"Camryn! Camryn, wake up!" I heard Doug nearly shouting as he roughly shook my shoulder. I blinked up at the light haired brunette, confused and trying to figure out why he was waking me. "God, boy, you scared the hell out of me!" I continued staring at him, at a loss for why he was here when I'd been sleeping and still why he had woken me from my sleep.

"Doug! Is everything okay in here?" Nate said, skidding to a halt in the doorway of his room, looking scared and out of breath. "We could hear you outside when we got out of the car. What happened?" I reached up, rubbing my eyes as I tried to shake off the bleariness of sleep and figure out what the hell was going on.

"Honestly, I have no idea," Doug said, his eyes moving between me and Nate. "I'd gone downstairs to watch some tv until you got back and then I heard Camryn screaming. It took me a good ten minutes to wake him up and by then I guess I was shouting." Nate nodded and made his way into the room, sitting down beside me.

"You just had to wait until I went out with mom for more study snacks to have a nightmare, didn't you?" he asked softly with a worried smile. I shrugged a little, leaning into his shoulder. "Sorry, Doug, you just got initiated into Camryn world."

"This happens a lot?" Doug asked quietly. Nate nodded a little bit, wrapping an arm around me as I shivered.

"About two to three times a week," he replied, absently rubbing his hand down my back. I ignored the pain it caused, choosing instead to concentrate on the comfort he was trying to provide. "Was it the same as usual, Camryn?" he whispered, trying to keep his voice low enough that Doug didn't ask what the usual was. I shook my head, the dream flooding back into my mind now that I was almost fully awake. I didn't dream about my father or Keith and what they did to me. This dream was worse, much much worse. In this dream, Nate was the one being hurt and all I could do was watch.

"I'm going to go downstairs and see if you mom needs any help, Nate," Doug said, shifting uncomfortably from one foot to the other, before quickly leaving the room. As soon as he was gone, Nate's hands came up to either side of my face, pulling my head up to look at him.

"Are you okay, Camryn?" he asked softly. I nodded a little, forcing a small smile onto my face. He sighed, knowing I wouldn't talk about it now, and brushed his lips over mine. "You know, it sucks that I can't do anything more than this this weekend. You seem to sleep so much better when you're thoroughly exhausted."

"Nate..." I whined, blushing furiously as I caught the meaning behind his words.

"Do you have any idea how much you turn me on when you blush?" he whispered hotly against my ear. My breath hitched and I could feel the blush grow that much brighter. "If Doug wasn't here, I'd be working on wearing you out so you wouldn't have anymore nightmares."

"Yeah, but you both need this study session," I murmured, already feeling the heat of my blush work its way to other parts of my body. I couldn't help but smile inwardly as his lips met mine much more firmly than they had before. I quickly swept the dream from my mind, as my hand slid up the well muscled chest. The kiss quickly deepend, becoming more passionate as all thoughts slipped from both of our minds.

"Don't mind me. Just go ahead and molest each other." The sound of Doug's voice brought me back to reality in such a rush I bit my tongue as I snapped my mouth closed and pulled away from Nate. "Oh, now, don't glare at me like that, Nate! Even you think he's so much cuter when he's blushing like that." I grabbed Nate's pillow, burying my burning face in it as I pulled my knees up.

"Ugh, I'll be right back," Nate said, getting up and leaving the room in a hurry. I peeked out over the pillow to watch him leave, confused.

"Don't worry about that, Camryn," Doug said, setting the tray of snacks down on the desk. "He's just going to take care of a problem that sprung up from getting carried away." I nodded a little, keeping the pillow firmly planted on my knees. " Y t , Camryn? No tienes algo que usted necesita cuidado tambi n?" I looked up at him sharply, startled by the sudden huskiness of his voice. The look in his eyes made me nervous and any problem I might have had with my suddenly tighter jeans disappeared quickly.

"Yo no s de qu me est n hablando," I lied. Truth was that I did fully understand what he was referring to, but my discomfort with the way he was getting closer with such a look in his eyes had taken care of it for me. Not that I would have been able to do anything had it remained, but that wasn't the issue here!

"Are you trying to say that you weren't as turned on as he was? Or are you embarrassed to admit that you have a hard-on hidden underneath that pillow?" I sucked in a sharp breath as the bed sank beneath his weight. "You know, I think I am beginning to see what has him so enraptured with you. You seemed to almost be glowing with bliss from something so simple as a kiss. And I wasn't lying about how damn hot it is when you blush like that."

"Stop, Doug, please," I whispered as his hand brushed over my leg. "Please, don't." As I watched him lean in closer, his face was overlaid with an image of my father's and before I could stop them, tears started falling.

"Shit, Camryn! I'm sorry!" he said suddenly, pulling back. "Come on, man, don't cry! I was being stupid, please stop crying!" Hastily, I wiped at my cheeks, trying to dry them, but the tears just wouldn't stop flowing. I didn't want to have to explain to Nate what had happened, why I was crying. He and Doug were on rocky enough terms without being thrown in the middle. For several minutes, he continued to try and calm me down, even as I tried in vain to ebb the tide of tears. He kept trying to touch me and I instinctively kept pulling away, unable to shake the old feeling that my father had left in me.

