The Switch: An Allstar Weekend Fanfic

Chapter Twenty-Three

A/N Don't hate me. I love you guys.

“Zach, are you okay?”

Cameron sighed. This was the fourteenth time she’d asked him that in the past four hours on the plane. “I told you Abby, I’m fine.” He didn’t even look at her when he said it. Ayn Rand was begging for him to finish Anthem before they landed, but it was hard to focus on the book with Abby’s constant worry sitting beside him.

“You’ve been extremely distant all morning. I thought you’d be excited to go back home!” Cameron glanced at her. Her face was hopeful. Abby wanted desperately to engage him in some kind of conversation, but he just wanted to be alone.

“I am happy to go home, I just need some time to unwind a bit with a book,” he said, hoping to satisfy her.

It didn’t work. “Unwind from what?”

Cameron tried not to sigh or roll his eyes, but he couldn’t tell how well he actually stopped himself. “From the week.”

Abby misinterpreted his words. “Was there something wrong with my family?” Her tone was protective, fierce. Cameron had only heard her use that sort of tone a few times since he’s known her: the day she stood up to him and he switched bodies with Zach, that first week of the switch and they fought constantly, and at Danielle’s party when she’d punched the curly-haired girl in the face. Cameron decided to tread carefully.

“Of course there’s nothing wrong with your family, they were great.” She didn’t look entirely convinced, so he added, “I had a really great week Abby, seriously. It was probably the best week I’ve had in a long time.” That was mostly true, especially since lately at his own house he’d been getting a lot of abuse from his best friends about something he couldn’t control. It had been amazing to be relatively alone with a girl he was crazy for; up until the end with that awful dream that still plagued him, hours later.

“Well then I don’t understand what you’re recovering from.”

“Don’t be mad please. I’m not trying to ignore you, I swear.”

“So tell me what’s going on.”

For the first time in nearly five months, Cameron was annoyed with her. She was rarely so pushy, and he really just needed her not to be right now.  “I don’t want to talk about anything, okay? There’s nothing going on, I’m just trying to read a book.”

Abby was quiet for a minute. When she continued not to say anything, Cameron looked at her. Her expression was a mix between frustration and understanding. She wanted to give him his space, but had thought that they were past the point of hiding things. And it was obvious he was hiding something.

Eventually she muttered, “Fine,” and put in a pair of headphones. Cameron could faintly hear the song playing, but didn’t recognize it. A relieved sigh escaped him and he tried turning his attention back to the book in his hands.

Five minutes later though, he was staring out of the window past the elderly person sitting next to him.

“You ought to be a little nicer to a girl like that,” the old woman said, breaking him out of his thoughts.

Cameron gave her a cursory glance before replying, “With all due respect, you don’t necessarily understand the situation.”

She smiled like he’d said something worthwhile. “Try me,” she croaked out in her friendly old-lady voice.

He couldn’t resist smiling at her spunk, but checked to make sure Abby was absolutely not eavesdropping. If he was going to tell a complete stranger about his life, he couldn’t have her listening in. Telling himself that the only reason he was talking to this woman was because no one at home would really listen to him, Cameron started his story.