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Author's Note: This chapter talks about issues around childhood sexual abuse.

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    Cameron sighs, sips his beer and tightens his hand around mine. "Fuck."

"He told me it started in the first lot of detentions. He'd get touched, like it started as a shoulder touch, and turned into a massage, apparently to try and make him better, do better. If he let the teacher touch him, he'd get better grades and stop picking on him. Elliott felt uncomfortable. Told him to stop. So it got worse. A massage turned into a touch on the arm, the leg, the thigh, and then he groped him." I choke on a sob, but I can't fail Elliott now by stopping.

It's weird; before this came out, I felt like a betrayal to him would be to tell someone, but actually, it feels like a betrayal not to tell his whole story.

Cameron hiccups and tears fall from his face. They weren't even great friends, but they were friends, and it just goes to show how much Elliott was loved. He never understood that at the end.

I carry on. "That's the point he stopped going to history, and we skipped lessons. I had no fucking idea. There I was initiating sex sometimes with no idea that he'd been... touched. Not just someone else, that didn't matter, but by a teacher." I wipe my eyes, but the droplets of pain don't stop. "It had lessened when he stopped going, but then... because of what I did, he was forced back. The day he was late out of detention and started being ridiculously hyper-sexual... was the day he was fully raped. Before then, it was leading up to that, more touches, masturbation, a blow job."

"Holy fucking shit. I feel sick." Cameron opens the back door and stands outside, huffing and puffing with nausea. He leans back in the door after a few seconds. "He was sixteen. What the fuck? Why is this... paedo not in prison?"

I stand up and turn away. The way Elliott looked at me when he told me was a completely different boy than I knew. His eyes were sunken in, the sparkle gone and the dimples were never shown like when he smiled. He was someone else; haunted, broken, abused.

I puked that afternoon. We were in the woods, in our usual place we went for peace. No one ever went there, so we were just there. I vomited all over where I usually sat with him, and I cried because I thought I'd ruined the one good place he could go without worrying about being found and how he was in pain and I never understood why. It was the one thing I could understand as a sixteen-year-old because the words he'd used didn't settle in for a while. They were dirty, wrong, something no child – that's what we were – should have to think about at that age.

"He didn't want anyone to know, and he made me swear not to tell anyone, especially his parents. Initially, he wasn't going to tell me, but he trusted me."

"You mentioned the police earlier?" Cameron says.

I nod. "It wasn't until much later he wanted to go; he didn't feel like it was the right thing to do, and I think he was in a sort of denial phase. Since I knew, he could deal with it, and I think his mind went into shock, pretended it never happened."

Silence engulfs us for a few moments.

I sip my wine and sigh. "It wasn't until he was eighteen, just after our A-Levels, I talked him into going to the police. We put in a complaint, but there was no evidence. They said they investigated and took a few statements, but they came back and said there was nothing but his word against his, so they did nothing. I found out his wife is in the force... my theory is they shut it down before anything could be done. Lovely bit of corruption when a child is involved."

"For fuck's sake."

I nod. "Just to rub salt into the open wound for Elliott. The problem with that is it made everything worse for him. I'd just got his trust in the system doing him right and it goes against him. It made his depression and PTSD worse, naturally."

"How did you both deal with that with his parents and everything?" Cameron asks.

I shrug. "To be honest, we just did. They knew he was depressed and was on antidepressants, but they didn't know why. Never asked questions, just got on with it. They weren't unsupportive – hell, Leo and Patty were amazing. It was just that, I guess, they never would've thought, just like me. It was just a thing to them and they tried to help him while not knowing."

"And then he, well, we know the story."

I nod. "Then he died." I stand from the chair and down the rest of my wine. "The worst part is even while he was depressed, right up till he died, we were still talking about him getting back on track and going to university. I was going to work to support him, but do a side business of cake making until he had a job in dentistry, then open up the cake shop. We'd get married and have kids. He was planning a life with me, one which involved the business plan he left me. While I'm glad the last months weren't awful for him, it makes me wonder if he was deceiving me, or if he just decided that night and did it without thinking."

Cameron puts his drink down and faces me, his hands on my shoulders. "Don't go down that road. You'll never know the truth, and you'll torture yourself."

