The Desired Effect ~ Cameron Liddell

Chapter 15. "Las Vegas NV"

I woke up with a jolt and looked around. The shack. In the desert. The usual. I was still on a thin mat. My phone was dead beside me. But the needle that was across the room from me on my last visit was right beside me. The glowing blue in my wrists was enough to light the way. I felt I was doing something I shouldn't be doing, like a child who just broke a window. And I knew I liked it. I grabbed the needle beside me and injected whatever was left. Being alone in the middle of the desert no longer scared me half to death. I used the glowing pastel blue to light the space around my legs. I was skinnier. Much, much skinnier. Wearing black ripped fishnets now. I moved my arms back so I didn't have to see. I tried to stand up - trickier this time, but I managed to walk outside. The same as always. The sun was beginning to rise. Nothing in sight but dry desert. "Naomi." It was Cameron. I looked around again but found nothing. "I miss you. Baby. When are you gonna wake up?" I looked all around for him. I couldn't even feel him close.

"When are you gonna come home?" It changed to my mother's voice - it sounded like she was crying. "We miss you, baby. When will you come home to us? Your father and I still miss you every day."

"Stop." I said, my feeling of calmness fading quickly. Even the high can't block that out.

"You're brother's not doing well. He misses you so much."

"We all miss you so much." It was Kier's voice. I almost didn't recognize it at first, it had been so long since I thought about him at all. "You abandoned us. Left us as soon as you found something better. Don't you know how much that hurt us?"

"Stop!" I screamed. "You all hated me!"

"I loved you, Naomi. And you left me for a band. You left me for sickness and addiction."

"No." I muttered, raking my fingers through my hair as I kept looking around. The voices seemed to just be in my head. "You all wanted to get rid of me. Addiction and sickness is better than whatever I had before. I love Cameron. I love all of them. And they love me. You never did!" I was defending myself to myself, I knew that, but I had to. The other me was a horrible liar.

"We just miss you." I heard the collective sounds of my parents, brother, and Kier crying at once. "Please come home, Nomes. We want you home."

I woke up with a jolt and looked around. Darkness. "What's wrong?" Cameon whispered and wiped my wet cheeks with his thumb. "Another dream?"

"About my family." He raised an eyebrow.

"That's not good."

"They were crying. Telling me to come home. That they love and miss me." I wiped my entire face roughly.

"You know that's not true. You were so unhappy there. They made you unhappy. They don't miss you, Naomi. You saw what happened. They don't love you like we all love you here."

"I know." Weeks before tour started I found pictures of my family from just after I left. They were all in Cuba. They didn't care that I left. They were celebrating it. I knew they didn't miss me, or care. They didn't love me at all. And I knew I was better off without them. But they should have cared, and I should have missed them, so it hurt anyway. Sometimes Cameron and I got so wrapped up in hating them that I felt like it snowballed into something much worse than it ever really was to begin with. I wouldn't argue, but when we were talking about it with a particular passion I almost wanted to defend them. After seeing their faces again in my dream, I knew that was not true. It dug up every horrible feeling I ever had in my childhood home as if I packed them all into a bag that I lugged around everywhere I went.

"But it still hurts." He whispered, moving a piece of hair out of my eyes.

"It doesn't matter. I'm happy here. You're all I want. I just want to be here." He smiled slightly. "Come on, let's go for a smoke." So we climbed out of the bunk as quiet as we could, put on shoes, and went outside. We were in our new destination - Vegas - but it was still early morning. An hour that I thought shouldn't have existed. We lit out cigarettes and sat down on the curb in front of the bus in an empty parking garage. The sun was weakly shining through the giant concrete walls. I made note of the No Smoking sign we were blatantly ignoring. Cameron put his warm arm around me and kissed my head. Though the bad feelings faded with time, and I moved on, Cameron's embrace made everything better.