Besotted by Rebecca Sharp

Cambria

Two years ago

I had a dream.

This was it. The final moment. The final test before I would become a licensed massage therapist.

“Good luck, Cam!” One of my friends from school, Lucy, encouraged as she gave my arm a squeeze as I disappeared into my designated room.

I rubbed my hands together again, hoping the eucalyptus-scented lotion would disguise their clamminess. I hoped its scent would calm me as well as my client, Lucy’s boyfriend, Rich.

Taking another deep breath of the aroma, I looked around the empty room once more to make sure I had everything in place. The warm towel. The lotion. The heater plugged in to keep my hot stones warm. It was all there. All ready.

This would be my last massage at school—my last hour in this room. And then, I’d be heading back home to Carmel Cove and finally ready and able to apply at Serenity and Stone Spa for a full-time job. My mom, who owned the local bakery in our hometown, said the head masseuse at S & S had just left to take a position at Rock Beach Resort. Everything was falling into place.

All I had to do was pass this test.

And try to forget that Rich was also the son of the owner of the school.

I started as the door opened and a good-looking young man stepped inside wearing a well-fitted suit and tie. My eyes caught on the glint of red from what appeared to be a class ring on his finger.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Pearson.” I made sure to speak with a smile since it helped mask the slight waver in my voice.

“Good afternoon.” He returned my smile as his eyes trailed down my body.

They didn’t leer or linger, instead moving with the swift slickness of oil that left me feeling just as dirty.

I shifted my weight, tugging at the end of my navy-blue lab coat. Even though it fell modestly just above my legging-covered knees, I wished it buttoned up higher and wasn’t so tight around my larger breasts and curved hips. And I wished I’d worn more than a V-neck tank underneath. I was just so nervous, I hadn’t wanted to wear something that would make me any hotter.

And even though my attire was the same as every other person in my class and was in no way meant to be sexy, the oil spill clung to my curves like it was nothing but.

I cleared my throat. “If you could please undress and then lie face down on the table.” Gently, my hand rested on the covered headrest as I spoke.

Before he could reply, I turned and let myself out of the room, only just catching the slight quirk at the corner of his mouth.

I rested my back on the wall outside the door and took a deep breath. Just one more massage. Just one more hour.

Sure, he was the son of Tamara Wallace, famous esthetician-turned-model who started this school as one of her many business endeavors. Sure, his dad was some senator up in San Francisco, but I was good at this; there was no reason to worry.

I didn’t know why Lucy hadn’t claimed her boyfriend for her own test, but maybe that would’ve been too close a relationship to prove objective.

I’d only met Rich a few times—very brief moments at the school when he came to meet Lucy. He seemed nice, and I was grateful to not have to search out a stranger to use for my practical exam.

An exam I would pass, and my dream would move onto the next phase.

I had a dream.

I held on to my dream as I walked back into that room. I held on to my dream as I went through the first part of the massage with ease. And I held on to it right until I asked him to turn over and face up… right until it was ripped from my grasp.

Before I could believe what was happening, and I was forced down over the table.

Oh, God.

My face crushed against the fabric, my chest constricting around the wildfire of rage in my lungs. My mouth moved open and closed in shock and horror, but nothing came out.

I was screaming but with no voice.

Though a million emotions surged inside me, they were trapped—locked in shock and paralyzed with debilitating disbelief.

I was breathing but with no air.

The eucalyptus that was meant to be soothing scorched the back of my throat and eyes; it burned over my body that was stripped shamefully bare.

I was fighting but with no power.

My mind fought a valiant battle for survival, but my body was a casualty in the war.

How had this happened? How did I get here?

I was trapped. I couldn’t get out.

That ring. The one that caught my eye now stared me in the face as it imprisoned my hands next to my tear-streaked face.

Someone had to know. Someone would come to check.

I believed someone would save me. I believed there would be a savior.

I only heard bits and pieces. A tear of fabric. The rip of a zipper.

Someone would come to help me; they had to. This kind of thing didn’t happen in a school. This kind of thing could never happen to me.

I believed a savior would come before it was too late.

I could see myself fighting. I could see myself kicking and screaming… in my mind. But in reality, I was frozen, my body seemingly asleep to the horrors forced on it. Paralyzed against the massage table, my body didn’t move—didn’t flinch—as I felt his invade mine.

Tears pooled under my face. Hot. Hotter than the table. Caustic and stinging with shame.

