The city was in that strange limbo where the day-treaders were winding down and the night-walkers were only starting to stir. Cameron enjoyed the unpredictability of that time of day - loved that any type of person and situation seemed not only entirely possible in general, but entirely possible to encounter on his journey to work. He tended to leave the house early so he could take the long way to the offices, winding in-between traffic and watching the people of the city show him morsels of their unique brilliance as their lives touched his briefly.
Even barely being home from dance con for a day didn't stop him from heading out the door twenty minutes sooner than he technically needed to, thoughts on how tired he actually was after the whole week of dancing and late nights and an all-nighter with Camille and a long drive home slowly bleeding out of him as life unfolded before him. A curly redhead ran full-on through the traffic-jammed cars and although some irate people hooted at her, Cameron simply craned his neck to watch her skid to the other side of the street and fall into an old woman's arms. He couldn't see enough to be sure, but he thought both women were crying as they clung to each other.
That was why. He could never put it into words when people asked him the big questions, but seeing life in so many different forms from so many different people and, even more astoundingly and wondrously, being able to play even a small part in all of it and touch it, taste it, breathe it, be touched by it like being soaked in the light of a hundred different suns… That was living. That was why. That was why he did almost everything he did - dance, his job, his friendships, leaving for work early to drive through the city.
After sliding his car into one of his preferred parking spots, Cameron unlocked his glovebox to reach for his office keys. Out fell a piece of paper, limp and soft because of how much Sharpie had been applied to every inch of it. How Camille had managed to slip the note into his locked glovebox without him seeing was beyond him, but he could feel nothing except intense, heartwarming joy and affection at the brightly decorated note.
I was just kidding, you know, Camille's loopy handwriting told him in red. You're actually a 5.5. ;P But you danced as well as this paper is colourful.
Tucking the paper into the safety of his top pocket, Cameron locked his car and then took the elevator right to the roof. He snapped the best shot he could of the last brilliant oranges and pinks in the night sky and the slowly awakening lights, satisfied that the final image looked as beautiful as the real thing.
You danced as well as this scenery is stunning. Miss you, Poppet, he captioned before he hit send.
The feeling of melancholic endearment stayed heavy in his chest as he made his way back down to his floor and then into the massive open-plan office that was as good as his second home. He'd barely sat down when the familiar, tell-tale sound of chair wheels rushing toward him caught his attention, and he lifted his right fist up automatically, grinning as he felt the solid fist-bump connect before the chair whizzed past his desk.
"Are you being punished or something? Since when do you work the graveyard shift?" Cameron said in surprise as Linus wheeled himself back to Cameron's desk jerkily.
"I'm pulling a leaf out of your book - taking some double night shifts on top of my usual six-to-noon so I can take a whole week off next week. Tahiti, dude! Going to Tahiti!"
Cameron made an impressed face and slapped Linus' upraised hand. "I am suitably jealous," he said seriously. "Is this a chance to try and "find yourself" or are you going with your parents?"
Linus twitched his head to the right a little, twisting one corner of his mouth up. "With my parents. They said they're missing me since I moved out. That they need family bonding time." His gaze on Cameron was sharp; hoping fervently that his friend wouldn't show the open scorn he was undoubtedly used to when the topic of his parents came up.
Cameron just shrugged his shoulders easily, noting how Linus' tense shoulders relaxed at the blase response. "Your parents are cool."
"Yeah they are," Linus grinned. "And, oh, hey! They sent some treats we can dig into later. Dad says they're to help with the people who are 'especially troubled' at night. Mom says it's to bribe the boss if he's wavering on who to let swap out for night duty now that it's becoming a popular request."
Cameron turned away from the email he'd been reading in confusion. "Taking the graveyard shift is becoming popular?"
Linus shrugged. "Lots of people want to get two weeks' worth of shifts over in one, I guess."
Cameron's frown deepened. Not only did he worry that this scramble would make Blair shut down the option and thus limit Cameron's chances of attending cons in the future, but he was also disturbed by the news he'd unintentionally started a trend. If not enough people wanted to be on duty, or if they just worked flatout and stretched themselves too far to be at their best at work… He didn't want that to happen at all, let alone to be the cause of it.
"How's Blair taking that?" he asked, voice very cautious and frown still in place.
Linus shrugged one shoulder again. "Blair just wants us to do the correct number of shifts, whether it's one half-day a day or a full nightshift or a half-shift and a nightshift. As long as we still bring our A-game and ignore the telesales guys he's happy."
