Cameron felt outside of himself. He didn't feel a human. He felt like a monster, an enraged monster. The only thought in his head was about his brother raping his friend. Austin raped Kith. That was why she was pregnant.
He'd had his doubts about the military guy thing from the beginning, but be figured that it was her business. Kith, for the few times he'd ever spoken to her before she moved in, had never seemed like the kind of girl who would date an army guy.
She was four months pregnant with his fucking younger brother's baby. And Austin was walking around like nothing had even happened. Thinking about it, that was probably why she wasn't that excited to go to his house for Thanksgiving either.
At first he hadn't wanted to believe her. He wanted to defend his brother because he knew him. Or at least he thought he had. Their mom had always told them to be good to girls. They were supposed to be treated with respect, and ask for fucking consent.
Cameron was lacking in he respect category, but he wasn't going around raping people. He wanted to call her a liar, say she was thinking of some other guy, anything to defend his brother. But she was crying. And she would never lie about something so serious. She'd never given him a reason to doubt her honesty. So here they were, back on the property.
The thought replayed itself over and over in his head. He raped her, he raped her, he raped her. There was nothing else.
Tugging his keys out of his pocket, he unlocked the front door, shoving it inward so violently that the doorknob slammed into the wall. Stalking down the hallway, he poked his head into the living room. Austin was in there with two of his friends, playing some shooting game. He turned around at the noise.
"Hey, Cameron," he greeted him so nonchalantly that Cameron had no other option but to get more pissed off.
The world went black momentarily and then became appallingly clear. Stalking over, Cameron latched onto Austin's shoulders, effortlessly hoisting him off the couch and into the air.
"What are you doing?!" He shouted, caught off guard. His friends stared, but didn't move from their dual state of shock. They stared at Cameron as if he was on steroids. Clapping his hands over his, Austin tried to get out of the hold, but Cameron's grip was too much.
Cameron slammed Austin against the wall.
"Get off me!"
"I know what you did," Cameron spoke through clenched teeth, dodging Austin's attempt to push his face back a few inches. Repositioning his hands, he tugged him forward and then slammed him into the wall again, harder. Pictures rattled in his wake. The only thing he knew was that he wanted to hurt Austin, badly. "I KNOW WHAT YOU DID!"
From the corner of his eye, he saw Kith standing there, watching the pair. She was still crying. Austin made her cry. He got her pregnant and he made her cry. Kith was his friend.
Tearing him back once more, he hurled him onto the floor. "HOW COULD YOU DO THAT?!" he screamed, face turning an awful shade of pinkish red from the exertion of shouting. "SHE'S A SWEET GIRL! HOW COULD YOU DO THAT?!" Still bewildered, Austin's nameless friends just stared, controllers in hand.
Cameron was careful not to say what Austin had actually done, but he got the picture. And so did they. Without knowing specifics, they knew that it was something so great that it warranted a surprise visit and subsequent ass-kicking.
Austin had nothing to say for himself. The sound of Kith's crying entered Cameron's reality and he hated his brother. He genuinely hated him for doing something so horrible. Kith put up with his drunk ass on a nightly basis. She didn't deserve what Austin had done to her. No one did.
"If you ever go near her again, I'll kill you," he hissed. Leaning down, he wrapped his hand around Austin's throat until it looked like he couldn't breathe anymore. "DO YOU HEAR ME?! GO NEAR HER AND I SWEAR TO GOD, I'LL FUCKING KILL YOU!"
Releasing his grip from Austin's throat, he stood back up, straightened his shirt, and turned to go. Shooting his younger brother's friends scathing looks, he stalked back in the direction he'd come. Kith just stood there, crying.
"Kith!" he shouted her name without looking back.
She didn't move.
"Kith, please!" Yelling louder, he commanded her attention. Turning around, she ducked her head and walked quickly back to the front door. The same silence reared its head when they were back in the car, but he didn't care. He just wanted to be far from here, far from everywhere, somewhere away.
When they got back on campus, he parked his truck in front of the frat house. Seizing her purse, she threw it over her shoulder, and fled the car without saying anything to him. That was perfectly fine with him.
