Cameron's POV

"Come find me, Cami." Her sweet sing-song voice playfully beckoned me to her.

"Where are you, Jess?"  I called out as I searched every slide and swing.  I looked behind the bushes and trees for the beautiful wild girl who I had been playing hide and seek with all afternoon.

"You're getting warmer." Her little voice cackled with excitement. I changed direction to move towards the beautiful sound.

Her soft laughter carried on the wind and swirled around me as I continued my mad search for her.  I was growing more desperate to find her as each second passed.  Where was she?  Where could she be hiding?

"Jessa? You can come out now.  I'm giving up.  You win. I'm done playing this stupid game."  I cried out impatiently to her.

I felt her tiny hands slide around my waist and I let her tackle me from behind, bringing both of us to the ground. I rolled over on my back and pulled her body on top of mine.

"That's not fair, Jessa. You were cheating."  I complained as she placed her hands on the top portion of my stomach and rested her chin on them. 

"You just suck at the game, Cheese Puff." Her frost-colored eyes stared up at me as a playful grin spread over her face.  Her hair was wild today and blocked her face a little. I wanted to see all of her smile and hated it when she tried to hide it.  She didn't give anyone else that smile other than me.  It belonged to me. 

She was mine.

I pushed her dark unruly hair back off her face. She did that little thing she always did where she took her bottom lip between her teeth while batting her eyelashes at me.  She always did it when she was nervous; I wasn't sure if she ever even realized she was doing it. 

I knew right then that I was going to marry this girl.  Fourteen years old and I had found the person I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. 

"You're going to pay for saying that, darling." I teased her playfully.

Why did I call her darling?  Well, that was what my dad called my mom.  It felt like it fit.  She was darling to me. All the other boys in our class made fun of me for calling her that, but I didn't care.  She was a perfected blend of fierceness and fragility; there was no one else in the world like her. She was everything to me.

I reached down and began tickling her sides. She hated to be tickled.  She had this little grumbly voice that would come out every time my fingers would touch the bare skin on her stomach.  I felt like growling right along with her as I touched her.  Every little noise she made only drove me further until we were gasping for air. She always stole all my breath away. I wasn't sure what the feeling was, but I knew I liked the way she made me tingle.  I loved making her feel the same way too. 

When I had her distracted enough, I took control and flipped her on her back. She squealed when I pinned her down to the ground.  She used to be better at fighting against me during our daily wrestling matches. Over the last year, I had grown a lot taller and stronger than her. She used to sit on top of me and taunt me when she was victorious.  Now, most of our battles ended with me leaning over top of her while she looked up at me, smiling exactly the way she was right now.

The sun hit her perfect dark chestnut curls as they spread on the ground around her.  The glow bathed her in a golden angelic halo. She was too perfect to be in this world.  She belonged in the clouds with the other angels, singing in the heavens with her beautiful voice. 

"Cami, have you ever kissed someone before?"  Her tone turned serious as she stared up at me through her long eyelashes. Her bright blue eyes were twinkling with her curiosity.

"Yeah, loads of kisses."  I lied to her.  I didn't want her to think I was a dork.

"Not your Mom, Cheese Puff."  She rolled her eyes at me.

My cheeks were flaming with embarrassment.  She always knew when I wasn't telling her the truth. I don't know why I even bothered trying to fool her.

"Have you ever been kissed, Jessa?" I asked, looking down at her.

"No." She said quickly and paused. She chewed on her lip nervously like she had something else she wanted to say to me.

"I haven't either,"  I admitted and her face lit up. It seemed like my confession made her happy. I loved making her happy.

"Have you ever thought about kissing me?"  She asked. 

"Eww, no."  I lied again.  The stirrings began in the strange spot like they always did when I was with her.  I looked down at myself. Not now. Why did this always happen when she was with me? 

"Cooperate, please!" I silently begged it when it began to move. 

"Oh, Cami, what is that?"  She asked innocently as she felt it growing against her leg. 

No, no. She felt it.

I licked my lips, closed my eyes, and just went for it.  Maybe if I kissed her, she would forget about the thing that I hadn't learned to control. It had a mind of its own and it always wanted her to notice it. It was always begging for her attention.

My lips touched her soft pink ones.  Hers were slightly moist from the fruity chapstick she always wore. Raspberry lemonade. She tasted so sweet. Jessa was always so soft and sweet.

She let out a little noise which made my body vibrate.  I don't know why I did it, but I pushed my tongue into her mouth and she parted her lips wider to let me in. She began moving her tongue against mine.  She spun it around with the perfect amount of pressure, teasing me with the tip.

She was good at this kissing thing.

I was going to make her my girl forever. Now that I had tasted her, I was never going to be able to let her go. When she put her hands in my hair to hold me tighter, the feeling below began to grow out of control.  I was under Jessa's spell and I had never needed anything more than the way I needed her. 

I pushed against her harder without even realizing what I was doing, but my body liked it.  She let out another noise like she liked it too. 

"Does that...um...does doing that make you feel something too?"  I pulled away from her mouth and finally opened my eyes. She was staring up at me with an expression I had never seen on her face. She looked confused but happy at the same time.

"Yes, it feels kind of strange." She whispered breathlessly.

"Oh, I'm sorry. That was stupid. I'll stop." I apologized and turned red. I started to press my hands on the ground to stand up. She grabbed my arms and kept me firmly in place.

"No, I liked it." She blurted out.

" Do you want me to do it again?"  I asked.

"Um...Ok." She looked up at me nervously. I leaned back down and placed my mouth on hers and rubbed against her again.  My body took over and I began moving back and forth against her. I must have been doing something right because she started pushing harder against me too. 

She started whimpering as I moved faster and faster. 

"Cami, help me."  She cried out. 

I froze.  Did I do something wrong? Did I hurt her?

When I opened my eyes, I pulled away and instead of the beautiful girl glowing in the sunshine, there was a scared woman shrouded in darkness beneath me.  Her once luminous eyes were losing their luster as they widened with fear.

She was clutching her throat as a river of dark blood started to seep from between her fingers.

"Jessa. Please don't die. I will save you." I cried, trying to cover her neck and apply pressure to get the bleeding to stop. I was failing her.  I was always too late to save her.

Her mouth was contorted in a silent scream; she couldn't speak, she couldn't even cry.  All I could do was sit and hold her as the light slowly began leaving her eyes.  Her head fell back right before her body went limp in my arms.

"I love you, darling. Please don't leave me.  It's you and me, Jess. It's supposed to be you and me."  I sobbed into her tangled, blood-soaked hair.

"Aww, that's so precious." I looked into the back corner of the room to find where the deep familiar voice came from. The air around me stank like death. Sitting in a chair was the woman I put the bullet hole in to save the girl I loved.  Standing behind her was a man rubbing her shoulders. It was the same man that had abused and done everything in his power to ruin my girl. 

Nathan and Jenna.

The two people I hated most in this world were there laughing at me as I lost her again.

I woke up in a pool of my own sweat.  I was tangled up in my sheets and fought against them when I felt like they were suffocating me.  I hadn't been able to breathe since the day she left and it was getting worse every day.  

I didn't know who I was without her. I was lost. I was dying inside.