Page 64 of Coiled Tight
This time, there wouldn’t be any nearby service stops, so I contented myself with squeezing the wheel a bit tighter. Maybe I pressed on the gas a bit, too. The road was pretty empty, anyway.
“I think I don’t want to get close to people and fuck things up again, but I alsowantpeople to like me, so it ends up being messy.” He ran a hand through his hair as he lifted his feet to the edge of the seat, knees wrapped close to his chest. “And that’s when I’m not scared of them, because what if they realize what a fuckup I am, and they have something to say about it? Because, like, I would.”
“Cam…”
“And,” he pushed forward, “now I did the thing I wasn’t supposed to do, which was find a Daddy or get involved with one because this was supposed to be me facing the consequences of my very unforgivable actions, but I’m clearly a shitty, selfish person, and… You know. I just don’t think I’m the right person for this. Any of it.”
I sighed, fingers setting a random rhythm against the wheel. I wanted to give him an answer fast, before he could ramble more or get deeper in his head and those kinds of thoughts. I just wasn’t sure what.
I was used to rambling and dark thoughts, thanks to Roy, but… The memory of Roy was precisely why I found myself thinking each word carefully, treading through calm waters I knew didn’t stay calm for long.
“Do you know why I keep my distance from the other ranch hands?”
Cam frowned, shifting until his side pressed against the seat. It wouldn’t be a great look if we were stopped at any point, but I didn’t have it in me to give him shit about it right this minute.
“Because you’re a bit of a hermit?”
I snorted. “It was a rhetorical question, darlin’.”
“Right.”
I shook my head. “There was a guy I knew from school. He spent most weekends volunteering with me. After school, there was no question that he’d move in with me.”
“Oh.” Cam shuffled on his seat. “You were like, high school sweethearts?”
Why did everyone go there whenever I tried to talk about him?
“No.” I licked my lips. The word rang wrong in my head, albeit true. The image of him in my head had started to fade around the edges. I’d never been good at visualizing shit, but it still hurt. Both seeing him and knowing I was losing out on the details. “He had it rough at home. Got diagnosed with BPD right before graduating. I was always the one who protected him, I guess? Tried to.”
“Okay.” Cam nodded. “You’re very protective.”
“Right.” The irony wasn’t lost on me, but it wasn’t a conversation to have withhimright now. “Things were fine at first. They all knew him, after all. He’d spent weekends around the refuge for years by that point.”
I took a deep breath before I continued. “Then, he had a couple of meltdowns. Y’know, adjusting to a new routine,people he was interacting with every day instead of just during the weekends, and like… the stress of caring for the new animals arriving and everything. The thing is, people learned he had BPD, and it was still fine, but some grew warier around him.”
Fuck.
I was fucking this up badly. It was a tough reflex to curb, the need to defend Roy, to absolve him of all responsibility. That was all I’d ever done.
“He started to get worse.” I cleared my throat. The road wasn’t the best place for this particular confessional. I supposed I could blame Cam, say I was following his footsteps. “He ended up convincing himself everyone looked at him weird, that everyone wanted him out of the sanctuary, and I was the one who had to stand up for him.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
It was a good question.
“It’s the reason why there’s a distance between the guys and me.” I sighed. “Dwight says the distance is on me, that they all stopped blaming me years ago, but I’m still punishing myself for it, I guess.”
“Why? What happened?”
“It just kept escalating.” I drummed my fingers against the wheel. “Shit hit the fan, and it was bad. Putting animals and other workers at great risk bad. Almost shutting us down bad. And I didn’t respond well. I was too biased.”
“Because he was your friend?”
“Because I was his Daddy.”
The silence that followed was stifling.
“Whyare you telling me this?”
