6
"Do you want something to drink?" I glance at where Cami sits on the couch behind me. "Renée has a kettle in here if you want tea, or I can go steal something out of Lin's dressing room, he always has juice boxes."
"Tea would be great Pippa, thanks!" I nod and switch on the kettle. "This is so cute!" She looks around the room that has become my second home. "You share this with Jasmine and Renée?" I nod.
"Though honestly, Anthony is in here so much with Jazz that his name might as well be on the door too." She giggles. "Do you want honey in your tea?"
"Yes please." I hand her the steaming mug as I sit down next to her. "Hey, Cami?"
"Mhmm?" She responds as she blows on her tea. I take a deep breath.
"How did you get that bruise on your jaw?" As the words come out of my mouth, I see her tense, almost spilling the mug she holds. She starts to mumble something about being a klutz when I interrupt her. "Not some BS excuse, Cam. I'm worried about you." I place my hand on the uninjured side of her face and tilt her chin up, forcing her to make eye contact with me.
"Cami. Did someone hit you?" Her eyes well up with tears and I see her hands start to shake as she nods almost imperceptibly. I quickly take the still-hot mug out of her hands and scoot closer to her, wrapping my arms around her as the tears turn into full on sobs. I hold her close to me as her whole body shakes with fear and pain that no teenager should ever know. The wet spot I feel on my shoulder grows as sobs wrack her body, and I feel tears welling up in my own eyes at the thought of anyone hurting her.
After a while, Cami's tears slow to a trickle and her breathing becomes more controlled. I hand her a tissue and take her hands in mine. "So this next part is gonna be hard. I know that, and I wish more than anything that I didn't have to do this, but I need you to tell me what happened." She pulls her hands away from me. "Cami. Please. I just want to keep you safe. I won't let anyone hurt you. I promise." For about a minute, she just sits staring at her hands in her lap, and when she finally speaks it's at a level I can barely hear.
"It was my fault. I forgot to take out the trash."
"Who hurt you Cam?"
"It was Danielle's turn on trash duty yesterday. I always do her chores because she's older and bigger than me, but I wasn't paying attention and I forgot to take out the trash. Danielle lost her free time for this Friday. She was mad, and...yeah." Cami tells me all of this the way a student might recite times-tables: monotone and void of any emotion, but I can tell by how hard she's pressing her lips together that she's desperately trying to keep herself from falling apart again.
"Who is Danielle? Foster sister?" I ask her cautiously. I still don't have the full story.
"She's one of the girls who lives in the home with me. The oldest one."
"You live in a group home?" She nods.
"Not many people want to foster teenagers, so I'm pretty much stuck there until I age out of the system."
"This isn't the first time this has happened, is it? What really happened to your ribs?"
"I tried to stand up to her. I told her I wouldn't steal from Rita, the woman who's in charge of the home. Clearly that was a shitty idea."
"I can't just let this happen to you. We have to tell someone. Rita, or your social worker, or someone!" Cami's face suddenly gets deadly serious and she looks me straight in the eye.
"Pippa. I can't expect you to understand this, but you cannot, under any circumstances, try to do anything about this. Either they won't do anything but give her a warning and Danielle will get pissed and it'll get worse, or I'll get moved to a worse placement. This isn't as bad as it could be, trust me. Pippa. Please. Don't try to make this better." In that moment I see in her eyes weariness and knowledge that don't belong there, and no trace of the teenager who'd been joking with me only an hour before. I pull her back into my embrace, wishing there was something, anything I could do to make this better.
"I'm so sorry Cami. You deserve so much more than this."
"It's okay. I'll be okay." She looks at her phone. "Shit! Okay I have to go. Like, now."
My heart plummets. She has to go back there, and there's nothing I can do about it. "I'll walk you to the subway."
When we get to the stop, I press money into her protesting hand. "Take it. Buy a MetroCard. Stop walking everywhere before you freeze to death." I give her one last hug, trying to fill it with all the things I can't figure out how to say. "Be safe, and TEXT ME. I'll see you soon."
"Bye Pip! I will, promise," and she disappears underground.
~
That night at work, true to my word, I don't tell anyone what I'd found out from Cam. Daveed notices I'm upset, but chalks it up to Steven and doesn't press me. He does, however, spend all of intermission giving me a back massage, which I'm not gonna complain about.
After the show, I text Vanessa, Lin's wife, and ask if we can meet for coffee the next day. I'm determined to keep my promise to Cami, but since Vanessa's a lawyer I figure I can get her perspective on the situation while being assured her confidentiality. She responds fairly quickly and we make plans to meet.
I also spend a fair bit of time on the New York state office of Children and Family services website looking up information on how to become a foster parent. As I search the website, a voice nags in the back of my head. What am I doing? I'm not ready to take care of a child! But then I remember Cami's face as she cried in my arms, and I make my decision. Something had brought the two of us together, and I'm going to do everything in my power to keep her safe.
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The Uncanny Accuracy of Fate
Fanfiction... Camille Beckett and Phillipa Soo have been living only miles apart for years, though their paths have never crossed. It's amazing what a masterclass and a musical can do. Who knows, maybe it's fate!
