Disclaimed.
Summary: Things don't return to normal. They never do after these sorts of things. Instead, everyone just plays a bigger game of pretend.
Author's Note:I have been working on this one for a very long time. I believe that I started this immediately after I finished the most recently released book (which was almost immediately after the book was released). I've read and read over this so many times and have added things over time. The ending isn't exactly what I envisioned, but I never really think about endings. I just usually follow the writing. I tried to end this one more happily, even though the story could still be considered dark. However, no one dies.
I usually write pieces and take from pieces and add to others until I develop a story, so some things that appear in here might have appeared in others. I don't believe so, but I've reread this so many times that I believe that I've written it somewhere else.
Anyway, I hope that you enjoy this story, and please leave me some feedback and tell me what you think! I love reading your reviews!
Smile
introduction
Things don't return to normal.
They never do after these sorts of things. Instead, everyone just plays a bigger game of pretend.
one
It's not an amazing moment the first time she sees Zach after she tries to jump off the roof of the Gallagher Academy.
They don't kiss, or hug, or even touch. There are no professions of love. They've both been a little too hurt, a lot too scarred, and altogether jaded by the summer and the fall.
All they do is share a look, which is her telling him that she is fine, just fine, and him telling her that no, she is not.
two
Her mother returns to Gallagher, the same, but different.
She cries often, in the seclusion of her office, but Cammie still catches her more times than she ever deemed possible.
Her smiles, too, take a bit more effort, and her happiness is fleeting, relying on an innocent girl who no longer exists and a family that has too many missing pieces to ever be placed back together.
three
Abby leaves again after staying longer than anyone ever expected. But this time, there's a promise to return.
She's been healed a little by these adventures but scarred too.
As winter break comes to a close, she wraps her scarf around Cammie's neck for safe keeping and takes off speeding from the McHenry castle in a limousine that looks to be driven by Townsend, chasing an undoubtedly bright future.
Good for her, Cammie thinks. Good for her.
four
Macey, Bex, and Liz still flinch a little whenever she moves unexpectedly. They crack jokes when her eyes cloud over and try to help her forget the ghosts of her past.
But there's no forgetting it. It's the elephant in the room. It's the looks that they give her. They don't look at her the same way. Everything's different now. They've grown, but on different pathways.
Their friendships with her are pieced together with a Band-Aid, but the Band-Aid doesn't take away the pain.
They used to know her, but now they're just struggling to keep up.
Along with every other thing in her life, there's a timer in the background, counting down the minutes for everything to fall apart.
five
And Joe, Joe's the only one who has never looked at her differently.
But he doesn't stay around for that long. She doesn't think he can. He comes in and goes out just as he pleases, staying never more than a week.
She doesn't understand it.
She doesn't know who or what, he runs from, or who he's coming back for, but she wonders.
six
Zach is even worse than him, gone for longer than he is there. He's running from her and to something else out there. She doesn't wonder.
She doesn't want to know.
There's always this look in Joe's eye when he disappears again, and then there's always this pain in her chest.
She sometimes entertains the idea that she's in love with him.
However, it's only a matter of time before he disappears and doesn't return. Just like her, there's a time limit on him too, and she realizes that his is about to run out.
He was always destined to break her heart.
seven
Then, he stops coming back.
There's a search, but she doesn't bother looking.
She can feel him, out there somewhere, where he was meant to be.
She's happy for him; she really is.
She's locked up within those ivy walls, and once again, he's free.
It's strange, she thinks, how they've come full circle.
eight
In Zach's absence, she begins to notice it.
Everyone goes insane on the search for him, but she's there in one of the forgotten passageways of Gallagher, numb to her very core with that thought on her mind.
She's on a tight rope, in the center ring at the circus. She's losing her balance, but there's no net below.
nine
When it begins, she doesn't know. Maybe it was when she was that little girl with her babysitter while her parents when to that ball undercover, or when she successfully followed her father around the mall to find what Christmas present she would receive.
