The Miseducation of Cameron Post

The following morning, neither Mark nor Adam come to breakfast. Lydia arrives 20 minutes late to support group, with Rick in tow. She announces that Mark is in the hospital at Bozeman. After much back and forth, Lydia finally tells the students the full truth: Mark severely self-mutilated himself the night before. Dane blames Lydia and Rick for not paying enough attention to Mark. While Rick is apologetic, Lydia remains icy. Rick ends the session and asks the students to wait in their rooms for brief one-on-ones with himself or Lydia.

In her one-on-one with Rick, Cameron asks Rick to give her all the details about Mark’s incident. Rick tells Cameron that Mark tried to cut off his genitals with a razor. Mark passed out after the first few incisions, and Adam found him on the floor of their room, covered in blood and bleach. Cameron asks Rick if Adam is okay. Rick replies that he will need time to “process.” Cameron angrily demands how someone can process an event like this. To her surprise, Rick quietly cries and admits his inability to handle the situation or justify the school’s mission in light of this event. 

In the middle of a The Sound of Music screening, Cameron, Adam, and Jane sneak off to smoke marijuana in the barn. Adam recounts his side of Mark’s story glumly—how he encountered Mark on the floor soaked in blood, and how he’d thought Mark was dead. He reveals that Mark used one of Adam’s razors. When Cameron announces her plan to escape the school, Jane and Adam pledge to go with her.

Mark does not return to God’s Promise. A team of inspectors comes to the school to assess whether Promise has abused students. Cameron is candid with the inspector interviewing her about the school’s emotional abuse, but the inspector does not seem to take her story seriously. 

Jane, Cameron, and Adam agree to escape at the beginning of June. They decide to “disappear” themselves while on a hike, relying on Jane’s wilderness skills to get them as far as Bozeman. The trio attempt to reconcile their varied plans once they get to Bozeman. Jane will be 18 in a few months, but Cameron and Adam still have over a year to go, making it difficult for the three of them to stick together as the police will attempt to find the minors. They decide to split up in Bozeman. Cameron ponders whether Mona or Margo would help her. Jane believes she can rely on an old flame.  

Cameron tries to be on her best behavior with Lydia so as not to raise suspicion. In early April, another student, Steve, exposes Jane for smoking marijuana in the barn. As a result, Lydia and Rick revoke many of her privileges and freedoms. However, Jane reasons that her extra evangelical duty will give her the chance to work in the office and steal back her, Jane, and Adam’s ID cards.

In a one-on-one session, Lydia allows Cameron to open a letter from her grandmother. Grandma Post writes that Ruth has developed several cancerous lumps and is undergoing treatment. Lydia agrees to let Cameron call Ruth at the hospital. Grandma Post answers. The sound of her voice brings tears to Cameron’s eyes: “[It] was like her voice out of the past [...] my past […] her voice speaking to the me who I wasn’t anymore and never would be again” (418). After the call, Lydia prompts Cameron to deconstruct her family dynamics. Cameron notices how Lydia mixes psychological language with the religious rhetoric.

God’s Promise teacher Bethany Kimbles-Erickson gives Cameron a book about the Montana-Yellowstone earthquake. Cameron spots a photograph of Margo’s brother, who died in the earthquake. Cameron muses about how quickly tragedy turns into entertainment or historical fact. 

Since Jane’s punishment, Jane, Cameron, and Adam communicate mostly through notes. Cameron explains her need to visit Quake Lake as the first leg of their escape, and the others agree. With the help of a “dykey librarian” (435) in Bozeman, Cameron photocopies maps of Quake Lake hiking trails. Cameron hides supplies for the journey in a rotted-out tree trunk.

Cameron speaks to her grandmother over the phone one last time. Her grandmother informs Cameron that Ruth’s radiation treatment went well, but it burnt her skin so that parts look like “raw chuck steak” (436). Grandma Post tells Cameron that she and Ruth plan to visit her at Promise over the Fourth of July, close to the date of her parents’ death. Grandma Post asks Cameron if she would like to visit Quake Lake at that time. Cameron says yes but still insists that Grandma Post place flowers at her parents’ gravesite since they will be unable to do so together this summer. After Cameron hangs up, she wonders where she will next be calling her grandmother from or what she will say.

Cameron repeatedly dreams about a sexual encounter with Bethany Kimbles-Erickson. However, Cameron manages to wake herself up before Bethany and Cameron consummate anything in dream, leaving Cameron to briefly wonder if Lydia’s teachings about resisting sinful urges have worked. Cameron’s roommate Erin wakes her up in the middle of one of the dreams. To Cameron’s surprise, Erin kisses her, then climbs into bed with her and gives her an orgasm. Erin refuses to let Cameron give her any pleasure. Erin eventually admits that she already had an orgasm while Cameron slept. Cameron assures her this is a good thing and tries to kiss Erin, but Erin resists and slinks back to her bed. Erin asks Cameron not to tell anyone about what they did. She says that she wants a husband and two little girls one day: “I want them for real and not just because I’m supposed to want them” (443). Cameron notes that the incident, which was fun and sexy half an hour ago, was now “ugly and bulky and messy” (444).

God’s Promise students complete their final exams. Lydia approves Jane, Adam, and Cameron’s “excursion,” which she believes consists of a hike and picnic to celebrate the end of finals. Cameron imagines Reverend Rick, now on tour, in a hotel room when he gets the news of their disappearance. 

In Cameron’s last one-on-one with Lydia, Lydia urges Cameron to admit her parents’ role in creating her “sinful identity” (451). Cameron claims that her decisions were her own. Lydia replies, “[I]f you can’t remember them for who they were and not who you’ve made them to be then you won’t heal” (452). At the end of the session, Cameron says she is ready to move on.

The night before Jane, Cameron, and Adam leave, Cameron easily falls asleep. Looking back, she wonders what her restfulness indicated. Cameron considers leaving Erin a note but then decides against it. The three leave the next morning after breakfast, as planned. 

Cameron, Adam, and Jane arrive at Quake Lake. Cameron trips multiple times, but Adam and Jane catch her. Cameron decides she needs to go into the lake, and Jane gives Cameron her towel. She also lights a candle and hands it to Cameron. Jane maintains that Cameron can do whatever it is she is about to do, and that she has come all this way to do it. Reassured, Cameron wades into the lake, lit candle in hand. 

Cameron’s body tenses as she enters the chilly water, and she struggles to control her breath. From inside the lake, Cameron addresses her parents. She apologizes for being relieved when they died because they would not find out about her and Irene. She admits that she is unsure if she truly knew them or if they would have sent her to Promise, but she declares that she will remember them the way she wants to. She tells them that she loves them: “[T]hat’s something I’ve been able to figure out for sure” (469). Cameron blows out the candle.

Adam runs into the lake to retrieve Cameron as she swims towards the shore. Jane wraps Cameron in a beach towel. Then, the three of them walk towards the fire Jane built.