But Cameron wasn’t like me. It was hard enough for him to talk at all, and just when he was opening up, he’d seen me in the arms of another man.
I knew it killed him, and that killed me.
But where he receded like the tide, Reese came crashing in to fill the void like the biggest wave.
Though we didn’t have much time together, the time we did, he took full advantage of. I smiled as I spread more compost over the soil, recalling our picnic on Friday at Westchester. It was something so simple, so easy, and yet it had made me feel like I was on top of the world. The warmth of the sun on our skin, the taste of childhood favorite foods, the sound of his voice as he read my book out loud — it was perfect. It was a glimpse of what our life could be like, in the future, and I clung to that glimpse like the last vine that stopped me from falling into an abyss.
As much as I loved the way I felt with Reese, I still couldn’t get over the fact that Cameron had built me an aviary. I couldn’t let go of the fact that he was seeing a therapist — which he was with right now. He hadn’t spoken much to me since the conference, but I knew just by looking at him that he wanted to.
And so, my heart remained severed. Because how could I turn my back on him when he still had time, when I’d promised him I’d wait?
As if my thoughts were calling to him, the sliding glass door connected to our sunroom opened, and Cameron stepped out onto our patio with a smile on his face.
“I had a feeling I’d find you here,” he said, eyeing where I was working with the soil. “The weather is perfect today.”
I leaned back on my heels, looking up at him from where I was on my knees in the garden. His smile was genuine, the first one I’d seen him wear in a week, and I returned it.
“It’ll get cold again, but spring is teasing us.”
“As it often does in Pennsylvania,” he said. Then, he dropped to his knees in front of me, rolling up the sleeves of his long-sleeve shirt. “Can I help?”
“I’d love that.”
He picked up where I’d left off, digging into our compost with his bare hands where I had my gloves for protection. He never was afraid of getting dirty — it was something I’d always loved about him.
I watched him for a moment longer before leaning forward to help, and a silence fell over us, though it wasn’t the comfortable one that I was used to. Now, it was strained, riddled with unsaid words that hung between us like lasers that would singe our skin if we touched them. Every now and then, I glanced up to watch him work, but I never knew what to say.
Words were becoming as hard for me as they were for him.
“How was your session with Patrick?” I managed after a while.
Cameron kept his eyes on his hands, and I watched my own, trying to relieve the tension.
“It was fine.”
Fine.
I swallowed, thinking of how complicated my relationship with that word was now. It was how I’d described my state of being for so long, what I’d told people when they asked how I was — or how Cameron and I were. But fine didn’t mean everything was okay. It meant I didn’t want to talk about how things really were.
It meant I was surviving. I was breathing. But that was all.
“That’s good,” I said.
Cameron nodded, glancing at me just as I came across an ugly, thick weed buried deep under where I would plant new flowers soon. I leaned back on my heels, grabbing my farmer’s knife.
“It’s hard,” he said, voice soft as I started working at the weed. “Talking to him. Sometimes. He just… he likes to talk about my dad.”
I stilled, the knife hovering under the weed. I stared at it before pulling up gently, freeing part of it.
“I can imagine,” I said. “We never talk about him. Not since we were in college, that one time, when you told me what happened.”
Cameron scratched his jaw, marking it with soil as he did. “Yeah. But it’s good, even when it’s hard. I have a lot of… feelings toward my dad, I guess. That I never knew about. Or rather, that I never dived into.” He cleared his throat. “I think he’s part of the reason I have such a hard time talking.”
I yanked at the weed, my heart in my throat. I could sense it, something big building with Cameron’s every sentence.
“I could see that.”
I tried to give him his space to feel out his next words. He seemed frustrated, like the words were right within sight but blurred by a glass he couldn’t break through.
“The night you came home from the conference, there was something I wanted to tell you. But, it’s not easy to talk about.”
The sun slipped behind a cloud then, making me shiver with the chill of the shade.
“And I want to tell you, but you just have to know that—”
“Shit!”
I dropped the knife, that hand coming up to press hard into the palm I’d just slashed with it trying to cut the last of the stubborn weed. Blood poured through my glove, and I cringed against the pain.
“Oh, shit,” I said again, this time more resigned than panicked.
Cameron was already on his feet and pulling me up from my knees. He carefully rushed me inside and straight to our kitchen sink, peeling off my glove and running water over the cut. I watched the clear liquid turn red as he rinsed me, the sight of blood always making my head spin.
I gripped the counter.
“It’s deep,” Cameron said, and I just nodded. “We should go to the hospital. I think you need stitches.”
I held onto the counter with my free hand, holding the injured one under the water as Cameron slipped away to grab our first-aid kit. He dried my hand when he returned, wrapping it in gauze and checking that it wasn’t too tight before leading me to the front door.
“I’ll grab you a light jacket from upstairs. Here,” he said, swiping his keys from the table in our foyer. “Let me start the car first, get it warmed up.”
“It’s nice out,” I reminded him. “I’ll be fine.”
“Well, we don’t know how long this will take. Let me at least get the jacket.”
