A Drop In The Lake

drop the act

    Alessa

We're five minutes into our thirty minute ride back to campus and Cameron and I haven't said a word to each other. I keep feeling his gaze flicker in my direction as if he's trying to figure out what to say.

"Like what you see?" I slur after Cameron looks at me for the eighth time.

"Do I?" He replies suggestively, drawing a blush to my cheeks.

"What's your game?" I interrogate, irritated by our back and forth.

"My game?" He pauses. "I've got nothing to hide babe, however, I am very interested in getting to know you."

I roll my eyes, wishing for a second he could drop the act. I always get crabby after practice so everyone knows to leave me alone, but Cameron's new so I shouldn't blame him... but I still do.

"Sorry. I just get kinda—" I cut myself off, remembering I don't have to explain myself to this man. I mean — come on — stranger danger. Have I learned nothing?

He looks at me kindly. "I know what you mean. I can get pretty bitchy after practice too." Bitchy? There's a long draw of silence before he continues, "anyways, how long have you been rowing?"

I look at him, incredulously. "Three years. This will be my fourth."

"No way! You started in high school?"

"Yeah," I reply, confused by his reaction.

"It's just, you're really good, so I thought you must've started earlier."

Not sure how to answer his compliment, I supply, "How long have you been rowing?"

His face grows cold at my question and he sits back in his seat. "Since I was nine."

His answer hangs in the air like an unruly spiderweb. "You've been rowing for nine years?" I ask cautiously.

"Yeah." He stalls. "Don't you know who I am?"

My eyes widen. "Excuse me?"

"I mean haven't you ever heard of my parents?"

"Okay. First of all, until today, I had no idea who the hell you were, so why on Earth would I know your parents?"

His expression softens and he shifts closer to me. "Nah. It's nothing."

At that, our conversation falls silent again. I'm left dumbfounded by the way this man's emotions change on a dime. It's like he's on his man period or some shit.

When we return back to campus I basically sprint off the bus trying desperately to get away from Cameron's... everything. I head to the dining hall to grab some grab-and-go dinner and then head back to my dorm and plop onto my bed.

My roommate Dana is hot on my heels, swinging our door open to demand, "What was that?"

I look up at her, startled by her outburst of emotion. Dana is usually very quiet and reserved, but apparently, that doesn't carry over to today? "What do you mean?"

"First you and Brook were whisper-yelling your wet dreams and then I see you sitting, and talking, to the new kid on the bus — who is insanely hot by the way — so you better tell me what is going on."

"Ugh. It's nothing D, I think he's an insanely attractive idiot, and he thinks I should know everything about his life; from his parents to his dick size."

Dana cringes. "Language."

I nod and continue, "he's just new so I just wanted to know who he was. Obviously, it's a self-righteous jerk so you don't have to worry about it."

With that, I hop off of my bed, stuff my dinner into the fridge and move to collect my shower stuff. Noticing my plea to drop the conversation, Dana turns to her desk and sits down to start up on her homework while I make my way to the communal showers we have in our dorm.

I turn on the water, letting it warm up for a few seconds before I step in. When the water hits my face I'm left standing there, questioning everything. 

"Is it really nothing?" My gaze drifts down to the water pooling near the drain.

After I've finished up my shower and gotten dressed, I sit at my desk with my hair wrapped in a towel and my dinner scattered in to-go containers. Dana must have gone to the library while I was in the shower because the room sits empty when I return. I pull my school-authorized laptop out of my backpack and check my Canvas for homework. I tend to complete my work during the school day because I'm already in "work mode" so I have nothing to do tonight. Instead of instantly packing up my laptop and heading to bed to read, I open up google and search "Harvey Cedars High School student directory". When it opens, I scroll down to Cameron's name and click on it, opening up a separate window that tells his parent's name, the name of his advisors and his home phone number. Creepy right? When I find his parent's names, I open another tab and enter their names into the search engine.

I expect to get nothing more than their Facebook pages or something, but when the page loads, I am greeted with a series of article headings: "Two Time Gold Olympic Medalist and One Time Silver Medalist Retire at 33 to 'Start living [their] lives'", "Dante Salvadore Finishes First in 2002 Men's 1x Olympic Races", "Caralyn Salvadore Cox's Women's 8+ to a Silver Olympic Medal", "Son Cameron Salvadore Rows With Father Dante Salvadore", and "Can Cam Keep Up With His Mom and Dad?".

    My eyes flick to each preceding heading, filling my brain with a jumble of thoughts and questions. How I didn't know that his parents were Olympic rowers, I'm not sure, but why do I feel like I'm missing something.

Taking a moment to look away from my screen, I let the clickbait titles settle onto the floor of my brain like leaves off of a tree. As my attention tracks back upward I'm filled with a sense of dread, knowing the burden that is probably unfairly being thrown at his feet.