Was this my fault? Had I done something to encourage him?

I stared at his class ring. Vibrant and pulsing like the beat of my heart, reminding me that I was, in fact, alive when later, I would wish I was dead.

All the while, I hoped… I hoped and believed a savior would come.

The red shone brighter as the man it belonged to made me bleed, as he took what didn’t belong to him.

Right up until the very end. Until he heaved and jerked on top of me. Until I felt the remains of my innocence and the corrosive heat of his satisfaction scar down the backs of my thighs as he put himself back together.

Right up until the very end, I believed a savior would come.

“Excellent job today, Cambria,” I heard him say with a voice drunk on power. “Lucy was right when she said how… talented… you were at this. I have no doubt you’re going to pass this exam.”

I shivered as he bent down right by my head that still rested numbly on the table in a pool of tears.

“Of course, provided you don’t mention how you gave me special treatment just because I’m the owner’s son. I’d hate for them to discredit how… talented… you are. I’d hate for your friend to feel betrayed by how you… enticed… me.”

More tears spilled down my face. I didn’t want to look at him. But if I moved, it would prove this was all real. If I moved, that would be the end of any last hopeful string that pleaded for this to be a nightmare.

His sharp chuckles were like thrown stones on my shamed back.

“You’re going to school to become a massage therapist,” he sneered as he wiped a tear from my face. I didn’t even have the wherewithal to flinch away. “Don’t pretend like you didn’t know this came with the territory… happy endings and all…”

Happy endings.

Bile rose up my throat and into my mouth, but I didn’t have the strength to spit it out or vomit. I didn’t deserve to.

I deserved to swallow it back down and live with it in the pit of my stomach for not doing more. For not fighting harder.

It took all the strength I never thought I’d have to use to clean myself up and reach for the door.

And right up until I reached for the doorknob, I still believed in my savior.

But sometimes, the savior doesn’t come.

And sometimes, the dream isn’t a dream.

Sometimes, it’s a nightmare, and the nightmare is real.

And the dream is no more.

Two months later

“Morning, Josie.”

I heard the familiar gruff voice of Larry Ocean echo through the front room of the Carmel Bakery.

It was seven a.m. on the dot on Tuesday. And that meant Larry would be here to pick up a dozen bagels and mix of muffins to take to the Alcoholics Anonymous meeting at Our Lady of Mount Carmel church.

I’d only been home for four weeks, and that was long enough to become familiar with the regulars at the bakery my family owned.

“Morning, Larry,” my mother returned just before I heard her yell back to me. “Cammie, can you bring out Larry’s order?”

“Yeah!”

I gathered a few fresh blueberry muffins I’d just pulled out of the oven and tucked them as extras in one of the two bags set aside for him.

I stared down at the paper bakery bags in my arms and walked out to the front of the shop, noticing my mom and Larry talking among themselves. They did that a lot. My mom liked to hear stories about when her dad and Larry served together in the war.

Today though, Larry didn’t look like himself. Like when it’s midday but looks like dusk because the sky is dark with an impending storm. And it worried me.

Larry was the guiding light of this town.

I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was about him that made him seem like the grandfather to this whole town, no matter who you were, where you came from, or how long you’d been here.

Maybe it was because his coffee shop, Ocean Roasters, had been a staple on Ocean Avenue for going on five generations.

Or maybe it was because, in spite of his general decisive and to-the-point demeanor, he always seemed to know the right thing to say and the right time to say it.

Or because he was always there to lend a hand.

“Morning, Cambria,” he addressed me as I rounded the counter to hand him his order.

“Morning,” I replied quietly.

“I don’t know how much longer you’re going to see her in the mornings, Larry,” my mom inserted, with that proud smile on her face that made my heart shrivel up on the inside. “She should be getting her license any day now and then she’ll be over working with Trish at Serenity and Stone Spa.”

“It still hasn’t come?” He shook his head. “Damn bureaucratic paperwork,” he groused.

I swallowed hard and extended the bags out to him to take, hoping that would suffice for my lack of answer.

“I’m sure that you’re just itching to start working, aren’t you, honey?” my mother asked, that painful smile growing, swelling, and ripping the scabs off my heart.

I managed a brief smile and a nod, guilt piling on my chest like a stack of weights.

“I’ve no doubt you’ll do great,” Larry said as he took the bags from me.

