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He confirmed the existence of said banditos, but painted a different picture. Bandito Boss had never been to her house, he said. I listened, now stunned, as he told me she had laid down rules forbidding him to work for or associate with Bandito Boss and he had agreed to follow them. He actually appeared pretty whupped all of a sudden. I turned to Cam for confirmation and she just sort of lowered her head.

Well, what about the guy who followed her home from Shari's? Where did he fit in? Cam lowered her head even more. It was him, she said quietly. Oh, I thought...so not some random guy who followed her home from work. It was her boyfriend that she just didn't want to admit to having when she called me. And he had never beat her, they both confirmed...and the violence had most often been started by her, they both confirmed. When the cops get called, the first 2 times by her, and the second 2 times by a neighbor who heard the noise, they just arrested the big guy.

Please understand. As someone who outweighs her by a great deal, I feel he holds a greater responsibility, but I was a little dismayed to find the whole situation so different then I had thought that morning. It seemed to me now like two tumultuous people in recovery, both with fucked up pasts, but who clearly loved each other. I didn't realize she had been abusing drugs and alcohol so recently, and, well...I know how she gets. I started to feel like perhaps they weren't such a bad match.

I was dismayed, and I said to them, "Well hell, good luck to you both, then. I could never figure out how to make it work safely, and I hope you two can." I started talking to Cammy about the end of our situation, more candidly than we perhaps ever had?and suddenly we were arguing about it. About the same things we had argued about a dozen times before. I sat there as we both made the same bitter case to each other. He looked on, dismayed as hell, and not sure how it had come to that.

At last I stood. "Look, Cam, nothing is going to be resolved tonight. We?ve been through this before. I love you, I'm no longer afraid for your life, and it's 10:30 and I have 150 miles to drive tonight."

She was confused and upset, but I just couldn't get caught up in it again. I knew she would calm down and we would talk again. I bade her ol' man well, and slipped out the door and got in my car with the bittersweetest of feelings. Life is not some cut-and-dried way. It's insane. There?s no solution, just a path, and I swear to God I am trying to walk it.

end! thank you to anyone who read the whole damn epic!