“W-what?”
“Wait, what?” Cameron asks, spinning around to give me big, pleading eyes. I can tell that he wants it, that he’s desperate for it, but he’s scared.
“I willnotbe kept from my son!” Sheryl screams, her eyes narrowing once more. James stands taller, as if he’s meant to intimidate someone.
Funny.
“If you insist on being a pest, then I’ll get him a new phone number,” I tell her, shrugging. “I will buy him a whole newphoneif I have to. I’m rich, remember?”
I give her my own sickly sweet smile.
“Atticus,” Cameron says softly, his eyes darting between me and his mother as he trembles.
“Pack, sweetheart. We’re done here.”
“Like hell you are! He ismyson! He supports me,” Sheryl spits out.
But my attention is on Cameron. I don’t care to pay mind to pests.
“You’re done living this way,” I promise him. “I’ll take care of you from now on.”
Something breaks inside of Cameron; a wall, a dam, his heart. I’m not sure. But tears flood his eyes, and he nods once.
“Cameron, I swear to god, if you try to leave, you will regret it,” his mother threatens.
James stands even taller.
“Cameron,” I interject, and his eyes flicker back to me. “Who makes your decisions? Who controls your every move?”
“You do,” he whispers, awed. Like I’m bigger than any problem he’s ever faced, like I’m his savior, like I’m a god.
“Then pack.”
He rushes off, heading into one of the rooms in the back to get his things. Some sick part of myself knows that if I follow, I’ll recognize the space even as it’s my first time actually stepping foot in this house.
Sheryl continues to wail, calling me every name in the book and shouting at her son; she tells him he can’t go, that his father would be so disappointed in him.
And it makes me sick. Whereishis father?
Cameron finally returns, a backpack hanging from his shoulder and a small duffel bag in hand.
“Ready?” I ask him, and he nods.
“No! You can’t just—this isn’t right! James, stop him,” Sheryl demands.
The fucker makes it one step before I have Cameron shoved behind me, a sneer firmly in place.
“Touch him again, and I’ll bury your body where no one will ever find it. And if they do? I’ll pay for them to forget. Understand me? Fuckingnodif you understand what I’m telling you.”
With wide, terrified eyes, James nods once.
“What?!You can’t just do this!” Sheryl cries. “Cameron! Cammy, listen, baby. Don’t abandon me, don’t leave me to rot all alone!”
I turn, catching it as Cameron’s face falls, overwhelmed with guilt. But before I can speak, before I can tell her to back off, he sniffles and peers around my shoulder.
“Goodbye, Mom,” he says quietly. “I do love you. But you haven’t loved me since the day Dad died, and I refuse to continue being your punching bag.”
I rest a hand on the small of his back and escort him out.
