Thanatophobia

"I don't know what I did," I said when we got back home. I was picking at my nails and sitting in one of our living rooms on the third floor.

"Yeah, me either," Lauren agreed. "I've known Cameron for years and I've never seen him snap like that."

I chipped off the last of my nail polish and brushed it off my lap. I felt kind of numb. "Maybe he's on medication. Maybe he's bat shit crazy and no one even knew about it."

She laughed. "That's so not even funny! He's nice!"

“It’s always the nice ones.” I smirked at her, but I couldn't shake the guilt. "I shouldn't have been so mean." The words tasted sour in my mouth, but it felt better to say them than let them stew in my head.

Lauren didn't respond; I hated that kind of silence. The silence that said she agreed with me but didn't want to tell me. I wanted to cry.

I hated this. It was like every time I made contact with anyone, I managed to ruin everything. Granted, I hadn't meant to be nice to Cam, but I also didn't mean to upset him that much. I just wanted him to take the hint and leave me alone. At this rate, pretty soon Lauren would hate me, too. Same with Lucy, and I was pretty sure Oliver already didn't like me. He seemed really freaked out by me. God, this was a terrible week. I almost wished I was back in the hospital (oh how I missed the pain medication) because at least then there was less drama.

"Why do you hate him so much?" Lauren asked suddenly.

I blinked, not wanting to tell her. "Who said I hated him?" I asked, trying to avoid the question.

"You practically said it to his face in the restaurant," she said.

"I met him this spring," I said- technically not a lie- "before I moved here. He made a horrible impression."

Lauren made a face. "First impressions aren't everything," she reminded me. "And besides, it’s Cameron; how bad could it be? How did you meet? Like, what did he do?"

I could have lied, but I didn't have the energy to come up with anything convincing. Instead, I just said, "It doesn't matter. He and Oliver ran into me in that green jeep."

Technically, that was the truth.

Lauren's jaw dropped. "He hit you with his car?" she gaped.

"I wish..." I said under my breath, then louder, "No, I mean like he came across me. Jeez."

"Oh," she said, relieved. "Then how did you get that scar on your forehead?"

"Huh?" I asked. "What scar?"

She handed me a tiny mirror from her little purse and I examined my forehead, tracing my finger across the thin, nearly invisible scar that ran from the middle of my forehead to underneath my bangs. "How did you notice that?" I asked quietly.

She shrugged. "I'm observant. Now how did it happen?"

"I'm not gossiping with you," I said pointedly, putting up the infamous walls around my past. "It's not your business."

"But we're friends," she argued. "I'm not asking you because I want to gossip, I just want to know you better. You're like a fucking closed door."

"That's the plan," I remarked. "Besides, you don't want to be my friend, I suck."

"I don't care."

My heart hurt even more. "Listen, Lauren. I take medication every night to keep myself from dreaming about the horrible things that I did at boarding school. I got sent away to live with my brother, whom you know even better than I do. I didn’t talk to more than two people for my entire junior year this year at private school. I have scars for a reason, it’s because I'm a mess."

She sighed and rubbed her face. "So does everyone," she said quietly. "This is all going on at the same time. You have problems, but so do I. Cameron does, too. Everyone has problems and they don’t stop or go away… it’s never going away."

She looked regretful, and I could tell she was thinking about something that happened a while ago, before I even came here. It was weird, because even though I’d only known her for a few days, I kind of admired her. I’d only ever met one other person like Lauren, and that was Meghan. Even then, Lauren had something about her that just interested me. Like the fact that she was beautiful and elegant and trashy at the same time, like some sort of modest but bold goddess. She was a contradiction and no one could touch her. She was the kind of girl that you wanted to be around just because she seemed to know so much about what was going on around her- the people, their pasts, how things worked, why. To me, Lauren was invincible, her only poison a bottle of beer.

"I think you should call him," she said, pulling me out of my daydreaming. "I don't have his number, but I have Oliver's. We can just ask him for Cameron's."

I took her cell phone and weighed it in my palm for a little, hesitant. “Why do you have Oliver’s number?”

She looked at her lap. “I don’t want to gossip with you.”

That stung. I started going through her contacts, finding his name in the O section: Oliver ♥

I raised an eyebrow. “Are you two going out?”

Her eyes widened and she snatched the phone away. “What?” she looked at the screen and her shoulders slumped. “I thought I changed that…”

She started tapping wildly on her keyboard until the heart was gone next to his name, then gave the phone back.

“Well, tell me,” I demanded. “Come on, I already know.”

She narrowed her eyes. “We went out a few months ago. Now we’re not.”

“I’m gonna need more than that,” I prodded, smiling.

She just glared at me, which surprised me. “You won’t tell me anything about yourself,” she protested. “Why should I tell you about my life?”

“Fine, “ I gasped. “I’ll tell you something…but only something small!”

She shrugged and sat back on the white leather couch. “Good enough for me,” she said. “We could turn this into a game- an answer for an answer. Ooh! Better yet, a drinking game! I don’t know how it would work, but every time we—“

“Lauren, no!” I snapped. She nodded, remembering my lecture at the restaurant.

“Fine,” she sighed. “Just go. Tell me about the scar.”

I thought about it for a second. “There was a car accident.”

She threw her head back. “Come on, you’re gonna need to give me more information than that! How?”

