Page 46 of The Intimacy of Finding You

Letting people in terrified me. The idea of owing someone a favor made my stomach curdle. But I already owed Crew and Price my entire life and more. What was one more thing? “Yeah, that’d be great if he’s willin’.”

“We’re on our way.”

“Thank you.”

“Hey, Tobi?”

“Yeah?”

“Welcome back. We’re really fucking glad you’re here. And we’re even happier that you’re asking for help instead of trying to do it all by yourself.”

Fishy whined from my lap as tears of my own dripped into my beard and mustache. “Yeah. It feels good to be back.”

chapter twenty-two

Twelve Years Ago

It was time. I’d put off telling him the story for too long, and though he’d been understanding with all my flaws, Callum didn’t understand the why. Why Crew and I were so close, or why I was so distraught when he ran during the snowstorm. He knew something had happened, but not at length.

While Crew sought therapy to heal and seemed to get better day by day, I sat in the dark and waited for things to get better by themselves. And they weren’t. I didn’t think our relationship could really go anywhere until I told him, either. We were close. We were in love. But how deep could that love go if I didn’t let him truly understand me? I’d gotten permission from Crew to explain. All I had to do was tell Callum.

My chest felt tight. No matter how much I wanted to tell him, no matter how ready I thought I was, it still hurt. The words still felt like molten lava on my tongue, and no amount of water could make the burning sensation stop.

The door opened as Callum walked through, a big smile on his face when he spotted me. “Hi, baby.”

I wished I could return his smile. “Hi.”

His eyebrows came together, and he started to walk slower, approaching the couch almost cautiously. “Is everything okay?”

It was time. Time to spill one of my secrets. The others could wait. “Um, no. Not really. I…I wanna talk about somethin’, but it’s real hard to talk about.”

“Okay. Where would you like for me to sit?”

Always so understanding. Always so caring. Even if I didn’t deserve it for how much I kept secret from him, he always thought of my comfort first, no matter what. “Can you sit over there? If I feel comfortable later on, you can sit beside me.”

“No problem. Just let me know.” He took a seat on the small chair off to the side.

I’d been waiting for him to come home. He’d been visiting with Grandpa Stanton and helping him fix something at his house. “You remember the snowstorm when Crew ran off?”

“Of course. How could I forget? That was terrifying.”

“Yeah. It was. I know I was upset, and I’m sure you could tell there was somethin’ more to it than just me bein’ worried about him.”

Callum tilted his head and shrugged. “I kind of thought so. You seemed really worked up, but I didn’t want to press until you were willing to say something to me.”

I huffed a short laugh, trying to stave off the churning in my gut. A flash of heat swept over my face and up my back as my fingertips started to tingle and almost went numb. “I’m the reason he ran off. Er, well, not really. It ain’t my fault, he says. But I told him somethin’ that really freaked him out, and that’s why he ran.”

He leaned back in the chair, nodding along as he listened. He was being patient with me. So patient, despite me being such a mess.

I could do this. It was time. Looking down at my hands, I tried to distract myself by picking at my fingernails. “For you to get the full story, I had to get permission from him to tell a part of his. For him, it started when he was thirteen, and he went to Tiger Claw Camp for the first time. For me, it happened a couple of years later when I was thirteen, and he was around fifteen. My first and last year at Tiger Claw Camp.” I had to stop, swallowing past the enormous lump in my throat.

I didn’t want to cry, but I hadn’t told this story in a long time. Not since I first told Mom, and she took me home. Even then, I didn’t get to tell many other people about it. The police didn’t pay any mind to my report. I learned not to say anything in the future because of how little everyone had listened to me.

Taking a deep, shaky breath, I closed my eyes and let the memories form as the tears built up. “There was this camp counselor named Mr. Thompson. Well, he had us just call him Thompson. Anyway, Crew had invited me to…to spend time with ‘em in Thompson’s lodge. When I got there, I found out why Thompson made us keep it a secret.” I could still smell it. The way the lodge smelled like wood, pine, and paint with a hint of Dubble Bubble Bubblegum. “Crew had taken years of Thompson’s abuse, and Thompson wanted me to be a part of it, too. I was his next victim. He did real bad things to us, Cal. Real bad things. Crew handled it for longer than I did, and I don’t have no idea how 'cause it about broke me.” I stopped myself, opening my eyes as tears started to fall. “Hell, it did break me. Crew had to take me back to my room and tuck me in, and I didn’t speak for a long time. I knew what it was—I knew it was abuse. I told Crew that, but he didn’t believe me back then, and who could blame him? He was just a kid, like I was. He just didn’t know what I did.”

When I looked up, Callum looked blurry. I had to swipe some of the tears out of my eyes to see he was crying almost as much as I was. His hands wrung together in his lap, and his knuckles were going white. “Did he…” His lower lip trembled. “He touched you guys?”

I nodded slowly. “Yeah, Cal. Touched us. Beat us. All in the name of teachin’ us some sorta lesson? I don’t know. He was fucked up. Crew was so brainwashed by the time this happened, he thought it was for his own good. Both of our good.” Sometimes, when I looked down at my legs, I could still see the blood.