Becoming His Ch. 06

Hi everyone! Welcome back for Chapter 6 of "Becoming His." This is also going to be the final chapter in this series -- but not the final chapter in the story of these characters. I will mention this again at the end of this chapter, but their story will pick up again in a new series, "Lost and Found." I will be taking a little bit of a hiatus away from these characters to write some other stuff here, but will pick up with the new series once I'm ready. As I mentioned at the start of the last chapter, "Becoming His" does not have a happy ending, but the whole arc of these characters and their relationship ultimately will.

All that being said, this is a novel-style work that won't make sense unless you've read the previous parts, so here is a link to the Series Page, which I finally managed to set up correctly, so that you can check out the earlier chapters if you missed any.

Thank you in advance for reading, and I hope you'll enjoy this chapter!

Lila woke on Thursday morning to birdsong and sunlight pressing through her bedroom window, and to her phone ringing on the nightstand.

Groggy, she lifted her head and reached blindly for her phone, her fingers eventually closing around it.

It was Cameron.

She dropped the phone down to her side with a deflated huff of breath and stared up at the ceiling. It continued to ring, vibrating in her hand. She weighed her options. Pick up. Not pick up. Pick up and tell him it wasn't a good time. Not pick up and text him immediately afterward.

She rolled onto her side, letting out a frustrated groan, and accepted the call.

"Lila?" she heard him say when she put the phone up to her ear. "Are you there?"

"I'm here," she mumbled.

"Oh, good. Listen -- " He broke off. His tone was cagey. "I'm sorry about last night. I just got angry, I guess. I didn't know you were supposed to be home by seven thirty, and I wouldn't have chosen to do what I did to you if I'd known you would be leaving so soon afterward. How do you feel?"

She stretched, winced, yawned.

"A little sore. Tired." She swallowed. "I'm sorry too. I shouldn't have run out on you like that. I was going to be late anyway, so I could have stayed another fifteen minutes."

"No, it's fine. It's not like you ran out on me, anyway. I walked you down."

"I'm sorry about your car, too," she said anxiously. "Is it going to be all right?"

"Yes, the police took my report. They're going through the surveillance footage from both incidents. It's likely that Mr. Callahan will end up behind bars for this, or else pay a very hefty fine," Cameron said. "He'll have his day in court, and I'll leave it up to the judge."

"You did the right thing," Lila said softly.

"Yes," came the reply. "I was very decent. I gave him two chances. He decided to test me."

"Where are you?" Lila asked. She thought she could hear noise in the background.

"Just leaving the gym."

She took the phone away from her ear and squinted down at the time for a moment. It was just past seven.

"At this time? When did you get up?"

"Five, the same time I always get up." He laughed. "Old habits die hard, princess. Anyway, I thought I would call you before I head in to the office. Any trouble with your mother or Robert last night?"

Lila winced. Her arm was sore where Robert had grabbed her. She turned her head to look at it. Bruised, too.

"No," she lied. "They just told me to text next time if I thought I'd be later than planned."

"Good." He sounded satisfied. In person, she was sure he would have been able to see straight through her facade. She was an open book, as he'd put it once. They had that in common. "Well, Lila, I'm afraid I have a busy day ahead of me. Two busy days. But I'll pick you up tomorrow afternoon at the library. Four thirty sharp."

"Four thirty sharp," she repeated.

"Goodbye, princess."

"Goodbye," she said, as the line went dead in her hand. She let her phone drop down onto the bedspread and sat up and stretched, finding herself well-rested.

Heading into the bathroom to brush her teeth, she found a long email sitting in her inbox -- from Tori. The subject line read "Midnight Reflections," and it was addressed only to her. Sitting down on the edge of the bathtub, she began to read.

It's near midnight. I slept with another guy today. I can't tell Emily any of this, and none of the girls I'm with would understand, so that's why I'm writing to you. I don't know when you'll get this, because my cell phone service has been in and out. I wish I'd never gone on this stupid trip. It's just more proof to my dad that I'll never amount to anything more than my mom. It's not fair, really. She's an amazing mother to me and a perfect wife to him. He shouldn't look down on her the way he does, just because he considers her his trophy wife. What's wrong with being a trophy wife, anyway? It's not what I want for myself, but I wouldn't judge someone who wanted to put most of their efforts toward their children and husband. What's wrong with that?