"Did he blame me, do you think? I'm the one who led to him being... well, that day, and I'm the one who persuaded him to go to the police." My eyes meet his. The darkness of them always took my breath away, even before I saw him in a romantic light. They remind me of the beauty of darkness in the blinding light. They're always full of sincerity and depth.

"You wanna know what I think, truly?"

I nod in response.

"He would've seen how much you were trying to help, Kenna. Elliott knew you better than anyone else, and he wouldn't have blamed you for any of it. I think you also know that deep down, but because he's gone, you want someone or something to blame that's close to home. Human nature and all," Cameron says softly.

"Part of me wishes I'd said something to someone sooner. His parents, mine, you or Luke, whatever. Just someone who could've done something more with us," I admit. "After he told me, I mean. It would've betrayed Elliott, but it could've kept him alive if he'd had someone else to confide in and someone older to help."

"Kenna, you did what you thought was right, didn't you?"

"I did what I thought was right for Elliott. My mind wasn't thinking about anything else."

Cameron nods and exhales. There's empathy in the way he waits until I'm looking back into his eyes. That's always been Cameron's way: kind, empathetic. Even when he was grieving with me, he always thought about others.

I wonder if that contributed to his depression: he was always thinking of others to not thinking about himself. Didn't give himself enough space and time to grieve properly, didn't give himself time to react to saving me that day and everything that happened after.

I've never been fair to him because while I may not have been around physically, I was still affecting Cameron. Of course, I thanked him for saving me, but I didn't show my gratitude. I fucked him and left.

It still wasn't as simple as that.

"Then, as hard as it is, you need to stop feeling guilty for something that was out of your control. Elliott could've not done it for many reasons. Personally, after hearing the whole truth, I don't think there's anything anyone could've done. You could've got justice and sent the fuck head to prison for the rest of his life, and it still would've broken Elliott to this point. You could've told someone, gone to the police and they probably would've still done nothing. There is so much that could've done, but it still wouldn't have changed the outcome."

He's right, deep down, I know that. "For so long, for so many years, I've always blamed myself because I didn't push him to tell me more, or I should've said something or done something. There's always been this fear in me that I needed to keep it a secret after he died, not just to do his last wish of sorts, but also because it was my fault and it kept the balance if I kept quiet."

"While I understand that train of thought, we both know it's not the case. He wouldn't blame you for anything. Nor do I, and if anyone else knew, nor would they."

"No one else is allowed to know," I say.

"Kenna, I'm promising you now I will not tell anyone else. That is, unless you ever ask me to. It's not my truth to tell," he promises. His eyebrows furrow ever so slightly, and he nods ever so slightly to show how serious is.

"Thank you."

"Why don't you go and cool off? Have another shower or bath or something. I need to have one myself. It's been... heavy."

I nod. "Yeah. I can still smell the chlorine on me."

He gives off a tiny laugh. "That shit sticks to you even after multiple washes." He makes his way to his bedroom. "Kenna?"

I turn to face him. "Hm?"

"Thank you for confiding in me. It... can't have been easy. For what it's worth, I'm so sorry you also had to put up with that on your shoulders for so long."

"You don't have to be sorry about that. It was my choice."

He shrugs. "Maybe. But still, it must've been so hard both to keep that a secret and then to tell someone."

"You make it easy to talk to. Thank you for listening."

He smiles and goes into his room. For some reason, I've found talking about the whole thing to Cameron so much easier than I thought, and I don't know why. I've avoided it – and him – for so long that I thought it would be the worst thing ever, but it's instead been the opposite. Of course, it's been awful because of the topic of Elliott, but it's been comforting and helpful to get it out, and there's no one else I trust like Cameron.

And the more we talked about us, it's become clear why it's been easier and comforting, and like a weight has come off my shoulders: because I'm in love with him, and have been for a long time. I've just been unable to deal with these feelings for so long because it's so messy in my mind. But maybe it's not anymore. Maybe this is what we needed to topple that wall in our minds and get through the past. The problem now is that this brings up questions in my mind, and I wonder if I can ever love him in a moment that isn't stolen from me. 

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