I purposely held them from the bottom so that he could grip the handles and take them without coming into contact with any part of me—a skill that I’d mastered with the swiftness of necessity in that first month of the After.

He took them both in one hand with a smile, and I immediately turned to retreat to the back.

And that was when the worst thing happened.

“Cambria, are you sure this is my—”

I didn’t hear the rest of his statement, though I knew what it was.

When my mom had started talking about my dream—the one I hadn’t the courage to tell her I’d buried—I completely forgot to tell Larry about the extra muffins into the bag. So, now, he thought I’d given him the wrong order.

And that was why his empty reached for my shoulder.

A hand that felt like it reached right out of the past—out of the nightmare.

Because I’d been turning away that day, too.

I’d turned away, slightly lifting the covers so that he could turn over. I remember the small drop in my shoulders of momentary relief when I saw that he’d left his pants on as instructed.

And in that false sense of security, I’d been overtaken.

A hand on the shoulder had been my only indication before I felt my torso slammed into the table, and my trust… my pride… my spirit broken.

Black and red flashed in my vision—black like his soul and red like his ring—as Larry clasped my shoulder.

It didn’t matter that I consciously knew it was a different time and place and person. Subconsciously, it was always him.

I let out a strangled cry as I stumbled away, slamming my hip into the side of the counter in my haste to get away from the touch.

From any touch.

From anyone.

Of course, Larry’s hand immediately dropped, and the black clouds of crippling fear retreated.

For a moment, I’d been drowning, suffocating in spite of my security here, and as I blinked and finally registered what just happened, I saw both my mother and Larry staring at me, their faces stricken with fear and concern.

Oh God.

What had I done?

I’d broken at the first sign of pressure—at the first touch from a man I’d known my entire life. I’d screamed and recoiled from him as though he were a leper.

The man who’d been like a grandfather to me, too.

When my father passed away from pancreatic cancer when I was four, Larry had stepped in from the start to make sure we didn’t have to worry about anything until my mom could get settled into the dual demanding roles of single-parent and owner of the bakery.

From carpools to childcare, Larry Ocean and his son, Mark, and daughter-in-law, Fiona, eased the burdens on my mom’s shoulders as she waded through the waters of grief.

Little did she know that only a few years later, she’d be able to return the favor as Mark and Fiona were killed in a boating accident, leaving Larry and his wife, Pearl, as the sole guardians over their granddaughter, Laurel.

My whole life he’d shown me nothing but the very best of kindness and care, and this was my response.

Once again, my fear was going to cost me.

The pressure in my chest burst into a hurricane of shame and guilt. My mouth opened to offer some sort of apology—some sort of explanation. Anything.

But there was nothing.

But there was nothing left inside me.

A choked cry bubbled up out of my lips as I covered my mouth and darted behind the counter, fleeing for the back room and the back door.

As I stumbled outside, the salty ocean air finally made its way into my lungs just as the rest of my vision blurred into equally salty wells of tears.

Covering my mouth to muffle my sobs, I fell to my knees.

“Cambria!”

My mom’s arms came around me, and she held me as I sobbed.

I cried violently, as though I could retch up my stomach, my lungs, my heart… all the organs that had failed me. All the pieces of me that had failed to scream or push back. All the broken bits that had been too paralyzed to take a stand against my attacker.

Several minutes later, as the quakes in my body began to subside, I felt my mom shaking through the wreckage.

More guilt drained in through all my cracks.

“I’m… so… sorry.”

“Oh, honey,” my mom pleaded. “What is going on? I’m so afraid. Please, tell me what’s wrong.”

I didn’t want to, but I knew I would.

My mother had always been one of my best friends. I’d told her everything. From every detail about what happened in school, to my impossible crush on the school’s golden boy, Bennett Covington, to the first time he’d kissed me, and I’d needed to know if shooting stars inside my stomach was normal.

Whether it was boys or the bakery or my dreams, I told it all to her. Every piece of my life, even when I left to go to school, had been an open book.

Until that day, when the book was sealed shut.

There were so many reasons I’d wanted to keep this from her. Many of which stemmed from guilt and shame of what had happened.

Over how I’d let it happen.

But the biggest reason was I’d hoped that moving home would fix me. I thought that being around my family and my town would make things better. But all it had done was remind me that I wasn’t whole… that there were traumas too great for even the caring Carmel Cove to fix.

