Becoming His Ch. 02

She felt a little stupid, having thought for a moment in the car that he might be coming just for her.

"Oh, don't be stupid, Lila," snapped Victoria, her eyes cutting straight into Lila's thoughts. "It's clear he's doing it for you. He doesn't care about handing out diplomas to half our graduating class. Fund for the Arts... and what are you into? Why, the arts, what a surprise!"

Lila said nothing. She couldn't bring herself to hope. Was it even right to hope? She still felt so lame. And he'd said he was still seeing the other woman, Jennifer. What did that mean? She found herself wishing there had been time for her to ask, and him to answer, more questions.

"Oh, my gosh," she blurted out as they filed out of the bathroom. "I probably made him late for work."

"Oh, boy, what a travesty," Victoria said, rolling her eyes. "The man is rich enough already. I'm sure he doesn't care. He's probably late for work every other day."

"No, actually, I don't think so," Lila said.

At the brunch, she picked at some fruit salad, waiting for both of her friends to leave her at an opportune moment. Finally, it came. Sitting beneath the pines on the hillside, out of the warm late May sun, she tapped out a quick message to her benefactor.

I'm sorry if I made you late to work. Thank you again for everything.

Her fingers paused over the keypad, indecisive as to whether or not to mention the matter of graduation. Emily and Victoria returning, she decided against it. She dropped her phone into the pocket of the oversized jeans and smiled at them. They were trying to understand, she knew, but she also knew that they couldn't. Especially while everything still hung in the balance, like something sacred.

Dinner was tense that night. Lila did her best to work through at least half of her portion of Hamburger Helper, thinking about what Cameron had said to her the night before. But it was hard, when Robert's eyes kept shooting angrily in her direction.

At last, he came out with what he wanted to say.

"Two calls from your mother and God knows how many texts," he thundered. "And why, pray tell, did you not answer?"

He took a big sip of wine. A bit trickled down his chin into his beard, and Lila grimaced.

"My phone was off," she said in a tiny voice.

"Your phone was off," he said mockingly. "And how many times have we had to tell you not to turn your phone off when one of us might need to contact you? That's a rhetorical question; don't answer it. Now I'd be perfectly inclined to say you ought to sit your ass in a chair and not walk in graduation, except who knew that my coworker, who I've been trying to impress for months, has a penchant for the arts!"

His eyes had narrowed, and he brought his fist, a fork sticking out the top of it, slamming down on the table with a jolt that made everything clatter. Lila's mother let out a nervous squeak.

"It's all right, Robert," she said, her eyes darting back and forth from her husband to her daughter. "It's all right! We'll invite Mr. Winthrop to join us for Lila's graduation dinner. I'm sure the place can accommodate four. In fact, I'll give them a ring now!"

She made to get up, but Robert caught her arm and pulled her back down.

"Sit, Miranda," he said sternly. He sounded as if he were talking to a dog, not to his wife, and Lila sat across the table and hated him for it. His eyes fixed on her again. "You had better be on your best behavior, or there'll be hell to pay."

Her mother squeaked. Lila saw that Robert's grip on her wrist had tightened.

All at once, he released her and got up, taking his wine with him.

"I'll go change the reservation," he grumbled, and his heavy footfalls left the dining room and traveled into the hall and up the stairs toward his study.

"Mom," Lila whispered, watching her mother massage her wrist where Robert had squeezed it. "Why don't you leave him?"

Her mother looked up at her with wide, alarmed eyes.

"Leave him? What in the world are you talking about?" She let out a little burst of laughter. "You're one to talk, when you caused this argument. You know he doesn't like it when you turn your phone off. We were worried sick that something had happened to you at prom or afterward. You should have seen him! He thought you might have gone out drinking."

"But I texted to say I was going to Emily's," Lila said in a low voice.

"Yes, I know," her mother said in a placating tone. "But your father said that teenagers lie to their parents sometimes."

"He's not my father!" Lila burst out, angry tears springing to her eyes. "And how would he even know? It's not like he's had children before!"