“Answer for an answer, remember?” I reminded her.

She rolled her eyes. “Fine. Okay…Well Oliver and I went out for a while. He was funny, and sweet, and he loved driving me around in his funky Jeep.” With each word, her shoulders slumped a little more. “I miss him.”

“Did he break up with you?” I asked with anticipation. I’d only known him for a little bit, but he didn’t seem like a heart breaker. Lauren stared at me expectantly. I sighed, trying to find the most vague way to describe my car accident. “It was last year, back when I went to boarding school.”

She groaned. “You’re so vague!” I stuck my tongue out. She thought for a minute. “I broke up with him.”

“It was after a party with Meghan,” I muttered, my voice a little shaky. I just said her name out loud, and it was easy. It hurt like knife, sure, but I said it. Lauren was staring at me, waiting for an explanation, but started to say something about her and Oliver, anyway. The thing was, though, I had said Meghan’s name out loud. The only way I can explain it is like when you get stabbed, it doesn’t bleed right that second, but when it does it gushes out. I knew it was going to be hard to clean up, but my next words were like that blood.

I cut Lauren off, then. “Meghan was my best friend. See, I went to this boarding school in Maine for high school because it had this great honors program. My parents loved the idea of my going there, and I didn’t mind because I was always really, really quiet. Well, we had roommates and I was paired with this girl Meghan from New York. At first I didn’t really like her, she was really pretty and super intimidating because she had these intelligent, amber eyes and shiny glossy hair while mine was just like a dishwater blonde, and I was kind of scared of her. She was really chill, just like you, and she was also really nice, too.

"It was weird because I’d never really had close friends before boarding school so I was surprised that she was so nice to me and she didn’t even know who my parents were because she was from New York so she never made the connection. And she got good grades and did community service and all that, but every couple of nights I would wake up and she would be gone. Well, I was kind of nerdy and always studied because that’s the only thing Hamiltons do really; they kiss ass and get good S.A.T. scores.

"One day she told me that she always went to these great parties, and she had a boyfriend that was a senior, and he thought that she was a senior, too, because she was so mature and she drank and stuff. So, she invited me and suddenly we were this big thing around campus. We got drunk and high at parties, we fooled around with guys (but we never had sex, just all the other stuff, you know.), we wore lots of makeup, and we still got good grades. I think we were so desirable because it was like a double life thing… we were at all the cool parties, but we still got good grades and did all the extra credit and, like, we held doors open for teachers and shit.”

By then it was like Lauren wasn’t even in the room. I wasn’t telling the story, I was reliving it.

“Freshman year was basically just that. Then, over the summer she came to New Jersey with me and we went on vacation together, and we were practically the same person or sisters or whatever you want to call us. We were unstoppable. Then sophomore year rolled around, and the parties got even more intense. We were legacies- those freshman girls that acted like college girls. It was great, but I don’t think we realized that we were still kids. We were being stupid and reckless and I paid the price…”

Lauren was practically leaning out of her seat. “Well, go on!” she gushed. My stomach sank.

“I don’t think I can…” I whispered. “Don’t take this the wrong way…It’s just that I don’t think I trust you enough.”

“But you can!” Lauren assured me. I knew that I could. Well, part of me knew, but there was still that wall I’d put up. I was so used to that wall.

“Maybe another time…” I couldn’t say it out loud. If I said it out loud, it would mean it was true. Even after over a year, it could still not be true. Maybe.

“Please?” Lauren begged.

“Do you think Cam’s off work?” I asked, changing the subject.

Lauren glared at me, but then her expression softened. “We’ll talk about it later,” she settled. “And I think he might be, it’s like one o clock.”

She handed me the phone, her eyes lingering on it while I dialed Oliver’s number. It rang a couple of times before he answered. “Lauren?” he asked quietly.

“No, Oliver,” I replied. “Um, actually it’s Shelby. You know from the…you know…”

He paused for a second then sucked in a bunch of air and said unsurely, “Oh, yeah! How are you, Shelby?”

I furrowed my eyebrows together. “I’m fine, I guess…hey, I was just wondering if you had Cam’s number. Or, I mean, can I have it, because obviously you have it, you’re his best friend…or are you? I don’t know, you, like, drive him places.”

I was rambling, and Lauren was leaning up against the other side of the earpiece, listening intently.

Oliver laughed a little bit. “Yeah, I have it,” he said. “Why do you need it?”

I glanced at Lauren and she nodded, hinting for me to explain. I didn’t want to explain it in full-depth, so I just gave him the short version. “I, erm, saw him at work today and I was kind of mean to him. I just wanted to apologize.”

He didn’t say anything for a second, then he came back to Earth. “Okay,” he said, surprisingly not asking for any more details. “But you know, he was doing you a favor that day on the—“

I cut him off so Lauren wouldn’t hear. “I know, I know,” I said quickly. “Thanks and whatever. Just give me the number.”

Lauren looked at me suspiciously and I just wrote the number down.

“Thanks, Oliver,” I told him.

“No problem. By the way,” he added, “that’s his home number. He doesn’t have a cell, just thought I’d add that little bit.”

I nodded, then realized that he couldn’t see it. “Oh, um, okay. Thanks.”

I hung up and stared at the phone number. “I can’t believe I’m doing this,” I groaned.