By The Seaside

“You’ve got some explanations to give me, Camille Adriana Phillips!” Jayden said to his cousin in an angry tone while pacing back and forth.

At the party, Jay had been looking for his cousin all over the place to introduce her to some of his friends. When he saw Cam sitting with someone at the beach he was sincerely glad that she had found someone to talk to, but as he got closer he recognized Aidan. He was just about twenty feet away when he saw Cam kissing Aidan. After a few seconds of shock, Jayden entered a stage of outrage and anger. He screamed at Aidan and insulted him before roughly grabbing Camille’s hand and dragging her to the car and taking her home.

“What needs to be explained, Jay?” she said frustrated. She had been sitting on the living room couch for five minutes watching her cousin walk from one side of the room to the other while muttering curse words.

“What needs to be explained?” he said not believing the words that had come out of Camille’s mouth. “You know perfectly well what needs to be explained. Why the fuck did you kiss that selfish mother fucker?”

“Don’t call him that!” Cam replied standing up.

“Do you even know why I don’t like him? Why I can’t stand him?” Jayden asked angrily while getting closer to her. “Do you know where the hell he was last semester? Do you?”

“He told me you would tell me why,” she murmured looking at the marble floor.

“So that pussy didn’t have the fucking balls to tell you the truth? Ha, what a faggot,” he replied shaking his head.

“Enough with the insults and the swearing, Jayden,” Camille hissed angrily at him. She had gotten tired of Jay’s ramble. “First of all, never call anyone, and I mean anyone, a faggot or gay or whatever other synonym exists, to insult them. It’s like using the word retard as an insult,” her tone got louder as she stood up from the couch and made her way towards him. “Second of all, I can kiss whoever I want to kiss with or without your permission. And third of all I don’t care what he did because he probably had a valid reason to act the way he did to be send away, probably a much better reason than yours to bring me here,” she was standing a few inches away from Jayden. Cam looked at him directly in the eyes and said “I’m going upstairs, and don’t you dare come to my room to talk to me, unless you have something polite to say.”

Camille turned around and headed up the stairs and through the small hallway until she reached the guest room, or her room for the next three weeks. She shut the door behind her, and threw herself in the bed and sighed.

After a few minutes spent staring at the white ceiling, Leilani knocked on her door. Lei had been watching an old movie with her best friend Mel when they heard Jay and Cam fighting down stairs. She was really concerned for both Cam and her brother, but neither she nor Mel thought it was a good idea to interrupt the argument. They both decided to wait a few minutes, after they heard Cam storm into her room, before talking to her.

“Hey CamCam,” Leilani said while peeping her head inside the light blue room Camille was staying in, her long, brown curls bouncing slightly. Her young face was wrinkled because of the worried frown she carried.

“Hey,” Camille answered without taking her eyes from the ceiling.

Cam had noticed how plain and white it was. It was boring. She got scared when she realized it reminded her of herself. She was just as plain and boring as the ceiling, not because she wasn’t fun to be around of, but because she was never wild or confident enough to open up to most people she knew.

Camille had always been a very introverted girl, always doing what was right and avoiding what was wrong. She had a small group of friends, one of them really shy and two of them more outgoing. Her extroverted friends had always tried to help Cam and her other friend, Penny, care less about what others think and enjoy life more, but Cam had always been afraid to do it. Afraid to say ‘Fuck it, I don’t care anymore’. She had always been afraid of being judge and making mistakes.

Maybe that’s why she had felt so attracted to Aidan. He obviously had done something wrong, some mistakes, that had made everyone judge him. He had let go of his worries and done what he felt like doing. Maybe she needed to let go of her worries too, and he could help her. He had already unconsciously tempted her into kissing him, and nothing had gone wrong. Possibly she could keep acting like that. After all, her mom wasn’t there, and the one thing Camille was more afraid of was her mother’s judgment towards her.

Her mother was always getting involved in Cam’s decisions and choices, practically making them herself, and sometimes not even asking Camille’s opinion. Being there could help Cam become more independent and start doing what she wanted. She knew she wanted to change, and she also knew that that was the perfect time to do so.

“Mel’s back in my room. We’re willing to hear you if you want to talk about it,” Lei said still standing by the door, bringing Cam back into Earth and out of her own little world. “You know I’m a good listener,” she smiled.

“Thanks, I’ll, I’ll change and meet you there,” Cam replied with a stutter while forcing herself into sitting position.

“Okay,” Leilani mumbled before returning to her bedroom.

Camille stood up, but, before she could make her way to the wooden wardrobe, she saw her reflection on the full length mirror next to her bed. She was still wearing the cozy jacket he had given her. It smelled like him, like his cologne and a hint of cigarettes. She liked the smell a lot. She liked him a lot.

Cam took off the jacket and laid it carefully on her bed before she changed into her sleepwear. She then headed to the bathroom to wash her face and brush her teeth.

Camille examined her reflection on the bathroom mirror. She had only been in California twenty four hours and her sensitive, pale skin was already gaining a little bit of color. She had used sunblock the whole morning and afternoon to protect her skin from turning red from the bright sun, and it had worked since she wasn’t red but slightly tanner.

She took a deep breath and walked out to Leilani’s coral-walled bedroom. Time to open up with the only person she knew she could trust and her best friend who, by what Cam had heard, was as good as a listener as Lei.