"Sorry, I took so- Hey, what the hell did you do to him?!" Nate said as he walked back into the room. He roughly jerked Doug off the bed, holding his arm tightly as he got into his face. "Couldn't have me so you go after Camryn?" Doug's went wide and I could see the regret on his face.

"I'm sorry! I just.. I wasn't..." Doug stuttered as he tried to defend himself. I could see it. I could see Nate's temper flaring and Doug's body tensing in preparation for the fight he knew would come.

"Stop! Please, don't fight," I said, quickly scrambling off the bed to get between them. My tears were still falling, but I put my hands on both their chests, pushing them apart. "He didn't do anything, at least he didn't get a chance to. Not before I started crying."

"I'm sorry! I didn't realize Keith fucked him up that badly," Doug said quickly. Nate just narrowed his eyes further, leaning against my hand.

"It doesn't matter if Keith fucked him up or not! You were about to make things worse!" I whined softly, realizing that Nate wasn't going to calm down quite so easily.

"It's okay, Nate," I whimpered. "I just had a flashback and started crying. He backed off immediately. Please, just let it go." Finally, his eyes came down to focus on me and immediately they softened.

"Flashback? Of ihim/i?" he asked softly, his fingers brushing away my newest tears. I nodded a little and he sighed, wrapping his arms around me. "You know he's gone now, Camryn. He can't hurt you anymore."

"I know," I murmured. I could feel him beginning to relax as he held me close, his hand moving through the back of my hair.

"By 'him', I'm guessing you aren't talking about Keith anymore," Doug said quietly, apprehensive of stepping on a land mine as things were just now calming down again. I felt Nate tense and I clutched at his shirt, silently pleading with him to calm down. "Nate, I swear I get it. You're the only person Camryn let's get close to him and you love him completely. I won't step into it again. But, tell me please, who is this person that a simple flashback can cause Camryn to cry like that? It's not normal."

"You don't know anything and you run your mouth and I'm willing to guess tried to do something with Camryn when I left the room, and you still stand there and have the balls to ask questions like that?" I turned my head slightly and I could see fully the weight of regret and shame on Doug's face.

"It's okay, Nate," I said softly, dragging his attention back to me.

"No, it's not okay, Camryn. It's never okay to make you cry," he replied. I smiled up at him, grateful that he cared so much. Still, I shook my head.

"No, it's okay because he doesn't know. I imagine that if you didn't know, you may have acted similarly at some point." Nate huffed and looked down at me with those dark blue eyes that just couldn't ever seem to understand me.

"Then, that begs the question, do you want him to know?" he asked. "I know he thinks he does. But it's up to you." I glanced back at Doug again, thinking it over, before Louis's advice of finding people who I could open up to came back to me.

"I think it might be okay," I said, still watching Doug closely. "After all, he'll be the friend I'll have around the most once summer ends. Besides, I don't think either of you are going to get anymore studying done tonight." Nate just sighed.

"You want me to get the box or do you want to get it?"

"I'll get it," I replied softly. "You two should kiss and make up." I gave Nate a quick peck on the lips and slipped out of the room, heading back to my own for the box of journals that I kept under my bed. I crawled over my bed, pressing my ear to the wall and holding my breath.

"He did say 'kiss and make up'," I heard Doug say nonchalantly.

"And he didn't literally mean kiss, you idiot," Nate retorted sounding vaguely annoyed. "Seriously, though, no more advances on me or him, please. He's been through enough shit without having to deal with you trying to take advantage of the fact that he wants to trust you."

"Yeah, I already said that I wouldn't do that again," Doug said quickly, defensively. "I really wouldn't want to make him cry again. I seriously don't know what to make of him. He could have just let you pound my face in for what my hormones almost made me do, but instead he stops you and even tells us to make up. I'd almost say he's too good for you, but he's definitely too good for me."

"Damn right he's too good for you!" Nate said and then they both laughed. I smiled to myself and slipped away from the wall. I pulled the box of journals out from under the bed and lugged the heavy thing back to Nate's room. I dropped the box beside where Doug was sitting on the bed and then crawled into my lover's lap.

"What's all of this?" Doug asked as he rummaged slowly through the box of notebooks.

"Everything you ever thought you wanted to know about me," I said softly as I leaned back against Nate's chest. He blinked at me for a moment and then nodded, pulling out a notebook.

"This is almost eleven years old," he remarked as he opened the first page. "I don't think I could even write my name as well as you write sentences when I was six." I didn't respond, just closed my eyes as I got comfortable in Nate's arms. I knew it wouldn't be long before Doug realized just how screwed up I was. I could only hope that he didn't walk away from me once he found out. I truly hoped that it would only lead to him understand me better so that we could be friends. I could hope.