Something Ends, Another Begins

By the time my plane landed, there was only a couple of hours before school ended. So, I decided to just go home, unpack, and take a brief nap before having a talk with a certain someone.

Seconds after I knocked twice on Cameron's front door, Liz opened the door and smiled widely when she saw me and I saw she was wearing her scrubs. "Oh, hi, Ali!" She exclaimed happily before pulling me into a tight hug.

"Hey, Liz," I replied as I walked into the house. "How are you?"

"I'm pretty good. I was actually just about to head to work. Did you just come back today?"

"Yeah, my plane landed a few hours ago."

"Oh, okay. How was the wedding?"

"It actually went a lot better than I thought it would. I never thought I would admit this but, I had a good time."

"That's great." Liz glanced upstairs and then looked back at me. "I'm guessing you're here to see Cam."

"Yes, I am. I heard what happened at school yesterday so I thought I would stop by to give him a little talk." I lowered my voice a little, just in case Cameron could hear me.

Liz sighed and ran a hand through her hair. "Oh, believe me, he got an earful from me yesterday already. But, if you want to add more, be my guest." I heard a beep from Liz's phone and she quickly looked at it. "Okay, Ali, I really have to get going but please make yourself at home." Liz and I said goodbye before she closed the door behind her and I made my way upstairs to Cameron's room.

I knocked on his door, but didn't wait for a reply as I immediately opened the door to find Cameron laying down on his bed watching TV. He didn't look too terrible but he didn't look that great, either. I noticed he had a bruised right eye, a cut on his bottom lip, and he was clutching the right side of his stomach which seemed to be bruised as well (yes, he was shirtless, but I tried my best not to think too much about that).

Cameron looked pretty shocked to see me. "What are you doing here?" he asked, his eyes wide.

I scoffed and sat across from him on his bed. "Is that any way to greet your friend who you haven't seen in three days?" I asked.

Cameron stayed quiet and avoided eye contact. "So, I guess someone told you what happened yesterday? Let me guess, Christie?"

"She told me you made her promise not to tell me?" I asked, even though I knew the answer.

Cameron shrugged, still not looking at me. "Yeah."

"You know I was going to find out eventually, though, right?"

"I was hoping you wouldn't."

"Why? Why didn't you want me to find out."

"I don't know. I didn't want you to freak out on me and give me this huge lecture, which Liz already did, by the way, so don't even bother."

"I'm not going to give you a huge lecture," I said. "I just want to know from you how the fight even started."

Cameron was quiet for a few seconds. Right before I was going to ask him again, he said, "It was after school and I was just walking to my car, minding my own business when that dickhead Tom just appears out of nowhere. He and his stoner buddies start talking shit and 'threatening' me. Of course, I ignore it and I'm about to get into my car when he..." Cameron's voice trails off and he still isn't looking at me.

"What? What did he do?" I asked, extremely curious to hear the rest.

That's when Cameron finally looked at me and said, "He threatened to hurt you and I just snapped. He warned me that he was going to hurt you in some way and, without even thinking, I punched him." He paused and looked down again. "I know it was stupid."

"Yeah, it was kind of stupid," I replied. "But I know you meant well. You stood up for me when someone threatened to hurt me. Thank you." I brushed a piece of hair off his face that was covering his eyes. "I really appreciate it."

He gave me a small smile. "You don't have to thank me. You know that I wouldn't let anybody hurt you," he said very softly, so softly that I almost couldn't hear him.

Even though Cameron and I have finally been good friends for a few months, it still felt very weird for him to be nice to me. This was the sweetest he had ever been to me and it was beyond strange.

"Okay, so I know you got suspended for a week. What was Tom's punishment?" I asked.

Cameron smiled, looking relieved. "He got moved to another school out of the city."

"Really? Isn't that a little extreme?"

"No," Cameron replied. "As it turns out, after the principal tore up the fight, a couple of cops came over to search if we had any weapons or anything on us. They found, instead of weapons, two bags of weed in Tom's jacket and he got expelled."

I felt myself breathe a sigh of relief. "Wow," I replied.

"Yeah, so I don't think that guy is going to bother us anymore."

I looked at how his hand was tightly holding onto the side of his stomach. I touched his hand and gently tried to move it away, but he wouldn't budge. "Please let me see," I asked him.

He sighed, frustrated, and cautiously moved his hand away from his stomach. There was a giant blue and purple mark that covered pretty much the entire right side of his stomach and there was also red surrounding the bruise, indicating that it was a little swollen. I heard myself quietly gasp as I stared at the bruise since I've never seen one that looked so bad.

"It's not as bad as it looks," Cameron said calmly, looking down at it. "I guess Tom put a little too much pressure when he kicked my stomach." I know Cameron was trying to make things seem better than they actually were, but I could tell he was in a lot of pain.

"There's nothing broken or anything, is there?" I asked.

Cameron shook his head. "No, according to Liz, Tom kicked too low to severely break anything. It just hurts...a lot."

I lightly grazed my fingers over the bruise, only to hear Cameron breathe in sharply and flinch a little bit. I quickly jerked my hand away. "I'm sorry," I stuttered, frantic. "I didn't know that would hurt you."

Cameron smiled reassuringly at me. "It's okay, Ali." I just nodded in response, not knowing what else to say. "So," Cameron said, "how did the wedding go? You didn't kill your stepmother, did you?"

I, unexpectedly, laughed at Cameron's last question and shook my head. "No, she's still alive. We're actually on pretty good terms."

Cameron raised his eyebrows, surprised. "Really?"

"Yeah," I replied, "She's actually really nice and sweet once you get to know her. She and I had a little talk before the wedding and it really made me look at her and the whole wedding differently." Right after I finished that sentence, a beep came from my phone, indicating that I got a text message. "Hold on," I told Cameron as I reached for my phone and saw that the text came from Eli, the guy I met at the wedding.

The text read: Hey ;) how r u? I felt my lips form a smile as I replied back.

"Who's that?" Cameron asked, curious.

"Oh, just this guy I met at the wedding. His name is Eli. His dad works with my dad. Eli and I talked and danced for a bit. He's pretty cool."

"Oh," Cameron replied, in a strange tone of voice. "He sounds like a cool guy."

"Yeah, by the end of the reception, he mentioned something about us going on a date but I said no."

"Really?" Cameron asked, in a tone of voice that sounded an awful lot like relief.

I nodded. "Not only do we live in two separate states and I just met him but, I just don't think I'm ready to start dating again in general."

After a couple of silent seconds, Cameron said, "Yeah, I understand." Another couple of seconds passed by before he said, "Do you want to watch a movie with me?"

"Yeah, sure." I smiled and moved to sit down next to him. "No horror slasher movies, though. Anything but horror slasher movies."

Cameron shook his head but he was smiling. "You're such a wuss."

"Oh, well, excuse me if I don't like to watch death."

"Well, if we can't watch scary movies, we can't watch any chick flicks, either."

"Deal."

We eventually picked a good action movie to watch. In the middle of the movie, I rested my head on his shoulder. He was so into the movie, he didn't even notice. I thought about how Cameron stood up for me and assured me that he wasn't going to let anything hurt me. About five months ago, I would've never imagined Cameron saying something like that to me. I also would've never imagined myself never wanting to lose him.