I wish you were here, Lila. When I get home, it's time to put my foot down and get my life in order. I have a great business idea, and it's my time to move. But right now it's still near midnight, and I'm still drunk, and I still slept with another guy today who I don't give two shits about. You're lucky you've found someone who cares about you. They say love conquers all, don't they?

Please don't mind my ramblings. And don't tell Emily. She'll think I'm falling off a depressive cliff. You know me. By tomorrow morning, I'll be perfectly fine.

xoxo,

Victoria

Lila drew a breath, rereading the lines her friend had written. She immediately felt bad about not having expected anything so poignant from Victoria. Victoria, late addition to the duo of Emily and Lila, wild child, rich girl, prep school expellee. She could have shot her shot with any of the more established popular friends groups at their high school, but she'd chosen Emily and Lila, and now Lila had a sense of why. They had always been kindred spirits, to borrow a phrase from a book very dear to her heart. And even more so as she had begun seeing Cameron, she had felt herself grow closer to Tori. It seemed they had rubbed off on each other.

She'd known that Tori intended to study business, but this was the first she'd heard of a business idea. She wondered what it might be, and resolved to ask her friend as soon as she returned. That would be on Saturday, Saturday morning. She thought briefly about whether she might be able to meet Tori at the airport.

Footsteps sounded in the hall outside the open bathroom doorway, and her mother peered in, her face pale.

"Lila, honey," she said. "You're up early."

"Yeah, Mom. I went to bed early, too," Lila said, casting her mother a sideways glance.

"Any plans for the weekend? Besides your hangout with Emily tomorrow night."

Her mother sounded a little shrill, and Lila looked sharply at her. She couldn't discern anything from her mother's expression, though; Miranda looked more tired and wan than usual, but otherwise normal.

"Well, Tori's going to be back on Saturday morning," she said hesitantly. "Maybe I could go meet her at the airport?"

"That's a fabulous idea!" her mother chirped, putting on a chipper expression. "I'll take you, and then we can go to the soup kitchen afterward. How does that sound?"

It dawned on Lila that her mother was clearly trying to avoid Robert.

"Sure," she said.

"Fine, then it's settled." Her mother gave her a bright smile that did nothing to hide the dark circles beneath her eyes. "I'll see you downstairs in half an hour for breakfast."

She left the bathroom doorway, and her footsteps retreated back into the master bedroom. A moment later Robert's voice sounded off, annoyed, but his outburst was brief, and then Miranda reemerged in her dressing gown and plodded downstairs, pausing to give Lila a tired smile.

Lila got up and brushed her teeth, no longer naive enough to hope that this might be the time her mother pulled the trigger and left Robert. No, she had hoped that too many times before, and now there was no hope left for her. She thought of little Anthony, and of the choices June had made for his sake. Certainly there was a difference between a husband who beat you black and blue and a husband like Robert, but at the end of the day one could come to feel black and blue on the inside, too. After she had rinsed her mouth with cold water, Lila stared at her reflection in the mirror above the sink. She looked better. Healthier. Love conquers all, Victoria had written.

She shut the bathroom door and ran a hot shower for herself, easing herself beneath the falling curtain of steaming water. Turning to catch a glimpse of her backside, she saw red marks from the night before, where Cameron had strapped her. She grimaced and let the water soothe her aches. She'd always bruised easily. The place where Robert had grabbed her was worse. Four distinct fingertip-shaped bruises stood out against her pale skin.

At the time, she hadn't even realized how hard he'd squeezed. His words had come through more clearly. Did you suck his dick? he'd asked, as if this meant something to him. She shuddered, soaping up her body.

When she got out of the shower fifteen minutes later, she could hear Robert thumping around the master bedroom and bellowing about a missing tie. Towel clutched to her chest, she hurried back to her own room, narrowly avoiding his stampede into the hallway. Inside, she shoved the door shut behind her, her heart pounding.

"Breakfast!" she heard her mother calling from downstairs as she pulled on a T-shirt and jeans.

