Down London Road

more to me than even I realized. No one had ever told me I was smart or talented or brave, or that I deserved more than what I’d asked for. Until you. And it turns out you never really believed that. You always believed that deep down I’m just this shallow girl that would fuck her way to a gold mine.’
    ‘No,’ he argued, taking hold of my arms to shake me. ‘I was just pissed off. It came out wrong. I didn’t mean it.’ He tried to pull me into a hug, but I struggled against him. ‘Baby, stop, just stop. I can’t –’
    I pushed at him and shoved at him until he let me go, and I glared into his face with every shred of my tattered self-respect. ‘You said it. It means it’s in there somewhere.’ And then I threw out, ‘And I saw the way you reacted to Ryan.’
    As he dragged a hand through his hair, Cam’s expression changed from remorse to agitation. ‘Well, he is the kind of stupid prick you’d go for.’
    I shook my head in disbelief. ‘You really think that after everything between us, he’s the kind of guy I’d go for?’
    ‘You really think that, after everything, I’d cheat on you with Blair?’
    ‘You cheated on Becca with me.’ I winced as soon as the words were out of my mouth. That was a low blow.
    Cam huffed, looking at me incredulously. ‘And you cheated on Malcolm with me.’
    ‘Is that what you really think?’ I repeated his words back at him. I felt more tears tremble on my lashes and I hated that he could reduce me to this snivelling mess. ‘That I’ve been holding on to Malcolm in case this ends?’
    He shrugged, his expression stony. ‘Do you really think I’ve been waiting on someone better to come along? That I’m using you?’
    I wiped my nose with the back of my hand and looked away, unable to stare into his eyes as I answered hoarsely, ‘I think you never stopped seeing me as
that
girl. The one you didn’t respect very much.’
    ‘Then maybe you really aren’t that smart after all.’ His tone was cutting, horrible.
    I didn’t think anyone had sliced me as deep with their words as he had. And I hated that he had that kind of power over me.
    He sighed and I finally looked at him, watching as he rubbed a hand down his face and turned away from me. In a weary voice he suggested, ‘Maybe you better go before we say more ugly shit we don’t mean.’
    I didn’t answer him in words.
    I just left.



27
    I had difficulty finding sleep that night. I finally drifted into unconsciousness in the wee hours of the morning and was awoken at ten thirty by the loud
bing
of a text notification on my phone.
    It was from Uncle Mick, reminding me that I’d agreed to go flat hunting with him. That was fine. Probably better to keep my mind off my fight with Cameron anyway.
    I’d swayed back and forth on the whole thing during the night. Part of me felt like our argument was ridiculous, that it was ludicrous to be feeling this much pain over misunderstandings. I wondered if they were all misunderstandings of my own making. Three times I almost picked up the phone to call Cam, to talk it through, to try to make sense of all the drama. I’d watched crap like this on the telly, read about it in books, and although I’d enjoyed the angst of it all, I’d rolled my eyes and thought of how it never really happened in real life. People weren’t that stupid.
    Well, we were.
    I was.
    In the end I didn’t call him. I decided my wounds were still too fresh to talk to him just yet. Since I was sixteen years old I hadn’t been without a boyfriend, and during the months in between relationships, I’d been on the hunt for a boyfriend. I’d spent so much time believing Mumand Dad, believing I was nothing, that instead of putting effort into fighting the hateful crap they’d fed me all my life, I’d bought into it and thus clutched on to men I believed had all the attributes I lacked.
    Cam had been different from the start, but I’d still launched myself into a relationship with him. I’d begun to rely on him. More than that, I’d begun to rely on his opinion of me as a person to make me feel better about who I was. I was more than a little cut up inside at the thought of losing that good opinion – or worse, that he’d never really had a good opinion in the first place.
    I shook my head at that thought. Even though my mind was all over the place because of him, I couldn’t bring myself to believe that he’d never seen more in me. Everything he’d done for me, all the