Real

CHAPTER ONECameron Hutchinson lifted the gun resting the end of it on the left temple of his forehead."Just kill yourself," a voice shot through his brain. "Nobody cares, right?""No, I do," another voice argued. "I do. I don't want to do this. I don't want to do this."A bead of sweat rolled down between the cold metal and the skin on his scalp. He picked up the picture of Chloe staring at her delicate face. For being three months pregnant, she sure didn't show it."I love you," he whispered."Pull it, you failure!" another voice blasted. "Pull it!"He rested his head on the end of the bed, the gun still pointing at his head. "I can't do this."His mind had been reasoning for over an hour now. One minute the small handgun he had dug out from his father's closet was against his head, the next moment it wasn't. A phone ring startled him causing him to flinch. He didn't answer it. His mind was resting for a moment on the thoughts of a thousand yesterdays... "Hello. Is Chloe there?""Just a moment," said the voice on the other end of the line. "Chloe, phone! Can somebody go up and get her?"Cameron glanced at his watch. The sixty seconds he had to wait were excruciating. He heard the phone being jostled around then finally somebody picked it up."Hello?" Chloe said quietly."Chloe. Thank goodness. You all right?"She didn't have any words. The silence said enough."Chloe, you there?""Yes," she paused, "it was, awful Cam.""Are you hurt?""A little."More pausing."So you did it, right?""What do you think?" Chloe snapped. "Yes, I did it."Cameron breathed a sigh of relief. "I knew you would. I knew it. I just knew it."Silence."Did they know if it was a boy or a girl?""NO! They didn't know. Just a minute."Cameron heard a door shut, followed by Chloe's trembling voice again."I didn't want to know, all right? Why would you? Cam, it's over. I don't want to talk about it."Cam shot back another question. "Did anybody see you?""No, nobody saw me." She paused. "Accept for...""Accept for who? Who?!" Cameron gripped the phone card in his hand leaning against the cool metal phone booth shell."This girl that was picketing outside. Before I went in she stopped me and remembered praying with me at the awakening meeting that happened at the high school a few months ago. She told me she didn't want me to go in. Cam, she literally begged me. I thought she would never let go of my jacket."Cameron was quiet. All of his worlds were crashing together. He knew exactly who that girl was, and she would know exactly who he was. "She didn't get your name, right?""No. I'm not that dumb. I tried to play off that I didn't know her and that I was never at the meeting. But we both know she got our names that night. Remember, she filled them out on a card? Why did this happen Cam, why?" Chloe started to cry. "What have we done? What have we done?" Cameron rested the gun back on his head. What had he done? How could such a nice Christian kid make so many bad mistakes in such a short span of time? He clicked back the trigger. His heart was beating as fast as it could. Cameron thought if a bullet didn't do him in, his heart would."Oh, God," he prayed out loud, "Is any of this real?"Rempel, Mark A. is the author of 'Real' with ISBN 9780785265481 and ISBN 0785265481.