Two weeks into their stay, Kith got an idea. No one else was around. Austin was with his friends, Cameron had gone to the store-he invited her, but she declined-and their mom was at work. Kith was home alone. She enjoyed those times because she didn't have to talk to anyone, and she especially didn't have to deal with Cameron's mom glaring at her. She knew exactly what she was thinking. Their mom blamed her for getting pregnant, and possibly ruining Cameron's life. To their mom, she was the furthest thing from a nice girl. If only she knew.

If only she knew that Cameron was lying; he was telling a noble lie for her sake. If only she knew that the whole situation was Austin's fault. If only she knew what he'd done to her. But she didn't know, because she didn't ask. She assumed; she acted like she knew. Even if they'd been close, Kith most likely wouldn't have said anything. Cameron had already uttered the irreversible statement to too many people. She couldn't tell the truth now.

Tiptoeing down the hall, she paused before the doorway, heart racing. She hadn't been in his room since that day. The thought itself made her sick. But for some reason, today felt different. "I can handle this," she muttered, palms sweating. Inhaling deeply, she placed one foot in front of the other in the silent house and entered Austin's roomEverything was the same: the paint, the bed, the carpet with the telltale purple kool-aid stain, the desk, the half-open closet. She knew exactly where everything was. Eyes locked on the bed, her pupils honed in on the sheets and her heart rate increased. She could see it. She could feel it all over again.

Backing up, she bumped into his dresser. It was like being inside her own mind. On his bed, there they were. He was on top of her, hand over her mouth, and she was fighting with everything she had. But it wasn't enough. No one could hear her. No one was coming. No one would save her. And he wouldn't let go. "No," she said quickly, putting a hand over her mouth. She instantly felt how wet her face was. "No, no, no, no." She'd said no so many times that day. And she didn't understand why he wouldn't get off her. They were supposed to be friends.

Letting go of the dresser, she escaped. She couldn't handle it; she couldn't handle anything. All she wanted was to run far, far away. But the best she could do was Cameron's room.

Whistling, Cameron entered his room to find Kith lying on his bed, breathing strangely. "What's the matter?" he said instantly.

She didn't answer. She was crying heavily.

"Kith," he sat down next to her and instinctively put an arm around her.

"Don't touch me!" she shouted.

Standing up, he took a few steps back. He'd forgotten. How was he supposed to help her if he couldn't touch her? She wasn't saying anything either. "What happened?" he inquired. Grinding his teeth together, he did a mental rundown of his trek through the house. No one else was home. Had Austin come home? He better not have, he thought. He better not have come home and done something else to her. If he had, Cameron was going to literally kill him. He didn't care about the loss and subsequent jail time. He would murder Austin if he'd hurt Kith a second time. She still wasn't answering him.

"Alright," he muttered.

When night fell, he went into his room, grabbed his blanket off the floor and trudged back out to the living room. She needed to be alone to deal with whatever had happened. On his back, he stared at the ceiling in the quiet living room. His mom had gone to her room an hour before. Thankfully, she'd stopped discussing Kith with him. He knew she still talked about her; that was the kind of person she was. So long as she wasn't doing it around him. She had no idea. But as all moms do, she thought she knew everything.

He didn't feel like sleeping. He'd read for some of his classes and worked on a paper for his political science class. What he really wanted was a hangover, a nice, respectable hangover. The problem with that desire was that he couldn't come home drunk. And he couldn't spend the night at someone's house without having Kith there with him. There was no way in hell he was leaving her alone with his mom and Austin. No way in hell. He hadn't gone so long without drinking since high school.

He lifted his head up at the sound of movement. Someone was coming down the hallway. That better not be Austin, he thought. Kith walked in and sat down in front of the couch, back pressed against the soft material.

"Hey," he greeted her in an offhand manner. He desperately wanted to know what had made her freak out so badly earlier, but he didn't want to be annoying. She had a tendency to get mad when he asked her a lot of questions.

"Hey," she mumbled, tucking hair behind her ear.

"I'm almost done with my paper," he decided to talk about school instead.

