He hesitated. “I should be graduating this year, along with Ollie, but I’m not.”

“I remember you telling me you had to take some time off.”

Cam nodded. “It was sophomore year. I hadn’t been home a lot during the summer because I was helping coach a soccer camp in Maryland, but whenever I did go home, my sister… she was acting different. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but she was super jumpy and when she was home, she spent all her time in her bedroom. And apparently she was rarely home according to my parents.”

My stomach sunk as I crossed my legs. I hoped I was wrong and I didn’t know where this was heading.

“My sister, she’s always been this bleeding heart, you know. Picking up stray animals and people, especially stray guys. Even when she was a tiny thing, she always buddied up with the most unpopular kid in the class.” His lips quirked up at the corners. “She met this guy. He was a year or two older than her and I guess their relationship was serious—as serious as they can be when you’re sixteen. Met the kid once. Didn’t like him. And it had nothing to do with the fact he was trying to get with my little sister. There was just something about him that rubbed me the wrong way.”

Cam slid his hands downs his cheeks and then dropped them between his knees. “I was home over Thanksgiving break and I was in the kitchen. Teresa was in there and we were messing around. She pushed me and I pushed her back, on her arm. Not even hard and she cried out like I’d seriously hurt her. At first I thought she was just being dumb, but there were tears in her eyes. She played it off and I forgot about it for that night, but on Thanksgiving morning, Mom had walked in on her in a towel and she saw it.”

I held my breath.

“My sister… she was covered in bruises. Up and down her arms, on her legs.” His hands closed into fists. “She said it was from dancing, but we all knew you couldn’t get bruises like that from dancing. It took almost all morning to get the truth out of her.”

“It was her boyfriend?” I remembered the conversation at the table and Cam’s sudden interest in who she was talking to made sense.

A muscle popped in his jaw as he nodded. “The little fuck had been hitting her. He was smart about it, doing it in places that weren’t so easily noticeable. She stayed with him. I didn’t know why at first. Come to find out that she was too scared of him to break up.”