xp_logs | Log: Cammie and Callie

After her talk with Jean-Paul, Callie works up the courage to tell Cammie about her family.

Bottling things up was Callie's normal reaction to most problems. She would keep whatever was bothering her to herself and let it stew and grow and eventually, hopefully, dissipate. It never did, but it was nice to think that it would. But not this time, she told herself, this time it involved someone else, and they needed to know. Even it nothing was accomplished as a result (which she thought would probably be the case), she could not keep it to herself.

Callie stood outside one of the many identical doors in the mansion, fingering the paper in her hand, creasing the already worn edges more than they were. She was trying to muster up the courage to do something, anything other than stand in the hall awkwardly. She glanced down the hall, silently praying that someone would come and she would be off the hook.

No such luck. She sighed, and having no other option, rapped politely on the door.

Cammie was just hanging out. Really, unless she was eating, she didn't really venture out of her room that much for a variety of reasons. Those ranged from just anti-socialness to the fact that her hours were still pretty odd. She had been killing time with YouTube when there was a knock on the door.

"It's open," she called, turning around to face the barrier that separated her from the rest of this place. AKA the door. Sometimes it was fun to give things stupidly long names or titles.

After another deep, calming breath, Callie managed to force herself to slowly push the door to the suite open. "Hey Cammie," she said, her voice quavering as she stepped inside. She was a bundle of nerves, more so than usual, and it definitely showed as she stood inside the room fidgeting with the paper, shifting her weight, and generally looking around the room, taking extra care to avoid looking at the occupant. "Um, what's up?"

"The ceiling, which you're staring at right now. Did I suddenly grow horns or something?" Cammie asked, turning around in her chair to face Pointy the Red. Something was up here. It didn't take a psychic to figure it out.

"No, no, oh no," Callie gasped. She managed to tear her attention away from the spot on the ceiling and look Cammie, well not quite in the eye, but in the general direction. "Oh no. I'm sorry. I didn't mean... did I interrupt you or anything? Is this a bad time? Cause I could totally go away if you wanted me to. Really."

"I don't do anything. I freeload here and pull you around by your ear by recreating colorful movie scenarios and telling you they're my life," Cammie returned. "But you're really jumpy right now. So tell me what's up or I'm going to start playing twenty questions and I'm horrible at twenty questions."

Either Cammie was really good, or Callie was really bad at this. Probably both, thought the younger girl as she ventured closer. "Um ya about that..." her face tinged a darker shade of pink as Callie slowly unfolded the square of paper in her hand and held it out to Cammie. "I found this this weekend. Thought you might want to see it."

Cammie took the paper and looked it over. A missing poster. Of her. "Yeah, so? These must be floating all over Vermont, or were at one time," it was better than a wanted poster, but she doubt they'd advertise that out in the open.

"Seriously, I'm not the only runaway here. So this isn't a big deal. Don't call them or anything like that and it'll be fine. And don't call me by my full name either," Cammie said. Carmilla, seriously? What had her parents been smoking?

"I'm not... I'm not telling you what to do or calling anyone, but this is... it was new. I just thought you might want to know that your family, they're still looking for you. After... it was a power's accident wasn't it?" Callie really didn't know what to say. She had heard the stories of course, the tale of the homecoming queen killing the king had become notorious among the younger set.

"Sorry. I didn't mean to pry... it just would make more sense than what I was told."

"Accident's a pretty word. Lots of semantics there," Cammie said dryly. "So, what'd you hear?" Cammie asked, morbidly curious. She had heard about four different variations of it herself. Each somehow more outlandish than the last.

There was a debate raging within Callie for a few moments as she decided whether or not to repeat the story. Finally, the voice that was shouting to her "go for it" won out and Callie began her tale. "My friend, Jessie, well she said that her cousin's ex-girlfriend's best friend was there when it happened." Wow that was a mouthful in and of itself. "She said that the queen, I mean you, that you found out your boyfriend had been cheating on you, and like you got really mad. And like during the dance you took off your shoe and started pummeling him with the heel and he tried to stop you but ended up falling and hitting his head and started bleeding all over the place and died and then you went after every other girl there and tried to run over some in the parking lot and like five ended up in the hospital."

"But that... I mean it doesn't sound like you, at least not from what I know or anything. Which I mean isn't very well, but ya."

Cammie blinked taking that all in and then she started laughing. Hard. "Oh, that has to be the best one yet! My shoe? Running over people in the parking lot?" She didn't like thinking about the dance but the truth was so much different than that. She had ran out of the gym on foot, ditching her heels half way home because she remembered - about one of the only things she did remember after the night - falling on her face a couple of times.