Cameron relaxed a little, but made a mental note to talk to Blair during his next day shift. He hadn't taken the job because of its strange shift structure, but had found the half-days - or the need to not come into work at all if you'd done a nightshift, which counted as two half-day shifts - to be greatly beneficial to his hobbies. Add to the fact that Blair allowed accumulating work credits so Cameron could take the week off to go hang out with Camille at cons, and it was pretty much the fairytale-perfect job for him. He didn't want to lose that flexibility, if he could help it; didn't want to give up afternoons of teaching dance to elderly people and definitely didn't want to miss seeing Camille as much as possible. But the job itself was also important to him, and if he had to cover some extra shifts to make up for people who wanted days off he'd do it for sure.
"About the telesales guys," he said, changing tracks to a question that had bothered him from the moment he'd walked in. "Why is there suddenly a partition between their desks and ours? When did that get put up? Are we at war now, or do they just not want each group to see the other crying or…?"
"Oh, dude." Linus' face suddenly turned grave. "You missed the biggest shitstorm. Telesales got a new guy while you were away. And they thought it would be funny to haze him by telling him to sit at one of our desks instead of theirs. I dunno how they distracted him from seeing the differences but whatever. So this fourteen-year-old kid calls us because his entire family just died in a freak fire and he's, like, seriously questioning why he should push on and keep on living and this guy picks up the phone instead of one of us and tries to sell him an upgraded family phone package."
"Shit. You're kidding." Horror washed over Cameron, so strong he felt one of his hands gripping the bottom of the desk. He couldn't even bring himself to imagine a scared, lost kid finally plucking up the courage to dial the number for help and getting some nervous salesman on the other end instead. Something deep in his heart ached in sympathy and then in worry; who knew what damage could have been done when the courage to seek help bit this poor kid in the ass. "What happened?"
"Luckily Chelsea was nearby and caught on to the situation. She said she managed to salvage matters. But man was Blair hitting the ceiling. So now there's a partition between us and them."
"I can't believe that actually happened," Cameron murmured fingers running through the tips of his hair as the situation played out in his mind over and over. "Thank the benevolent makers that Chelsea was around."
Conversation petered out after that sombering revelation, and pretty soon the shift officially started and Linus returned to his desk so they could pick up calls as soon as they hit the switchboard. Around midnight, after two of the worst kinds of conversations, Cameron was coaxed into taking a strong coffee and sticky-sweet treat by Linus. They parked their chairs halfway between their desks so each would have an equal distance to have to jump should another call come in. Despite trying very hard to be dignified, both men had sticky fingers, hands and even elbows by the time a few minutes had passed.
"So how was the dance thing, anyway?" Linus asked around a full mouth. "Your Instagram pics looked cool but they didn't say much. Meet any rad people?"
"By 'rad people' do you mean 'hot girls'?" Cameron asked dryly. Linus gave a little sorry-not-sorry shrug and Cameron sighed. "I'm not going to the thing to pick up chicks, Linus."
"No," Linus agreed, "but there are chicks there. So if one happened to run into you…" He trailed off suggestively. "Was there one that especially caught your eye this time?"
Of course Cameron's thoughts flew instantly to Kirsten. Not so much to her conventional beauty, even though she was obviously stunning both when stationary and when dancing. Instead he dwelt more on the intensity of her stare, like a bird of prey and a telepathic reaching into his soul for the answers at the same time. On the way her entire face puckered when she was faced with any sort of problem she could not solve within the first minute. The way she stood with her arms folded, holding other people off but also seemingly holding herself in check. The way all of that cracked into something that sparked inside him when she finally found something to smile about. Kirsten's mortification at Camille and him singing in the car. Kirsten's hands strong and warm in his, and her perfection and yet obvious hesitation as she moved with him for a few steps and then tried to fight him for another. The way her goodbye pat on his arm had started off awkward and then had warmed to something almost affectionate when her hand lingered a little.
His mouth suddenly felt a little dry. And Linus was looking at him expectantly. "Uh…" he hedged, but his hesitation gave him away.
"You did! You did find somebody!"
"I didn't… that's not…" Cameron felt his cheeks going warm, the phantom sensation of Kirsten's hands in his making his fingers tingle slightly. "I didn't… she's a great dancer! Camille and I just invited her along to muck around with us and give us another perspective and stuff."