She sprang to her feet and ran from the room, taking solace on the veranda. She didn't want to go upstairs, because Robert was there, and the last thing she needed was an emotionally-charged confrontation with him. She wrapped her arms around herself and cried. Had her mother forgotten that it was the anniversary of her father's, her real father's, death? She herself had only realized halfway through the day, after she'd gotten home from school, and it had weighed on her ever since. He was a distant memory, her father. More distant because her mother never spoke of him, and no pictures had been kept of him since they had moved in with Robert.

Many things had changed after her mother had married Robert, which had only been three years after Lila's father had died, and that after a string of less successful relationships with other rich, mostly older men.

She took her phone out and lay it beside her and stared at Cameron's reply in the dark. She hadn't opened the message all day, only read the part of it she could read on the lock screen again and again. She didn't want to become her mother, so dependent on someone that she couldn't fathom leaving him.

At the same time, she craved this wholehearted attention that no one had ever given her before.

"Daddy issues," she scoffed aloud to herself in the dark. Then she dove into her phone and read the entirety of the message.

Yes, you made me late to work, but it's all right. You're welcome. I hope I've given you some things to think about. I will see you on Friday, and perhaps we will have a moment to speak then. Until then, I remain -- yours truly.

She flung her phone away from herself. It landed softly facedown on the carpet, a lucky outcome. She squeezed herself into the smallest, tightest ball of limbs she could, tears trickling down her cheeks. If Cameron had been there, she had no doubt she would have screamed at him: What do you want from me? Thrown herself at him, most likely, before beginning to weep, because she had no one. Even her own mother valued her crappy marriage to a crappy man more than she valued her daughter, or at least that was the way it seemed.

Lila unfurled herself. She felt naked and afraid. She stretched out on the suspended, swinging loveseat and curled back into fetal position, and slowly drifted off to sleep.

"Here's your sash, Lila," came Mr. Halsey's voice.

Lila blinked, pulled from her reverie. In the crowd of blue and white and colorfully festooned graduation caps, it was hard for her to focus on anything. But there was her sophomore-year English teacher, the head of the National Honors Society, holding one of the gold sashes that marked its members.

"You never picked it up on Tuesday morning during homeroom," he said by way of explanation, holding it out to her. "Would you like help pinning it?"

"Uh, sure," Lila said. She cast her eyes her eyes about for Emily and Victoria, but they had run off to the bathroom together.

Mr. Halsey draped the sash over her shoulder and secured it with a safety pin, bending over her. She felt the warmth of his breath against her neck and fought the urge to draw away.

"Ouch!" she said as he moved to pin it to the bottom of her gown. The second pin had pricked her hand.

"Oops. Must've gotten you," he said, holding up the pin. His eyes sparkled up at her. She could have sworn he was lifting the hem of her gown far higher than necessary, and taking his time at it, too. Finally he finished and straightened himself, dusting his hands off on his charcoal gray suit pants.

"Well, I'm sure I'll see you later," he said, patting her on the shoulder before disappearing into the crowd.

Lila shivered, not only because of his unwelcome advances -- but also because she had come under the influence of a somewhat familiar sensation. She turned around and saw Cameron standing behind her, two yards away, a bouquet of roses in his hands and his eyes fixed on her.

She said nothing. He stepped forward and held the roses out to her.

"Thank you," she said stiffly, accepting them. She buried her face in the yellow blooms. Yellow for new beginnings. She had learned that somewhere. She jerked her eyes up and forced herself to meet Cameron's gaze. "You can go. I'm sure you need to rehearse or something. I know why you're here."

"I'm here for you," he said, guileless. He stepped closer, narrowing the gap between them to a couple feet, no more. "Who was that man?"

She frowned at him, thrown off-balance.

"What man?"

"The man pinning your thing," he said impatiently, tugging at her sash. "This whatever-it's-called."

She laughed despite herself. The Harvard graduate with his fifty-cent words suddenly couldn't remember a two-cent one.

"Sash. He's Mr. Halsey, the NHS sponsor." She sucked on her hand where he had pricked her before showing it to Cameron. "He stuck me with the pin by accident, see? And before you say anything, I know he's a creep. He's been obsessed with me since I had him sophomore year."

"Hmm." Cameron took her hand, his eyes locked on hers. He raised it and brushed his lips across her skin where she'd been pricked, the touch feather-light and electrifying. Then he dropped it unceremoniously back to her side. "Well, I got you the thornless variety. Of roses, that is. So you needn't mind any more thorns."