He sat in his truck for hours. The sky was dark and most people were in their dorms. He hadn't moved for hours. When eleven o'clock rolled around, he went inside just to grab a new shirt. Retrieving his hat from the back of his truck, he followed his friends to one of the parties across campus. His one and only goal was to get completely, utterly, and shamefully drunk. Nothing wholesome in the world could alleviate his current affliction.
Alternating cans of beer with shots of vodka, he sat on one of the couches, alone, repeatedly turning girls away and ignoring his friends. He felt like the weight of the world was on his shoulders, and he wasn't even the victim here. Everything was so heavy. Sitting up straight became too much of an effort.
Slumping to the side, he struggled to think over the horrible things racing through his head. His brother was a rapist. That piece of shit had raped her in their house. And now he was a father. A rapist and a father-to-be. Burying his face in his hands, Cameron couldn't help the guilt that flooded his veins.
Over Thanksgiving Break, she walked past that room every day and night in order to get to his room. Cameron felt disgusting. And for some strange reason, he felt like crying. But he couldn't. He couldn't even recall the last time he'd cried.
So he wandered outside and threw up ice cream and booze into the bushes. Everything was too much. Austin raped his new friend. Cameron had encouraged Kith to talk to her rapist several times. What if Austin had done it again? Would she tell him if he'd done it again? He'd fucking kill him. Nothing would stop him.
Doubling over on his hands and knees, he pressed his forehead against the damp grass and battled the growing waves of nausea. They were aggressively painful due to the lack of contents in his stomach. His mouth tasted horrible and he still felt like shit.
The major question in his head? Why? Why did Austin do it? Kith was nice. She'd never done anything to anyone. Austin had been her best friend. You don't rape your best friend. You don't rape anyone. Squeezing his eyes shut, he felt the salty beads drip over his fingers, mixing with the dew on the grass.
Graham, Felix, and Nate stood off a ways, watching him. None of them could believe that Cameron threw up. He was a tank. He'd consumed way more alcohol at parties past. Now he was in some weird position on the lawn, ass in the air, not speaking to anyone. He'd been weird the whole night though, refusing to tell any of them what was up. They just assumed it had something to do with Heather.
"Cam, man, you good?" one of them walked over, carefully stepping over the hedges that now bore the remnants of stuff he didn't even want to know.
Unintelligible sounds came out. The entire world was spinning. Ordering the nauseous waves to leave him, he rolled onto his back, and stared up at the cloudy night sky. A glowing, silver orb danced back and forth, calming him somewhat. Talking was too much effort. He didn't want to talk. He didn't want to do anything. Yes he did. He wanted to kill Austin. He wanted to choke him until he stopped breathing. He wanted to hurt him like he'd hurt Kith, just not in the same way.
The orb's arcs slowed down somewhat. Cameron rolled over onto his side. Grabbing his hat off the ground, he pushed upwards into a standing position, or what felt like one, and stared at the house where people, his fellow friends and classmates, were drinking and socializing so freely.
"Cameron?"
"Fuck..." he pointed directly at his friend's chest. Forming words was taking too much energy. He needed to lie down. "Everything. Fuck... everything."
"What are you talking about, man?" another one of his friend's asked.
Inhaling deeply, Cameron straightened up some and stumbled down the sidewalk, heading back towards the A.C.E house.
Halfway there, he threw up again, just from the mere thought of what Kith had suffered.
Kith woke up at five-thirty in the morning, per usual, and started getting ready. Sleeping had been less than comfortable because she'd spent the night on the floor. Around twelve in the morning, Cameron had stumbled into their room, and she could immediately tell that he was way drunker than she'd ever seen him. Shoving the covers back, she helped him into the room, and into the bed, deciding that, in his state, he could use more than the carpeted floor.
"I'm gonna miss the bus," she muttered to herself while raking her brush through her hair in the mirror. Her lower back hurt like hell and all she wanted to do was stay in and sleep. But Cameron was probably going to do that. Since he didn't go to class, and because he was bound to have the worst hangover ever, she knew without a doubt that he wasn't going anywhere. Flipping off the light, she returned to the bedroom, shoved her feet into her shoes, and struggled to make certain all of her necessities were in her backpack for the day. Cameron stirred in the bed.
Moving more stealthily, she rummaged through both her purse and her backpack.
"Kith," he moved again, sitting up partially.