Gathering her hair into a low ponytail, she took a moment to look out the window, and then at the work she'd blocked out on the large canvas on the easel in the corner. Her legs stared back at her, scars shimmering in wavering lines, larger than life. That had happened here. She'd cut herself deeply, and no one had noticed. She could have been drowning, and they wouldn't have noticed. They hadn't, and it had been so long. Cameron, a complete stranger to her, had noticed before them.

Yet she couldn't leave. Something was anchoring her here. She felt strongly that it was more than just her devotion to her mother, but she couldn't put her finger on exactly what it was. She went quietly downstairs and joined Robert at the breakfast table, where her mother was serving up pancakes. Pancakes -- Robert's favorite. What her mother made when she was trying to get back on his good side.

"What are you girls going to get up to today?" he grunted after a moment, pouring a copious amount of maple syrup onto the fat stack on his plate.

"I'm going to the gym," Lila's mother said brightly, dropping into her chair. "Lila, would you like to come along?"

Lila opened her mouth to say no before remembering that Cameron had gotten up at five in the morning to go to the gym.

"Sure," she said.

Robert almost choked on his pancakes.

"You're going to go to the gym?" he asked.

"Yeah, why not?" she said, unable to stop a note of irritation from creeping into her voice. "The doctor said it would help with my appetite, remember?"

"The doctor said that months ago, girlie," he said with a chuckle. "Guess it's never too late to start on a habit. Don't trip on the treadmill."

"I won't," Lila said, flushing. She turned down to her own pancakes and began to eat, shoveling food into her mouth bite by bite.

By the time she finished she felt more than a little sick, but she was happy to see Robert out the door and head upstairs for gym clothes while her mother did the dishes down below. Fifteen minutes later, they drove over to the Lifetime Fitness where her mother had a membership.

"I'm going to add you to our plan," her mother said brightly as they walked through the doors. Lila had never been here before. "That way you can come with me all the time. I go three times a week, Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. And I have a personal trainer here. His name is Reese. I'm sure I can spare him today to give him an intro session." She leaned closer to Lila. "He's cute. And maybe only a few years older than you!"

Lila shot her mother a big, "As if," glance.

But Reese was cute. He told her a little about himself as they headed up to the second floor weight room, where their path diverged from her mother's. He'd played football in college, studied economics, and would be starting law school in the fall, but he assured her that he was really passionate about personal training. She believed it.

"I can give you my number, in case you have any questions about things around here," he said with an easy smile.

"Yeah, sure." She fumbled for her phone, unlocked it, and handed it to him. "Thanks."

"You're welcome. Why don't I teach you a couple basic movements? Squats, the bench press..."

As they went through, she thought she saw him eyeing her ass through her gym shorts and considered reevaluating her opinion of him as a nice guy. But at the end, when he sat her down on a weight bench, his face serious, she realized that he'd had other reasons for her preoccupation.

"Are you okay?" he asked quietly. "I couldn't help but notice... you've got some marks..."

"Oh, those -- " She turned beet red. She hadn't considered the complications that might come from wearing shorts. "I'm fine. I just -- fell off my bike yesterday."

"Ouch," he said, dropping the subject. "All right, I'll take you back down to your mom. Seriously, text me if you have any questions about anything. Or if you just want to talk. I'm all ears."

He grinned at her. Her cheeks reddened another degree, and she ducked her head.

"Yeah. I will," she said, her voice a ghost.

Downstairs, they found her mother on an exercise bike. Reese started in with her, and Lila climbed onto a nearby treadmill. Her legs were already aching from her brief routine upstairs, but she picked up the pace to a steady walk and zoned out. The ache reminded her of the previous night. The lingerie, the ropes taut around her wrists, the whip of the belt catching air on its way toward her exposed skin.

Green, green, green. She upped the pace of her treadmill. She'd never been one for sports, but running was fine. Endorphins pumped through her veins, her blood singing. She flew, leaving everything behind.

Then she blinked, sweat running down her face in rivulets. Her mother and Reese were standing next to the treadmill. She slowed down to a walk.

"Didn't know you were a runner, Lila," Reese said.

"I didn't know either," said her mother. "Ready to go, honey?"

