“The truly scary thing about undiscovered lies is that they have a greater capacity to diminish us than exposed ones.” –Cheryl Hughes

PROS AND CONS OF THE NEXT WEEK THAT FOLLOWED

Pro: No major fights with my parents (which was always a good thing).

Con: They still weren’t speaking to me (which may also be considered a good thing).

Pro: No more run ins with Jeremy.

Con: There were also no run ins with Perrie, who avoided me like the plague.

Pro: No more pranks, notes, or affiliated rivalries.

Con: The wait for the storm was torturous.

There are some things that happen in a person’s life that can change them forever. A catalyst for evil, a Eureka! moment… things like that.

To this day, I have had three of those moments. Those moments that changed me, shaped my character, and helped me build into something bigger.

My first moment was that fire four years ago. Before that, I may have been a similar girl; all witty quips and blackmail and knowing smirks. But after that fire, I’d developed that kind of self-hatred that stays with you for a lifetime. Where you can stare into your mirror’s reflection for hours without moving, wondering if people can see the fakeness in your smile and the tortured little girl in your eyes begging for a release. Whether they can see that strain, and the way holding it together has become one of the most impossible tasks.

My second moment was meeting Zach. Not so much the love thing (because, let’s face it, it’s only been a month since I met him) but more the way he opened my eyes to a perfect world; gave me the inspiration to move on and see the beauty in things normally left unseen.

Things like that can really change a person. Little details or small events that will haunt your every waking moment for years.

My third moment came that Thursday after school.

I was scheduled to meet up with Zach for a small tepinyaki date (a ‘throwback Thursday to when we first met’ kind of date), but he’d had to unexpectedly reschedule when he was called for an emergency football meeting.

I’d had no troubles with this. I wasn’t that clingy girlfriend who got jealous of other commitments. I was just going to go straight home, have some chocolate and have a bubble bath. No biggie. I didn’t expect anything stepping through my front door. Why should I? It was a normal, nondescript Thursday. The most magnanimous thing to happen today was watching Haydn Corona fall down two flights of stairs at school.

But after I’d quietly closed the doors and planned on the quick getaway to my room (even though my mom was out and my dad had been working a lot of overtime lately), I made my way to the stairs.

I walked through the corridor, trailing my fingers along the mahogany tapestries and staring at the oil paintings on the wall that my father had commandeered of himself and my mother on their wedding day—a kind of revolutionist look that they’d been after, he had informed me when I, a curious six year old, had asked what was up with the tacky painting.

I heard a strange noise from my father’s office, which was only two rooms before mine, and slowly walked towards the open door.

I stopped in the doorway and peeked in, searching the room. It looked the way it always had; thick green velvet drapes, mint colored chaises, mahogany furniture, and sepia lamps and globes.

Except today something was different.

Because my father was hurriedly kissing the neck of a lady with reddish-brown hair and deep red lips, who was currently sitting atop his desk as he kneeled above her. She giggled at his touch, and her hands wound around his neck and pulled him closer. The room smelled of her perfume, and I could see her suit jacket thrown carelessly onto the carpet and her blouse halfway undone.

And do I need to clarify that the woman my father was currently amorously embraced with was not my mother?

My fists clenched with anger because, whilst my mother and I had never had the most profound of mother-daughter bonds, hell hath no fury like the daughter of a woman scorned.

Especially with some common cheap floozy like whatever commoner was currently heatedly kissing my father like there was no tomorrow.

It took me approximately two seconds to get over my stunned angry silence.

            “You worthless bastard,” I said, my voice bordering on a growl.

Immediately the woman stopped kissing him and turned around. Her makeup was smudged, and her cheeks were a deep red. Her lacy black brassiere was visible above the blouse.

“Camila,” my father said, his lips swollen and a deep pink from her lips. His face paled of its color, and he looked like he may be sick as he stammered, “What are you doing home?”

“How dare you?” I said, ignoring his question; swatting it away like a fly. “How. Dare. You.”

He quickly scrambled off the desk, and almost tripped over the papers that were now scattered on the floor from where he’d probably swept them off in a moment of passionate insanity. “Camila, it’s not what it looks like. We were working on some papers here, and—”

“Do not give me that,” I said. The woman he’d been with quickly buttoned her blouse and grabbed her jacket, before running off without another word. “Do not give me some bullshit excuse about papers and work and overtime. How could you do that to me? To Mom? What am I supposed to tell her?”

“You can’t,” he said desperately, his eyes pleading with me. “You can’t tell her.”

“Watch me,” I snapped, turning around and starting for the door.

