It has been said, and not without merit, that I am a fairly harsh critic of 7th Heaven. But the truth is that I make every effort to treat the show fairly, pointing out not only its failings but also its successes (and if one spends much time looking at my posts over at Television Without Pity's 7th Heaven boards at http://www.televisionwithoutpity.com/ one will, I think, see this). So although a number of my 7th Heaven stories have built drama around problems in the show, I am not at all blind to the dramatic opportunities that come up when 7th Heaven gets things right.

As a case in point, I present this little tale, which is a parallel story line to the episode "The Enemy Within", in which at least one subplot of Brenda Hampton's script showed just how good the show can be.

As always, these characters are the property of Brenda Hampton and other Hollywood big shots. I'm just using them because they can be cool.


Part One
* * *

Everyone acts like everything is normal, like nothing ever happened. Maybe that's good. Maybe I should be thankful.

But still, I know better that this. I know that no matter how hard I try to believe it, no matter how hard I try to just fit in and make it all like it was before, it never will be, never again.

I think he knows this too. Even now I wonder what he had to sacrifice, what he felt, what he went through when it happened.

I guess it's a bad idea to be writing this down. If my father finds it I'm dead. No, I mean it. Really dead. I know my dad, and I know my mom, and I know he would kill me and kill her. I know it. But I can't keep this in anymore, and they say that when you write things down it sometimes makes you feel better.

I want to feel better.

At least I don't feel .... All right, at least I'm not dead.

That's something, isn't it?

#

I'm trying to think about when it began, when it all started. I was like everybody else then, just me, with my friends and the way we would sit together and talk, maybe about school or about boys or about the latest clothes or about what everybody else was doing. Yeah, we'd talk about troubles, too, about how we didn't like the way we looked, about how we were too fat, maybe, or our nose wasn't petite and pretty like hers was, about how we just wanted to be liked and to be friends with the popular ones.

It was good, now that I look back at it. So far away from where I am today, from how I feel. But it was good because when I was with my friends, talking about these sorts of things, I wasn't at home.

Please don't get me wrong. I want to love my mom and dad. I really do. Maybe it's because I want to love them so much that I did what I did. But I do love them, even now, maybe especially now, or maybe not. They give me a home, they give me food, they give me a name.

My name. Claire.

Is it mine?

Is anything mine?

I can't think about that.

My dad drinks, you see. I know, this isn't something anybody knows about, except me and my mother. He keeps his drinking well hidden, but he does drink and he drinks a lot and when he drinks he isn't the same anymore. When he drinks it's not like he's my dad anymore, and yeah, usually when he drinks he gets mean. Maybe this is because he hates his job, or because he hates something else.

I remember the first time I saw my mom's face after he hit her. I was little, just a little girl, and I guess I did something to make him mad and then he started screaming at me and then Mom tried to calm him down and he hit her.

I think my dad hates God.

We have Christmas, sure, and Easter. But it's just because everyone else does it that we do. Dad gives me presents, and Mom and I always make sure to give him presents, and if we're lucky he doesn't come home from work with a bottle in his hand and we might have a good time.

But I think he hates God. I heard him say it once, and I know he meant it because it was a time when he wasn't drunk.

Yeah, drunk. I'm supposed to be too young to say it, but I know what the word means. I know it means that they don't love you anymore. I know it means that you are always a disappointment to them, that you aren't smart enough or quiet enough or pretty enough, and you are a disappointment.

I don't want to be a disappointment.

I just want to be his little girl.

#

But, you know, I'm not his little girl. I'll never be. I know where I came from, how I came to be. He, young and stupid, and my mother, also young and stupid, and a single night seventeen years ago. Both too young, neither ready, and then there I was and by God, son, you be a man about this and marry her and raise your daughter. Never mind that you aren't ready, never mind that you say your girlfriend just wanted a baby so she could get a welfare check. You be a man, son. You forget about your dreams and your hopes and you get a dull, miserable job and you be a father.

I know these things.

I know what he calls my mother when he hits her.

Welfare whore.

I know the sight of me reminds him of everything he never got to do, never got to be.

And I know that he will never really love me.

#

Maybe this is why I did it, the first time. Maybe this is why I stopped being just another one of the girls, just Claire who had friends and who did things and who gossiped and who was pretty and sometimes even happy. Maybe this is why I started spending time with the boys.

I'm so dirty. I hate myself sometimes because of what I did with them, what I let them do with me, how I let them touch me even though I never enjoyed it.

I guess I should remember their names, but it doesn't really matter.

I do remember his name, though. For a while there was a joke going around school about him.

Virgin Camden.

I wish I was a virgin.

I didn't know him well back then. We had a class or two together, and I remember thinking that he always looked so sullen, just a little bit angry, wanting to fit in and be something different from what everyone thought he was. The Minister's boy. Preacher-boy. Goodie-goodie.

There were things about his family, too, that we all knew. One of his older sisters had vandalized the high school gym when I was in junior high, and his other older sister was one of the popular girls in my first year in high school. I remember hearing something about how her friend had died in a car wreck. And his older brother was valedictorian and was studying to be a doctor, and worked for a while in the free clinic in town.

His parents, of course, were Reverend and Mrs. Camden. People talked about them, how they were good people, how they represented values, how good they were as parents. I never met them, though, not really. I talked to his mom on the phone once and she seemed nice. But I know it must be hard, to be the son of a preacher. I know that people were always watching Simon Camden, just like they watched his brothers and sisters, because they were the Minister's kids. They were supposed to behave all the time, and I wonder if maybe that was unfair. Maybe that's why he was so sullen.

Maybe that's why he went to that party that time and got stinking drunk. Maybe that's why he tried so hard to make friends with Morris. Maybe that's why once he got pulled over by all those police cars.

Maybe. I don't know. I just know that Virgin Camden wasn't more than an acquaintance in those days.

Because I needed something more than I thought he could give me.