Page 61 of Try Me
But it was thinking about his face that day and then contrasting it to the slack-jawed, blue-lipped one that’d greeted me when I opened the bedroom door eight months later that finally made me nod.
As I led him out of the house, I opened up my messages to send one to Chet, only to see he’d already sent me one that I’d missed.
Chet:I just talked to Cam.
I sent him a quick reply before silencing my phone and tucking it away.
Mark:He’s here at the Sigma Psi house now
We went to Fitz’s Diner, where I’d been coming since I was a kid. One of the waitresses had been there just as long and snuck me a wink as we came in.
A younger waitress led us toward a two-man booth and picked up a couple of dirty glasses. “I’ll have someone come wipe this down.”
“Nah, it’s fine.”
“Okay.” She flashed a smile at Cam and then cocked her head at me. “Are you in Grogan’s literary theory? You look familiar.”
“Nope, guess I have a doppelgänger.”
She laughed, then sucked her teeth and shifted her weight like she was about to walk off before she remembered the menus she was clutching and extended them out to us with another bright grin.
“God, I was always so fucking envious of that,” Cam said, watching her go. I arched a brow, and he gestured. “She obviously thinks you’re cute. Meanwhile, I can’t…” He waved a hand. “Doesn’t matter.”
Her attention had barely registered to me, which in itself was a little worrisome. I’d gotten so wrapped up in Chet lately, I barely saw beyond the edges of his cocky smile. Soon enough with the internship ending, there’d no longer be any way for me to even vaguely justify being around him.
I had no appetite. My body was too bowed up and high-strung, but I stared at my menu waiting for something—anything—to appeal.
The waitress, Ayla, came back with coffee mugs and two waters. I put in a half-hearted order for toast, and Cam did the same.
“I should’ve called you first, I guess, warned you. But I didn’t have your number.” He fiddled with a straw wrapper. “I got a new phone after…well,after.” He said it like it was its own titled epoch. I guess it was for him in a way.
“After you took enough Oxy to knock out a fucking Titan, almost died, and then vanished off the face of the fucking earth? That’s what you mean by ‘after,’ right?”
Cam made a pained, sheepish expression, then tore his gaze from mine as he nodded. He fiddled with the place settings next, tearing a tiny strip from the rolled silverware in front of him, then shoved it roughly aside and folded his hands on the table. “Look, I know I cut you off, and I know it was a dick move—that wasn’t all me. My parents took my phone. But they were right—at least about that part. I needed a clean slate. I was all kinds of fucked-up, you know?”
I swallowed against the lump that formed in my throat as the vision of his too-still body and dull eyes made another loop through my mind. “Where’d you go?”
“Home. Well, a rehab facility in Ponce for a few months first and then home. I’ve been going to community college for the last six months. I’m behind. Won’t be graduating this year.”
“So are you good now?” That was the most important thing, I reminded myself.
“Yeah.” He spoke softly, eyes darting over my shoulder and then settling back on me. “I’m good. Better, at least. Clean and all that jazz.”
“Good.” A knot inside me released. I wasn’t sure how long it’d been there. Maybe an hour. Maybe longer. Maybe since I’d found him in the room that night. “I should’ve known you were in too deep.”
Cam shook his head emphatically and exhaled a raw chuckle. “Nah, man, that was all me. I was doing more than even you know. Hiding it from everyone.”
“Except Chet?”
“I was hiding it from him, too.”
His fidgetiness was contagious. My knee bounced under the table until I accidentally bumped it, rattling the silverware, and forced myself to stop. “But he was there that night? Did he give you the pills? Because you kept saying his name at first when the paramedics brought you around. Before they took you away. You were asking where he was.”
Cam made that pained expression again. He didn’t like remembering. I didn’t either. And I knew what Chet had told me, but I wanted to hear it from Cam.
He set the silverware roll down and rubbed a hand over his forehead. When he laughed, it was a sorrowful sound. “Yeah, he was there that night. We’d been kinda hooking up. Casual, whatever. That was…probably evident to you based on that night when I was hanging all over him in the backseat of your car.”Chet’s eyes on me, Cam’s head on his shoulder. My knuckles tight on the steering wheel.“I asked if he wanted to do the shit with me. But he wouldn’t. He was all concerned. Which he was right to be, but I wasn’t hearing it back then, obviously. He flushed half my stash down the toilet. I had more he didn’t know about, though—”
“So he wasn’t supplying you?”