"Thank you," Lila said, squeezing the bouquet to her chest. Her heart thumped wildly. "Are you coming to dinner afterward?"

"Would you like me to?" he asked.

She swallowed. No one seemed to have noticed her conversation with this tall, handsome stranger. They were all too busy making last minute adjustments to their caps and gowns or running off to the bathroom before the ceremony began. She was lost in the crowd, and him with her.

"Yes," she said at last.

"Fine," he said. "Then I'll come. Congratulations, Lila."

She opened her mouth to say something more, but he had already turned away. She watched him ford his way through the crowd. The roses remained in her arms, the only tangible result, the only token, the only proof that their conversation had happened at all. She turned and saw that Mr. Halsey was watching her from where he was standing near the bleachers with a few other teachers. So someone had taken note of her interaction with Cameron after all. Her skin crawled.

Her friends returned. They were too beside themselves about something that had happened in the bathroom to notice the massive bouquet in Lila's arms. Only a few minutes later, they were torn apart, Lila joining the row of G's and H's, Victoria with the C's and D's, Emily in the midst of a sea of S's. Homeroom pals rubbed shoulders for the last time as they filed in and took their seats, Pomp and Circumstance ringing out of the gymnasium speakers, before the headmaster took the stage to bring up the special guests. The class president, valedictorian, and salutatorian were shepherded to their seats, followed by the mayor, the superintendent, and Lila's own Cameron Winthrop.

He was wearing a very nice navy blue suit that she'd hardly noticed when he'd brought her roses. She fixed her eyes on him, knowing that no one would realize she was staring at one person out of many. The speeches dragged on.

Finally, it came time to walk. The A's and the B's rolled out. There were a few near-trips on overly-long gowns, nothing catastrophic. Victoria strutted across the crowd near the start of the D's and held up her middle finger before claiming her diploma from Cameron. Lila wondered if he had recognized Tori as one of her friends. Then again, the answer should have been obvious. Everyone who saw Tori once recognized her when they saw her again.

Then she watched Alan Elgar walk across the stage with his head bandaged, and she realized that he more than likely had no idea that he was shaking the hand of and receiving his diploma from his unlikely savior. It gave her chills, this convergence of fate.

After that, it was only a short time before it came to her row. She listened to the headmaster read out, "Sarah Magnolia Henley," and watched Sarah make her way across the stage, shake Cameron's hand, and claim her diploma, beaming all the way. Then her own name rang out.

"Lila Rose Henson."

She walked up the three steps and onto the stage, struggling to maintain balance in the heels her mother had picked out for her. Robert was probably fidgeting in his seat right then. He had always hated the fact that she, at the tender age of nine, had refused to take his last name, and that her mother had refused to force her. What could she say? It was all she had left of her father.

She reached Cameron and took his extended hand. His eyes sparkled down at her. Cameras flashed behind them. Then time seemed to speed up, and she took the proffered diploma and hurried off the stage, trying not to duck her head. She was glad when she was able to drop back into her seat and reclaim the flowers she had left under her chair. She clung to the locket around her neck, the last gift her father had given her, and the fragrance of the roses rose up and comforted her.

When it came Emily's turn to receive her diploma from Superintendent Harris, Lila stood up and clapped for her friend. Twenty minutes later, after the close of the ceremony, she was reunited with Victoria and Emily.

"Where did you get those roses?" Victoria burst out, now noticing the massive bouquet.

"Cameron brought them for me," Lila said shyly.

"Oh, girl. He's like Prince Charming," Tori said, embracing her.

They huddled together for a moment, Emily snapping a selfie less for Instagram's sake and more for remembrance's. Lila found herself suddenly on the verge of tears.

"What's wrong?" Emily asked her, alarmed.

"It's just that..." She swiped her sleeve angrily across her weeping eyes. "I can't help thinking that everything is going to change. I mean, with the two of you going to college in the fall and everything..."

"Heck, it's not like we're going far," Victoria said, whose graduation cap bore a big NYU logo. Emily's was adorned with the colors of Amherst College. "I mean, not cross country or anything. And you said you were going to apply to art school in the city. So it'll only be a year. And we'll all see each other during every single vacation. And we have the whole summer!"