They showered in the locker room. When they'd finished, Lila sat on the bench watching her mother tussle with her wet, matted dark curls.

"You know, you're looking good," her mother said momentarily, turning slightly toward her. "Dr. Malloy's really going to be pleased with the progress you're making. Have you weighed yourself recently?"

"No, but I will."

"Has something started going well for you?" her mother asked. "Your attitude seems better. You just seem... I don't know. Well, happier."

"Yeah. Maybe getting out of school," Lila said.

"You know you can talk to me about anything, right?" Her mother had turned to look straight at her now. "Like if you're seeing someone or something like that. I won't care. And if it's Keaton's nephew, I'm sure Robert will be pleased."

"I'm not seeing anyone, Mom," Lila said, mildly annoyed. "You know, people can become happier on their own, too."

"I know, I know. I just wanted to make sure you knew, though. I care about what's going on in your life."

Her mother reached for her hand, but Lila shied away.

"Do you think we could go home now?" she asked, eyeing her mother's hairbrush.

"Sure, honey."

In the car, Lila stared out the window. They passed the parking lot where it had all begun. Now, in the daytime, it was filled with cars glittering beneath the late morning sun. Her own words rang out in her head. You know, people can get happier on their own, too. She shook her head to herself, pushing strands of her hair back from her face. Did she really believe it? Light had come into her life, pushing through chinks in the darkness. But Cameron had brought it.

She wrestled with herself. She had never been dependent on anyone for happiness. It was a strange feeling, not knowing whether it came from inside or out. She knew only that if she believed what he had told her, she had made him happier, too, and perhaps that changed everything.

The clock ticked toward three on Friday afternoon. Lila sat at her bedroom vanity selecting products to bring to the library. She knew better than to apply her makeup before she left the house, because her mother would see and ask her why in the world she had done herself up for a casual night in with Emily.

She was getting tired of lying. But she didn't see another way, at least not while she still lived beneath Robert's roof. Backpack packed with makeup bag and dress still in its box crammed into the largest pocket, she headed downstairs.

"I'm headed to Emily's," she said to her mother in the kitchen, fighting to keep her voice level. "I'll be back by ten, like we agreed."

"Oh, about that." Her mother pursed her lips at her. "Robert would really prefer it if you were home by nine. I know I told you ten, but..."

"Nine thirty then," Lila snapped, and turned on her heel toward the door.

Her mother's voice followed her.

"Do you want a ride, honey?"

"No, I want to walk!" Lila called.

She stepped outside and shut the door behind her and took a deep breath of warm summer afternoon air. A month. It had been a month, to the day, since the night when Cameron had first taken her out to drive. She imagined his car up in the drive. The white Mercedes, this thing of dreams. To think he'd let her, a practical stranger to him, drive it in circles around an empty lot in the twilight. It was a love story, a real love story.

She set off in the direction of the library.

When she arrived, she went to the study room she'd reserved for that time and set about applying her makeup with trembling hands. She would have gone for a garden variety look despite the occasion, except she was constantly reminded of the last time she'd put on makeup for Cameron. All had been well until his goddess of an ex had showed up next to him, looking as if she'd just come out of an hours-long session with a professional stylist. For all Lila knew, she had. She powdered herself with a vengeance, desperately wishing that Tori had been there. Tori was a magician with a makeup brush, and she would have known exactly the right look for a fancy party.

It was four fifteen by the time Lila finished, and she headed to the bathroom to change into her evening dress in one of the stalls. A couple teenage girls, younger than her, were chatting at the mirror when she went in. They fell silent as she walked by, but resumed their chatter, albeit in lowered voices, as soon as she had locked herself into the large handicapped stall at the end of the row.

"She goes to the high school, right?" Lila heard one of them whisper.

"Went. She graduated, I think. God, she looks different. Did you see how much makeup she has caked on? I guess no one told her the natural look is in vogue."

Giggling, they went out, the door swinging shut behind them. Lila stood in the stall, fighting tears. No one had told her. No one was there to tell her. Emily, her second-best option, had left two hours ago for her camping trip. She ducked out of the stall and hastily washed off everything she'd spent the past hour carefully applying, then took the five minute approach. Eye shadow. Mascara. Blush. Lip gloss.