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Cam nodded. “It was sophomore year. I hadn’t been home a lot during the summer because I was helping coach a soccer camp in Maryland, but whenever I did go home, my sister… she was acting different. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but she was super jumpy and when she was home, she spent all her time in her bedroom. And apparently she was rarely home according to my parents.”
My stomach sunk as I crossed my legs. I hoped I was wrong and I didn’t know where this was heading.
“My sister, she’s always been this bleeding heart, you know. Picking up stray animals and people, especially stray guys. Even when she was a tiny thing, she always buddied up with the most unpopular kid in the class.” His lips quirked up at the corners. “She met this guy. He was a year or two older than her and I guess their relationship was serious—as serious as they can be when you’re sixteen. Met the kid once. Didn’t like him. And it had nothing to do with the fact he was trying to get with my little sister. There was just something about him that rubbed me the wrong way.”
Cam slid his hands downs his cheeks and then dropped them between his knees. “I was home over Thanksgiving break and I was in the kitchen. Teresa was in there and we were messing around. She pushed me and I pushed her back, on her arm. Not even hard and she cried out like I’d seriously hurt her. At first I thought she was just being dumb, but there were tears in her eyes. She played it off and I forgot about it for that night, but on Thanksgiving morning, Mom had walked in on her in a towel and she saw it.”
I held my breath.
“My sister… she was covered in bruises. Up and down her arms, on her legs.” His hands closed into fists. “She said it was from dancing, but we all knew you couldn’t get bruises like that from dancing. It took almost all morning to get the truth out of her.”
“It was her boyfriend?” I remembered the conversation at the table and Cam’s sudden interest in who she was talking to made sense.
A muscle popped in his jaw as he nodded. “The little fuck had been hitting her. He was smart about it, doing it in places that weren’t so easily noticeable. She stayed with him. I didn’t know why at first. Come to find out that she was too scared of him to break up.”
Cam stood suddenly, and my gaze followed him. He went to the window, parting the curtains. “Who knows how long it would’ve continued if Mom hadn’t walked in when she did. Would Teresa have finally told someone? Or would that bastard just kept hitting her one night and killed her?”
Emotion crawled up my throat as I sucked my lower lip between my teeth.
“God, I was so pissed, Avery. I wanted to kill the fuck. He was beating up my sister and my dad wanted to call the police, but what were they really going to do? Both of them were minors. He’d get his hands slapped and get counseling, whatever. And that’s bullshit. I wasn’t okay with that. I left Thanksgiving night and I found him. Didn’t take much, fucking small town and all. I knocked on his door and he came right out. I told him he couldn’t come around my sister anymore and you know what that little punk did?”
“What?” I whispered.
“He got all up in my face, puffing his fucking chest at me. Told me he would do whatever the fuck he wanted.” Cam barked out a quick, harsh laugh. “I lost it. Angry isn’t even the word to use. I was enraged. I hit him and I didn’t stop.” He turned around, but he wasn’t really seeing me. “I didn’t stop hitting him. Not when his parents came out or his mom starting screaming. It took two police officers to get me off him.”
Oh my God, I didn’t know what to say. As I watched him sit in the moon chair, I couldn’t imagine him hitting someone and not stopping. Not even after seeing how angry he’d been at the guy at Jase’s party.
Cam rubbed his cheeks again. “I ended up in jail and he ended up in a coma.”
My mouth dropped open before I could stop my reaction.
He looked away, lowering his chin. “I’d been in fights before—normal shit. But nothing like that. My knuckles were busted wide open and I didn’t even feel it.” He shook his head. “My dad… he worked his magic. I should’ve gone away for a long time for that, but I didn’t. Guess it helped that the kid woke up a few days later.”
With every passing second, my muscles locked up, one after another.
“I got off easy—not even a night in jail.” Cam smiled, but there was no warmth to it. “But I couldn’t leave home for several months while it got worked out. I ended up with a year’s worth of community service at the local boys’ club and then another year’s worth of anger management. That’s what I do every Friday. My last session is in the fall. My family had to pay restitution and you don’t even want to know how much that cost. I had to stop playing soccer because of the community service gig, but… like I said, I got off easy.”
He had gotten off easy.
Just like Blaine had gotten off easy.
No. I stopped myself right there. These were two different situations—Blaine was a rapist and Cam had beaten the guy who’d beat his sister. What Cam had done was wrong. Violence should never be the answer to violence, but the guy had hurt his sister.
“I understand,” I said, and I realized that even though their situation was similar in a way, it was vastly different. And I was shocked myself. The old me—all she would’ve been able to think about was how both had gotten off because of who they were, who their parents were, and money. But I wasn’t her anymore. And sometimes good people did bad things.
His head swung to me. “What?”
“I understand why you did it.”
Cam stood. “Avery—”
“I don’t know what it says about me, but you were defending your sister and beating the crap out someone isn’t the answer, but she’s your sister and…” And if I had a brother and he’d reacted that way after what happened to me? Well, he would have been my hero, as terrible as that was. “There are some people who deserve an ass kicking.”
He stared at me.
I unfolded my legs. “And there are probably some people who don’t even deserve to breathe. It’s a sick and sad thing to say, but it’s true. The guy could’ve killed your sister. Hell, he could have beaten some other girl to death.”
Cam continued to stare at me like I’d sprouted a second nose. “I deserve to be in jail, Avery. I almost killed him.”
