by Claire Adams
"I don't know what to do."
"It's not like you have that many options, is it?" she asked. I scowled at her. "No, I don't mean like that. I mean, at this point, all you can do is just tell him the truth, right? What else is there?" I had told her about the disaster that happened a few days ago when I had finally been upfront with him. She had told me then that I was on the other side of all that now and it was time to start moving on. Here we were a few days later, and I was being thrown right back into the mess.
"I'm supposed to give him the paperwork to sell his share of the company. Totally sell out. Basically, take that business that his father and grandfather grew from nothing and hand it over to strangers."
"You can’t be more sentimental about his family business than he is, Nat," she said gently.
"I know that; I just feel like this could have gone differently. Is it wrong that I think this wouldn't be happening if I hadn't lied to him?" I asked.
"You said he's felt this way for a long time, Nat," she said. Of course he had. Of fucking course he had. I knew that. Fuck me, right? Me and my incredible ability to fixate on the wrong thing at every point.
"I know. I just wish it had never come to this."
"It's not like you need to stay out there long. Just get him to sign the thing, and then you leave."
"I don’t know whether I can face him again."
"I hate to be harsh, but that will need to change between now and when you get there." I sighed, knowing she was right.
"I don't think I ever even got to tell him how I felt."
"Really?" she asked, surprised. I shook my head. I hadn't gotten to that part on Tuesday; I had been too busy fucking him over.
"You should say something then."
"What for?" I scoffed.
"Because you're just going to keep wondering “what if” if you don't say anything," she said matter of factly. "And I'm going to be the one who gets to listen to you complain about it.” I smiled a little, knowing she was right about that. I was usually much better at communicating my feelings when guys were involved, but everything between Cameron and I had just progressed in this way I hadn't been able to keep track of. There had been other things in the way, and I had gone and shot myself in the foot by not being honest with him since the beginning.
"He's going to say he doesn't care."
"You don't know that."
"But what if he does?"
"You won't know ‘til you tell him what you feel." Right again. I felt like a teenager, awkwardly trying to navigate my first crush. I didn't like feeling so weak and uncertain with Cameron, but I had to talk to him if I wanted to know anything for sure. If there was any chance at all that he cared for me, then I wanted to know.
"I'm scared," I admitted.
"You have nothing to lose. If you tell him what you feel, and he doesn't feel the same way, then move on," she said, shrugging. "You don't lose anything when there isn't anything there." If I looked at it like that, then yeah, what did I have to lose? Nothing. I'd feel better once everything was out on the table, and I would feel better hearing once and for all whether or not he felt anything too. If he didn't, I'd survive. It wouldn't be the end of the world, but I knew that I'd probably feel that way for a little while after.
This wasn't normal, I thought, leaving the salon after Kasey wished me luck. It wasn't right that I felt this way about him. It didn't make sense. It had been what? A month? Hardly enough time to have fallen this hard. I wasn't saying it couldn't happen; I just wanted to psych myself out enough so that when he said he didn't feel the same way in a few hours, it wouldn't hurt so bad.
What a mess. You're a fucking mess.
This was going to be the worst day of my life. I was driving out of the city with about an hour before noon. I wrestled between wanting it to last as little time as it possibly could and making it the longest ride of my life. The weather wasn't on my side, again, not being bad enough to slow me down as much as I wanted when I got off the road and onto the mountain trail.
Excuses started forming in my head, all the reasons I didn't want to be there. He wouldn't want to see me, it would be cold out, and I had come in nothing but my work clothes and a coat. This would be the last time; that would probably end up being the hardest thing to deal with. If he sold the company, what reason would he have to ever come down off this damn mountain? What time and place would there be for us to ever cross paths again? Was it selfish? I was being selfish. This wasn't about me. I kept telling myself that as I passed the fork and turned into his property.
He was going up the steps to his porch and stopped, turning back when he saw my car.
Oh god. This was it. Too late to run now. I killed my engine and took a couple deep breaths. He could see me from where he was on the porch; how ridiculous would it look if I turned around and drove away without coming and saying something to him? For once, do the thing that you were fucking sent here to do, I thought. I gathered the paperwork and my purse and got out of the car. Nothing that happens here and now could possibly be worse than what's already gone down between us, I thought, seeing him at the top of the porch steps. The wind whipped around my coat. It was cold, but I hardly noticed it over my pounding pulse.
This was it.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Cameron
This was it, huh? I watched her coming out of the car. Just like that first time she came up here, I thought. Makeup and heels. She was wearing grey slacks, which made me think she had come here from the office. Good. It was a Friday after all. Hopefully she was making her way back to the city before nightfall.
She wasn't staying here again if that was what she thought was happening.
Damn, I thought as she came up to me. I was mad at her, but my body hadn't gotten the memo. I hadn't stopped thinking about the nights we spent together. I hadn't stopped thinking about anything that had happened with her. What could I say? Women I had known longer had made less of an impression on me than she had. I didn't hate her as much as I wanted to be able to. If I could, that meant that I could watch her leave again later today and not feel shit.
