"Jesus, Cami, what the hell happened?" Joyce Byers breathes, using the leverage presented by both of her hands on my shoulders to press me to sit on the sofa, her eyes raking over my apparently haggard features with no short supply of concern, "Jonathan? What were—what were the two of you doing out there?"
"Trying to find Will."
"Alone?"
"We were sticking together, Mom. We were—we were fine," Jonathan mumbles, sharing a look with me, as though silently pleading with me to speak up, though I still can't quite rationalize my way past the shock of everything I have just seen to comply, "Cami tripped, and—"
"And hit her head on a boulder, from the looks of it."
"More like an average sized rock," I correct, aware of the obvious skepticism in Joyce's expression, and forcing myself to muster a shaky smile in response, "I'm fine, I promise."
"You could have a concussion."
"I don't."
"Yeah, Mom, you must've missed it, but Cami's practically a doctor now."
"Jonathan," Joyce chides, sparing a warning look for her son before turning her attention back to me, her brow furrowing as she looks at the partially dried blood on my temple, and probes gently at the wound beneath it with the pad of her forefinger, "Get a washcloth and some soap and water."
"Mrs. Byers, I'm fine—"
"No, sweetie. You're not."
I can't say anything to that, it seems, so I settle for remaining silent instead, my teeth digging into my lower lip as I pointedly avoid Joyce's gaze. I can't ignore the burning at the corners of my eyes in response to her concern. The pain in my chest, twisting and writhing at the thought of how much I want this. A mother to comfort me when I am terrified out of my mind.
It isn't that my own mother is negligent, but something between us had shattered when we both lost Sarah. When she moved on, with a new husband and a new baby, and I moved to Hawkins with my dad.
That bond has been in disrepair for quite a while now, and I would be lying to pretend anything other than that Joyce Byers has stepped in to fill the void, whether I really thought I deserved it or not.
"You wanna maybe—talk about it?"
"I—no. No."
"Cami," Joyce sighs, snagging the washcloth from Jonathan as he returns from the kitchen, her position perching on the table across from where I sit on the sofa giving her ample ability to get a better look at my would-be injury while Jonathan moves to sit at my side, "Come on. At least—at least try?"
Swallowing past the sudden lump in my throat, I press my lips into a thin line as Joyce dabs gently at the cut near my temple, fighting the urge to recoil from the spasm of pain with everything I have. I know she isn't going to let up. That she cares far too much about me to do anything but persist until I tell her the truth.
But I don't know how on earth I'm supposed to explain anything about what I've just seen. I don't know how I can tell her that I saw something I can only describe as a monster. That I ran into a child, but not her child.
I don't even know where to begin, and so I continue to clamp my lips shut, the sensation of Jonathan's hand slipping into my own giving me something to latch onto while everything suddenly becomes too much to bear.
"Jonathan?"
"I don't—I don't know, Mom, okay? I turned my back for two seconds, and then she tripped, and—"
"You two have to promise me—promise me—that you aren't going to go doing anything like this again," Joyce finally surmises, the vehemence in her tone forcing me to look her in the eye no matter how fiercely I may wish to hide the evidence of the tears I am struggling to keep at bay. She is looking between Jonathan and I as though our answers can make or break her. Something I honestly find myself starting to believe to be true…
I might not be able to give her the truth she wants about what I saw in the woods behind her home, but I can do this.
I can tell her that I have absolutely no intention of going back into the forest at night because I don't, at least not right now. Not with the memory of the monster I saw so fresh in my mind.
No matter how badly I want to help find Will, I know that Jonathan will have to drug me and drag me forcibly back into the woods right now, because I sure as hell don't want to willingly face that thing—whatever it was—ever again, if I have any choice in the matter at all.
"I—I won't. Promise," I manage, swallowing past the lump in my throat, and allowing myself to feel some small semblance of relief over the fact that the threat of oncoming tears has lessened, even if only by a little. I glance at Jonathan, then, noting that he is watching me with something not all that far from incredulity in the wake of my almost easy reply.
I spend a brief moment almost panicking over the idea of him saying something that will blow my cover, but he seems to settle on keeping his silence, his own expression wavering for a moment before he turns to Joyce and gives her the same promise I did mere moments before.
"Yeah. Yeah, not happening again. I promise."
Joyce regards the two of us for a moment before determining that we are being truthful, at least for the time-being, her attention once again returning to the washcloth in her hands, and the task of cleaning the gash on my forehead as best she can. For a moment, the three of us exist in a familiar, easy silence, Jonathan's hand still holding my own whether he is consciously aware of it or not. But then Joyce says it. The words that will send a knot of panic into my chest, my eyes blowing wide as I look at her once again, only to realize she already appears to have a plan that will render the need for any panic on my part completely out of place.
