Precious Consequences

instant when he sees Hannah’s distress.

“Where’s your phone?” Hayley asks, her voice sounding both rough and soft at the same time. I feel in my pockets. “Shit,” I murmur. “It must be in the truck. Why?”

Hayley looks at Hannah and then back at me. A tear slides down her cheek and I wipe it away as she sniffles. “Tell me what’s going on, Hayley, I’m about to lose my shit over here, baby.”

“Candice called,” she replies, looking down. “She couldn’t get ahold of you so she called me to see if you were with me.”

My stomach drops and the worst feeling of dread settles over me, over us, cloaking us.

“It’s your dad, Cam. He’s…he’s…dead.”

* * *

Nothing.

I feel nothing.

I stare down at my father’s lifeless body and feel… nothing. I don’t know what to feel. Relief maybe? That he’s finally gone to a better place instead of being stuck in a fucking hospital bed? I.don’t.know.what.the.fuck.to.feel.

The coroners place my father's body, which suddenly doesn’t even feel like my father anymore, on a gurney and wheel him out of the make-shift hospital room that has been his ‘home’ for these last two years. They carry him downstairs and outside to where their van is parked and I watch my mother fall to pieces. Brett is holding Candice, Noah is holding Hannah and Hayley has taken it upon herself to comfort my weeping mother because I can’t find it in myself to do it. The van drives away and we all stand in the driveway until it disappears throughout the gates.

I turn around and walk up to my room, shutting the door behind me. As soon as I’m alone, I crack, and for the first time since Hayley told me my father is dead, I feel something.

Guilt.

I killed him.

He’s dead because of me.

I’m a monster.

A murderer.

Everything I have worked hard to make peace with surfaces, making me feel like the nineteen-year-old kid who holds himself responsible for what happened to his father.  I’ve destroyed our family and taken away the love of my mother’s life. I’ve robbed my sister of a father and Jordan and Aubrey of a grandfather. He will never get to see me graduate, he will never see Aubrey and Jordan grow up. He will never get to see me get married and start a family of my own. And he will never be able to tell my mother he loves her, ever again. Of course, he hasn’t been able to do any of those things since the night of the accident, but we all still held out some hope that a miracle would happen, and he would be able to return to us. But he’s gone. And it’s because of me.

I stare at myself in the mirror, and suddenly unable to stand the reflection of my own face, my fist comes up and shatters it. Shards or glass fall and cut into my skin, but I don’t care. I want it to hurt. I want to feel the pain. It’s only a fraction of the pain I have inflicted on those I love the most.

“FUUUUUUUUCK!!!” I yell into the empty room, dropping to my knees. Hot tears streak down my face and I start sobbing, feeding off the hatred I feel towards myself. I slam my bloodied fists onto the tiles, not giving a fuck that it hurts like hell. I deserve it.

I hear my bedroom door open slowly and then shut again, but I don’t look up. The way the hair stand up on my arms and my nape indicates that it’s Hayley. Even when I’m a total fucking mess, my hands covered in blood and my face wet with tears, my body still responds to her presence. But I don’t want her here. I don’t want her to see me like this. I don’t want to hurt her but I know I’m going to. I always knew breaking her heart was an inevitability, but I had hoped it would be a little while longer before I tore it to pieces.

“Oh my God, Cameron. Are you okay?”

She kneels down next to me and tries to reach for my injured hands but I don’t let her.

“Let me get you cleaned up,” she says. Her eyes are still red, and I hate myself for what I’m about to do to this sweet, incredible girl. But it’s for the best. She’s better off without me.

“No,” I grind through my teeth. My jaw ticks as I try to reign in my anger. “You need to leave, Hayley. Now.”

Her eyebrows dip in confusion and I can see the wheels turning in her head. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“LEAVE!” I yell. “JUST FUCKING LEAVE, HAYLEY, I DON’T WANT YOU HERE.”

I choke back a sob because the way she looks at me, all lost and scared, is tearing me to shreds, and I can’t deal with anything more right now.

“Why?” Tears stream down her face and the internal struggle between my heart and my head becomes a full on war. I want to pull her into me, hold her tight and breathe her in until I feel okay. But I also want to push her away and protect her from what I am. God. please, don’t let me destroy her. Please, God, please.

“Because I don’t want you here, Hayley!”

She flinches, her eyes searching my face for only she knows what. “But I love you, Cam.”

Her eyes widen with her admission, like she never meant to say it. Something in my chest tightens. I love you, too, I want to say, but I don’t. Instead I scowl and move away from her. It’s for the best, I remind myself, saying it over and over like a mantra. It’s better to get this over with now than when we are in too deep.

Who the fuck am I kidding? I’m already in too deep.

“Leave, Hayley. Just get the fuck out of here!”

She stands up and backs away, cupping her mouth and clutching her stomach. Her body is shaking, and the tears are unending. God, I’m such a prick.

“You don’t mean that,” she cries.  The anguish in her words comes to me quietly but slices me open and leaves me raw. She doesn’t deserve this, but I do, and watching her walk away from me, is an image I won’t soon forget.

Chapter 18

~ Hayley ~

I know I ran down the stairs of Cameron’s parents’ house. I know I tripped over my own feet in their driveway, trying to get away. I know I nearly veered off the road going back to my grandmother's because I could barely see through my own tears. I know that I collapsed the minute the front door shut behind me and I know that Ari was hysterical, because she’d never seen me that way before. But I don’t remember anything except the feeling of my heart being ripped to shreds, piece by bloody piece. My chest physically ached, not only for Cameron and his family, for the loss they had experienced, but also for the loss I felt when it was all over. It has been a five long and excruciating days since I left Cameron kneeling on the floor of his bathroom, his hands covered in blood. And it has been five long and excruciating days since I have been able to take a decent inhalation of air. Because that’s how he left me. Feeling like I had the wind knocked out of me. I always knew there was a chance that he would break my heart, and he certainly did a sterling job with that, but there was one thing I never counted on. Him breaking me.

By the third day, I pulled myself together and realized that I was not one of those girls who could sit around and wallow in the claws of self-pity. Nope. I had to move on pretty quickly because I have a little girl who depends on me, and if there is one single reason for me to get up after being knocked down, it’s my Ari. That doesn’t mean I wasn’t hurting, or that I’m not still hurting, because I am. Deeply. Like my soul has been put through a meat shredder and fed to Hell Hounds. But I put on a brave face and pretend that I’m fine, because that’s what Ari needs to see. My grandmother doesn’t buy it though. She hears me crying at night when I’m alone in my room, and I can see the sympathy in her hazel eyes every morning when I’m walking around as nothing more than a shell of a person. Her words ring loud in my head every day that goes by. “It gets easier, sweet heart. You just have to take one day at a time. `’