"Cameron, hi," she said, coming up the steps to me. Her hair was up, and it bothered me. I liked it down, so I could run my fingers through it, hold a handful of it in my fist as she sucked my dick.
"You're back," I said. If I had thought of anything else to say, I would have said something, but I didn't. Say anything, literally anything, I thought. Here's a good place to start, how about apologizing to her?
The other day before she had left, the last thing I had said to her had been that I thought she was just as bad as the people, the world, I had come out here to get away from. It had been a few days now, and I guess I had learned some things since then. I might have been too quick to judge her. I had been too angry at the time to consider the position she had been put in by Brett and the stockholders at the company. Had she still been wrong? Yeah, but I could have cut her some slack.
"Is this a bad time?"
"What would you do if I said that it was?" I challenged. Leave and come back later? No, really, what would she have done if I told her that I was busy and couldn't talk to her?
"This isn’t going to take long."
"Good," I said. I saw her pause and collect herself. I didn't want to be here talking to her no matter how much I felt I could have been better to her the last time we had talked. What had happened had happened, and it was a waste of time thinking about the past. She was here now, and I wanted to get to the part where she left again.
"I'm sorry I keep showing up like this, but this time, I have something you might actually be excited to see," she said. She handed me the cream-colored envelope she had been holding. I opened it and pulled a bound collection of sheets out. She waited as I skimmed them. "I need your signature on these, and I can be on my way."
"That really all you want this time?" I asked.
"I know you don't want me here. Because of that, I can't say I want to be here either.
I don't care whether you sign it or not, but you said you wanted to sell. This is how that's going to happen. Either put your signature down or drive back to Salt Lake and tell Brett you had a change of heart yourself."
"He sent you?" I asked.
"Yes, and he's waiting for me to come back with that," she said motioning to the sheets.
"Can't keep him waiting, can we," I said sarcastically, looking at her. She crossed her arms over her chest.
"Need a pen?" she asked. "What?"
"I'm just thinking about how this could have happened weeks ago. Even before I came out here."
"Then sign it so I can leave," she said.
"Never been in a hurry to leave before," I said, heading towards the door and walking into the cabin. I had been outside to see whether it was a good day to try harvest some firewood, but then I had seen her car come up. Compared to some of the other days that had passed, today wasn't that bad. It was clear, and it hadn't snowed the night before, but nothing was happening until she was gone.
"I don't have time for this, Cameron," she said, impatiently.
"That's because you waited until the last minute, princess. Not me."
"I'm sorry, okay? I'm sorry I didn't say anything til a few days ago. You have every right to be mad about it. I can't afford to wait anymore, and I don't think you want me here any more than I want to be." She wanted to leave. I didn't know why it hurt a little hearing her. She wasn't wrong, but she wasn't right either. I didn't want to see her, but I couldn't stop thinking about her when she wasn’t here. Now that she was, I didn't know whether I would say no if she said she wanted to stay. I didn't think I'd fight her if she tried to touch me and I wanted to believe that she wouldn't try to fight me if I tried to touch her.
"Fine. Hand me a pen," I said, walking over to the couch and sitting, putting the sheets onto the coffee table. She pulled a pen out of her purse and waited while I read the document through. They were getting another investor involved. It was a company that would take my majority stake for a cool five hundred and forty million dollars. I wasn't sure how they had gotten to that figure, but I didn't have particularly strong feelings about it. Not in the way that it was what I had been hoping for going through with the sale, but there was something.
It was a little sobering to think that my father had worked his whole life for that and it was going to be as easy as putting my signature on the paperwork to give it all away. I didn't want it. I had never wanted it, but it felt a little like what I figured it would feel like if I tried to donate all my parents' clothes to charity, like I was losing part of them somehow.
I shook it off. It wasn't real. I had just been weird since the dream. I didn't believe in spirits and ghosts and all that shit, but the dream had been hard to forget. I read the document through and signed, getting up and walking towards Natalie when I was done. She had been wandering up and down the room, her heels clacking on the floor. She stopped when she saw me.
"Here," I said flatly, handing everything back to her.
"Thanks. Cameron?"
"What?"
"I am sorry, for what I did. I need you to know that it wasn't malicious. I didn't want to hurt you, but I did, and for that, I need to apologize."
"Fine," I said.
"And I," she hesitated. "I'm going. I'm going to leave but I can't before telling you what I feel." She paused again, looking down at the ground, before up at me again. "Part of the reason why I stayed silent so long, Cameron, was because of what I felt. Over our time together, I developed feelings for you. I tried to push them aside, thinking it was unprofessional for me to feel that way because of who you are, but they never faded. They just got stronger."
"Hm," I said. What I wouldn't have given to hear her say that to me on Tuesday instead of what she had ended up saying. She had feelings for me? I shook my head. Well, she was out of luck. The only feelings I had left as far as she was concerned were indifference. I couldn’t even hate her. I just wanted our association to end as suddenly as it had begun so I could move on with my life and she could move on with hers.
