A Blessing and a Curse
Anna Campbell
Publication date: October 31st 2023
Genres: Contemporary, New Adult, Romance
Blessing Savage barely remembers who she was before the unexpected death of her father, Pastor Savage. These days she clings desperately to the party girl persona she’s created for her second year of college, living with a new group of friends, joining their sorority, and partying non-stop. There’s only one thing that can kill her perpetual buzz, and his name is Camden Holbrook, the boy she’s pined for for nearly a decade.
Camden credits Blessing’s father for saving him when he was a child, giving him a place to stay when his mother abandoned him and setting him back on the right track. So when Pastor Savage asked a promise of Camden before dying – to look out for Blessing – he made a vow and meant it. Protecting Blessing has always come easily. Loving her has not. Not for someone who’s learned time and time again that love and loss are intricately interwoven.
After years of Camden keeping her at arm’s length, the last thing Blessing wants is him barging into her life. But new Blessing refuses to let Cam play knight-in-shining-armor, not when she knows – from one starry summer’s night slip-up – how he really feels about her. This time around, Blessing’s intent on pushing Camden’s limits, and she’s got some sexy new tricks up her sleeve to take him past them. Then maybe he’ll admit the truth of his feelings. Maybe the person who’s always known her best can help her find a way back to herself. Maybe she can prove to Camden that love doesn’t always destroy a person. Sometimes, it’s the only thing that can start putting them back together.
Homeless (Then)
Then there is a quiet gasp. A whimper. A shaky breath. Another muffled whimper. And before I can do anything about it, before I can get myself out of there, Camden is crying. It sounds like maybe he’s trying to mute the noise with a pillow, but I’ve cried into my pillow before, and I know what it sounds like.
I grab hold of the banister again, scrambling to my feet, desperate to get out of there. There’s a thirteen-year-old boy crying in my living room, and I’m guessing one of the last things a thirteen-year-old boy wants is to be discovered crying. I clamp my lips together so my breathing can’t give me away, and I start tip-toeing up the steps, every muscle in my body tensed, pausing between each step and listening.
“What are you doing, Blessing?”
I jump. Then I go entirely still again, freezing in place, even closing my eyes.
“Blessing, I see you,” he grumbles. “Playing possum doesn’t actually work, ya know. You can’t stand there all day.”
I stand like that for several long, painful seconds. And then, hanging my head so I don’t have to look at him, I turn around and descend the stairs, then walk around to the front of the couch, assessing the scene.
Heat instantly announces itself in my cheeks, because Cam is sitting up now, blanket draped around his shoulders, and he is sleeping without his shirt on. He’s staring up at me, mouth glum, eyes red-rimmed. But as he watches me watching him, he straightens his shoulders, lifts his chin to meet my gaze head on. Daring me to mention any of it.
It makes me feel scared. His expression makes him seem a lot older, like a whole different person than the one who squeezed the crud out of my hand walking into the pageant last month. I don’t really know what to do, honestly.
I glance toward the kitchen. Cam likes food, and he’s always hungry. It’s the best I can come up with. I go into the pantry, grab a fresh bag of powdered sugar mini donuts and pour two glasses of milk from the fridge. Then I look around helplessly for a minute before putting the bag of donuts between my teeth and picking up both cups to take them back into the living room.
Camden doesn’t say anything when he sees me, but I hear his stomach growl as he takes in the bag of donuts, so it seems like I’m on the right track. I set everything on the coffee table, then sit down on the floor beside it. Cam tears the bag open and grabs three donuts at once.
“Did you sleep here last night?”
It’s a stupid question, but I can’t just sit there saying nothing.
Cam nods while chewing, evading my gaze.
I take a deep breath. “Are you going to sleep here tonight?”
Cam stops chewing, the muscle in his jaw freezing. He stares down at the remaining donut in his hand, then sets it down on the coffee table, like his appetite’s disappeared. I watch his face carefully, as his eyelids flutter, faster, more furiously, working to keep something back. Until finally he can spit it out. “I have no idea where I’m sleeping tonight. They’re not gonna let me go back to the townhouse.”
‘The townhouse.’
He says ‘the townhouse,’ not ‘home.’ And that makes my stomach turn for him.
“Why not?”
He looks down at the pillow, his fingers running back and forth along a braided rope edge. “Because my mom’s not home right now.”
I just nod, because I guess at the end of the day, that’s all that matters. Camden has a mom, but she’s not home right now, so he can’t be either.
His fingers keep running back and forth, more frantically, but his throat is bobbing, and there’s a glaze over his eyes. “And even if she comes home. They won’t let me go back this time.” Cam exhales a shaky breath, sniffles once. “Was nice of your dad to try to help me out, to get involved, but it doesn’t matter. It was already too late.”
