AMELIA

"You do not know Cam. He's so stubborn. He would drink and get arrested," Jake tells me like it's my business to care when that suits him well.

I will not babysit a privileged brat manchild.

"Okay?" I shrug nonchalantly.

Jake frowns, adding, "We have to come bail him in the middle of the night."

"That's not my problem. I just want to be with my fiancé. Maybe we can have new good memories I can go to bed dreaming about."

"I know you do not like him," Jake starts.

My eyes widen, my stomach churning. Am I giving it away too much? I don't let Jake finish; I interrupt. "Why? It's not like I even know him or anything to hate him."

"You have been giving him cold shoulders; the guy is clearly hurt. He's just trying to be nice."

And now he's the victim. I see.

"He told you that?" I exhale an exasperated laugh.

"No!" Jake grabs my hands, but I pull them away.

Maybe is not me, maybe Jake feels like he owes him some sort of loyalty for staying in his house.

"I hate this whole idea of living with someone," I grumble under my breath and look up to Jake. "It seems you worry about him more than you care about us."

"No, Amy. No." He worriedly exhales and grabs my hands again, having us facing each other. "Come. I just want the two of you to get along. Please don't be mad at me. We will find a balance. You will see."

That, I doubt!

"Look, because of him, we can't go somewhere alone." I pout, press desperately, locking my hands around his waist, and he smiles adorably down at me, leaning and playfully brushing our noses together.

"Let's take a walk to the car, and we can make out before Cam returns," he offers, and I nod, childishly jutting out my chin to have him kiss me, and he does since he knows what I am asking.

Smiling, he grabs my hand, pulling me through the parking lot.

"There they are!" Cameron's voice interrupts us, not even letting us have that kiss. My eyes impulsively close before we can turn.
And when we do turn, he has both arms thrown over the shoulders of different women, shining out teeth like fools on cheap-ass toothpaste commercials. It's aggravating. He's sober, he just chooses to expose his true personality.

Am only curious, since when do you shop people at basketball games?

"You are done," Jake begins, although his voice is being drowned in the music coming from some car next to us, Cameron cuts him off, shouting over the loudness, "Let's go."

"With them?" I yell too, and Cameron crinkles his nose without an answer. But it's clear coming with them is a must for him, and the girls don't even say a thing to defend themselves from my criticism; only they know how to use their hands around his torso.

Sad. No, I don't want to go anywhere with them or even Cam.

I look up at Jake, and he jerks his head in silent communication, begging me. "I want to be alone with you." I almost cry, and he leans closer to my ear.

"We talked about this."

"He's so disgusting; I can't," I am fuming, panting, breathing becomes very hard.

I have a strong urge to rip out his throat and burn his body along with the two sluts he's carrying and piss on their ashes.

"I promise we will be alone tonight," Jake says in my ear, and I struggle with bile in my throat at his final decision.

"You done negotiating, Princess?" Cameron taunts, winking from amusement. Whore!

Look, is not even that I care what he does. He can do what he wants, is just that he should have the dignity to have his charity pr0stitution behind closed doors not where he could disgust everyone.

"Let's go; we are going to have fun tonight." He takes off with the girls by each side of him and slides into the backside of the car.

What the hell?

***

Well, to make it clear, we weren't having any sort of fun, except if listening to Cameron tell the awkward giggly girls stories of the men he knocked out with his fist is considered that. Oh, while I am hit the whole time with headlights in the face, they proceed to moan in the back of the car, and no amount of volume Jake could turn up will drown those noises, and then the three get drunk in the booth at the bar we stop at. The brunette even says she needs Cameron to go with her to the restroom to hold her hair while she vomits, but I am sure Jake and the other girl facing us know it isn't true.

Trying to push the disgusting thought, I grab Jake; I wasn't going to let Cameron ruin our night. If he's going to have fun, so are we.

"How are you?" I snuggle next to him, and he adjusts his hand around my back, coming around my hip.