"Oh yeah?" she sounded impressed. In the beginning, when he'd first started doing work and going to class, she'd been just as skeptical as everyone else. Now it was normal. He felt he'd gained some respect, which was nice.

"Yeah," he nodded at nothing. "Six pages down, four to go."

"That's almost done?" she questioned.

"Yeah," he replied. "It's the longest paper I've ever written. You should be proud that I'm even doing it." As best she could, Kith dragged her knees up to her chest. She was wearing sweat pants and a short-sleeved, white t-shirt. They fell into silence again. Telepathically, he told her to tell him why she'd been hyperventilating earlier. Tell me, he thought harder. Still, she was silent. "So when I was younger, we went to the zoo."

"What?" she looked up at him.

"I'm telling you a story," he held up his hand and then continued. "I was, like, seven years old, and my parents decided that all four of us were gonna go to the zoo. So we went and we saw all these animals, all the ones I'd seen in books and on tv and stuff. There were monkeys and zebras and these weird birds, everything. I really wanted to see the tigers, 'cause they were my favorite animals. I asked my dad every five minutes if we were gonna see them. Now that I think about, the only reason we went and saw them was because I was pissing him off. Like, seriously, I kept asking. I wanted to see them so badly."

Kith angled herself to get a better view of his face. She looked mildly amused, a good sign to him. "So we go over there, and I push my way to the front, you know. None of those other kids wanted to see them as badly as I did. So I'm up there, face pressed to the bars, and I saw them. And I just stare at them because they looked so cool. So cool, Kith. You probably don't understand how much I loved tigers. I had stuffed animals and pajamas, everything. So I'm standing there, right? And then out of nowhere, one of them lunges at the bars, right where I'm standing, freaks the hell out of me. I'm seven years old; I can't fight a tiger. So I start screaming at the top of my lungs and I run back to my dad. The rest of the trip, he had to carry me because I was afraid the tigers were gonna break out of their pen-thing and come get me."

"You don't like tigers anymore?"

"I fuckin' hate tigers," he said definitely, running fingers through his hair. "Even now, I can't see one on tv without backing up a little."

"You've never told me anything about your dad," she commented.

"'Cause I hate him," he answered, yawning. "As far as dads go, he sucks."

"Why?"

"Well, I'll start off with the fact that I haven't seen him since I was about ten," shrugging, he struggled to keep his tone controlled. He didn't really like talking about his dad, or lack thereof, with other people. Usually, he just pretended that he didn't exist. "And even when he was here, he wasn't the greatest. I don't even really think he likes us."

"That's not true," she said sympathetically.

"I don't care," Cameron put his best tough-guy voice on. "Supposedly he married some other girl and had kids with her. He obviously likes them more because he doesn't bother to acknowledge us." Stretching, he decided to stop talking. His dad wasn't worth discussing. He still remembered how it felt when he first learned what the word 'divorce' meant. He still remembered sitting near the front door, waiting for him to come pick them up like he'd promised.

He remembered how after the first year, after the sporadic visits, he never showed up anymore; he never called. The three of them didn't mean anything anymore to him. Once Cameron realized that small fact, he stopped caring, just like his dad had. "You know what we have to do once we get back to school, right?"

"What?" she looked up unexpectedly.

"Come up with names." Just the thought made him smile. And it definitely took his mind off of his asshole of a father.

The rest of Winter Break passed in a light snowfall. Before she knew it, Kith and Cameron were back in his truck, headed up the road towards campus. Though they considered themselves early, they realized how late they were when half the house greeted them with shouts of the married couple's back!

Down in the kitchen, Kith leaned against the counter to alleviate some of the pain in her back. All she wanted to do was make a sandwich; it had never been so hard before. Inhaling deeply, she turned back around and picked the jellied knife up off the toasted slice of bread.

"Need help?" Nate walked in with a bottle of water.

"No," she fired back.

"I was just kidding," he held up his hands. "Calm down, Kith."

"My back hurts," she replied. That was her excuse for everything they let her get away with. Smirking, Nate stared at her for a bit while raking fingers through his dark hair.

"You know Heather?" he questioned out of nowhere.

