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Then there are the wo, buxom, and beautiful, they’re draped over him in photo after photo At parties, news events, the sidelines of a galue trap and they’re flies

Itin any of those photos, either And he’s never photographed with the sahtfully through the pictures, beco a e of a profoundly unhappy life Even when surrounded by an adoring crowd, he looks angry and alone Our conversation inbeautiful?

My life has never been easy

For you the world is just one big banquet of choices

Is it?

If I were going on all the photographs as evidence, I’d have to concede what I think is a banquet seee and read through his list of career achievements and awards and honors, then skip down to the section titled Early Life

Born into poverty to a teenage single or faced grave odds fro his hed only three pounds, six ounces at birth As his lungs were ien but quickly developed retrolental fibroplasia fro in retinal detachery to correct the condition

"Oh my God," I whisper, horrified,ht years in prison for the attack on his pregnant girlfriend, Duncan McGregor hung hi only ten days For the first few years of Cameron’s life, his overn use during pregnancy, Ca childhood, including slow physical develop, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (also called ADHD)

In interviews he has described how viciously he was bullied at school for his s disability One such event landed him in the hospital with a broken jaw and severe internal bleeding after being beaten into unconsciousness by a gang of older boys

I start blinking hard to clear the water from my vision It doesn’t work, so I take a few of the napkins from my top drawer and dab at the corners of ain

When he elve, Cara able-bodied citizens on the dole back to work She obtained a position as a live-in housekeeper for Sir Francis Gladstone, a member of Parliaes of fifteen and twenty, all of ere highly regarded ah their influence that Cameron was first introduced to the sport

Cameron and his mother lived with Sir Gladstone until her suicide when Cahteen, the same year he was recruited to the Red Devils Sir Gladstone and Catherine McGregor were rumored to be romantically involved at the time of her death, but he denied the reports

I stare at the screen in shock

Both his parents killed thehteen He was poor, weak, beaten, and bullied, utterly disadvantaged, yet soth to become one of the world’s foremost athletes

I feel as if I’ve been flattened by a stea

"Joellen"

I start at the sound of Ca around, he’s standing there in the entrance tonervously a few feet behind hi hiirl with a nervous tic in her left eyelid She always looks like she’s sending a conspiratorial wink

"Don’t tell ot our lunch date," Cam drahen I sit frozen, mystified by his presence

"Lunch date?" I repeat blankly When I see Kim’s eyes widen in alarm, I quickly backtrack "Oh! Yes! Sorry, I was just so absorbed in work I lost track of tiaze cuts to my computer screen