Precious Consequences(25)

It’s been an entire week since I last saw Hayley and I’m walking out of the Cafeteria when I spot Hannah coming from the opposite direction. She looks pissed and her angry eyes are directed straight at me. “This can’t be good,” I mutter to myself. I stop and wait for her to reach me. But that was very stupid because she’s not pissed, she’s in a flat out rage and I seem to be the cause.

“What it wrong with you?” she half-yells, not giving a flying f*ck that we’re in public.

“Hi Hannah, it’s so nice to see you. I’m great, thanks for asking,” I reply sarcastically. What the hell could she be so mad about?

“Don’t get smart with me you douchebag,” she snaps. Her black hair is a mess and it looks like she literally just rolled out of bed. The slippers on her feet are a dead giveaway. I resist the urge to laugh at her disheveled state. I always avoid provoking Hannah when she’s in a mood like this.

“What is wrong with you?” I ask, suddenly irritated. “Are you on your period or something?”

The way Hannah’s face reddens and her eyes bulge are an indication that I have clearly said the wrong thing. Her hands fist at her sides and I watch as she struggles to reign on her anger.

“How could you, Cameron?” she asks angrily.

My irritation escalates. Why can women never say what they mean, instead of expecting us to guess all the damn time? “How could I what Hannah?”

“I always knew you could be an *, and I tried not to hold that against you after all the shit you’ve been through. But you stooped the lowest you ever have Cam. I can’t believe you.”

Before I can stop myself, I yell, “What the f*ck are you talking about Hannah? I can’t read your f*cking mind woman! Spell it the f*ck out for me, in English!”

“You told Hayley you wouldn’t have asked her out if you knew about her daughter!” she screams. Her anger gets the better of her and she allows a few tears to slip down her cheeks. She wipes them away furiously as I stare at her.

Lowering my voice, I ask, “What did you expect me to do, Hannah? I don’t need complications in my life, you know that. I don’t do relationships, and I sure as hell don’t do ‘moms’ either.”

“You could’ve handled it so much better, Cameron. You had no reason to say any of those things to her, especially not at the damn hospital!”

“Well when did you expect me to say it? After I’d had sex with her?”

Hannah snorts. “We both know it was about more than sex with Hayley.”

I bristle, crossing my arms over my chest. “What is that supposed to mean? Of course it was just about the sex, it always is!”

“Then tell me honestly, in the last two months that you’ve become friends with Hayley, how many times did you think about Rachel? Or having sex with someone else, huh?”

“That doesn’t mean anything,” I retort.

“The hell it doesn’t. Just admit that you care about her, Cameron.”

And there it is. The crux of my problem. The very thought that has kept me awake every night since I left Hayley in that emergency room. I look down, afraid that Hannah will see everything I’m trying so hard to hide written all over my face.

My voice is barely above a whisper when I reply, “I can’t.”

“Why not?” Hannah probes.

“Because!” I yell again. “I destroy everyone I give a f*ck about!”

Hannah’s face drops as my words register. She knows what I mean; she’s one of the few people cognizant of what haunts me.

“Cam,” she breathes, taking a step closer to me. “You can’t keep living your life this way because of one mistake you made two years ago. It was an accident, and your mom and Candice don’t hold you responsible.”

“But they should,” I reply. “It was my fault. It’s my fault my dad is…”

I swallow my words. I can’t even bring myself to say it. Just thinking about what I’ve done to my family, to my father, is enough to make me sick.

“Please, Cam,” Hannah pleads quietly. She touches my cheek with her palm. “Make it right with Hayley. She makes you…different.”

“How?”

Hannah’s mouth tilts up, giving me a half-smile as she replies, “Happy.”

She’s right. Even as a friend, Hayley made me feel happiness. It’s foreign, because I denied myself of that feeling for so long that I forgot what it felt like, what it looked like.

What scares me, though, is how I need to make things right with Hayley. There’s only one way I can fix this and I’m not sure if I’m ready for that yet. I would have to show Hayley the ugliest part of me. Maybe then she’ll see that I actually did her a favor, because I can’t give her what I think she wanted if there’s nothing left to give.



Chapter 9

~ Hayley ~

I sit next to Ari’s hospital bed and watch her sleep. I am way past the point of exhaustion, barely having slept at all over the last week. To say this has been a nightmarish ordeal is putting it mildly and making light of a rather traumatizing experience for both Ari and me. It has been the longest week of my life and I’ve lost count of the amount of times I’ve cried out of pure frustration. There is nothing worse than feeling helpless, watching them wheel your baby girl into surgery knowing that all you can do is wait. The waiting didn’t last that long but when a nurse came out about half way through Ari’s surgery I had my first breakdown as a result of sheer panic. I was sure something had gone wrong, and while I wasn’t sure if it was possible for a child to die during a procedure as common as an appendectomy, it didn’t stop my mind from going there. The nurse informed us the surgery would take a little longer because Ari’s appendix had burst but they managed to stop any infection in her stomach and that so far the surgery was going well. I felt a war of emotions coursing through my body. It was a battle between panic, because she’s so small and so young to have to go through this, and relief, because she was doing okay under the circumstances.