Linus raised an eyebrow. "Camille's okay with this new girl?"
The heat intensified. "Camille's not -" But he broke off and left the sentence hanging, unsure, as he had been for a long while, how to end it even in his own head. Guilt fissured its way through him as he thought about Camille, as though even getting butterflies because of the blonde ballerina was some kind of betrayal. But it wasn't. Camille wasn't… Camille didn't… They were just… "Camille loved having somebody else with that type of technique. She got to boss two people around, too. It was just a really great time."
Linus stared at him a second longer and then pouted. "I wish you'd take me with you to these things." Cameron raised one eyebrow. "What? I can dance. I do Zumba twice a week! Advanced class Zumba!" Cameron couldn't help but snort with laughter, imagining Kirsten's face should he ever present Linus to her as a dancer. He thought she might just actually call him blasphemous for the act, and resolved to tell Camille about the mental image when they texted the next morning. Linus frowned at Cameron's badly-hidden amusement. "Hey, Camille seemed pretty impressed with me that time I met her. She and I -"
"No," Cameron said quickly, raising up both hands. "No, no, no. Linus, dude, I told you I never want to know what did or did not happen between you and Camille that one time you met. Okay? I just do not want to know."
"But we -"
"Nope! Not a thing. Not even a little thing. Just in case." He ruthlessly squashed down the worm of anxious jealousy that began to nibble on him at the memory. It was none of his business. He had no right to even think anything. They were both adults. And if something had happened and it had made Camille happy… He just hoped Linus hadn't gotten her to smile quite as softly as Cameron was able to. That thought also viciously got beaten down.
"Cameron, I want to meet other dancers, not Camille again. Because she - "
A phone began ringing, and Cameron took his lifeline utterly gracelessly, all but flinging himself back at his desk. He punched the flashing red button viciously and held the phone up to his ear, not bothering to look at the faces Linus was undoubtedly pulling at him.
"Hi, there. My name is Cameron," he said, making his voice as gentle as possible. "You don't have to tell me your name if you don't want. I'm here for you either way. What can I help you with?"
At the end of the day, no matter how he chose to look at it, working the call center was a hard job. Cameron had known suffering and pain - how could he not, after literally having his chest torn open? - but some of the stories he heard in those late night calls were beyond his understanding. People who'd lost everything; their friends, their families, their jobs and homes and hope. People whose lives were so miserable he sometimes had no clue how they'd made it far enough to even have the will left to call a helpline. That was the kind of strength he admired and adored in people, and they were the kind of people he wanted so desperately to help.
He'd never explained much of his job to Camille. She knew it was a suicide hotline call center, and he was sure she'd assumed it was exactly as grim as it sounded some days. It wasn't something Cameron wanted to talk about when he was with her, not when there were a million more pleasant topics, like what breed of puppy was the cutest, or whether or not him taking pole dance was actually a good idea (Camille's answer was always yes, but he was just a tad wary of what might happen should he jump onto the pole too quickly).
The worst call of his life had come in early May,a few months after he'd first met Camille.
Warm weather tended to mean less calls since something about the sunshine and springtime smells lifted people's spirits. Cameron had been six hours into a mostly uneventful shift when his phone rang and he'd picked it up, rattling off the same carefully, soothing introduction as he always did. The person on the line was a girl, voice quavering with every word. She'd sounded so impossibly young, especially for someone calling a place like that, and it broke his heart.
"I…" a long pause, a muffled sob, and then, "I wanted to talk to someone, just for a minute."
"Okay, I'm here." Cameron assured her, trying to mask the worry already bubbling up in his chest. "What did you want to talk about?"
"My mother died." she stated bluntly, followed by another sob. "My mother died, and I… my f-father is just so angry and depressed. He quit his job when she passed and now we're just sinking further into debt. We don't have her anymore, we barely have food, and we're not even going to have a house. I don't know what to do. There's just… there's nothing, my whole life is nothing but grief."
Cameron was already scanning the list of recommended help centers that he kept handy by his desk, eyes locking onto to several names of food donation centers, relatively cheap therapy, and support groups for families who'd lost loved ones. "I can't imagine how hard that is," he told her, trying to ease her into some sense of calmness. "Look, I have a list right here of all sorts of people that can help, with food and with getting your dad back on the right track, okay…?" he trailed off, having never caught a name.
There was a quiet sniffle. "Jenna."
"Right, Jenna. There's so many people that'd be more than happy to help. Do you want some names and numbers?"
