ghost of you // interracial

007. comfort in grief

Camron's phone vibrated, waking him from his sleep.

It was such a good sleep, too. The kind where you knock out from exhaustion after crying for hours. And he'd been doing that a lot lately, crying himself to sleep. Crying, drinking, and jacking off to the same boring pornos until he passed out. He had hit rock bottom, that was evident.

Too tired to open his eyes, he blindly felt around the mattress until his fingers touched the cool metal of the cellphone lying underneath one of his pillows. He squinted his eyes, trying to adjust to the bright light of the cellphone screen. The caller ID showed a number that wasn't saved, and he didn't recognize it, so he let it go to voicemail. It was probably a telemarketer or something.

Closing his eyes once more, he was just about to fall back asleep when his phone started buzzing again. Groaning in frustration, he grabbed the cellphone and looked at the screen; it was the same unsaved number calling.

"Hello?" He didn't mean to sound so irritated, but it was almost three in the morning and he was exhausted. Mentally and physically, he was fucking exhausted.

"Camron?" He hadn't heard that voice in years. He hadn't spoken to her since she had kicked him out all those years ago.

"Mom?"

He was tempted to hang up on her. Just hearing her voice had his head swimming with a mixture of emotions that he couldn't decipher. He wanted to hate her, but he didn't. He couldn't hate her, not when she sounded so distraught. She'd been crying, he could tell.

"What's wrong? Wh--," sitting up, he tossed the comforter off himself. "Why're... why're you calling me?"

"It's your dad. Th-there was a fight? With his cellmate or something? I don't—I don't know. He's hurt, Camron. They say he's critical and I just can't... I can't be here alone. I need you to come to the hospital, please."

Camron sat there, listening to his mother as she rambled on and on. She sounded drunk, maybe even high. Pulling the phone from where he held it against his ear, his thumb hovered over the 'end call' button.

"Camron? Camron, baby, please. I'm scared," he could hear her frantically calling out for him, her voice distant as he held the phone in the palm of his hand.

It was all too much. He felt like a little kid again, drowning in all the chaos. It hadn't even been a full two weeks since he'd found out about Rebecca and her secretive relationship with his so-called best friend, Matthew. The wounds were still fresh and this? This was like pouring salt and squeezing lime juice all over them.

Still, they were his parents. They weren't, by any means, good parents, but they were still his parents. He needed to be there with his mother; he didn't want to, but it was the right thing. If something were to happen to him, Camron knew that he'd want Adelina there. She was his baby and he was theirs, regardless of all the shitty things they'd put him through. He'd want his daughter there, so he knew that his mom needed him.

Bringing the phone back up to his ear, he could hear his mother as she continued with her slurred ramblings. She was in no condition to be there by herself.

"Mom," he sighed, running a hand through his unruly curls. "I'm on my way."

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The last time Camron had seen his father had been in the prison yard, a week before his release. He knew his father was there, walking the halls and eating in the same prison cafeteria, but Camron had made sure to keep his distance from him.

He wanted nothing to do with his father and all the things attached to his father, but he was Bobby's son and that meant more than Camron could bargain for behind those bars.