"How are you?" He asks instead.

My eyes roll with flattery, "Of course, you are how I am." I laugh, and he nods. "Okay, I won't say I like it here, but I am having a good time near you. I can't believe we will always be together; we don't have to plan video calls." I smile up at him while he takes a sip from his mocktail.

"You're surprised?" His forehead forms creases as he glances over at me. "I knew we were always going to end up sharing a pillow someday. I'm glad it was this soon. I hate that I was a jerk to you yesterday." The upper side of his lips quirks, making me blush.

"Let's leave the past behind and focus on the future," I bashfully bury my face in his chest, and his hand comes behind me, stroking my hair to my scalp. It's relaxing; I could sleep at the gracious works of his fingers.

"I wish I could see the campus first time with you," My mind still can't fathom the idea of driving with Cameron. It's even gotten worse now that he's doing too much.

"You know-" There's a pause. A pause either means excuses or alternatives.

I hope he's trying to find a way to be with me tomorrow.

I bring out my face and lock eyes with him, waiting for what he might say, "Say you will go with me. Let me experience it with you." I beg.

His sad frown deepens. How telling.

"I want that more than anything, my love, but I have to meet with Randy early in the morning and see if I still have a job."

"Just an hour to help me navigate and start wouldn't change anything. We can wake up early," We discussed this for a year now, and he promised to be alongside me on my first campus tour, no matter what school I ended up choosing, even if it was in another dimension, he used to say. Why is he taking that promise back?

"I know, I know." He exhales, closing his eyes guilty. He should be; he just canceled twelve months' plan just hours before. "But any minute is a waste of time if I don't secure a job; there are a lot of people they can replace with."

I am too disappointed to argue and don't have any more energy. I just shift from his arm and nod my brows. "Okay."

"I am so sorry, babe." He leans, staring at my side. "Cam will be with you every step of the way. He goes there too; I would say he knows the map more than me, in fact."

Cam is not who I want. Matter of fact, he's the last person I want next to me.

"Yes, heard you've already got a backup plan." I scoff, looking away. Jake was quiet; it was annoying. I take back my eyes to him. "You know I don't care if you don't know the map around the campus. We could get lost together and wander around like fools until we came around a building we'd passed. That's the whole point of it. I wanted to run to you after I get it all figured out and tell you I am officially a full student of a university. I wanted to have that experience with you, not with someone I don't know."

He held my stare silently, letting the guilt show on his face.

"Why do y'all look like someone died?" Upon hearing that voice, I wipe my eyes and briefly take them down to my water.

The man whore returns with messy hair like he was flushed along with the vomit in the toilet and just found his way through the pipes. He slid into the booth with a ridiculous smirk, and instead of taking among the two extra shots left on the tray, he stole the one from the other girl he left behind with us and did some tongue roll over his lips.

Slut!

"Where's the vomiting girl?" I threw at him trying to change the topic, and his face twisted in puzzlement. It took him a moment of holding my shady stare to process what I meant, as I'd made it clear in my demeanor I wasn't repeating myself.

"Oh, she's somewhere." He looks around the bar dumbfounded, then stretches his arms and rests one on the booth behind the girl left next to him.

"You wanna come look for her?" the girl facing me asked him, from the tease of her tone, I knew she was lying; she had another agenda.

"I better." he shrugged at us, buying her plan. "A moment." he grabbed this girl's hand, slipping out of the booth, just as he did with me in the bar last night.

No! No! What was I thinking? Why did I do it? Why did I have to get drunk? I had Carl to call. I have Mom to call. Why did I ruin everything for myself with this filthy Casanova?

Gaping with a hanging mouth, and teary eyes as I am being pricked with regrets, I watch them take the restroom direction. "This is ridiculous," I exclaimed, giving up on my restraint and dawning the two untouched shots on the tray.

One is a liar, and one is a whore. I swear I will go insane.
What has my life become?