"That's..." she was still laughing, "That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard in my life. Your friend doesn't know what they're talking about."

"Well the only thing the paper said was that there was what looked like to be an accident." Callie shrugged. "No one really knew what happened I guess and like, well you know how stuff gets around. I just... wanted to give you the flier and let you know about your parents."

"Yeah. Thanks," Cammie had no plans on getting in touch with her family. The less they knew about her now the better. "Do me a favor and don't go around and tell people this stuff. Especially not the manslaughter bit." She wasn't getting drug back to face any sort of charges. She had no doubt something would be thrown at her.

You couldn't go around killing the son of one of the town's three cops and happily get away with it. Nor would she walk back into a town peopled with the same people who had gone running and screaming from her right the fact.

Um. Too late there, Callie thought as she shoved her hands in the pockets of her jeans and rocked back on her heels. She didn't want to tell Cammie that there was at least one other mansion resident who knew, but at the same time she couldn't lie. "Yeah." She scratched the back of her neck. "Umm you can keep that. I don't really need it. And I'm not really gossipy or anything so..."

Cammie narrowed her eyes, "So, who'd you tell?"

Blink. She was really bad at this. "Mister Beaubier?"

Cammie had a lot of experience with people, even when she didn't really like to be around them. That had been how she had cued on to this. The girl was practically screaming guilt, "And what did you say to him?" Cammie asked, narrowing her eyes slightly.

Callie squirmed under the glare from the other girl. "I told him about the flier?"

"Just the flier?" Cammie asked, sitting up a bit. Sure, she wasn't tall enough or well built enough to be physically intimidating, but most of it was demeanor, and not actual build. And demeanor was one thing Cammie was very good at.

"Well like, that you're from Vermont and you ran away and your parents are looking for you..."

"Well, leave it at that, okay? Because everything you've heard about it is a total load of bullshit," Cammie returned. "In fact, you should go and tell him you're also wrong about the whole runaway bit. Because one place you shouldn't be putting your nose is into my business."

"I wasn't sticking my nose into your business," Callie noticed her voice raising not only in volume but in timbre as well. "And I'm not going to go back and lie for you. Like you said, we have a bunch of runaways here and it doesn't matter. But I couldn't keep it to myself. Okay? I'm sorry. But no."

"Oh, there's a backbone in there somewhere," Cammie said. "It's not lying if you don't say anything. And I really would've liked it if you hadn't told anyone. Because then the next thing everyone is going to have is buttloads of questions. How would you suddenly like everyone poking at your past? Oh wait, I suppose you have one of those happy little pasts with a Mom a Dad a picket fence and the biggest worry being a bad grade on a math test."

"I'm not going to tell anyone else, I promise. I'm not trying to... if something happens to you... I mean they're your parents, they'd probably want to know. No one's going to make you do anything, especially me." This was one of the few times in her life when Callie had to struggle to keep her voice even and calm. Normally she was pretty level headed and mellow, but not now. "And my past is far from perfect, I mean it may not be as bad as most people's, but there's no such thing as a past without imperfections."

"Okay. We'll make this into a game quick. What's the worst thing you've ever done. Go ahead, hit me. I won't tell anyone outside this room," Cammie said. She'd see what the girl would come up with. This should be interesting.

Callie fell silent. Her gaze focused on her shoes, as if they held the answer. She hadn't really done anything. Sure there were minor transgressions, but she always tried to be so good. She had never stolen anything, or done drugs, or anything like that. She wasn't really one to lie or yell or hit things. Not that she didn't want to, she just wanted to be better than all that. She had been taught to not do those things, and she couldn't go against that.

"Yeah. I thought so," Cammie said, "When you can come in here and talk about some horrible thing you've done then maybe you can see where I'm coming from here. Because those things you haven't done? I can promise you I've done most of them." Except hooking. She'd never stoop that far.

Callie stared at Cammie blankly for a few seconds. "Okay, look I'm sorry. I just thought you should know about your parents, that's all... in case, I don't know I'm not you. I'm sorry to bother you. I'm going to go now. I have homework to do," she said, her voice flat and devoid of emotion.

She turned slowly toward the door, and used her longs legs to an advantage to travel quickly away from Cammie. Before she left, Callie looked over once more at the other girl and said, "I didn't mean to ruin your day."

"It's not ruined yet. Go and do your school work like a good little mind-controlled zombie," the last was said in a bit of a lighter tone, "And keep just about everything else to yourself and we'll be fine."