“I’m sorry, Mom,” I murmured, numbly staring down at the space between us because I couldn’t raise my eyes to meet hers. “I…I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I just wanted…” I swallowed hard. “I just wanted to protect you, but I see now that no matter what I do, this is going to hurt you.”

“Honey, Cambria, what is it? You can tell me.” Her thumbs wiped tears from my cheeks and I could feel the soft trail of flour that was being left over them. “You can tell me anything. I’ll always be here for you.”

I couldn’t nod. I could only duck my head farther.

“During my licensing exam, the man I was… working on…” I shuddered. “He raped me, Momma.” The last came out in the thinnest whisper. “And I didn’t stop him.”

She flinched like I’d shot her, and the recoil in my heart told me I had.

I’d shot through her happiness and the brightest of hopes she’d had for me. I’d shot through the balloon of pride that had lifted me higher and higher in her esteem all these years.

I’d shot through our reality, confessing to the unhealable wound I’d returned with. The one that had slowly and steadily been bleeding out my heart.

“Oh, God, Cammie. Oh, no. No, no, no.”

There wasn’t even a split-second between my confession and the moment when she pulled me against her chest, pulled me—a grown woman—into her lap in the middle of our parking pad in the back and held me like I was a child.

“I didn’t do anything, Mom,” I repeated. “I didn’t try to stop him. I didn’t scream. I didn’t… I didn’t even report him.”

I’d confessed a thousand mistakes of mine over the years. I’d never been the one to try to cover it up and hope it wouldn’t be found out.

One time, I’d been over at Ocean Roasters to get a hot chocolate, and while I was waiting, I accidentally knocked over the pastry stand on their counter. Before Larry could even come back with my drink, I’d already bolted down the street to confess to my mom, who walked back up with me to apologize to Larry, himself. Another time, I’d wanted to go get ice cream on the beach with my friends, but my mom said no because they were older and there wasn’t a chaperone, so I lied and told her I was going home to study instead. I made it halfway to the beach before I turned back for the bakery and approached her in tears, confessing what I’d been about to do.

I didn’t know if I was just naturally this way, or only when it came to her. Maybe because she’d raised me on her own. Maybe because she worked so hard so I wouldn’t have to sacrifice. But there was something that wouldn’t let me disappoint her in that way.

And now, I felt like I finally had.

“I have my license, Momma.” It was the last truth I had left to tell her. “I’ve had it for weeks now, but I couldn’t tell you because I don’t know that I can—” I broke off and shook my head as I wiped my nose. “I don’t think I can do it; I don’t think I can work at the spa. Not like this… not anymore.”

As the words came out, I knew that this part was the worst. Knowing what he’d taken from me was one thing. But having to admit that it wasn’t over was another.

That he was still stealing from me.

My security.

My sanity.

My future.

Another wave of sobs bubbled up and I blurted, “I’m so sorry, Momma. It’s my—”

“Cambria Grace Mariano.” She tugged me back harshly, so I had no choice but to look at her.

Her face was red and raw, layered with tears that only a mother could cry—the ones that come from knowing your child was hurt beyond measure and there was nothing you could do about it. That she hadn’t been able to protect me.

“Don’t you ever apologize,” she commanded with a watery version of a tone I knew better than to disobey. “You hear me? Whether or not I know all the details. Whether or not I know the exact circumstance, if there is one thing I do know, it’s that this isn’t your fault.”

I wanted to believe her. More than anything. I’d never once doubted a single thing she’d ever said to me.

Never once.

Until now.

Rock bottom would have been a manageable place to start from. At least there, I would’ve had something solid to stand on. But where I was, there was nothing solid. No firm foundation to build toward healing.

There was only a thread, thinner than dental floss, that held me prisoner.

“I need help, Momma,” I admitted brokenly, the words pulling off the very last Band-Aid I’d slapped on top to try to cover up the bullet hole in my chest.

I’d thought I could do this on my own. I’d thought some time and plenty of distance would be enough to let me put myself back to rights.

But there was no right after this.

“I may not know what happens now, I may not know how we are going to get through this, but we will.” She tipped my chin up to her. “You hear me, Cambria?” I could hear her trying to be strong for me. “You are going to get through this. You are going to be okay because you are strong.”

She pulled me tighter and rocked me against her.

“We’re going to get through this, honey. Together. It’s all going to be okay.”

