What Happens Now(51)

“God, no. I felt so guilty. Happy and relieved, but guilty.”

“Traumatized.”

“In a multilayered way.”

“Wow,” I said.

Camden sighed, and the movement of his body as it took on extra air, then released it; I could feel that movement in every part of me.

“I’ve never told anyone that,” said Camden.

I put my hand on the hand that was on my waist. It felt like he’d gifted me more than I’d gifted him. We were pushing through each other and maybe if we stopped now, we might never make it to the other side. Then we kissed for a long time and I imagined that the stars floated down through the skylight to where we were. There was no floor or ceiling anymore, no ground or sky. There was only everything, mixed in together.

Finally, I bit his lip gently and pulled away, feeling raw. There was something about him strong and solid against me, like a foundation. I decided to act on this tiny thread of courage before I lost it.

“I’ve got another secret for you,” I said.

“Another one?” he asked, amused.

I shrugged.

“Don’t feel obligated,” he added. “This isn’t like a Secret Smackdown.”

“I know. I just want to tell you. Think of it as a bonus.”

“Okay.”

I took a deep breath, in my mind flying away from the person who was warm and breathing and next to me in his bed in his house where we were alone and the whole universe might as well have been ours. Away from me now, back to me then.

“When we first met, you said you remembered seeing me at the lake before.”

“I did,” he said.

“I remembered seeing you, too. Last summer.” I paused. “Actually, I had a huge crush on you.”

I closed my eyes and buried my face in his neck. I felt Camden take a deep breath.

“But you didn’t know me. We never talked. Did we? Shit, if we did and I forgot . . .”

I forced myself up again, to look at his face. A small frown creased his forehead.

“No, we never talked. It was one of those from-afar things.”

Camden lay there for a few more moments (that frown, ugh) and then asked, “What was it about me that made you have a crush without actually meeting me?”

“I’ve thought about that a lot,” I said. “It was only four months after that night with the Lady Bic. I was fighting to feel better. To feel like I had the strength. And I’d watch you—” Oops, I hadn’t meant to tell him about the watching. Too late now. “You seemed so confident. Free. As if you had it all figured out and maybe you could show me.” I pressed my lips closed tight to keep myself from saying any more.

After a few seconds, Camden shifted away from me, rolled over onto his side to face the wall. I couldn’t see his face.

“You’re weirded out, aren’t you?” I joked.

Camden didn’t answer right away, and with every second that passed without him saying No, not weirded out at all!, I died inside a little more.

“I’m glad you told me,” he finally said. He didn’t sound the least bit glad about anything.

“You okay?”

“Just really tired all of a sudden. I was super-wired earlier but now I think I might drift off.”

“Let’s drift,” I said, lying down on my left side. I didn’t dare get closer. I left a little cushion of space between us as we lay in identical positions on his bed. Air rushed into it from the open window above, making that distance feel wider.

I only half-slept that night, tense and angry in my dreams. I kept seeing Camden fighting with Lukas. Then Max yelling at Eliza, Kendall screaming at the guy who was overdosing in front of the gyro shack. One person would morph into another, and sometimes it would be a real person and sometimes it would be a character from Silver Arrow. Also, there were batter-dipped hamburgers everywhere.

I opened my eyes covered in sweat, sunlight coming in diagonally from somewhere. A green wall. A trapezoid of yellow. Wooden floors with the dust visible and fairly sparkling, like dew. I had no idea where I was.

Then I felt Camden next to me, a presence rising and falling with breath, and things made sense again. I stared at the outline of him, still turned away from me in the bed. The delicious curve of his shoulder blades against his T-shirt. The small patch of skin visible at the base of his neck. Most people look younger, more vulnerable when they’re asleep. But Camden looked strong, as if his peace were power.

Last summer, the view of his back always hurt a little. It was a reminder that I saw him, but he didn’t see me. Now I reached out and touched two fingers to it just because I could. What would it be like for us now that we’d shared all these secrets and I’d gone one truth too far? Would he still be acting strange? I didn’t want to wake him and find out yet.

So I crawled out of bed and found the bathroom, feeling lighter in the places he had touched me, stripped to something essential. I looked in the mirror to see if that showed, but saw only a tired-looking girl in a rumpled Satina Galt uniform.

Back in Camden’s room, I dared get closer to the world map on the teal-blue wall, and the messages next to each thumbtack. Each slip of paper had a person’s name and a few scribbled notes like “Ice-skating and tomato soup.”

He’d been so many places, met so many people. Not all of them had been happy or good. They’d left marks deep inside. Yet I was the one with the visible scars. Me, with my stable home and the family who loved me, and a life where nothing truly bad had ever happened.