Thinking it better to not answer, she didn't. She hadn't really spoken to him since they got back to campus yesterday. He hadn't even come inside, which was fine because she'd spent a good half hour sobbing. Hours passed and he came home completely wasted.
"Kith," he repeated, sitting up completely and rubbing his head. Leaning forward, he rested his elbows on his jeans, and planted his forehead into his open palms. "I gotta... I'm gonna take you to school."
"You don't have to," she said quickly. He wasn't in a state to go anywhere. He was still in last night's clothes. It wasn't even light outside, and it looked like he was in pain.
"Yes," holding up a hand, he motioned for her to stop talking. "Yes, I do. I got... keys." Digging his fingers into one of his pockets, he fumbled around for a bit, and then came up empty. "They're..." Shoving the sheets aside, he shuffled over to his desk and started flipping things over. Grabbing them, he held them up. "I got 'em."
"I can take the bus. You should stay here and sleep it off," she answered, zipping up her backpack and flipping hair over her shoulders so it wouldn't get trapped beneath the less than comfortable black straps.
"How'd I get in the bed?" Somehow, he had managed to keep his hat on while he slept, and he snatched his hat off, and smoothed his dark hair down.
"I put you there," she answered.
"Oh," yawning, he looked at the clock. "It's an hour drive. Come on."
Kith looked at him skeptically, but then followed him wordlessly out of the room. He'd never offered to drive her to school before. Quite honestly, she thought he didn't even really care. Her school life had nothing to do with him. Education itself didn't seem to interest him, so she just kept quiet about hers. When she woke up in the morning, she did her best to keep quiet and not step on him. That was it. Two simple rules.
In the truck, he turned his heat on a low setting. Still skeptical, she slid into the passenger seat and set her backpack on the floor between her legs. As he drove down the road and the frat house disappeared in the background, she wanted to sleep so badly. She was used to keeping her eyes open in case someone tried to steal her stuff. Eyes drooping from the warmth typically lacking on the bus, she fought to keep her head up. Silently, Cameron continued driving, merging effortlessly onto the highway and going in the direction of their hometown.
"What time does this even start?" he squinted at the two-story brick building as he pulled into the parking lot.
"Twenty-five minutes," she answered after looking at the clock.
Cameron pulled into a parking space. Resting his elbow on the side-panel, he closed his eyes and just sat there. Kith watched him intently before growing bored. This was a nice gesture. She considered the possibility that he was still drunk, a thought that frightened her for a split second.
Twenty-five minutes dragged by slowly. From the comfort of her warm seat, she watched students file off buses and stream inside from the two parking lots. Cameron still had his eyes closed. Maybe he's sleeping, she thought. Not wanting to wake him up, she unbuckled her seatbelt and picked up her backpack quietly. This was far more difficult than moving around their room. The click of the door-lock attracted his attention. Opening his eyes wide as if he'd just been surprised, he glanced over at her.
"It's been twenty-five minutes?" he glanced at the clock. "I guess it has."
"Yeah," she nodded, hopping out entirely. She tugged at her hoodie. No one else at school had really noticed, at least she hoped. The one person she'd really been trying to hide it from knew now. Her sweater had given her away yesterday. Freezing, she remembered the look on Austin's face as he lay on the floor, choking.
Tears streaming down her face, she'd stared at him dead on, wanting to say something, scream at him, but nothing came out. She'd wanted to shout at Cameron too; she'd wanted to tell him to let Austin go. He wasn't worth it. And as much as it made her sick to her stomach, Austin was the father of her baby. She didn't want anything to do with him, but she also didn't want him dead and Cameron in jail.
But the words caught in her throat, because she knew he deserved it. His friends, two of her former friends, had stared at her too. They'd seen, so they knew. And she was willing to bet anything that they'd told some people, who'd probably told other people. It wouldn't be long before people were glaring hard at her stomach, wondering if there was any truth to the rumors.
Cameron had stood up for her, violently so. And it was appreciated.
"Well..." rubbing his forehead, he turned the key in the ignition to get the engine going again. "Have a nice day."
"Okay."
His expression appeared to be a forced half-smile, like he didn't want to say anything to her at all. Responding to an impulse to half-wave, she shut the door and headed towards the sidewalk. Cameron sat there for a minute before driving out of the parking lot. Tucking hair behind her ear, she watched it until it became a black speck in the distance.
It was appreciated.