Chapter 05: Camp-out


     It was dark by the time the group had settled. Jeremy and Chase had
pitched a tent and Chloe had made dinner. Candace yawned a bit. "Wow,
I'm tired," she said. 

     Chase replied, "I bet you are, it's been a long day."

     Chloe yawned also and plopped down on her cushy blue sleeping bag.
"Yeah, plus we're not too far from Marzio Town. We should wake up early
so we could get a move on and hopefully stay there tomorrow."

     "I suppose so," Jeremy agreed. "I'm not sure how much I like this
camping thing."

     "I like it," Candace told him. "I think it's an adventure." It was
also different from how she had gone to sleep back in Labyrinth, there
were no bad memories. Nobody coming to get in her bed. Much different.

     The four went back into the tent and almost immediately, Chloe and
Chase fell asleep. But Jeremy was just laying there and Candace tossed
and turned, but no matter what she did, she couldn't fall asleep. "This
is useless," she muttered as she sat up.

     "Trying to sleep is?" answered somebody. Jeremy was still awake.

     "Yeah. I can't get comfortable," she told him and sat back down.
Trying to sleep with someone awake right next to her reminded her of
home. But Jeremy's behavior was a lot more humane than Ben's had been.

     "I know what you mean, this ground is killing my back." He winced
and Candace smiled a bit. This was the most they had talked all day.

     "Tell me about it," Candace said, turning on her side to face
Jeremy.

     "Hey Candace?"

     "What?"

     "What was it like living in the Labyrinth Terrace?" He looked
curious.

     She met his gaze. "Material things mattered a lot more than
feelings," she started. "And never losing face was extremely important.
You had to make up an image and never show what you were really like,
unless your actual personality was cold and unfeeling and all you cared
about was partying and shopping. I think that's how a lot of the people
were."

     "It doesn't sound that great," Jeremy told her and she shook her
head.

     "It wasn't. Some people did really bad things and they went unheard
of. Some of the people went to tell, but nobody was listening. And when
somebody sees what's going on, they whisk you off to save face."

     "Is that what happened with you?" he asked suddenly, and started to
blush. "Sorry, I guess that's none of my business."

     "No, it's okay. That was what happened with me. My brother did
something bad and my father found out about it. But Ben lied and blamed
it on me and I got sent on a boat from Auroria to Orimo."

     "You didn't even want to come on one?" Jeremy asked her, surprised.
"I wouldn't be able to tell, you seemed pretty excited."

     Candace chose her words carefully. "I guess it was kind of exciting
once I realized that it was really happening. At first, I thought that
my dad wouldn't really go through with it, but he did. I never mattered
that much to him anyways."

     "That's nonsense!" Jeremy told her. "He was just doing what he
thought was right."

     Candace shook her head. "My dad worked a lot and was never home. He
had a lot of affairs and I think my mom knew, but didn't really care.
She was always out with her friends, playing tennis and shopping and all
the other things that you could do in the Terrace. Very limited life."

     "How did you end up so normal, then?" questioned Jeremy and the
question surprised her. 

     "I don't know if I'd be considered normal," she told him, thinking
of what had happened with Ben.

     "I think you are," he disagreed.

     "No, if you knew a little bit more about why I got thrown out,
you'd understand."

      Something in him clicked for a moment. "Did he do something to
you, Candace?"

     Her eyes told him the truth and a tear slid down her cheek. "For
almost three years," she whispered and Jeremy instinctively wrapped her
in a hug.

     "He hit you... I can't believe that," he told her while letting her
cry on his shoulder.

     She was almost afraid to answer. "No, Jeremy... He did quite a bit
more than that."

     "Did he rape you?" Jeremy asked her, suddenly outraged. How
inhuman.

     She started to cry even harder. "Since I was eleven."

     "Oh my God... Candace." It only made him hug her tighter. She was
sobbing and he was sad for her. His own mother had gone through the same
thing with his father, and because of it, Jeremy was born. While she was
drunk, she would tell him that she hated him and she didn't even want
him. That his father had told her to get rid of him and she hadn't
listened and she wished she had. Jeremy told her as much and it made her
cry even more.

     "That's horrible... I'm really lucky that nothing like that ever
happened with me. If it did though, no matter what, I couldn't ever hate
it." She was afraid to say the word 'child' because of the reality that
it could've happened and didn't.

     "She really did hate me," Jeremy said, thinking back to his only
parent. The woman that his father had abandoned before Jeremy had even
been born.

     "The thing that I think was worst about what Ben did to me was that
for eleven years, I believed he was the only one in the family who ever
loved me. He used to be the greatest brother in the world. And then he
changed so much..." Candace said wistfully.

     "That's awful, Candace. It really is," he told her.

     "Thanks for talking to me, Jeremy," she said gratefully. She would
never forget it.

     "Anytime you want to talk, I'll listen."

     She smiled and gave him a final hug. "Good night."

    "Good night," he responded and finally felt himself falling asleep.
What a girl.