“I just kissed you,” I answered.
“That feels much better,” Camille said. “It’s as if this hungry need that was there is now gone!”
I smiled. “I’m happy that Doctor Jim was able to help!”
The two of us sat in silence for a few minutes.
“Jim?” Camille asked.
“What, Camille?” I asked softly.
“How did you know what to do?”
I shrugged. The idea just popped into my head, and I wasn’t particularly sure that I knew the answer to that question.
“I haven’t felt this calm in years,” Camille said. “Not since Debbie…”
“Forget about Debbie for now,” I said soothingly.
Camille closed her eyes. When she opened them, I saw a new expression on her face. “What did you do?”
I shrugged again. “I kissed my friend.”
“Jim… I love you! Not like Kristen does, but like a friend! I have never had a real friend.”
“Patty loves you,” I said. “So does Lynette.”
“Perhaps, but I never really trusted their love.”
“I think that’s what you were missing, Camille. Trust.”
“Huh?”
“Remember last week when I asked you to trust me?” I said, only now understanding things as I was saying them. “You did. I think that was the first time you really trusted somebody. I could have made you a slave with the tickets, just as your sister did. I didn’t do it. You trusted me, and I passed your test.”
“Trust?”
“Trust,” I repeated. “When I asked you about Patty before, you said she pitied you. She loves you! You just never trusted her motives!”
“It can’t be that simple!” Camille’s eyes were wide with amazement.
“Do you really love me?” I asked.
“I think… no… I know I love you.”
“It’s not a romantic love, though. Right?”
Camille thought about it. “No. A few minutes ago, I could have sworn it was, but now… no, it’s not romantic!”
I smiled. “Do you feel as mixed up as you were before?”
Camille actually smiled. “No, Jim! I feel wonderful!”
“You need to learn to trust people, Camille,” I said. “People such as Patty and me love you and want to help you.”
The cheerleader nodded her head slowly. “It’s not going to be easy, you know.”
“It never is, but trust pays off handsomely in the end, Cammy.”
“May I have another kiss, Jim?”
“Of course, if you use the right word?”
“Which one?”
“What’s the most important thing for you right now?”
“Trust?” Camille asked, not sure where I was going.
“It’s something that I learned the hard way myself, Cammy. What are we?”
“Friends!” Camille said happily.
“Friends!” I repeated.
The two of us kissed once more. This time, there was no tongue trying to probe my lips. Instead, we shared an intimate kiss as two close and very dear friends.
When we finally broke it off, I looked at the clock on Camille’s dashboard. “What time is your mother’s appointment?”
“Five,” Camille answered. There were about forty-five minutes to go.
“Think you can drop me off at my house first?”
“No problem,” Camille grinned. “You only live a couple of blocks from me.”
Camille started up her engine and pulled out of the parking lot.
When we got to my driveway, Camille kissed me briefly and then said, “I’m going to need to have a long talk with Patty tonight. Thank you, Jim!”
“Thank you, friend!”
At home, I thought about what just transpired between Camille and me.
I didn’t tell Camille everything that I realized, but I knew that she was intelligent enough to put in the missing pieces herself.
Camille’s public life was a lie for a good many years. She was not the nymphomaniac whore that her sister turned her into. She was not really the person she showed to all her so-called friends.
A lot of this she would have to discover herself. For now, she needed to trust some people. Like Patty, life had not been easy for Camille.
It wasn’t an easy lesson for me, and I was just now learning it, even though I’d experienced this for months.
I somehow earned Patty’s trust before she could tell me about the experience that traumatized her. I needed to earn Kristen’s trust before she fell in love with me. I showed Sherry that I trusted her when I gave her that note that I had written to Kristen. Camille needed to learn to trust somebody to understand that she had friends.
Trust was a powerful thing.
Could it somehow be the secret of the tickets?
The next morning started out as a day that could only be described as “raw.” It was dark, dismal, and cold. It felt as if it would rain or snow any minute. I looked out the front window and scowled. I hated this sort of weather. Unfortunately, we got a lot of it living in the Midwest.
There was a knock on our door, and when I opened it, I was greeted by the loveliest blonde Goddess who ever walked the face of the earth. I could swear that I could hear birds chirping behind her as though it were the first spring day in a scene out of the movie ”Bambi.”
One smile from Kristen could probably melt a tornado away!
“What are you gawking at?” Kristen asked, amused at my reaction to seeing her.
I didn’t answer, but merely sighed. “How was Chicago?”
“Busy,” Kristen answered. “Lots of things that I needed to hear. Nothing is official until I’m eighteen, but my mother is starting to put things in motion.”
My response was a shrug. Money matters never bothered me. I mean, if one has no money, then there’s very little to bother somebody.
“Where’s your case?” Kristen asked, a little put off that I didn’t invite her inside, nor was I ready to go out with her to drive to the school.
“Oh!” I said. I turned and found my attaché case. “Thanks for reminding me. I have homework to hand in.”
“Are you ready to leave?” Kristen asked.
“Sure,” I said, moving out.
Kristen yelled “good-bye” to my mother and Merry, and I inwardly chided myself for not having invited Kristen inside the house.
In the Camaro, Kristen pulled onto the main street and headed toward the high school. She asked, “Did you miss me?”
“Of course,” I answered.
“So, what did you do while I was gone?”
“I talked a bit with Camille again.”
Kristen did not respond to that statement. I knew that she still harbored a little bit of jealousy from last week.
I decided it was time to get that out in the open. “Camille loves me,” I said, flatly.
“I see,” Kristen said, an edge coming to her voice.
“Not that way, Kris!” I said quickly. “I mean, she finally told me that she loves me like a friend. In fact, she specifically said that she didn’t like me romantically.”
Kristen shook her head. “She’s always been a friend…”
“No, Kris!” I said. “You don’t get it. Up until just recently, Camille never trusted anybody—and I mean that she trusted nobody! You can be a friend to people, but you’ll never feel that you have a friend until you learn to trust that person.”
“Patty loved her as a friend,” Kristen pointed out.
“And Camille never trusted that love. Camille thought that Patty actually pitied her. Camille never told Patty much about her previous sex life, even though it was common knowledge around the school, apparently. And Patty never told her about her…” I paused, wondering how much I should say. “Well, something that happened to Patty a couple of years ago.”