“But she said she didn’t keep in touch. We never kept in touch,” I said, the tone of my voice far more hopeful than it should be.
“Well, maybe she hooked up with a bunch of guys in high school, and you were just one of them.”
Tucker kept talking, saying the stupidest things I’d ever heard as I fought off the urge to punch him in the mouth. The idea of Cammie hooking up with other guys during our senior year made my blood boil. I suppose that could have happened, but I found it hard to believe. She had been in such a dark place that year. The smile she used to wear every day became a gift that she rarely opened. It was a rarity our senior year, and although she gave it to me often, I hated thinking she shared it with anyone else.
You’re a selfish shit, I told myself, realizing that I had no right to feel this way. I didn’t own Cammie, but fuck me if I didn’t want to. I had been a supreme idiot back in high school when it came to her—not that she was perfect either.
Cammie was stubborn and refused to listen to reason. Two qualities that I admired, actually, except when she used them against me, and then they became her worst quality. Not that I ever told her any of that. Hell, I never told her half the things I should have.
What the hell did I know about good, healthy relationships? Absolutely nothing. I was raised in such a high degree of dysfunction, I could have majored in it. My parents had only gotten married when my mom found out she was pregnant with me. Them they spent the next seventeen years of their lives hating, ignoring, and blaming each other for their misery. My house was filled to the brim with the emotions of two people who couldn’t stand the sight of each other. They never talked unless it included screaming or yelling. The worst part was that I had no idea this sort of thing wasn’t normal.
My parents divorced the summer before my senior year, and it was as much of a relief to me as it was a shock. Even after I finally realized how screwed up their relationship was, them actually calling it quits and my dad moving out messed with my head more than I could have ever imagined. They might have hated each other, but at least they were together. I was a mess emotionally that last year of high school. And even though Cammie ended up being the single bright spot during that drab year, I kept all my feelings to myself.
Tucker’s annoying voice broke through my trip down memory lane. “Does she know she’s the reason you became a cop?”
“Dude, she doesn’t even know I’m a cop at all. You know this already.” Damn, if I didn’t sound like a whiny bitch.
My mind continued its journey into the past, digging up old feelings and emotions I tended to keep to myself. For as unloving as my parents had been to each other, I had never felt unloved. My mom constantly doted on me, gave me hugs every time she saw me, and told me she loved me every day. But she also apologized a lot for not giving me enough, or being there enough, or doing enough. I learned pretty early on what guilt felt like when she told me these things as tears streamed down her face.
It wasn’t intentional on my mom’s part, I finally realized that as an adult, but it was still pretty shitty to experience that as a kid. All I knew at the time was that I had done something that made my mom cry. A lot. And I didn’t know how to not feel bad about that. I didn’t understand that her crying wasn’t even about me, because she never tried to explain it all that well.
My dad was definitely colder and more standoffish than my mom was. He only hugged me occasionally, but I still knew that he loved me. Maybe it was the way he looked at me with less hatred in his eyes, or that his tone of voice wasn’t the same cruel one that he used with my mom . . . whatever it was, it was his way of letting me know that he didn’t dislike me the same way he disliked her. And the boy in me who craved the acceptance of his father, took it for what it was. My point being—I felt loved. And in the grand scheme of things, that was what mattered.
“So you didn’t play sports,” Tucker said. “But you were the class president, though, right? Didn’t you tell me that once?”
I frowned, trying to remember ever sharing that with him. “Yeah, I was.”
“Did you have posters and stuff? Bake cupcakes telling everyone to Vote-4-Dalton?” he asked as he held up four fingers, chuckling and clearly making fun of me.
I hated admitting this to him. “Yes to the posters. No to the cupcakes. The posters were a requirement, okay?”
I remembered painting the posters in my living room with my mom. We had spent half the night trying to come up with clever words that rhymed with Dalton. And when that didn’t work, we tried rhyming with Thomas. Double fail.
Tucker shot me a questioning glance. “But you won.”
“Hell yes, I won!” I exclaimed, as if it was a no-brainer.
He looked at me before making a face. “Did no one run against you?”
I spit out a laugh. “No, smartass. I ran against three other guys, actually.”
“Stud,” he said, actually sounding impressed.
“I was well liked,” I said with a smug smile.
“Apparently. What made you want to do that? Run for president, I mean?”
Staring out the windshield as I relaxed into the seat, I thought hard about his question. It had been a long time since I’d thought about my days as class president.
“I really wanted to get into college and since I wasn’t playing any sports, I needed all the extra shit I could get that would look good on my applications.”
“That’s seriously why?”