"That's a lot of and's, Tori," said Emily. She gave Lila a big squeeze and a meaningful look. "Don't worry. Maybe there will be enough going on in your own life to keep you occupied."

"Yeah, don't be a crybaby. Look, here comes your Prince Charming now!" said Victoria.

She produced a tissue out of nowhere, with which Lila hastily dabbed her eyes. She looked up in time to face Cameron, who had appeared in front of them. It seemed he'd found her before her mother and Robert had.

"Would you care to introduce me to your friends?" he asked her.

"Victoria Harper Delaney," Tori said without missing a beat, extending her hand. She grinned up at Cameron. "But you already knew that. Thanks for the diploma, by the way. It means a lot to me."

"I'm sure," Cameron said. He was still looking mostly at Lila. "And your other friend?"

"This is Emily," Lila said.

"Her BFF," Tori said. She blew kisses at both of them. "Well, I've gotta slide, my parents are going to be searching for me everywhere."

"Nice to meet you," said Emily, shaking Cameron's hand. She spoke quietly, and Lila could tell that she still had her reservations.

"Nice to meet you too," Cameron said. Then he swung toward Lila. "Ready, princess? Your stepfather gave me permission to chauffeur you to the restaurant."

A heavy weight sank into Lila's stomach. So he had found her before her mother and Robert because her mother and Robert hadn't even bothered looking. It wasn't a surprise; she knew Robert had been less than thrilled about the prospect of sitting through a three-hour graduation. She wished that her father's parents had been able to come, but her mother had persistently dodged questions about inviting them, and she had no way to contact them on her own.

She swallowed.

"All right."

"Let me help you get out of your gown at least," Emily said to her, and then her best friend's hands moved around her, deftly unpinning the sash and unzipping the back of the gown so that she could step out. Beneath, she was in the outfit her mother had picked out for her, an off-the-shoulder champagne-colored mini dress, and the heels that she could barely walk in.

"You look beautiful," Emily whispered, squeezing her hand.

At that moment, Lila felt more overexposed than beautiful. Her mother had insisted on the dress for the occasion and for the ludicrously fancy restaurant they would attend in the aftermath. She watched Emily pass her wadded up sash and gown to Cameron, and then her friend waved goodbye as he took her arm and steered her toward the most unobstructed exit, one of many doors along the side of the gymnasium.

"You're not comfortable in your dress," he said when they had gotten outside into the May evening.

Lila shrugged. The air, though warm, raised goosebumps on her skin.

"It's okay."

His eyes rested on her, serious.

"For what it's worth, I think you somehow make a tasteless dress look tasteful."

She said nothing. Inside, she pushed back at the warm glow the compliment lit within her. She still didn't understand what this man wanted. Why did he continue to pursue her? Why hadn't he made a move? Besides, she wasn't the only one in his life -- he had openly admitted to seeing another woman. She wasn't even a woman, she was a girl, and that was probably how he looked at her.

Only she wasn't so sure, when he had settled her into the passenger seat of his car and was looking across at her, his eyes seeming to drop momentarily toward her decolletage.

"What is this?" she blurted out suddenly, before burying her face in her hands. "I can't do this anymore. I'm so confused. What do you want with me?"

His hands came to rest over hers, pulling them away from her face. He leaned closer, and his eyes peered into hers.

"Would you care for me to lay your confusion to rest?" he asked in a low voice. "I want you, Lila. I've wanted you since I laid eyes on you, the first time Robert invited me over. Perhaps even before that -- perhaps when I began to imagine the girl he always complained about. I didn't want to scare you off. And I know I still might." He was drawing back, his face darker. "There are a lot of things you don't know about me. But you asked what I want with you, and so..." His eyes lingered on her face. "Right now I would like to kiss you, if you would let me."

She blushed, shrinking beneath his gaze, tears still fresh on her cheeks. Butterflies fluttered in her stomach, her little heart beating so hard she thought it might burst. Though she had tried not to think about this, she had thought about it again and again, but all of her thinking had not prepared her for it.

"May I kiss you?" he asked again, two fingers tilting her chin up.

"I've never..." She began, her tongue dumb, half-incoherent. "Yes, you may, but... I've never... done that... before."