"Thank you for telling me," I said.
"So?" she asked. I shook my head.
"So nothing, Natalie. I'm sorry. I don't feel the same way. It's a bad time, and too much has happened between us already. I'm not interested in trying to have anything right now."
"Because of what I did?" she asked.
"Because of a lot of things, Natalie." She nodded and walked towards the door, shoving the papers back into the envelope. "Natalie?" I said, following her out the door. She was walking fast; any faster and she would practically be running.
"What?" she said, not looking back at me.
"Natalie, wait." She stopped and turned. She was at the bottom of the porch steps. Her eyes looked like she was going to start crying, and immediately, I knew I couldn't make her stay long enough for me to see that happen. "Tell Brett I'm sorry," I said lamely. She nodded and hurried towards her car. By the time she was pulling out, she had been too far away for me to see for sure, but I had thought I had seen her tears, her trying to wipe them away so she'd be able to see as she drove.
I should feel better, I thought. I should have felt relieved that I never had to worry about going back if I never wanted to. I never had to be part of that world again, see those people, get caught up in the money and scandal, all that shit I had wanted to get away from. It was gone now. It couldn't stick to me. I had said goodbye to the company and goodbye to Natalie. I should have felt better, but I didn't. Why?
This was what I wanted, wasn't it?
I thought it was. I wanted to be free from everything I hated. Now that I was, I still felt unsettled, like things weren't right yet. There was still something missing, or something I still had to get rid of. The memory of the dream nagged at me. Natalie's face as she pulled out onto the road haunted me.
This was about to be it. I was alone now, truly alone. I had severed all the ties I had to other people. Coming out here, I had been sure, fucking certain, that this had been what I wanted. Now that I had it...
I mean, was there any going back from this? To what? Clearly, this wasn't what I wanted anymore, so what was? Whatever I picked, I'd have to live with, so what was it going to be?
Natalie's car disappeared from sight, and I went back inside. I looked around the cabin, and that feeling settled around me again. Being so aware of the quiet that it sounded loud. This is it, I thought. I hope you're happy. It would be a shame if it still wasn't enough.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Natalie
Moving to Provo from Salt Lake, one of my biggest reservations, besides the distance I would have to start traveling to get to work, had been losing my Pilates place. It was the one form of exercise that didn't make me want to kill myself and everyone around me. I tried to make it a point to go a few times a week but had fallen off in a big way since I had gotten entangled in the whole thing with Cameron and the general Porter family drama.
I had no excuse not to go on the weekends and usually didn't try and make any. It was usually as easy as weighing the consequences of what I wanted to be able to eat and what it was likely to do to my dress size. Dress size tended to win out every time. Today though, it was two in the afternoon, and I had done nothing but rewatch episodes of Friday Night Lights that I had seen a million times already on the couch in yoga pants and no bra under my shirt. My kitchen sink was full of spoons that I had eaten peanut butter off of because at no point had I had it in me to call in for food or make something that required even minor assembly.
The last time I had felt like this had been a while ago. A while ago, and there was no good reason for this time. I didn't get this way unless I had recently ended a romantic relationship, so what the hell was the excuse now?
I had ignored my phone all day. The only other people I had seen had been the two-dimensional characters on my television screen, and they didn't count. I had napped more hours than an adult of my age and activity level needed.
I hadn’t cried though. That had stopped the night before, and I didn’t care how hollow a victory that was, I was celebrating it.
My doorbell rang, and I ignored it. I hoped it wasn't the mail carrier because I didn't want to be rude, but I wasn’t getting up. All my curtains were still drawn, I imagined the house looked like it was empty from the outside. Maybe my neighbors were checking on me to see if I had died. That would be in their interest, I guessed, probably affect their property value by proxy.
Whoever was at the door knocked again. I paused the TV and tried to make it seem like I wasn't home.
"Nat? Natalie?" I heard someone say. Shit. I rolled my eyes, getting up off the couch, wrapping the blanket I had over me around myself instead of leaving it behind. I unlocked the door and opened it.
"Oh my god."
"Nobody's home. Come back later," I said. That was the first time I had actually heard my own voice all day, I realized with some amusement.
"Natalie, what the hell. Have you looked at your phone today?" Kasey asked, barging inside.
"Please come in. It isn't like I wanted to be alone today. Have some time to my damn self," I said sarcastically. She walked into my living room, looked around, then turned to me with a look of utter disgust on her face.
"Are you fucking kidding me?"
"Do you want something Kase? I was kind of busy."
"Yeah, you and Coach Taylor have a lot to talk about together?" she asked me sarcastically, waving her hand at the TV.
"You know I never recovered after it was canceled."
"I've been texting you all day," she scolded.
"Sorry," I said, shrugging weakly. "Sorry if you were worried." I went over to the couch and slumped back into it. She looked at me, really looked, like she was inspecting me just in case a body double had taken over.
"What happened yesterday? You haven't replied to any of my texts."
"Nothing happened." I tried to sound nonchalant, but she saw right through it.
"Oh no, did he...?"