"That's so nice of you, really." she murmured. "There's just nothing left for me to live for, you know?"
"There are so many things to live for." he countered softly, thinking of dance and his friends without a moment's pause. "You can never know unless you're alive to see them."
She laughed, and it was the most tired, hollow sound he'd ever heard. "You don't understand. I loved my mother so much, and no matter what I do to survive I just won't be living anymore. I've got no friends, barely any family, and no passions to speak of. There's nothing. I never wanted anything in life except to watch my family change through the years, but there's nothing of us left."
"No relatives or cousins, not anyone you love?"
There was a soft, muffled noise, like she'd shaken her head. "We were close, but it was because of my mother, It was always her. She was so bright, so vibrant and cheerful…" she had to stop, choking back more tears, and it nearly destroyed him. "Now that she's gone our family's fallen apart. No one wants anything to do with my dad. He's just… gone. Empty inside without her."
"I promise you that with the right help, he and you could both get to a much better place." Cameron said, and it almost sounded like a desperate plea rather than a simple answer.
"I know you mean well, Cameron, but I'm so tired." she said. "I'm tired and lonely and I know that it will never change. I've seen how this goes."
"How what goes?"
"Depression. Loss. It starts the way it did with my dad and I, and it spirals. I watched my cousin do the same, and one morning we woke up to missed calls and voice messages saying she'd swallowed too many pills and never woken up. I'm not an idiot."
He scanned the list for more urgent help centers this time, fingers unintentionally tugging and sifting through his hair. "It doesn't always end that way. So many people fight their way through depression and become better people for it. I believe you can do the same, Jenna. You called this helpline and that's such a huge start already."
Another bitter laugh, and she said, "And what, I just live my life knowing that I'll sometimes be miserable and sometimes want to die, hoping that the brief moments when I'm okay are enough? I can't do that, I can't do this anymore." She broke down again, little muffled gasps punctuating her last few words.
"Then… why did you call?" It wasn't accusatory, just a hopeful question. With every person he dealt with, that was always the glimmer of hope. People called because they wanted to want to live, even if they didn't know how to want that just yet.
"I just… I guess I wanted one friendly voice, one nice conversation, before I have to go."
He was shaking his head, gesturing for Linus or a manager or someone to come and find a way to help when clearly he wasn't helping at all. "Please, Jenna, for me, just wait. Just wait a few days, okay? This is a choice you might not be able to undo. Try getting help first. Try anything."
She was silent for long enough that he'd wondered if she'd fallen asleep or hung up. Linus had finally pulled his chair over and was watching with concern, whispering to the supervisor that had come over. Cameron scribbled She needs real help right now, we need to get her to call 911 or go to the hospital on a notepad and pushed it to them. He knew most of the caller detested that suggestion, but there wasn't another option.
At last she spoke up. "Cameron?"
"I'm right here, Jenna." he said, waiting for a moment to tell her he had a more highly trained professional at his side to help.
"Tell me something nice."
He blanked for a moment, staring at Linus in utter confusion (who returned the look wit with a shrug). "Something nice?"
"Yeah. Something good that happened to you today, or a week ago, or whenever."
"I, uh… I do a lot of dance in my free time. Swing and contemporary." Cameron begun, still unsure what she was really asking. "I met one of my best friends through it. I think you'd love her, she's so strong, and incredibly smart. The jokes just never end with us, and neither does her endless supply of sarcastic comments. I was really lucky to meet her."
"Thank you." Jenna whispered. Then the line went dead.
Afterwards was a flurry of panic. Normally when they couldn't talk someone down, the protocol was to give the police the caller's number and have it traced, then send an ambulance in the hopes that somehow they could save that person. Cameron watched numbly as his supervisor sent out the number, barely feeling Linus' hand against his arm.
They found Jenna dead in her room, her phone in her hand and a bottle of her dad's antidepressants on her nightstand.
He couldn't sleep for weeks afterward, let alone go to work every day. Her hollow, grief-stricken voice and words filled his head whenever he even thought about going back, because all he could imagine was it happening again and again with more people who hadn't deserved to die. Cameron kept to his apartment for days, barely moving from his bed unless it became necessary. He would've stayed longer if it hadn't been for Camille's text; At the convention now, did you forget it started today? Thought we were meeting at that local coffee place. There'd be a dance convention that was only three days and close enough to home to work out well for him, so she'd promised to be there.