Licking the knife, she closed the jar of grape jelly and turned around to face him. "Of course I know Heather," she replied evenly. She'd gone the entire break without hearing her name, or even thinking about her. It'd been nice.

"You get why she hates you, right?"

"Because I live in Cameron's room?" Finishing off the knife, she tossed it into the sink and stored the jelly in the fridge.

"You're also pregnant with his kid," he said smartly, smirking at the end of the statement. "She likes him, and every girl here knows not to mess with the guys she likes. You'll always have a one-up on her, and secretly, she can't stand it. You're younger than she is, you're knocked up by the guy she has a thing with, and he brought you here to live with him. She's never going to leave you alone because she's..." Waving his hand out in front of him, he motioned for her to complete the sentence.

"So much prettier than I am?" Kith guessed.

"Crazy is actually the preferred term," he corrected her. Unscrewing the white cap of his water bottle, he finished it off and tossed it into the recycling bin. "Don't let Cameron hear you say it though; he gets a little annoyed when we call her that."

"She's not that bad," she wrinkled her face with the effort of trying to defend Heather. Nate gave her a strange look, obviously as perplexed at her defense of Heather as she was.

"That's because you haven't lived here that long. She's insane," lowering his voice, he glanced over his shoulder before continuing. "Heather is the psycho your mom warned you about before coming to college. She's the kind of girl who will destroy everything you hold near and dear if you break up with her."

"Then why is Cameron dating her?"

"He's not," Nate glanced around once more with his gray eyes. "She's the girlfriend from hell. But, I mean....she's ridiculous in bed."

Kith just stared at him.

"Yeah, I've slept with her, too," he shrugged nonchalantly. "But that's not the point. Heather is not the kind of girl you date, not if you value your sanity, or your personal safety. She's the girl you bang, and then sleep with one eye open next to."

"That's... Thank you?" she couldn't think of anything else to say.

"Can I have a bite of your sandwich?" he pointed to it.

"Sure," she waved.

Grabbing half, he took an enormous man-bite, put it back down, saluted, and left the room. Balancing the napkin carefully, she sat down at the table with considerable effort and started eating.

"There you are," Cameron popped in and grabbed the seat across from her.

"Yeah?"

"Ty and his girlfriend are going out to dinner and they invited us. You wanna go?" he questioned, raising persuasive eyebrows at the end.

"I don't have any money," she replied, brushing crumbs from her fingertips.

"Kith," rolling his eyes, he glanced at the clock ticking behind her. "That's the lamest excuse ever. You know I'll pay."

"Uh....," Faltering, she struggled to come up with an acceptable excuse. She hated that he spent his money on her. Where were they even going? There weren't that many fancy places on campus, which meant they might try to do something grand off campus. Cameron had already taken her to one nice place before. Was that the goal? Someplace fancy? Cameron wasn't being very forthcoming with details.

"Kith?" He interrupted her thoughts.

"Uh, yeah, I guess," she said shortly.

"Don't sound so excited," he got back up and pushed the chair in. "I'm hitting the gym. You wanna come?"

"No," she said easily. She barely wanted to walk around the house. All she planned on doing was lying on his bed, or the couch, and doing some homework.

"Fine," he put his sunglasses on and stretched his arms over his head. "But tonight, you get to dress nice. No sweatpants."

"What are you trying to say?" She made a face.

"Nothing," he said quickly, walking towards the doorway. "I'm just saying that you can wear something else, something pretty. But if you're into sweats, you can do that, too."

"No, I'll look nice," she responded quickly. His hint was shamefully obvious. She wasn't even in sweatpants that often. Granted, she was in them at the moment, but on the days that actually mattered, like school days, she wore regular clothes. "I have nice clothes. Don't worry about it."

"You'll look nice either way."

"Cameron."

"Okay, bye," understanding, he left her to her sandwich and the pains in her lower spine.

Poor Kith. Can't be great being in that house everyday during break.

Awww, gonna name names and go on a double date. Anyone got a ship name? Cith? Kameron? Caith? Kimeron!

TEASER: "Give me some credit," he made a face. "Just let me try. I promise I won't ruin it."

What's going on here?