Page 73 of Hot Damn
“She did.” He swallows. “And she died there.”
Beckett
Idon’t know why I told Cami about Whit’s mother. I’ve never told anyone other than Mama Dot, the policeman that interviewed me, and the judge.
People know of course. Most of the police force in the town I went to high school in. And then there were the kids I went to school with. They had to speculate I was the one involved when Catrina Hooper was arrested and marched out of the school, because I disappeared the same day.
“I’m not a victim.”
Cami’s eyes widen further and indignation floods her face. “You most certainly are!”
“No, I’m not. I get that she took advantage of a kid, but I was mature beyond my years due to living with a crack-whore most of my life. I was in love with her.”
“Bullshit!” Cami pushes to her feet. The fire in her eyes blazing at me. “At that age you don’t know what love is. I can imagine exactly how it happened. She showed you attention and you soaked it up because you didn’t have it.”
“I’m not a victim.” The phrase is stuck on a loop in my head.
“Not…” Her head cocks to the side and she studies me. “No. You’re right. You’re not a victim. You’re a survivor. You’re a miracle. And your daughter is tribute to that.”
“I...” She rounds the counter and walks right up to me until her slippers are brushing the tips of my toes.
She’s a good bit shorter than me, maybe five inches or so, which means our height difference isn’t that bad. I still have to tip my head down and she has to tip hers up to make eye contact. “I want to hug you.”
“O-kay.”
Her arms are around me, squeezing tight as she turns her head and presses her cheek against my shoulder. “I want to say sorry. Sorry that that happened to you, and I wish it hadn’t but then there would be no Whitney and that would be more of a tragedy than how she was conceived.”
“She’s the silver lining in the biggest mistake of my life. Which is why it wasn’t really a mistake.”
I slip my arms around her back and pull her a little closer. I don’t want to hold her too tight, don’t want to press on any of the fifty million bruises dotting her side and back.
With my chin resting on her head I say, “I’ve never told anyone. Not since the trial, and I only ever told the story three times.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Nothing to say. It is what it is.”
“Will you ever tell Whitney?”
“Yes. When she’s older. I thought maybe after she finishes college but recently I’ve been contemplating telling her on her eighteenth birthday.”
“When she’s legally an adult.”
“Yes.”
“I won’t tell anyone.”
“Didn’t think you would.”
“But I think maybe you should tell Nat.”
My head jerks up and my arms loosen. “What? Why?”
She holds on tight but tips her face up to look at me. “Don’t get angry. First let me ask you a question.”
I can’t work out what she’s thinking and while my gut is screaming “shut this shit down and end the conversation” I have to give her the benefit of the doubt because she’s proven to be on our side time and time again.
With a hard swallow, I say, “Go ahead.”