Maybe, maybe it was much later, when she was standing on the pier of Mr. Solomon's cabin at the lake with Macey McHenry, grateful to be alive.
And maybe it's when she's realizes that she's no longer a girl but not yet a woman, lost and broken, bleeding on the floor with no white knight in sight.
She doesn't know when the end began or when the fates, or whatever higher power, decided that she was destined to live a tragedy.
Sometimes, she wonders what she could have done to stop it.
ten
Cameron Morgan walks into the great foyer of the Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Woman as she had done many, many times before.
This time, however, the magnificent castle no longer looks so overwhelming. She had been outside these walls into the world that she had chosen, and she had survived.
Her sisters flood in around her, but she stands still, as she should have done all along, and notices things.
She notices the youngest girls and their excitement and their anxiety. She notices the oldest girls, her classmates, who were more experienced, but just as excited. Then, she notices her group of friends, the ones who were going to leave the most experienced spies that had graduated from Gallagher.
Lastly, she notices all of the girls noticing her.
If only they knew.
She looks over the room of the only home that had ever truly been hers and frowns.
The room is bubbling with excitement.
But she only feels numb.
eleven
"You're graduating in two weeks," her mother murmurs to her over Sunday dinner. Cammie picks up a burnt piece of frozen pizza, grimaces, and puts it back down.
She looks up to her mother. "Yes, I am."
"The Circle has been destroyed."
Cammie nods. She took part in the destruction.
"We've found…" Her mother trails off, but they both knew of whom she was speaking.
She looks back down at her pizza and gingerly takes a bite to distract her from the conversation.
Her mother sits beside her on the couch and places a hand on her knee.
"You don't have to follow in our footsteps. You can…"
Cammie looks up.
"…Go to college, have a normal life…"
She looks down again.
twelve
On graduation day, Zach shows up.
He grabs her hand and leads her to one of the tunnels that lead nowhere.
He pushes her against the wall, kissing her.
When they break apart, she whispers, "We can run away."
"No," he murmurs, kissing her hair. "We can't."
He knows.
The conversation was never about running away from their family.
He kisses her again, and although they don't speak, she can hear the goodbye.
thirteen
She walks across the stage. She sees her friends who have already passed and the ones who are about to. She looks over the crowd. The Baxters are there, the McHenrys, Preston, Liz's parents and siblings, her grandparents. She sees Abby and Townsend by her side. She continues, unsurprised.
She walks past her mother, calling out the names at a podium in center stage, and looks over her teachers sitting in the front row. She takes her diploma from Professor Buckingham, who hugs her tightly.
She turns slightly, to return to her seat, and catches Mr. Solomon's eyes, in the back of the ballroom, leaning against the wall.
She tilts her diploma towards him.
Her eyes glance over the room again. People are smiling, laughing.
He doesn't smile.
fourteen
She leaves Gallagher, gets on a plane, and goes to Italy.
She goes to the meadow, where her father had been for so many years. He wasn't there, anymore. His body was in Nebraska now, in the grave where he was always supposed to be.
She walks around it, once, twice. She walks in the cabin, finds the initials carved in the mortar between the stones, and traces them with her fingers.
She sinks to the floor where a cot once was and rests her head against the wall.
She cries.
fifteen
The worse part about destiny is that one can never avoid it.
She drives through the checkpoints. The men smile at her and nod, waving her through. She parks and walks in the large building, made almost entirely of glass.
She passes several people she knows: some nod in acknowledgment, some smile, some speak. She responds appropriately.
She flashes her badge at the entrance, goes down the same white hallway, and finds the same white office.
Everything was always so bright.
She winces.
"Ms. Morgan," the man behind the desk blinks in surprise. "Back already."
She nods and tosses a flash drive on his desk.
She leans against the doorway and crosses her arms, imitating her aunt.
"What next?"
Her boss looks at her, a mild sense of pride and admiration on his face.
"Well," he motions for her to shut the door. "Have you ever been to Kazakhstan?"
She looks up from the tile she was staring at and smiles.