Chapter 2: Gowanda
"What a mess." She put her hands on her hips and surveyed the wreckage of the bedroom.
Charlie looked at the crushed rose petals on the bedspread, the pools of wax stuck to the tops of the night tables and dressers, and grinned. "But it was worth it."
"Um. Yeah." She really did look cute when she blushed. "It was definitely worth it."
"I'll get the candles unstuck if you want to take the bedspread out and shake the rose petals off it." She nodded, and he helped her gather the corners of the bedspread and bundle the blanket up to a manageable bundle she could carry outside, where there was a clothesline strung between the side of her cottage and a nearby convenient tree.
She was trying to drape the blanket over the clothesline and not drop any of it when Jennifer came up the path and saw her fighting with it. Before Cam could say anything, Jennifer had grabbed one end and threw it over the clothesline, and a shower of rose petals, some whole, some crushed, fell to the ground. Jennifer leaned over, picked one up, and looked at it. Looked at Cam. Looked at the cabin, where she could see a shirtless Charlie trying to get a candle unstuck from the night table it had melted to, then looked back at Cam, who was trying not to squirm…and failing.
"Looks like it was an interesting night."
"Er. Uh, I guess you could sorta say that."
Jennifer grinned at her, then sobered. "Cam. I don't want to get in your business, but…you are making sure that you're not going to get pregnant, right?"
Cam sobered as she went about hanging her side of the bedspread up. "Yes, Jennifer, I am. I saw a doctor who gave me birth control pills, and I'm considering getting implants. Every doctor who has seen me has told me the same thing; if I get pregnant it'll likely cost me my life because my body is so badly damaged that I will not be able to carry a baby full term."
"I'm sorry, Cam. I know it's hard, especially now that you have a man you love, and who loves you back—"
Cam sighed and sat down in the grass—it was unusually warm, for a November day in upstate New York—and Jennifer sat down with her. "Jennifer, I know I should be a little more bothered about this, but honestly, I'm not. At this moment in my life I'm perfectly happy not having kids; we're going back to base after the New Year when our leave time is up and I can't be a soldier and have kids at the same time, not at this classified military base for this classified project. I can't explain it any better than that but let's just say kids aren't in the picture."
"Not to mention which, you aren't even married yet."
"Jennifer, I know he loves me and he says he wants to marry me but I…well, I'm finding it hard to make that kind of commitment." She saw her friend's look. "Not because I don't love him, but because…well…look at me." She spread her hands wide. "He says that all he wants is me, but what if that's just for now? He's strong, handsome, just…perfect. And I'm…weak and ugly and not even a whole woman, I have to wear bras with stuffing in one side just to look normal, and I'm…afraid that when the newness wears off he'll…want someone better, someone worthy of him, and I will feel so guilty for tying him down to me because I was selfish." Her voice broke on the last word. "I want someone to share my life with, Jennifer, someone who I love and who loves me in return, but I...it's hard for me to believe that someone so perfect wants plain little, ugly little me. He's shown me so much…I have never felt pleasure before with a man, ever, until him, and with him I'm alive, I'm better, I'm whole, I'm stronger when he's with me and I'm so afraid of losing him but I don't want to tie him to me if that's not what he really wants…or if he changes his mind later, and that will kill me."
Jennifer hugged her tightly. "If it's any consolation, Cam, I really don't see that happening. I look at that man and he worships the ground you walk on. You keep saying he deserves someone better than you, but what if he doesn't want anyone else? Remember Adam? Did you ever feel for him what you feel for Charlie?"
"Never. Not even a tenth." Cam's voice was firm, decisive, as she let go of Jennifer and wiped her eyes with the tail of her shirt. "I think…I had a crush on him, I loved him but I wasn't in love with him. With Charlie, though…there's no question. Everything in me loves him; I don't feel complete when he's not around, I feel like a part of me is missing. Back when we were on base—I felt like I knew where he was, always, even when we weren't together, there was this invisible string between us that stretched and stretched but always brought us together again."
"I thought you were supposed to be getting the roses out of the bedspread." Charlie's voice came from behind them softly.
"I just stopped by for a quick chat. Cam and I had a little catching up to do." Jennifer put in quickly as Cam hastily composed herself before turning to meet his gaze. "Woman stuff."
"Oh," Charlie grinned. "Well, when you're done gossiping, maybe we can run to the big grocery store in Gowanda for groceries and stock the fridge? I already took the package of venison out to thaw, figured we'll do deer steaks tonight, but some greens would go well, a salad maybe."
"Store. Yes. Store sounds good." Cam turned to Jennifer. "Need anything?"
"Come to think of it, I could use a few things. You go ahead and air out those sheets. Charlie, if you could grab my dishes and bring them to my house, I can give you a list of things I need that you can get." Her tone didn't invite argument, so Charlie ducked inside the cottage, came back with the covered dish from the night before, now clean, and followed Jennifer down the road to her house.
"Do you love her?" She asked him bluntly and directly as soon as they were out of earshot of Cam's cottage.
"Yes," he answered unhesitatingly. "With everything I have and everything I am."
Jennifer blew out her breath. "I thought that was going to be your answer. She loves you that way too, she says that when you're not around she feels like a part of her is missing."
"Yes," he said quietly, thinking about that. "Yes. She is the other half of me just as I am the other half of her."
