A Missing Heart(16)

“I’ll be home before dinner,” I tell her. Mom kisses me on the forehead and pulls me in for a hug. “Goodness, I’m going to miss you when you go to Rhode Island next year. You’re my baby. The house is going to be so empty with both you and Hunter gone. I don’t know what I’ll do with myself!” These comments are on repeat. They have been since Hunter went back to school after Christmas break. We’re three years apart, and he still has another year college left, but even though I think she’s hoping he’ll move home after graduation, Hunter has a plan, and that isn’t moving home. If I had to take a guess, he’ll drop a ring on Ellie’s finger, knock her up, then they’ll buy a nice little house down the street and live happily ever after. Mom will be okay with that too, because then she’ll have grandkids. Grandkid…she should have had grandkids, but her first grandchild will never meet her or even know of her.

I pull away from her tight grip and head out the door.

The drive is short, but the neighborhoods are drastically different; mine being middle-class and hers being more wealthy. I never feel like I belong here, but even more so now as I walk up her long driveway with a pit my stomach. I ring the bell and wait the moment it takes for the door to open. “Hello, can I help you?” A woman who looks exactly like Cammy, but twenty-five or thirty years older, greets me. She has the same auburn hair and the same shade of golden brown eyes.

“I’m—um—” What if Cammy finally told them who the father is—was… “I’m AJ, Cammy’s friend. I was just stopping by to see how she’s doing.”

Mrs. Sky eyes me wearily and opens the door wider. “She’s upstairs. AJ, you said?”

“Yes, Ma’am.” God, she knows. Now I’m going to pray that her dad isn’t home too.

“Cammy used to mention your name a lot last year. I haven’t heard much of you since. It’s nice to put a face to the name she used to be so fond of.” Mrs. Sky smiles faintly and places her hand on my back as I walk inside. “Go on, maybe you can cheer her up a little.”

“Cheer her up, ma’am?” I don’t know why I feel the need to play dumb, but I’m going with it right now. It feels wrong, but Cammy obviously hid the truth for a reason.

“Oh, I’m not sure who knows what these days, so I’ll let her explain to you if she wants to.”

“Oh okay. Got it.”

I take the stairs two at a time until I reach the top. Looking at each door in the hallway, I realize I don’t actually know which bedroom is hers because the only times I’ve been in her bedroom were when I climbed up onto the back porch roof and snuck in through her window, which obviously happened one too many times.

While I debate whether to knock on her door, I mentally juggle the consequence of doing it or not doing it. If I do, she may ask who it is, but she’ll likely assume it’s her mom. If I don’t, I could catch her at a bad time, and she might scream, or something else along those lines. I lightly tap the back of my knuckles against the door a few times, waiting to hear her say come in.

“What?” she says coldly.

I’ll take that as my cue to go inside. Slowly, I open the door and poke my head in. Cammy is in bed, with the dusty-rose colored sheets and white comforter pulled up to her neck. Her focus is locked on her TV hung on the opposite wall, and she’s clenching the remote in her hand. “Can I come in?” I ask.

She shrugs and continues clicking the channel button on the remote. I close the door behind me and cautiously walk over to her bed and sit down. “How are you feeling?” I know it’s a question that deserves a punch to the face after disappearing for the last few days, but she made it clear she didn’t want me around in the hospital, and I wasn’t going to argue with her after the decision she made without me.

“Like shit,” she says. Her gaze finally breaks from the TV, and she peers over at me. Tear marks have stained her cheeks with a salty residue, and the whites of her eyes are tinged with tiny, swollen red veins. Her pretty hair is tied up on the top of her head and she looks pale, washed out, and sick.

It’s taking everything I have inside not to ask her again, why she let her parents do this to her—make such an awful decision for her and without me, but if I don’t want to be kicked out of this house, I have to play my cards right. Regardless of everything that has happened, I still love her, even if my heart has been put through a meat grinder.

“I get it,” I tell her. But I don’t.

“No you don’t,” she says. “Because I don’t get it.”

“You don’t get what?” I ask, feeling confused.

“You still think I wanted to do that? Do you have any idea how much emotional agony I’m in right now?” she asks, loud enough that I’m afraid her mother might hear, but at the same time so softly that I can hear the weakness pouring through her voice.

“I don’t know what to think, Cam! You never talked to me about it,” I say, trying to hide the sternness raging from my gut.

“Shh. Keep your voice down,” she scolds me. “I wasn’t allowed to talk to you about it.” She mutters the last part, keeping her focus locked on the door knob.

I don’t understand any of this. “No one forced you to do what you did, though.” I shouldn’t have said that. It’s exactly what I promised myself I wouldn’t say if I got the opportunity to talk to her again.