Cameron took ages to write back, typing and retyping the message a million times but he couldn't manage to make it sound the least bit hopeful. Work just got a little intense. I don't know if I can make it this time.
It took her precisely twenty-seven seconds to reply; Call me.
He did so, rolling onto his side in bed, smiling softly at how fast she picked up. "Cameron?"
"I'm really sorry." and he was; sorry for letting someone so young and so full of promise die, sorry for not being able to go back into work and save people, and sorry for having let her down in the process of it all.
"Cameron, what happened?" Her concern was painfully obvious, laced between her words and in the tense sound of her voice.
He wanted to lie and say he'd caught a cold, or that it'd just been coworker drama. She'd see right through that, though, and so after a long pause he murmured quietly, "I couldn't save her."
"I'll be over in ten." Then she'd hung up, and he curled back up beneath the covers hoping that maybe he'd be able to pull himself together enough for her to enjoy her stay.
When she was there Camille didn't waste any time dumping her bags in his living room and then crawling into bed with him, so close that another few inches and their noses would've been touching. In hushed whispers he told her about Jenna; how he'd tried to hard but it hadn't been enough, how they'd found her dead and it'd looked like she'd died minutes after the call, and how he'd watched her father break down at her funeral. Camille just listened, eyes wide and welling up with tears of her own as a knot grew in his throat. Don't cry, don't cry, don't cry, he chided himself mentally, and then did just that.
It was loud and messy, the way he sobbed against her shoulder when she pulled him to her. Cameron clung to her, fingers digging into her back desperately, holding her as close as he could. She did the same, one arm looped around his shoulder and the other cradling his head close. "Shhh, you're okay, you're okay." she soothed, softer and gentler than he'd ever seen her. "It's going to be okay, Cameron, I promise you."
His sobs subsided eventual, fading to miserable sniffles - he'd never felt so weak, holding on to Camille like she was about to vanish from his life too (a ridiculous thought, he knew, since she was the brightest, most sunshine-y person in his life). She allowed him his moment of weakness, fingers playing with his hair in a way that had his eyelids fluttering shut and his heart finally slowing down.
"I had it pretty rough as a kid." She said abruptly, tone guarded in a way that suggested she didn't know if this was something she should tell him at all.
"Yeah?" he asked, glancing up at her.
"Yeah." Camille echoes, still idly drawing her fingers through his hair. "I grew up in this little trailer with shit parents who drank and fought, and a brother who always brought trouble to our door. He nearly burned down that trailer with me in it one time." at his noise of shock, she gave him a look that he knew meant now wasn't the time for him to get angry on her behalf. "The point is that when I was a kid, I would've loved to have someone like you at the other end of a helpline, talking me through everything. If things had gotten that bad… you could've saved me, I think."
Cameron didn't like thinking about Camille ever being in a situation that gave her so little hope, or one where she'd need a helpline at all, but it counted for something.
"You can't save everyone." she added. "I know you want to, Cameron, but sometimes when people are too far gone you just can't. All you can do is keep on going, helping those who can still be convinced life is worth living."
He'd just nodded and tried his best to tell himself the weeks after Jenna's death, and somehow it helped. What helped more had been Camille's constant texts checking in, and the calls, and most of all the silly video messages she sent him from music video sets or dance classes. Those e little gestures tugged at his heart in funny ways that reminded him of him wonder if he didn't just see her as a friend.
He was torn from the memory by the soft tone is phone made for texts, and unlocked the screen to see a reply from Camille: Comparing me to a sunset? Amateur move, and so cheesy. He laughed at that, firing off a quick reply back before he turned his attention to his desk. The almost immediate reply had him rolling his eyes when he looked again to see a text from a different number - the one Kirsten had given him and Camille at the dance convention.
There's a small convention in LA next week, want to come? It's nothing fancy but has some really good workshops.
It was almost hilarious formal, and Cameron couldn't help but remember her oddly endearing lack of any and all social cues, her bluntness, and how he'd decided he'd get her to smile again as soon as he'd seen that for the very first time. If Camille had been soft, quiet palpitations in his chest then Kirsten was the fluttering, uneasy feeling in his stomach that promised exciting things to come. It seemed ridiculous, getting so flustered by a girl he'd only just met, but Cameron knew she was a good person and that he'd definitely liked her company. Besides, he reasoned, they'd all agreed to go to dance competitions together, so what was the harm?
Sounds great. Text me the details?