"She says that you're perfect and she isn't and she's worried that once the newness of your relationship wears off you'll decide you don't want to be tied down to a weak, ugly half-woman."
Charlie sucked in a breath. "She said that? Does she really feel that way?"
Jennifer sighed and pulled out a chair at her kitchen table, indicating Charlie should sit in the other one. "I know I told you about Adam Barefoot? The other boy Cam had a crush on, thought she loved?" Charlie nodded.
"When he turned her down in front of the family gathering he hurt her deeply, perhaps more deeply than even he realized. When he called her ugly, frigid, in front of me, in front of his family and one of the tribe's elders…it wounded her soul. I don't know if she ever recovered from it. She still considers herself as weak and ugly."
"After what she has been through no one could call her weak. She endured three years of hell in that basement, nameless faceless strangers paying her aunt and uncle money just to hurt her, to brutalize and abuse and torture her for their own amusement, and somehow she survived it, survived to become a strong, accomplished Army soldier with such good skills that she was recruited for a top-secret classified military project. She's one of the few Corporals on base; pretty much everyone is Sergeant or higher; you have to be absolutely exceptional to be recruited as a Corporal. She's one of only two female corporals, and one of only four women; one is a Master Sergeant and one is a Staff Sergeant, and Corporal Krieger is a tank jockey so she's more of a Specialist like me than a Corporal. How can she still think of herself as…she's not ugly." He finished fiercely.
"If you like, I can get some of the children in the village to distract her while we take a trip out to where she was held. We buried the trapdoor under rocks and stones and never went back; the area is saturated with fear and pain and other ugly emotions and we never wanted to go near it again. But it might help you understand some of what she thinks when she looks at herself in the mirror, some of what is in her mind when she wakes in the night."
"She…wakes up screaming. Sometimes. In the middle of the night. And she looks lost and terrified and in so much pain...I want to hold her and never let her go, I want to erase all those memories and make everything all right again." Charlie looked anguished.
"The only thing that will do that is time. Patience and love will do the rest. Be patient with her and it will be all right." Jennifer patted his hand as she stood. "All right. Let me get you that list."
Half an hour later they were on the road heading to Gowanda. Charlie frowned as the jeep hit yet another bump in the road and said, "Cam, did you go to the store in Gowanda often?"
"Not really often. Once or twice a month. Why?"
"You don't have a car. How did you get there?"
"I got a ride with someone else who was going, or I just walked."
"You walked? That far?"
"It's not that much of a hardship in spring and summer and fall; the hike is beautiful and the forest is peaceful and quiet."
Charlie shook his head. "Is there a reason you don't have a car other than the cost?"
Cam grinned. "I got my driver's license at eighteen but I can count on one hand the number of times I've been behind a wheel since then. I just…never needed to." She shrugged.
Charlie pulled over and parked. "Come here. You're driving."
"I—what?—no, Charlie, this is your Jeep, what if I crash it or something?"
He swung open his door, got out, and came around to the passenger side of the vehicle. "Move over."
"Charlie…" but he stood there doing his best 'immovable mountain' impression, and after a moment she sighed as she slid over into the driver's seat. "I'm not responsible if I crash it, it'll be your fault for making me do this."
He climbed into the passenger side. "Cam, I'm 'making' you do this because driving is an important skill for an adult. Even if you don't have a car, being able to drive opens up a lot of opportunities. And think about this; if you're on a mission with a team and they are hurt and you're the only one capable of driving you may need to steal a car to save your team."
"I guess." She conceded that point, although she looked rather doubtful.
"All right. Go ahead and drive."
Despite her doubt in her own driving abilities, they got to the grocery store in Gowanda safely and without incident. He cheered inwardly to himself as she pulled neatly into a parking space and they both got out; teaching her to drive would help her feel a little more independent, a little more free, and increase her self-confidence and her sense of self-worth, and that was worth it to him.
Shopping with her was an experience; she didn't have the slightest idea why he spent a long time looking over the spices in the spice aisle. "Cam, don't you ever cook?" he asked her finally, in exasperation, after he'd put paprika, bay leaves, and chives in the cart.
"Um, not really," she said with a shrug. "Most of the time when I'm up here I'll stock the pantry with canned goods, beans and canned spaghetti and maybe a little ground beef for some homemade spaghetti but I don't really cook."
He loaded up on lots of different spices after hearing that, then spent time in the meat section choosing cuts of beef and chicken, ham for the upcoming Thanksgiving a week and a half away, then the produce aisle for fresh greens to cook, potatoes and carrots and salad fixings, then to the canned goods aisle. Watching what she picked out taught him about her cooking and eating habits; canned beans, canned vegetables, canned spaghetti and other non-perishable items, and he shook his head as they headed for the frozen vegetables. He was going to have to teach her how to cook.
The last items to go into the cart were the items on Jennifer's list, and then they headed for the checkstand. The store had three of those automatic registers, but Cam shook her head and got in the back of the only live-cashier line. 'I don't like those machines," she said to Charlie's quizzical look. "Half the time they stop working and then you have to wait for a live person to help anyway." As if on cue, one of the self-checkout registers started beeping, and the rest of the people in the line moved to the next register.
One of them, a tall young man with thick short black curls and bright blue eyes, separated himself from the self-checkout registers and headed for the cashier lane, and Cam sucked in a sharp breath as she saw him. He saw her at about the same time, frowned a moment in puzzlement, then said "Cam? Cam Arlington?"