Chapter Four
She eased herself in the hot water of her tub. Scrubbing the loofa over her body gently, she mentally kicked herself for showing House how vulnerable she really was. She was sipping on her wine when she heard her phone vibrating next to the tub. She wiped her hand off on the towel and picked it up. It was Christopher.
"Hi, sweetie" she said as lovingly as she could.
"Hey, baby. What are you doing?" he asked
"I'm just in the bath tub,"
"Mhm," he answared. "Wish I was there with you."
She chuckled, "next time".
"I'm not coming home tonight. Me and some work buddies are going down to Atlantic City to blow off some steam for a few days,"
"Oh," she smiled to herself. "Alright, well, have fun!"
"Don't forget to make sure the doors and windows are shut at night, alright? There's pepper spray in the bedroom dresser if anything happens," he sounded protective for once.
"Alright, bye," she said wondering why he'd never told her before that he kept pepper spray in the house.
She put the phone back down and smiled to herself. She could sleep in her own bed for once. She could do her laundry without comments that her clothes were huge. She could go on her computer without having him look over her shoulder to see what she was doing. She felt so liberated. Back in her bedroom, she put on some dark blue sweat pants and a gray tank top and curled up on the couch with a blanket, some more wine and the t.v. remote. She threw her thin hair up into a messy bun and just relaxed. Something she hadn't been able to do in her own apartment for months. She was almost alseep when she heard a familiar knock at her door. She rolled her eyes, hoping when she opened the door, it wouldn't be him. No such luck.
In his work clothes, his blue jeans, red shirt and leather motorcycle jacket he stared at her. She didn't even try to ask him to leave, knowing very well he wouldn't. She just turned around and went back to the couch and resumed her comfortable position. He walked in and closed the door behind her. He watched her for a moment before sitting down next to her.
"Fall down the stairs?" he asked sarcastically, she nodded no. "Get stuck in an elevator door?" she nodded no again, "You're not even going to try to lie to me or make up an excuse?"
"You're a world-renowned diagnostician. You're alot of things, stupid, is not one of them," she whispered.
An uncomfortable silence filled the space between them. House knew he needed to tread lightly. He popped some vicodin and and sighed. She brushed some falling peices of her hair behind her ear and stared intently towards the T.V.
"Has he ever broken anything? Any of your bones, I mean?" he asked gently playing with his cane.
She felt on the verge of tears, so all she could do was nod no. It was so out of character for House to be this nice to her, this gentle, knowing that he actually had boundaries and for the first time, he was afraid to break them. He moved a little closer to her and picked up her hand in his.
"Are you doing this because of him?" he finally asked as he rubbed his thumb along her hand.
"When we first started dating," she hesitated as tears streamed down her cheeks. "It was fun, you know? For the first month two months he treated me like my husband use to. He put me first, held my door, took me out."
House just stared at her, still holding her hand.
"Then, one night he came home from work. He had been part of a police detail that was protecting some of the models from that big fashion show they had a few months back. I found out he had been sleeping with one of the models. That's when it started. He told me that for him to want to be with me, i'd needed to lose weight. He wanted me to be the same size as that model he'd slept with."
He sat there and listened, really listened to her. At the same time he could feel his free hand form a fist. He wanted to hurt the guy who hurt her.
"I had cooked him dinner that night, which he ended up throwing against the wall. That was the last time I was allowed to eat whatever I wanted. After that, he cleaned out the kitchen and he started weighing me every night. If I lost weight, I was allowed to eat salad or bread. If I gained weight, he'd beat me. Or sometimes, when he's really angry he just beats me anyways,"
She threw her hands over her face and cried so hard. House scrunched his eye brows and he pulled her against him while she cried. She'd never told that story to anyone before. After a few minutes she was able to regain her posture.
"Sorry, I know you don't do well with emotional inticmacy and all-" she said getting up
"I'm not good at expressing my own feelings. I can listen to you express yours," he was uncomfortable but this was Cameron after all. "Where is he tonight?"
"He went to Atlantic City for a few days with some buddies," she wiped the tears from her face.
She walked towards her bedroom and without thinking, he followed her. He wasn't sure what he was going but he knew she needed him. He wanted to see them, the bruises. She didn't want him to see her like this, so weak and fragile. Hesitantly, she unzippered her pants and slid them off, kicking them off to the side. Slowly and painfully she lifted up her shirt over her head, careful of her bruised ribs. Standing before him, clad only in her lingerie, she stood self-conciously waiting, for what she didn't know. She avoided his eye contact after he scanned her body a few times. He got up and gently limped a few steps towards her. His striking blue eyes bore into her skin as she still tried to avoid eye contact.
"Look at me," he said almost in a whisper putting his finger underneath her chin lifting her gaze up. "I think you're beautiful".
"No-" tears were welling up inside of her eyes.
"Yes. Cameron, i'm not messing around with you. You were always beautiful the way you were and then some guy came along and made you think otherwise. Any other guy would show you off to the world, loud and proud," he locked eyes with her. "Like how the wombat agreed to sleeping with you in the hospital, I mean what more of a public place could he get?" he ended with a joke as always.
She chuckled, then sniffled, "can you do something for me?"
"What's that?"
"Can- can you just hold me for a little?" she asked timidly.
He smiled, "come here".
They walked over to his bed and he got in and she right after. After wrapping her body, which was covered in goosebumps, with a warm blanket he wrapped his arms tightly around her. She closed her eyes and fell asleep almost instantly. She'd never felt so safe before. He'd never been so happy to share his bed before. His smile nearly faded as his hand caressed a very pronounced rib cage and prominent hip bones. He closed his eyes. She wasn't even close to winning this battle yet. He didn't know which problem to tackle first: the abusive boyfriend who could easily take her out in one punch; or the eating disorder which was close to killing her. After an hour of writing on his white board in his head he came up with a decision. In order to save her, they needed to get her boyfriend out of the way. She wouldn't be hurting herself if it wasn't for his influence. House knew he couldn't control her boyfriend, but given the right moves he could control her eating disorder. So all he needed to do was get some help, removing him for the picture.