Empty Connections

Chapter Ten

Who the hell am I? And why the hell am I liking these new changes in myself so much? Shouldn't I want to be running in the other direction?

With Christmas growing closer and the holidays a tough time for more people than just one of my best friends, it doesn't seem suspicious to anyone that Cam has been spending more time at the apartment than he normally would. He won't speak on it, but I know he doesn't want to admit just how much this time of year makes his chest ache.

It makes mine pound with pain as well, though not for the same disastrous reasons it does for other, in fact when I take into account everyone else it seems rather dull. There's not really a way to express the feeling in a way that doesn't sound silly, maybe that's why I don't press Cam for his own answers.

If I do, then I raise the likelihood that he will throw the question back at me, and what am I supposed to say when the anger towards his Dad only seems to grow?

That it's the happiness that gets to me? What kind of person does that make me if I admit that the holiday always feels like it is sucking the life out of me and leaves nothing but a shell in its wake. Buying gifts isn't a struggle, I even find it enjoyable but the day, where there is so many people and all their carefully thought-out gifts shoved in your face.

Your expected to smile and take every gift, even if you hate it and especially when it makes your own feel inadequate and then you watch as everyone gets drunk. While sitting around a massive table full of more food than it is ever possible to eat, it's always crowded and loud and it makes me want to crawl away.

What Cam had said to me the other day has stuck around, the longer it pesters me the more I feel like a Grinch, which for the record was only my favourite movie because he hated Christmas. The ending never resonated with me, and I don't mean the part where his heart grows three sizes because I have never had that issue.

Maybe he was right in saying that the large crowds and overly affectionate ways only makes my skin crawl because I spent so long alone, I got too good at self-soothing and so now when someone else attempts I run in the opposite direction.

I didn't dare mention how it stems in another way, that my body is the thing that makes me recoil.

Cameron has become a pleasant distraction from all of that chaos, and I do not mean because of the way he has become a constant in my bed with his mouth on mine. Though it is nice, at the risk of sounding selfish it is what he has given me, that makes my heart give out this confused flutter.

Both him and I have stayed far away from any conversation that regards whatever it is we are doing with each other. I know he doesn't want a relationship, maybe he just wants to help me after I have confided in him but if he says it is about my body then I will be the one to leave first.

What has begun to drive me up the wall is how dedicated he is to taking thing slow, the way his fingers drag along my arm in the lightest caresses only to stop when I shudder.

This morning when he made his way up the stairs and into my room while everyone started getting ready for class and waited for Rosie to finish her day of making breakfast. I was so glued to my book that the thump of his bag hitting the floor made me jump, enough that he laughed when sliding onto my bed.

Panic never seized throat when he gravitated above me, I didn't wiggle my way under the covers as his eyes travelled down my neck to land on my perky nipples that poke through the thin shirt I wore to bed. Despite being long sleeved it isn't the thickest of the material, my retort to blame it on the weather was smothered by his lips.

I've been debating telling him to stop wearing his hair up when he comes to me in the mornings, or when he finds his way back in the evening. Only because it will then remove the fun of me smoothing my hands between his locks and popping it away, he grins into my mouth every time.