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turned I would want her to tell me.
    But not over the phone. This is a mandatory face-to-face discussion.
    “Can you meet me for coffee in an hour?”
    Silence.
    “Uhh, yeah, sure. Are you sure you’re alright? I was so worried. I thought you got kidnapped or something.”
    “Natalie, yes, I’m…,” I’m totally not fine , “yes, I’m fine, OK. Just meet me in an hour and please come alone.”
    “Damon’s passed out at his house,” she says and I detect the grin in her voice. “Girl, he did things to me last night I never knew he could do.”
    I shudder at her words. They’re like screaming entities blaring at me on the other end of the phone but I have to pretend they’re just words.
    “I mean I couldn’t even think about sex until I knew you were OK. You wouldn’t answer your cell so I called your mom at like three and she said you were asleep in your bed. I was still so worried because you just left and—”
    “One hour,” I interrupt before she goes off on another tangent.
    We hang up and the first thing I do is look at the missed calls on my phone. Six were from Natalie, but the other nine were from Damon. The only voice mails though were left by Natalie. I guess Damon didn’t want to leave any incriminating evidence behind.
    Not that I need evidence. Natalie and I have been best friends since the bitch stole my Corduroy Cool Barbie Doll at a sleepover.
     
     
    ~~~
     
     
    I’m fidgeting by the time she shows up and have drunk down over half of my latte. She plops down on the empty chair. I wish she wasn’t smiling so much; it’s only making it that much harder.
    “You look like hell, Cam.”
    “I know.”
    She blinks, stunned.
    “What? No sarcastic ‘thanks’ followed by your famous rolling eyes?”
    Please stop smiling, Nat. Please, just take my strange UNsmiling behavior serious for once and look at me with a serious face.
    Of course, she doesn’t.
    “Look, I’m just going to cut right to it, OK?”
    There it is: finally the smile starts to fade.
    I swallow and take a deep breath. God, I can’t believe this happened! If it were some random guy she had been seeing during one of her and Damon’s short breakups, this wouldn’t be so difficult. But this is Damon , the guy she’s been with for five years, who she always runs right back into the arms of after a breakup or a fight. He’s the only guy she’s ever truly been in love with.
    “Cam, what’s going on?” She senses the severe measure of what I’m about to tell her and I can see in her brown eyes how already she’s trying to figure out if this is something she wants to hear, or not. I think she knows it has something to do with Damon.
    I see the lump move down the center of her throat.
    “Last night, I was out on the roof with Blake—”
    Her worried face is suddenly assaulted by smiles. It’s as if she’s grabbing a hold of the opportunity to mask the inevitable news with something she can joke around about.
    But I stop her before she has a chance to comment.
    “Just listen to me for a minute, OK?”
    Finally, I’ve reached her. The natural playful spirit that always exudes from her face drains right out of her.
    I go on:
    “Damon thought Blake took me out on the roof to have his way with me. He stormed out and blew up on Blake; beat the shit out of him. Blake left understandably pissed off and then it was just me and Damon. Alone.”
    Natalie’s eyes are already giving away her fears. It’s like she knows what I’m going to say and she’s starting to quietly hate me for it.
    “Damon forced himself on me, Nat.”
    Her eyes grow narrower.
    “He kissed me and tried to tell me he’s had a thing for me since seventh grade.”
    I can tell her heartbeat has sped up just by how heavy her short breaths have become.
    “I wanted to tell you—”
    “You’re a lying bitch.”
    I feel punched in the gut again, except this time it completely knocks the breath out of me.
    Natalie shoots up from the chair, shoulders