"So I'm thinking we should call your dad. Let him know where you are, since you obviously aren't at home," She begins, a gentle smile tugging at the corners of her mouth as she registers my answering look of horror and gives the cut on my brow one last swipe with the washcloth before going on, "Guess you and Jonathan didn't expect to be wrapped up with studying for that chemistry test so late, huh?"
"I—oh. Yeah, the—the test."
"It is tomorrow, right?"
"Yeah, but—I mean it's not like my dad really keeps track of my school schedule," I mumble, frowning as soon as I realize the words come out as far more self-pitying than I truly want them to, "That didn't—I just meant that—"
"Cami."
"Yeah?"
"Just let me call him, okay? I'll see if you can—if you can stay the night, and Jonathan can get you to school in the morning."
"You—are you sure?"
"Of course. Let me just call your dad, and then I'll see if I have anything that'll fit for you to sleep in."
I watch as Joyce gets up and takes the washcloth with her back into the kitchen to use the phone hanging on the wall, a strange play of relief and sadness mingling together and making it difficult to breathe. She must know I'm hiding something. That I am resolute in keeping what I've seen a secret, even in spite of her plea for the opposite, and yet here she is covering for me. Doing whatever she can to keep me out of trouble with my dad.
As always, Joyce Byers is giving me a safe space, and saying anything other than that I am abundantly grateful for that fact would be a bald-faced lie.
"Come on. We'll set up the couch cushions on the floor, and you can take my bed," Jonathan suggests, giving my hand a squeeze to jolt me back to the present, the pained look he gives me leaving no doubt in my mind that he is thinking of exactly the same thing I am right now. A memory of other nights spent in similar fashion, Jonathan, Will and I all cramming into his bedroom to talk about anything and everything until, one by one, we all succumb to sleep.
"Jonathan—"
"I know, Cami. I know."
Secure in the knowledge that my best friend is reading everything that I cannot say in my choked whisper of his name—that he is well-aware of the renewed tears burning at the corners of my eyes—I allow him to lead me out of the den and towards the hallway, our hands still clasped together as a sort of tether to reality, so we can maybe—hopefully—avoid being dragged into the painful memories of the past. I can't shake the lingering sense of failure. Of apprehension over the child I saw in the woods. The monster. All of it, and the very present fear that Will is alone to face it all, himself.
I don't want anything to do with going back into the woods. With facing that monster again. But the more that I think about it, the more I come to realize…
I am probably not going to have any other choice.
…
"Wow. You look like crap. Everything okay?"
"Gee, thanks, Nance," I quip, managing a faint smile for her benefit as she leans against the locker beside my own, and Barb flanks my other side, armed with a veritable slew of flashcards and a concerned frown, "And yeah. I'm—I'm fine."
"You sure about that?"
"I'm fine, Barb."
"The blood seeping through the bandage on your forehead kind of says otherwise," Barb persists, the words causing me to lift a hand to prod at the fabric covering the wound, a wince wrinkling my brow not long after, "What happened?"
"I tripped."
"That's it?"
"That's all that happened," I shrug, shying away from the idea of any sort of deep discussion of where I was when I fell and cut my temple, my hands snagging the flashcards from Barb's hands as a means of distraction, if nothing else. She yelps in protest, as I predicted she would, and a small smile graces my lips in response. But before I get a chance to really look at the cards—before I can fully wrap my mind around the fact that they are for a chemistry test that I am likely going to fail—the cards are swiped out of my hand by none other than Steve Harrington, my own curse drowned out by the frustrated groan Barb gives as Tommy Hagan sticks a finger out to flick at the shell of her ear before passing her by.
"You know, I don't know what's more shocking. The fact that Nancy Wheeler is obsessing over a test right up until the minute she has to take it, or the fact that Cami Hopper is actually trying to study."
"Steve, that's not funny."
"Oh it's okay, Nancy. He's just being an asshole. Like always," I quip, looking up at Steve with a hand outstretched for the cards he stole, though I honestly should have known he was never going to give them up that easily, "Give them back."
"I don't really think I want to."
"Steve!" Nancy exclaims, her cheeks turning a predictably pretty shade of pink as she leans up on tiptoe to try and rescue the cards herself, only to end up toppling into Steve's side as a result once he pulls them just out of reach, "Come on. Just—we need to—"
"You studied enough last night," Steve interjects, using the hand that is not still clutching the cards to tap Nancy on the nose, the gesture causing a curious, white-hot bolt of something I do not want to try and understand to coil itself around my heart before his attention turns to me, instead, "And you look like you need a doctor, not an hour spent taking a useless test right now."
"Such a compliment from King Steve. I wonder how I'll ever recover."
"Funny, Cam."
"I thought so."
"Steve? When you dragged us over here to Miss Perfect and the Geek Squad, I thought you kind of had a point?" Carol pipes up, sneering at me, and causing me to bite down on the inside of my cheek to keep from giving her the reaction she wants. During—whatever Steve and I had over the summer—she never quite managed to keep her disdain for his decision to lower himself for someone like me a secret…
She says I'm a cold, emotionless bitch, and I think she's a vapid narcissist.