She layered promise on top of promise and each one felt like they were dandelion petals blowing away in the wind. Far-flung wishes for something so unlikely to come true.

As she spoke, I realized just how gaping and deep the wound really went.

And of all the things he’d taken, this was the worst. The broken pieces of my heart crumbled into the finest dust the moment I realized he’d taken my ability to believe my own mother, the only person I’d never doubted.

And in that moment, I’d never felt so hopeless.

When I finally disentangled from my mom’s embrace several minutes later, I looked up and saw that Larry was standing there—had been standing there—the entire time.

I didn’t know what time it was, but I knew he was either late to the meeting or had completely missed it altogether in order to stay here and make sure I was okay.

I wanted to thank him. I wanted to hug him.

Such a simple thing I’d done as many times as I’d breathed during my lifetime, only now, a hug might as well have been a walk through fire for how my body completely revolted against it.

Embarrassment dripped over me, but he had a right to know. I wanted him to know, too. And if there was anyone else in my hometown who would know what to do and how to help, it would be Larry.

As my mom and I stood, he took a few cautious steps toward us, the strain on his face making him look his eighty-odd years.

Whatever was weighing on him, I knew hearing my confession had added to it.

“I’m so sorry,” I murmured quietly as I approached him.

It wasn’t right—it wasn’t fair to lay this on him, but I knew he wouldn’t have it any other way.

It’s Larry. It’s just Larry.

I repeated the thought over and over again in my head as I extended one hand, my fingers shaking as they searched for comfort and forgiveness from his.

I saw the slight shake in his shoulders and his trademark clearing of his throat. I’d only seen Larry Ocean cry three times in my life: his son’s funeral, his wife’s funeral, and the day his granddaughter, Laurel, left Carmel Cove and didn’t look back.

He reached for my hand, and I used every ounce of strength not to recoil at the touch.

It’s just Larry. Breathe. Just Larry…

“I’m so sorry,” I whispered again.

Sorry for hurting you. Sorry for burdening you. Sorry for not being stronger. Sorry for not fighting back.

The list of sorries was as endless as the sea.

Those aged eyes, weathered with war and loss, trials and triumphs, hardened like steel on mine as his arthritic fingers tightened ever so slightly around my fingers.

“Cambria, you’re here now. You’re safe. That’s what matters, alright?” The question was rhetorical; he was that sure. “You start right here, from this moment. You start right where you are, you use what you have—who you have to lean on, and you do what you can.”

The lump in the back of my throat inflated like an emotional balloon.

A thousand times I’d heard him say that. A thousand times to a thousand people who desperately needed to hear it.

Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.

I never thought I’d be one of those people.

The squeeze of his fingers brought me back to the moment.

“You do what you can,” he repeated, hoarsely. “And you never… never… stop fightin’ for yourself, you hear?” He shook my hand, his words worming their way through all the broken pieces inside me and settling like seeds in ashen soil. “You never stop fightin’. I want you to promise me.”

I wanted to tell him I didn’t know how to fight. If I did, I wouldn’t be where I was. I wanted to tell him I couldn’t make the promise because I didn’t want to break it.

But that was the thing about Larry Ocean—he never asked of you something he knew you couldn’t give.

“I promise.” Maybe if Larry believed I could, it would be enough.

Swallowing and blinking back tears, my gaze slid over to my mom who’d come up behind me and put an arm around my shoulder.

“I’m leavin’ here to call in a favor,” Larry said to her. “Shelly’s the only one I’d trust for this, and I know once I speak to her, she’ll be here by the end of the week, and we’ll get this sorted. We’ll get through this.”

He kept saying ‘we.’ And for the first time, I didn’t feel alone.

I didn’t see it, but I felt my mother’s grave nod as she pulled me tighter and murmured her thanks.

“You’re not alone, Cambria. Not here. Not anymore.”

My head tipped down.

Only time would tell if it would ever truly rise back up again.

Have you caught up on the other standalones in the Carmel Cove series? Laurel and Eli’s enemies to lovers story, BEHOLDEN, starts off this small-town series. Then, in BESPOKEN, love blooms from opposites sides of the track for Jules and Mick.

And if you’ve already devoured those, there’s also Ash and Taylor’s book, REDEMPTION! This emotional, surprise pregnancy romance is set in Carmel, but takes place before the events of the Carmel Cove series. It can be read as a complete standalone.

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