His hand cinched around my wrist and pulled me back. “Camila, don’t leave like this. Please. Just give me a chance to explain…”

“What’s her name?” I asked. “Do you even know her name? Or were you just looking for a cheap, worthless thrill?”

He sighed. “No, Cam. It’s not like that between us. Her name… is Janet.”

“Janet,” I said. “Janet DeLuca? That good-for-nothing lawyer? She is married, Dad. I go to school with her son. How could you?”

“Cam, please, you have to understand…”

“I don’t have to do anything,” I told him. “Except tell Mom.”

“Please don’t tell her,” he said, his voice borderline desperate. I’d never heard my father like that before. Angry or mildly pleased? Sure. But never frantic. “I’ll do anything.”

“It’s too late,” I told him. “You made your bed with another woman. Now lie in it.”

“Camila, we can talk about this. Don’t go making rash decisions. I didn’t raise you to be that way.”

I spun around, and let out an incredulous scoff. “You didn’t raise me at all. I was raised on a cycle of nannies, maids and babysitters whilst you and Mom enjoyed pina coladas at the country club!”

“I was there when I could be. And that’s the most important part.”

I couldn’t believe that he would launch into a defense about his parenting skills after I’d just caught him kissing another woman on his desk. “Just tell me why, Dad,” I said, my voice low and strained. I was done being angry; sadness and tiredness was fast overtaking that. “Tell me why you did it.”

“Because I love her.”

It was perhaps the most truthful thing he’d ever told me in his life; I could tell that now. Something in the way his hazel eyes shimmered, and his cheeks turned red and his hands fidgeted around his loosened tie. I could tell that somehow along the way, he’d fallen for Janet DeLuca.

            “What about Mom?”

He looked away and fixed a stare out the window. “I love your mother. I do. But not the way I love Janet. You were right with what you said the other day. About your mother and I. We did only marry because of the money. I love her as a companion. But not for life. What you said the other day made me realize that love is important, too, and that I should—”

“No, don’t do that!” I said, stabbing an accusing finger at him. This wasn’t some family-friendly Hallmark moment being shared between us. Certainly not in this circumstance. “Don’t turn this around and make it look like I’m the reason you ended up here. You’re the cheater, Dad! You and Mom have been married for twenty years! You made your choice.”

“I didn’t choose to love Janet!” he argued. “When I met her, it just happened. That spark between us. I knew.”

“Well, here’s what I know, Dad,” I spat, hating the fact that I had to refer to him as my father. “I know you cheated on Mom. I know you cheated on her for someone also taken. And I know that I have to tell Mom about this. And no sweet sentiment about your fantastic new mistress is going to change my opinion.”

“Don’t do this to me!” he yelled as I started walking away, and I spun around, glaring at him disparagingly.

            “Do not give me that good guy act,” I snapped. “It won’t work on me like it did with Janet. Don’t give me that whole innocent guy façade, and play it out like I’m the bad guy. You’re a married man, and you had the choice. And you made the wrong one. Game over.”

I turned around and stopped at the stairs, staring back at him one last time. He stayed completely still, watching me with a cursory gaze, but made no move to follow me. “Oh, and Dad?” I spat, putting all the venom and bitterness I could into that sentence. “Her lipstick stain’s still on your collar.”

And then I turned and ran off without another word.

~          *          ~

There were many places I could go. I had the platinum card to afford the most expensive motel on this earth (which, ironically enough, would be charged to my father’s account). I could’ve also gone to Zach’s and begged for refuge for one night while I tried to gather my thoughts.

But I knew neither of those were truly options. No honeymoon suite with a spa and pillow chocolates could make me feel better, and not even Zach’s perfect world could heal me from the conversation I’d had with my father, no matter how distracting his kisses and precious touch may have been.

I hadn’t spoken to her in a week, but I knew she was the right person to go to. She knew the most about me, and I knew I could come to her in times of desperation.

I pulled out my phone and dialed her number, praying she hadn’t deleted my number or blocked my calls.

But by some stroke of luck, I was connected, and as I waited for her to answer, I stepped over the cracks in the pavement and tried not to let my throat go dry and willing my eyes not to fill with tears.

“Cam?”

I jumped at the voice, thinking it was someone behind me, but soon realized the voice was coming through the speaker. After everything, she still picked up the phone. And I realized in that moment I honestly hadn’t expected her to take the call. Like I thought maybe I’d damaged our friendship enough to never be able to reconcile our differences. Something was definitely mixed up between us.

“Hello? Cam, are you there?” I must have been in such a state of shock I hadn’t been able to talk, but now I jolted and returned to the moment.

“Per?” I asked, and felt my heart clench when my voice cracked. I cleared my throat and powered on. “Perrie, hi.”