There are a hundred questions I want to ask, a hundred aspects of this Cam hasn’t explained. How did my dad get involved? Did someone call him? From where? Who found Cam, and why?
Where is his mother?
But I hone in on this last thing he’s said, that it’s already too late, the words inciting some sort of panic in me. “What’s too late?”
“Fucking Mrs. Jackson,” he mutters. “Nosy bitch.”
I recoil, because I’m not used to hearing Cam talk like that.
He looks back at me, and I think for the first time he realizes I’m wearing Snoopy pajamas. I’m rather horrified at the idea myself. “Sorry,” he sniffs.
I just shrug. “‘s okay.”
He runs a hand through his hair. “Guess it was my own damn fault, anyway. The second those doors closed it was over. For me. For her. For us.” Camden picks up two donuts and stuffs them into his mouth, without bothering to chew, like it’s occurred to him he’s not sure when he’ll get to eat next. It’s the way he used to eat the animal crackers, at the beginning, but he hasn’t done that in a while.
I play with my cup of milk, spinning it round and round on the coffee table so I don’t have to watch him, hoarding food like this. “I don’t understand.”
He laughs, once, a short, bitter sound. “Lucky you.” The words are garbled around the food in his mouth. After he swallows, he draws in a slow breath through his nose. Runs his hand through his hair. Sighs. And sort of collapses in on himself, pulling the blanket tighter around his shoulders.
“You don’t get limitless chances to be a parent,” Cam tells me. He holds up three fingers, then balls them up into a fist, all at once. “Three strikes, you’re out. My mom’s had about ten strikes, I think. She’s good at talking her way out of things.” He shakes his head. “But I know it’s the last straw. Judge made that clear last time. That they’d rescind custody, that I’d become property of the state.”
I feel sick, because that sounds terrible. “And what does that mean?”
Camden looks down at the carpet, kicks at an invisible spot. “It means I’ll be shuffled around from foster home to foster home. That they’ll try to talk me into going to these meet and greets to get older children adopted. Because no one actually wants to take on an older kid, not on any sort of permanent basis, but maybe if we dress ourselves up real nice and tell them how badly we want a family of our own, they’ll change their mind. Bullshit. No one wants us. They want the stipend, they want the free babysitting for their real kids, they want the yardwork done and the dishwasher unloaded. But none of them have ever made me feel anything close to wanted.”
“You’ve been in foster care before?”
“Oh yeah. We’re way past amateur status here, Blessing.” Cam cracks his knuckles, and if I didn’t know better, I’d say he sounded as jovial as he always does when he messes around with me. Except… he’s not.
“I think I was three the first time my mom lost custody? I don’t remember that one, not at all, but I overheard a social worker mention it once. Second time I was nine. That one I do remember, even though I’d rather not. Thing is though?” Camden looks over at me. “It’s like, really, really hard to lose custody of your kid. Harder than people always think. So in between those two times?” He shakes his head. “There were plenty of times that weren’t really that great, either. That people just didn’t realize. When I was taking care of myself.”
I think back on that first day, the first time I’d seen him, foraging for food in the preschool room. How he hadn’t looked ashamed. Living creatures aren’t ashamed of survival instincts, things as natural as breathing.
“Things were okay for a while,” he continues. “After she got me back this last time? We were living with her brother, my uncle, out in Ohio.” Camden’s shoulders stiffen. “Until last year, when she started dating this guy. Mark. My uncle was convinced that Mark was using, and after that he refused to believe that she wasn’t. They had this big blow-up fight about it. But when he kicked us out, guess who didn’t take us in? Mark.”
“Anyway…” Cam tugs on the ends of the blanket, leaning forward. “… she put us on the first bus, and that’s how we ended up out this way. Staying in a shelter. The social workers who come in helped her get me enrolled in school. Miss Matthews, she liked my mom. People always do. She got her hooked up with the job, place to live.” Camden’s face twists up. “Unfortunately, the job came with a Darren. And a Darren’s just another name for a Mark. They’re all the same. They’re all her downfall. And that’s never gonna change. They destroy her, and then she runs out and destroys herself.”
Camden stands suddenly. “I liked the eighth grade center,” he tells me. “I was going to try out for baseball.”
The blanket hangs off him like a cape, dragging on the carpet as he walks toward the bathroom. He goes in and shuts the door. I wait a long time, but he doesn’t come back out.
Author Bio:
Spend more time with Anna Campbell and her stories on Instagram: @annacampbellstories
Anna Campbell has traditionally published several stories for teens over the years under a different pen name. Anna Campbell stories are mature YA/NA angsty stories about beatiful broken people who love hard and still believe in happy endings.
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