He was already three steps up when I called his name.
“You were going to say something,” I said, nodding toward the garden. “Outside.”
Cameron swallowed, offering me a small smile. “It’s okay, it can wait. Let’s get you fixed up first, okay?”
My stomach sank, but the stinging pain in my hand echoed Cameron’s sentiment. I nodded, and within five minutes, we were in the car and on our way to the hospital.
I held onto his promise that we’d talk later, but when we were back home, my hand stitched up and well on its way to healing, no words came.
They didn’t come the day after, either.
Or the day after that.
As Cameron slipped back into his silence, I slipped back into just being fine when I was at home.
And the only time I felt happiness was when I was at Westchester.
With Reese.
Cameron
The night that fell after Charlie cut her hand, I dreamed about my father.
He was standing over my mom’s lifeless body, a snarl in his lip as he shook his head at me.
“I told you you were worthless,” he sneered. “She will move on. She will be fine without you — happier, even. She doesn’t want you. Just like we didn’t.”
That same scene, those same words, played on repeat. Over and over he said them, and over and over I tried to shake myself from the nightmare. I couldn’t wake up, though I knew I was dreaming. I was aware of my body, of where I laid in the bed next to Charlie, of where her body touched mine.
But I couldn’t wake up.
Not until hours into the night, when the nightmare faded with the sound of our heat kicking on, and I bolted upright in bed.
Sweat poured off every inch of me, and my breaths were erratic, like I’d just sprinted up and down our stairs for hours. I glanced at Charlie, but she was unfazed, a soft smile on her face as she slept peacefully
.
And though I saw her, I saw him, too.
I heard him.
I heard the words I always knew to be true.
The next day, I cancelled the rest of my week’s sessions with Patrick.
I had nothing else left to say.
Reese
“Are you sure you don’t want anything to eat?” I asked Charlie the following Wednesday evening.
We had stayed late after school to work with the students who would play at the end-of-the-year gala, and at the very mention of food, Charlie visibly turned green.
“Definitely sure.”
I chuckled, but couldn’t hide my frown as she stacked up the last of the leftover packets we’d handed out that evening. We’d had this on the calendar for weeks, ever since Mr. Henderson gave us the task, but Charlie had come down with food poisoning after lunch. I told her we could move the meeting, but she refused, saying it would be too difficult to get everyone together at a different date and time with such short notice.
She’d been a champ throughout the evening, and no one would have known she was ill if they hadn’t outright asked her. But now that the last students were gone and it was just the two of us, her fatigue and weakness had caught up to her.
She dropped the packets on my desk, the wind from the fall sweeping her hair back.
“I also do not want to drive right now,” she said, checking the time on her watch. “But it’s almost nine. I told Cameron I wouldn’t be later than seven.”
“He’ll survive,” I answered. Crossing the room to where she stood, I took her hand in mine, tugging her toward the door. “Come with me.”
“I really need to go.”
“Twenty minutes isn’t going to kill anyone,” I said, and when she glanced for her phone that had been abandoned on my desk all evening, I shook my head. “And no phone. Just twenty minutes, and I promise I’ll let you go.”
Charlie sighed, but nodded, following me down the hall to the library. It was dark inside, but lit just enough to see by the lights from the hall that I didn’t turn on any others. I led Charlie to the couch in the front study section, pulling her into my arms once I was seated against the left armrest.
Another sigh left her lips as I wrapped my arms around her, kissing her hair and rocking her gently.
“Better?”
“Yes,” she breathed. “It’s so quiet. And dark. And there are no… smells. Except for old books, which I can handle.”
I chuckled, sweeping her hair off her forehead. “I told you to stay away from that tuna casserole in the teachers’ lounge.”
She forced a smile, but it was weak, and it fell just as quickly as it’d come. I just squeezed her tighter, glad I could be there for her when she wasn’t feeling well — glad I could hold her without anyone around again, even if just for twenty minutes.
“I wish we could stay here tonight,” she whispered after a moment.
I sighed, running my hand through her hair. “I know, I do, too.” Then, I paused, a new idea sprouting to life. “But hey, close your eyes.”
“They’re already closed.”
I chuckled. “Okay, mine too.” I wrapped her tighter in my arms, leaning my mouth down to whisper in her ear. “Now, imagine we’re not at Westchester. Imagine we’re at home — at our home. We’re sitting on our couch, in our living room, after a long day at work. I’m holding you while we watch the fire, and you’re telling me about your day, and I’m kissing your neck as I listen to every word.”
I creaked an eyelid open long enough to see her smiling before I closed it again.
“What are we wearing?”
“Oh, that’s easy. Nothing.”
She chuckled. “I have a feeling if that were the case, we wouldn’t be just talking.”
My body responded to the insinuation, and I inhaled a stiff breath, adjusting myself in my pants.
“I wish you didn’t feel like you had to throw up every time you moved right now, because now I’m picturing a very different scene.”
At that, she laughed. “Sorry.”
“Oh, don’t apologize, I’ll make use of this visualization later.”
