Secret Lucidity(85)

She makes me promise to eat the cupcake after telling me that I look gaunt, but when she leaves, I toss it in the garbage. My shrunken stomach would most likely vomit it up anyway, but I’ll forever cherish the gesture. It came when I needed it the most.

It’s close to midnight when I turn off the lights and slip under the covers. Entirely drained, my eyes are just about to close, but my phone vibrates, illuminating the room in a soft glow when the screen lights up.

I lean over to see a notification of a text from an unknown number, and when I take the phone in my hands and swipe the screen, I’m flooded in warmth.

Unknown: Happy birthday, love.

There is no doubt—not a single one—that this came from the one who still holds my soul.

I want to text him a million things as I feel myself exploding in excitement and love, but I also can’t shake the fear. The judge put down a strict no-contact order against me, and I worry if anyone ever found out about this, it could mean even more detrimental consequences.

I know that.

I do.

But I also know that he’s putting himself at risk to text me, so I send him the most benign text back, one that I could defend if ever I needed to.

Your Honor, I had no idea who sent the text, but I didn’t want a birthday wish to go unthanked.

Me: <3

I wait anxiously for another text. Hell, I even cry for one. But after an hour of waiting, I know that was it, but it was enough. It’s the knowing he’s in his bed, thinking about me just like I’m thinking about him, that allows me to take a deep breath and finally relax into sleep.





SOMEONE SAID HIS NAME TODAY. It was an insult to hear it muttered so flippantly, because when I say his name, I swear it cripples me. I stay up most nights thinking about him when I’m trying not to think about him, pining for him when I’m trying not to pine for him, agonizing over him when I’m trying not to agonize.

There is nothing beautiful about missing David. It’s ugly and filled with so much torture. It’s like being constantly poked by a fire-spitting torch, and I wonder how much longer I can deal with everything before it burns me to ash.

Every day is a punishment. I’m selfish for even thinking about it that way, considering what David is facing, but it’s the truth.

I’m the school’s outcast. It’s a never-ending assault of teasing and judgment. I was right when I thought that Kroy probably would never talk to me again, because he hasn’t. Not that I blame him, but it still hurts. The few friends I had this year won’t even speak to me because in no way do they want to be linked with the school’s leper and risk being ostracized themselves.

I’m so alone. The isolation is unbearable.

Never could I have imagined that my world would come to this. My senior year was supposed to be the best yet. There was so much I was looking forward to before the crash happened: football games, prom, pep-rallies. When I think about those things now, they seem so frivolous. The day my dad died was the day I forever changed. But it was David who stepped in, and with his unfaltering love, he was able to heal parts of me I thought would be forever damaged. He made my senior year a little better, a little easier, a little tolerable.

And now all that is gone, because he’s gone, because they say our love is a crime. But he did nothing wrong. He never took advantage of me. He never preyed upon me. He never raped me. It’s all lies. Lies everyone is now using to crucify him with.

The devastation is beyond words incapable of being spoken. The more it rips my soul open, the sweeter death sounds. The past two months have been spent drifting in and out of cycles of crying and sleeping and cutting. And here I am, nothing but a weak little girl in dire need of the arms of the only man who’s strong enough to love me.

Suffering in desolation, I sit on the edge of the pool with my feet dangling in the water while I stare lifelessly at nothing in particular. I then close my eyes and hang my head back to allow the May sun to kiss my cheeks in its warmth, but it doesn’t even come close to the heat of Lost Love’s kisses.

This was supposed to be such an exciting time for me and David. Graduation is only two weeks away. We held the future by the tips of our fingers, but it wasn’t enough for us to keep in our grip, and now, everything we were looking forward to is gone.

I didn’t even buy a cap and gown. What’s the point? It isn’t as if my mother would show up, or anyone else for that matter. Plus, there’s no use sitting among everyone just for them to gawk and whisper when I walk across the stage.

“That’s her. That’s the girl who slept with the teacher,” they’ll say.

They can mail me my diploma.

When my cell phone rings, and I see it’s Randall, my stomach sinks the way it always does when he calls to update me on the case. It’s the anxiousness of the unknown.

“Hey, Randall.”

“Hi, Cam. Are you enjoying your Sunday?”

“You know better than to ask me questions like that at this point,” I respond in dull jest.

“Today is different.”

I sit up a little straighter. “How so?”

“You told me I should call you if there were ever anything you could do to help David. Today is that day.”

A rush of urgency comes over me. “What is it?”

“Last month, against my better judgment, I relayed your message to Liam, David’s attorney. Well, he called me a little bit ago. Seems the prosecution has been wavering and just asked the judge to grant more time in order to prepare for trial.”