Beneath

37 DARK SIDE

NOAH

Hard to look at. My face.

It hurts like hell, like it's going to tear me apart from the inside. "You've never been hard to look at, Camila."

She drives the axe into the chopping block and turns around. There's defiance in the way she stands.

"Cam—"

"Don't you dare apologize to me. You don't get to feel sorry for me."

I swallow hard, my throat dry and tight. "I just—"

"You can't fix it. Can't make it better."

She's right. God, she's right, but I want to so fucking badly.

Charlie darts around, dropping the tennis ball at Cam's feet. She hurls it far into the snowy field. He bolts after it, a blur of black and white against the powder.

"Cam," I whisper, my voice barely holding together. "John told me about you—"

"Dying? And what did it do for you? Make you understand? Or are you standing there," she lifts the axe and points it at me, "looking at me like I'm still that scrawny kid whose heart gave out in the cold water?"

"It made me feel sick," I choke out. "And angry, like I want to tear the whole goddamn world apart."

The icy air whips through her hair, tossing the dark curls around her shoulders. I don't know what she's looking for as she assesses me, but I hope she finds it.

"You can't feel it for me," she says finally, her voice breaking. "No one can. It's mine."

"But I can be here," I insist, my voice firm. "I can be here, right beside—"

"Stop," she says, embedding axe back into the wood. "You still don't get it. I hid everything because I wanted to keep you as I was. I was better with you, don't you get it? But now you know it wasn't real, and you can't fix me!"

"I'm not trying to fix you!" I shoot back, hitting my temple with my palm. "Why is that so fucking hard to understand?"

"I don't want you here!" she cries, rushing forward. She pushes me, hard, her palms slamming against my chest. I ease back, the snow crunching under my boots. "Stop pretending like you know what I need. You don't know anything about what it was like. You don't know how it feels to be me. Your mom is perfect! No one hurt you!"

"I'm trying to understand—"

"I don't want you to understand!" She hits me again, so I gently take her wrists. "I don't want you to see me like this, Noah. Please."

"Like you're hurt? Like you're human?"

"Like I'm weak!" she yells, breaking away from me. She swipes at her face, smearing the tears across her cheeks. "I just want to go back to how it was!"

"I'm not leaving you," I say again, my voice cracking. "You think any of this changes things? I'm in love with you."

"I lied to you for months! I haven't even told you the worst part! It wasn't him trying to touch me. It wasn't the punches or the kicks or-or when the bruises welts looked like flowers and made me sad. Not my mother spitting at my feet for tempting him. It wasn't when I had to skip school because teachers started asking why I was always crying. Those weren't the worst parts."

My chest feels like it's been hit with a sledgehammer. "You can tell me, baby. I'm not leaving you."

She inhales shakily, closing her eyes. "It was the feeling. Fear when it was happening, anger way too late. That rage only came at the right time once. That night, he was drunk driving, and my face was covered in blood because of him. I couldn't breathe because of him. I hated my body because of him. I decided I was done. As he sped over Middlebridge Crossing, I saw the Bell River raging. I'd put my seatbelt on. He never did."