What a winning combination.
"On to more important matters," Steve says then, effectively diverting my attention from Carol's sneering face, though a part of me hates how easy it is for him to pull me in, time and time again, "My dad's left town on a conference, and my mom's gone with him 'cause you know—she doesn't trust him."
"Good call."
"So are you in?"
"In for what?" Nancy questions, sharing a skeptical glance with Barb and I, and pointedly ignoring Steve's retaliatory shove that sends Tommy bumping into the lockers nearby.
"No parents—big house—"
"Party?"
"Ding ding ding," Carol snarks, the derisive laugh she gives causing my jaw to clench, though I am almost immediately distracted by Nancy's ensuing reply.
"But it's—Tuesday."
"Oh, it's Tuesday."
"It's Tuesday, oh my God," Tommy mocks, the words causing me to take a step towards him almost without fully realizing it—something Steve seems to sense, if the way he holds a hand out to stop me from getting any closer to his dumbass of a friend is any indication at all.
"Come on, it'll be low key. Just us. What do you say? Are you—are you in, or are you out?"
Nancy does not get the chance to reply, her attention suddenly shifting to where I can now see Jonathan at the far end of the hall, tacking up some of Will's missing posters to a corkboard near the door. The two of us had parted ways not long after arriving, because he wanted to put up as many posters as he could before classes began.
And now I am starting to realize that Jonathan has just made the mistake of his life choosing this particular hall as his next target, because Tommy and Carol are not going to rest until they pick him apart, bit by bit, whether he can hear them or not.
"Oh God, that's just depressing."
"Should we say something?"
"I don't think he speaks," Carol replies, grinning around her chewing gum as Nancy sends her a startled look, her mouth opening to say something gentle—kind—polite, as always, at least until I beat her to the punch.
"You're right, he doesn't speak. Not to people like you, anyway."
"And what the hell is that supposed to mean?"
"How much you wanna bet he killed him?" Tommy deadpans, moving to stand at his girlfriend's side, and slinging an arm around her shoulder as he gives me a toothy grin. It's obvious he's baiting me. Trying to get me to fly off the handle. To give him more ammunition to use against me later, and if I wind up sent to the principal's office in the process, even better. But even as I remind myself of this over and over again, I cannot help but feel the urge to curl my fingers into a fist and punch that grin off of his stupid, smug, freckled—
"Hey, hey, easy, alright?" Steve says, the sudden pressure of his hand on my shoulder making me realize with a jolt that I must have already started moving towards Tommy, my eyes blowing wide as Steve once again diverts his attention from me to look at his friend, instead, "And Tommy?"
"Yeah, man."
"Shut up."
I am more than a little surprised that Steve actually seems to be taking my side in this—or rather, Jonathan's side—though stubborn determination to avoid letting him see that surprise allows me to keep my expression as neutral as possible. Belatedly, I realize Nancy is already heading towards Jonathan, herself, and I can see the unbridled surprise on my best friend's face in response. But I don't trust myself to stay here, with Tommy and Carol. I don't trust myself not to jump at the chance to give either one of them a piece of my mind, and I don't want to interrupt whatever kind-hearted gesture Nancy is clearly enacting for Jonathan's sake.
I know I will not be able to stand loitering in the hallway for much longer without incident, and so I snag Nancy's flashcards back from a very startled Steve, gripping them tightly as I head toward the chemistry classroom, and resist the urge to look back when Steve hollers after me in next to no time at all.
"Cam! Hey, you didn't—you never said. Are you in, or out?"
"Out, Steve. Definitely, completely out."
I don't even hear the distorted grumble he gives in response as I break into a jog, and duck into the chemistry classroom to find my seat, my grip on the flashcards so tight that I can feel the edges digging into the skin of my palms.
I just have to make it through the rest of the day. Make it out of here, and get home for enough time to prove to my dad that I am actually trying to do as he says.
And as soon as I have done that, I'll get right back to what really matters.
Sticking by Jonathan's side, and finding Will.
…
Hello there, darlings! And welcome (finally) to a new chapter in Cami's tale! I know, it's been a bit, and I honestly did not intend for there to be such a long wait between chapters. But I sort of fell down the rabbit hole as far as my Eddie Munson/OC story goes, and only just managed to wriggle part of the way free of the chokehold those particular muses have on me to give this story some of the attention it deserves!
As always, my heartfelt thanks go out to each and every one of you that has taken the time to read, follow, favorite and review this story so far! I hope you can all forgive me for the delay, because I have absolutely no intention of abandoning this story at all! Your time, feedback and support is appreciated so, so very much, and as always, I cannot wait to see what you think this time around!
Until next time?
MOMM
