I love you.
Icaught my hair on fire the first time I used the lighter by myself.
Burning a candle when anyone could walk by and see the glow under the door would have been too risky. If Daddy caught me with something I wasn’t supposed to have, he would have torn the closet apart to find everything I had hidden. I bunched my brother’s jacket against the seam of the door and worked fast to ignite the tea light Elijah had given me. Sweat beaded at my hairline as panic seized my heart, and the sparks I made weren’t enough to keep the dark out.
“Please,”I begged. My hair fell over my shoulder just as I managed to light a true flame.
Burned hair smelled like charcoal, and the scent stained everything it touched.
I’d screamed and fell back when a fireball climbed up the broken ends of my hair. My head put a small fissure in the drywall, and I burned my hands clapping out the flame.
No one came to check on me, and I eventually got the candle lit. I’d carved out a hole where my head had weakened the plaster, and when the wick burned out, I slipped the thin tin casing behind the wall never to be found. When I was let out of the closet the next morning, my dad didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary.
I was sixteen then. Old enough to realize how truly sick my family was, but still too young to do anything about it. I crawled out of the closet with singed hair and blisters on my fingers and stood to my feet, nearly as tall as Daddy.
“How was your conversation with God?”he asked. His blond hair was nearly white, and he had deep lines around his eyes.
“He didn’t have anything new to say.”
He never had anything to say at all.
After we kissed in the church kitchen, Elijah had found clever ways to get me alone every weekend.
“We’re going to go make copies of today’s lesson,”he said.“The pencil sharpener is jammed. We’ll use the one in the next classroom,”he lied.“Has anyone seen my keys? I think I misplaced my car keys. Camilla, come with me. We’ll split up to cover more ground.”
We never split up.
Nothing could peel us apart.
Sinning didn’t feel that bad kissing Elijah.
It was the best thing in my life.
But he took it further that Sunday when my hair was burned and the blisters on my hands stung. We hid in a broom closet inside the main church, where we could hear the choir singing through the hollow door. Elijah slid his hand under my shirt and cupped my breast. I jerked away, and he called me cruel.
“I’ve put everything on the line for you,”he said accusingly.“Don’t you want to be together?”
“Yes.”I was unable to meet his eyes.
“This is what people do when they commit.”His tone had softened.“We can’t tell anyone about us until you’re eighteen, but if we’re going to be together forever, what’s the big deal?”
“I—I just wasn’t ready. I wasn’t expecting that.”
His features hardened.“When will you be ready? How long do I have to wait?”
Guilt felt worse than sleeping on the hardwood floor inside the closet, and I apologized. If Elijah left me, and it had looked like he wanted to, I would be alone again. And he was right. If we were going to be together forever, why wait?
He took me in his arms, and I clenched my teeth to keep from flinching when his cold hands slithered under my shirt again. Elijah fondled me, rubbing his crotch against my leg. He said I felt good, and I believed him. He said no one else would understand, and I knew that. Elijah made me promise again and again that I’d never tell anyone about us, and why would I?
“You’re my special girl, Cami.”He’d squeezed his eyes closed and shuddered, and I didn’t know what that meant yet.“You’re the only one. You’re the only one ever.”
I never loved Elijah Read.
That became glaringly obvious by our last encounter shortly after my eighteenth birthday, but as I lie amongst the torn sheets and feathers three thousand miles away from North Carolina, the truth is a sweet relief.
The only man I have ever loved is Wilder Ridge.
Ever.
