandingly. Of course she had never had an experience like this, but she could tell it must've felt horrible. It was when he said this that she began listening to him properly, treating his situation seriously, thinking of him as any other human rather than Thomas' wannabe replacement.
"The next week, I had my first meldown. Cut all my hair off, threatened to kill my uncle when he taunted me for it," Cameron went on, a mischievous smirk playing at his face when he remembered sticking those scissors at Renfield's neck. How it made him feel powerful, how he could see himself plunging the weapon through his neck. "Mom locked me in the basement for a week with no food and didn't let me out in public until my hair grew into a bobcut."
Shock. Pure shock ran through Tatum's expression. Here she was, ignorant as hell, thinking Cameron had this perfect life full of smiles and parties. Now...now she didn't know what to think. She thought about herself, wearing that white coat every day of her life from six years old because she thought the woman who wore it first was some hero. Tatum couldn't feel guilt but she felt sickness and regret.
"When I was fifteen, I'd been to therapy for two years, so I knew I was ready," he brought himself to the next chapter of his childhood, which was only two years ago. "I went to the doctor's and I started taking testosterone - I was so happy, my girlfriend was so proud of me." He smiled at the bittersweet memory of this. Then his face dropped as he told the next thought. "My mom found out; she sent me to boarding school for a year and told everyone it was my choice, told my girlfriend that I wanted to break up with her."
All these years, Tatum thought her father was the scariest monster of her family. But at least he was upfront with his feelings about his kids. This woman did everything so slyly, in a way that everyone else would praise her for being such a good mother.
"When I got back, I was completely different - a proper guy's haircut, trousers and blazers, boy's underwear, a deep voice, I refused to wear a bra," he explained, visibly proud of himself for being himself for the first time of his life. "Everything was great. Then Mom greeted me at the airport with a huge sign that said, 'Welcome back, Tilly'. She addressed my by my deadname, introduced me as her daughter, burned all my breast binders. I went behind her back to get huge surgeries, ran away four times, went back to cutting myself, started drinking a lot...And when I finally got my tits sawed off, she realised she couldn't hide it anymore. I was a boy and there was nothing she could do to change me. But that didn't mean she'd stop treating me like an animal."
The room went quiet for a moment. Tatum moved slightly closer to him and took his hand into hers. He held her back, sending an encouraging nod her way.
"Dad raped me every night since you and Carla left. Every time seven o'clock hit, he'd get home from work, the boys would leave the bedroom, and he'd come in," she started, feeling every dark memory that occurred in this very room, on this very bunk, happen all over again.
Cameron squeezed her hand back, bringing her assurance and comfort to go on and tell him the whole story, just as he did for her. They came to an unspoken truce. By opening up, they managed to trust each other.
"He'd hurt us when we did something good, tell us that guns and violence were the way to live, praise us when we got arrested...killed people. Taught us how to fight, how to smoke, that love was weakness. If we disobeyed him, he'd throw us into this well - we'd break bones, get ill, scream 'till we lost our voices - and he and Leroy would always be at the top of it, laughing for hours on end until they got bored and left us there. The well was filled with dead bodies of the people he killed, " she went on, images of blood and guts and cuffs and corpses flashing through her mind. "I felt lonely. I didn't really have anyone other than the blonde boy next door."
Cameron nodded with an understanding of who that boy was. JJ Maybank, the most fiercely protective person he'd met in his life. Tatum's first real friend. Her brother.
"My mind started growing these urges, I had this unlimited energy I didn't know how to control," she went on, nipping at her skin a little. "The first time I went to juvie, I was eight - my dad was so proud. I set an elementary school on fire at eight years old."
Tatum sighed, trying to put her thoughts into words, picturing every little event of her life and remembering how each one was as damaging as the last.
"Juvie was great - nobody could hurt me there - and I never wanted to leave. For years, I was in and out of the cells, hurting people, destroying property, gained my name as the Crazy Quinn. I was Dad's second favourite to Leroy, and it was some of the best years of my life.
When I turned thirteen, my mind only got worse. It kept telling me to do things. Dad was still hurting me, I grew obsessed with this girl at school, I realised I was a lesbian but I couldn't come out properly, because if I did, Dad would kill me."
As she spoke, she remembered finding Joseph on that floor, dead and bloody, leaving stains all over the house. That was the day she truly proscessed just how real the threat of her sexuality was.
"It got to the point where even my friends were scared of me," she continued with a frown, remembering how only a few months ago, the pouges would flinch everytime she would take out a gun. Everyone but Kiara, the only person to stand up to her fire. That was why she fell in love with her. Why she would never fall out of love with her. Kiara Carrera was the only person in the world who trusted Tatum from the start, and she would never forget that.
"I broke down a lot, I went through phases of being depressed to being angry to being extremely happy. The only person who could deal with my mania was Thomas." She shrugged, a single tear falling down her face. "And now he's dead."
Cameron nodded, knowing she didn't want to go on any further, knowing how hard his death hit her. He squeezed her hand again, and said, "Guess we never had a chance with parents like them, huh?"
Tatum chucked lightly, dragging the tears off her face, and smiled. "I guess not."
"Truce?" he offered.
"Truce," she gave in.
a/n: i feel like this story is dragging on. tell if it's getting boring, but please keep reading because ive already written the last chapter and im really excited for the ending.