“Hey, are you okay?” I asked, and I knew that any feeling of betrayal or bottled-up anger had gone away at the sound of my voice cracking; that little chink in the armor she’d never seen before.

“Not really,” I said finally, blinking furiously to try to push the tears back. For all of my father’s faults (and, rest assured, he had a lot of them), I’d never thought of him as a cheater.

I should let you know that I don’t really hold infidelity in high regard. Don’t get me wrong, I think cheating is terrible, but only in certain circumstances. For instance, if you are a serial cheater, or somebody cheating on your significant other of many, many years, then that is an awful thing. But if it was a one-time thing in the heat of the moment, or if you hadn’t been together long and something unplanned had happened by pure mistake, I’m willing to be a little slack with that. Because I understand that sometimes things get out of hand and do happen that were never on the table beforehand, and I also get that sometimes things happen against your better judgment.

But what my father had done was irreconcilable. He’d cheated multiple times on his wife of twenty years, and, even if he’d felt alienated, alone, or disconnected, there were many more channels. Like a divorce. Or marriage counseling. But not cheating. Never cheating. 

“Cam, what’s going on?” Perrie asked. “Are you okay?”

“Can I come over?” I asked. “I mean, I know that you should say no after everything that I’ve done to you, but I really need someone right now.” A tear slipped down my cheek, and I hated myself for that weakness. I never cried. And I hated the fact that my father was the one to bring about that reaction in me.

“Cam, what is going on?” Perrie asked. It wasn't a no, per se, but it certainly wasn’t a yes. Perhaps a tentative maybe.

“My father, he—” I broke off, trying to form a sentence. “I just…” I stopped, knowing I couldn’t bring up the event again without bursting into a blubbering mess, and, since I was in the middle of a road, I knew that would do no good.

            “Come over,” Perrie said, sounding like she was relenting after much deliberation. “And we can talk this over.”

“Perrie, thank you,” I said, and I meant it. One of my worst qualities was that I wasn’t a very grateful person. But this kindness in Perrie was one I wished I’d known about a long time ago. Because she could’ve turned me away, told me to take a one way ticket to hell and save a seat for her. But she didn’t. Instead she was going to have me over, because she was too kind to turn me away. “I know I don’t deserve this, but—”

Unfortunately, Perrie never found out what this ‘but’ entailed, because by that point I’d turned around and noticed the SUV driving behind me, the windows so tinted I didn’t have a hope in hell of being able to identify the driver—though I’m pretty sure they would have been hooded, anyway.

All I knew was that the bulky white van was driving way too fast—and heading right towards me.

The smell of burning rubber and the sound of squealing tires filled the air as the van made a dangerous swerve and plummeted onto the sidewalk.

There was no denying it. The van was heading straight towards me. And had no intention of stopping.

Throwing my hands up was useless. Instead of standing still like a deer caught in headlights like most stupid people in movies do, I turned and attempted to spring out of the way and into the safety of the thorny rosebushes on the side of the road near the Mueller’s residence (because even a rosebush filled with thorns would have been better than being mowed down by a van).

But both proved to be useless, because before I even had the chance to duck out of the line of fire, the van was right in front of me, big and bulky and hard and dangerous.

For me, time has never slowed down before. I just couldn’t imagine how it ever could. Wasn’t time an intangible concept? How could it actually physically slow down for a few seconds?

Until that moment of impact, I’d never understood what that was. But now, I did. I understood it all too well.

There were a few seconds that seemed to drag on for a millennium as the van made contact. I could hear the sound of flesh hitting metal, smell the rubber and gasoline in the air, feel the crack of bones splitting into pieces. My heart throbbed in my ears as blood covered my face, and for one beautiful, glorious second it felt like I was flying as the wind rushed beneath me and my body was tossed back from the van and landed with a sickening thud onto the pavement.

            Gravel bit into my skin, and my head throbbed as I lay there, twitching like a cockroach that had been sprayed with bug repellent. My eyes slipped open and closed, and my vision turned red as blood dripped into my eyes, burning my corneas with an almost acidic touch. I heard tires squeal and watched the van peel away as if nothing had happened. Beside me, my phone screen was cracked, but, miraculously, the call was still connected, and I could hear Perrie yelling hysterically through the tinny speakers, “Cam? Camila, are you there? Cam!”

“Perrie. Call... 911,” I tried to say, but I was so tired. It felt like lead was weighing down my bones, and my lips were numb. Even as I spoke, nothing came out. There was blood and hair and broken glass everywhere; embedded in my skin and on my clothes.

I took one last stuttering breath, before my head let out one last definitive throb, my eyes closed, and I succumbed to oblivion.