Same Time

sixteen.

j a i m e e

+

It's been four years since that night and I still put the shower on full blast to try and wash his touch away. The smell still lingers in my nose, reminding me of the sheer panic and terror that I felt. The feeling of not being able to breathe.

There's so much I want to say to him.

First and foremost, I'd ask why. A part of me has accepted that I'll never get an answer for it and, in all honesty, nothing that Cameron would say could ever justify doing that to me. As far as I'm concerned, he can never find an excuse for doing that to me because rape is the only crime that can never be justified, there is no reason.

Sometimes, I swear I can still feel him. Touching me, inside of me. When my eyes shut, there's a constant pressure on me and I know it's him. That's the scariest part, the possibility of never being able to forget.

I hate myself for it, but I find myself wondering how Cameron interprets it all.

Does he hate himself for what he did to me? Does he regret it? And if so, does he regret it because he hurt me or because it got him put in jail?

When I heard that guilty verdict, I swore the entire world around me stopped. The birds stopped singing, the earth stopped spinning. For even a split second, everything halted and it was just me and him in that room. When I pictured that day in the months leading up to the trial, I was laughing. I felt like I'd finally be free of him. But I'm not. Four years later and it still haunts me. Four years later and I still desperately wish that my screams haunt him the same way they haunt me. It still feels raw, like an open wound that's not quite closed over.

Shayden found out two weeks ago. He'd dropped me off home that night, left me with a kiss to my forehead and I hadn't heard from him since.

I texted, called, left voicemail after voicemail. I even went as far as asking Tory and Taylor to get him to phone me, but they'd not heard off him either.

Regret was prominent in my mind, I was angry at myself for allowing him to realize. How could I have expected him to react well? To not see me and be disgusted?

Someone else had touched me in a way that he thought only he had before.

A loud crash echoed throughout my apartment and just as I went to shout, Libbie stumbled into my bedroom breathless.

"I'm having a problem."

"Let me guess, you caused it?"

Taylor arrives then, pushing past Libbie quite aggressively and handing me a chocolate milkshake and Libbie a strawberry one.

"Apparently, Libbie has a problem." I mutter to him, causing him to sigh exaggeratedly.

"Give me an hour or two before telling me, I'm not drunk enough to deal with her shit yet."

"Basically, there's this hot dude working at the nursery now and I need to find a way to fuck him before he realizes how shit it is and leaves." Libbie explains, sipping her milkshake with a pout.

"That sounds a lot like child endangerment to me, Campbell." Taylor deadpans.

"I hate you." She says, the expression on her fact not faltering for even a second. "I'm having an existential crisis and you think milkshakes will solve it!"

"Well, I have a better idea." Taylor hums, raising his eyebrows at her.

"No you don't, Taylor." I butt in, scoffing. "History has proven that many times."