Charlie shook her head. “I wish we could…” Her voice faded off, growing softer. “I wish I could go home with you, that I could make you feel good tonight.”
I sighed, kissing her hair. “I know. Me, too.”
Charlie said it was past nine when she’d checked the time, which meant Blake would be wondering where I was, too. I didn’t have to look at my phone in my pocket to know it was filled with missed texts and calls from her.
“Maybe we could say we got locked in,” I tried.
“I need to go home,” she said softly, stiffening in my arms with her next words. “And you do, too.”
I rocked her again. “I know.”
I hated that we couldn’t stay, that we couldn’t have that night — one night — with just the two of us. It’d been too long, and I wanted more time alone with her. The moments I was able to steal were never enough.
“Have you told her about me yet?” Charlie asked. “About us?”
My stomach knotted, knowing Charlie had to feel the same way about me going home to Blake as I did her going home to Cameron.
“We’ve talked about this, Charlie. It’s complicated.”
“Uncomplicate it.”
She sat up in my arms, her pale lips downturned as she waited for my answer.
I hated that I put that there — that frown — because in any other situation, I would have done whatever it took to make it disappear. But I wasn’t being a chum when I said it was complicated. It was — more so than I could even explain.
Nothing was black and white in the world we’d found ourselves in.
“Look,” I said, framing her face with my hand. “Every night, Blake comes home with more news about her father. And every night, it gets worse. The only thing she wants to hear from me right now is that it’s all going to be okay, regardless of what happens with her dad, and I can’t give her that assurance by telling her about us.”
“So, you lie to her for her own good,” Charlie deadpanned.
“That’s not what I mean.”
“That’s what it sounds like.”
“Please, Charlie,” I begged. “Try to understand. I know it’s hard, but can you just put yourself in her shoes? Imagine your own father was passing away slowly before your eyes, and the one and only comfort you had was that there was a friend waiting for you at home every night.”
“I get that,” she said, pushing herself up off the couch. She was slow, weak from losing so many fluids, but she waved me off when I tried to help her. “I do. But she doesn’t think you’re just her friend.” She turned to face me. “And I need you, too.”
“Right now, a friend is all I’m being to her. I swear. We haven’t so much as kissed. We sleep in the same bed, but that’s all.” I reached for Charlie’s hand, and she let me hold it as I begged her to believe me. “And you’ve got me.”
“During school hours.”
I frowned. “Come on, Charlie. Don’t be like that.”
“Whatever. It’s fine,” she said quickly, crossing the room. She was already in the hall before I was off the couch. “I should probably get going. She’ll be home soon, and Graham and Christina flew into town tonight. I should make sure they’re all settled in at Mom and Dad’s.”
“Charlie,” I tried, catching up to her. I offered to hold her as she walked, but she shook me off.
“No, seriously. It’s fine. It is what it is, right?”
We rounded into my classroom, and she bolted to my desk, clicking the power button on her phone to turn it back on from where she’d powered it down before our meeting. The screen lit up as it came back to life, and I tugged on her hand, pulling her into me again.
She huffed when I put my arms around her, but I took her chin between my thumb and index finger, forcing her to look at me.
“Do you not understand that I also wish we cou
ld be together after school hours? I wish I could come over to your house, or you to mine, or better yet — that we could go completely away from here. But, Blake isn’t the only issue, here.”
She swallowed. “Don’t bring Cameron into this. Not right now.”
“How can I not? Look,” I said, stepping more into her. “It’s complicated. The whole fucking thing. But remember what it felt like when you came to me that night, when we first touched under that fort?”
Her face softened at that, and I took the wiggle room she gave me to slide in more.
“And at the conference? In the rain, and afterward, in my room…”
Charlie closed her eyes. “Yes, I remember.”
“I need you to hold onto that, to those memories, just like I do. Remember how it feels when we get alone, when we have our time.”
“I ruined our time tonight,” she added softly, eyes fluttering open. “Stupid body.”
I chuckled. “You can’t help being sick. I’m just glad I could be here to take care of you and, hopefully, make you feel a little better.”
“You did help,” she said, though she sighed again. “I hope I don’t get you sick.”
“Don’t worry about me. Stomach of steel,” I said, hitting my stomach with a closed fist like King Kong. I bent to kiss Charlie in the next instant and she smiled against my lips, laughing a little as she pushed me away.
“You’re ridiculous,” she said, still smiling, but her face went ash white when she picked up her phone from my desk. “Oh, my God.”
“What?”
“Oh, my God,” she repeated, frantically typing out something on her phone. “It’s Christina. Something happened on their flight over. She’s in the hospital.” Charlie shook her head, still glued to her phone as she blindly felt for her purse and keys. “Shit, everyone’s been calling and texting me. Mom, Dad, Graham, Cameron. They’ve been there two hours now.”
Her face twisted, tears pooling in her eyes, and her hands shook when she finally found her keys.
“Hey,” I said, pulling her to a stop before she could bolt out the door. “Take a minute, breathe, it’s okay. Come here.”
“I have to go.”
What He Always Knew (What He Doesn't Know Duet Book 2) Page 15
