“It’s not their fault!” yells Cam. “I’m not a dog that got off its leash, so don’t treat me like one!”
“Let me look at your wounds. . . .”
“Back off!” he yells loudly enough for her to actually back off. Then he pushes past everyone, goes up to his room, and locks the world out.
A few minutes later there’s a gentle knocking at his door, as he knew there would be. Roberta, trying to handle her volatile boy with kid gloves. But it’s not Roberta.
“Open up, Cam, it’s Risa.”
She’s the second-to-last person he wants to see right now, but the fact that she came surprises him. The least he can do is open the door.
She stands at his threshold with a first aid kit in her hand. “It’s really stupid to bleed out just because you’re pissed off.”
“I’m not ‘bleeding out.’ ”
“But you are bleeding. Can I at least take care of the worst of it? Believe it or not, I was the chief medic at the Graveyard. I dealt with stuff like this all the time.”
He opens the door wider and lets her in. He sits at his desk chair and allows her to clean the wound on his cheek. Then she has him take off his torn shirt and begins cleaning his back. It stings, but he bears it without wincing.
“You’re lucky,” she tells him. “You have lacerations, but none of them need stitches, and you didn’t tear any of your seams.”
“I’m sure Roberta will be relieved.”
“Roberta can go to hell.”
For once Cam agrees with her. She takes a look at his knee and tells him that whether he likes it or not, he’s going to need to have it x-rayed. When she’s done assessing his wounds, he takes a good look at her. If she’s still angry at him from before, it doesn’t show. “I’m sorry,” he says. “Going out like that was stupid.”
“It was human,” she points out.
Cam reaches out and gently touches her face. Let her slap him for it. Let her rip his arm out of its socket, he doesn’t care.
But she doesn’t do either of those things. “C’mon,” she says. “Let’s get you over to your bed so you can get some rest.”
He stands but puts too much weight on his knee and almost goes down. She holds him, giving him support, the way he once gave her support on the first day she walked. She helps him all the way to the bed, and when he flops onto it, her arm is looped around him in such a way that she’s pulled down onto the bed too.
“Sorry.”
“Stop apologizing for everything,” she tells him. “Save it for your more important screwups.”
Now they lie side by side on his bed, his aching back stinging even more pressed against the blanket. She could get up, but she doesn’t. Instead she rolls slightly toward him and brushes her fingers across a scrape on his chest, checking to see if it needs a bandage, then determining it doesn’t.
“You’re quite the freak, Camus Comprix. How I got used to that is a mystery to me. I did, though.”
“But you still wish I was never made, don’t you?”
“But you were, and you’re here, and I’m here with you.” Then she adds, “And I only hate you sometimes.”
“And other times?”
She leans toward him, thinks about it for a moment, then kisses him. It’s more than a peck, but only slightly more. “Other times, I don’t.” Then she rolls onto her back and stays there beside him.
“Don’t read too much into this, Cam,” she tells him. “I can’t be what you want.”
“There are lots of things I want,” he points out. “Who says I have to have all of them?”
“Because you’re Roberta’s spoiled little boy. You always get whatever your rewound heart desires.”
Cam sits up so he can look at her. “So unspoil me. Teach me to be patient. Teach me that there are some things worth waiting for.”