His finger tilts my chin to look at him again, then he kisses me softly. “You’re gorgeous and that was remarkable. Thank you for telling me that.” Pressing another kiss on the tip of my nose, then quickly on the lips, he asks, “So what do you see there now?”
“I don’t know,” I admit with a chuckle. “But yesterday, I saw you.”
“Me?”
“Yeah, you.” I bring my hand up to cup his jaw and kiss him. Pulling back with a smile, I notice his eyes are still closed. I ask him, “Do you want to see?”
Cameron opens his eyes and excitedly says yes. So I extract myself from his arms and pick up one of my many portfolios. This one in particular has mostly charcoal drawings. Thumbing past other works, I find the two I’m looking for.
“I really hope you like them,” I say and then ask him to close his eyes. “No peeking until I say so.”
I tack them up on the opposite wall, and without further ado, I tell him to open his eyes and see for himself.
“Are you kidding me right now?” he asks with a huge grin on his face. “Seriously, this is a joke, right?”
I shake my head. “No, I did these yesterday. They’re for you, only if you want them, of course. I mean, art truly is subjective, so I get it if you don’t want them, and I wouldn’t be offended or anything.”
“They’re awesome!” He stands up and takes the few steps over to where I am so he can look closer. His eyes roam over the first one and then the second. Then, as if something caught his attention, he goes back to staring at the first one. “Wait a second. Is that me?”
“Yes.”
The drawing in question is of Darth Vader, but his mask is cracked and has fallen off half his face. Instead of sketching the face of the actor who played him in the movie, I drew half of Cameron’s face. I don’t know why I ended up doing it like that; maybe because I know how much of a fan he is of the movies, or maybe because I was just on a high from having spent the night with him for the first time. Either way, I thought it looked pretty cool.
The other is a sketch of Han Solo frozen in carbonite. That one I drew from memory, and also maybe because Harrison Ford reminds me a lot of Cameron.
“Vanessa, these are . . . this is . . . I am so blown away right now, I don’t even know what to say.”
“So you like them?” I ask him with a modest smile.
“I love them, and if they’re really mine, I’m immediately getting them professionally framed.” He stops and looks back at the drawings and then back to me, but with a sneaky smile on his face. “But only after you do one more thing.”
Cameron walks over to the table where I keep all my charcoal pencils and randomly picks one up. He comes back and hands it to me. “I want you to sign them for me.”
I do as he asks, and when I’m done, he grabs my face in his hands and brings his mouth over mine. With each brush of his lips and stroke of his tongue, I feel more breathless and utterly lost in him. In the back of my mind, I think that maybe true love’s kiss isn’t just something to read about or see in the movies. I want to believe in the fairy tale, as it turns out. And with the way he holds me so reverently, and the faintest skim of his fingers trailing down my neck, tracing the bared skin of my shoulders, then down the length of my arms until he captures my fingers in his, I find myself able to believe in it a little bit more.
When Cameron pulls away, he keeps our fingers entwined. “Thank you so much. I have no way of expressing how much it means to me that you drew those just for me.”
“You’re welcome,” I whisper, still a little breathless from that last kiss.
He searches my face for a second, as if trying to commit every single wrinkle, freckle, and beauty mark to memory. “It’s getting late.”
I’d be a liar if I didn’t feel a pang of disappointment that he has to go home, but this is what the whole dating a single parent comes with. Even though he seems to be okay with it all now and has told me as much, my fear is that it will get to be a hassle for him not having the freedom to do certain things whenever he, or I for that matter, wants. But I remind myself that we did agree to move forward and to take things one step at a time. So I’m willing to let go of the disappointment for now and try not to dwell on it.
“Yeah, it’s a school night,” I say with a small smile. “You have to wake up early and mold the minds of young children.”
He chuckles at that, then lets me go so I can untack the drawings from the wall. After I’ve put them in an old portfolio I have lying around, I hand it over to him.
When we reach the front door, he pulls me to him again, wrapping his arms around me in a big hug.
“I want to see you again, Vanessa. Soon.”
I smile into his chest before pulling back to look at him. “Me too. Soon.”
He laughs. “Would you be open to the idea of letting me take you and Josie out to dinner this week?”
“I think it’s very sweet of you to include her, and yes, I think that would be great,” I say and mean it, because it shows how seriously he is taking this and trying to make this work between us.
Then Cameron kisses me one more time before leaving for the night.
With my lips aching in bliss from his kiss and my heart thumping away with happiness and excitement, I watch him until his taillights are a distant memory in the darkness.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Sometimes I think to myself, What if?
What if I never went away to college and met Matthew?
What if I had an abortion like he wanted me to, or what if I gave the baby away for adoption to a couple who couldn’t have children of their own?
What if I had decided to run away to Paris to live the life I had dreamed for myself ever since I was a little girl, before Matthew?
The answer is simple: Josie.
Because if I had never gone to college and met Matthew, if I had decided to run away to Paris to live out my dream, if I had had an abortion or given the baby up for adoption . . . there would be no Josie. I have a hard time picturing what my life would be like without her in it. She completes me in a way that I could never have imagined before her.
She is the one great thing I’ve accomplished in my life and was meant to do, and I’ll be damned if anyone or anything will ever hurt her in any way, shape, or form.
But . . . what if I am the person who hurts her? I never took into account that I could ever be the source of so much of her pain. I always believed that our bond was too strong to ever be shaken. I am finding out the hard way that the best of intentions are not necessarily the best way to handle things. That keeping things hidden from the ones you love most is almost a guarantee that the bond will shatter from the weight of those secrets.
And as with most things in life that damage your very fragile existence, you never see them coming.
A few days later, I take Cameron up on his offer to take Josie and me out to dinner. It has to be a little earlier than usual since it is another school night though. So I made plans to have him pick us up a little after five o’clock, which Josie thinks is hilarious since that’s just about making it early-bird senior-citizen dining hours, according to her.
I’m in my bedroom freshening up from the long workday when I hear the doorbell ring, signaling Cameron’s arrival. Josie’s muffled feet running across the living room lets me know that she’s letting him in, so I don’t have to go downstairs just yet. As silly and immature as it seems, the thought that I’m going to be seeing him again in a couple of minutes excites me; my stomach swirls and does mini somersaults as a result. I swear that if someone told me I’d be experiencing that feeling again in my lifetime, I would have called them a liar. Stranger still is the fact that I can admit to myself that I missed it to begin with, that I had been secretly wanting to experience the pull of attraction and strong feelings for someone else all these years.
It may seem crazy given the short time we’ve been together, but the feelings I have for Cameron have gone beyond like and well in
to possibly love. I wouldn’t dare say it aloud to anyone—not even to myself—but I know that every part of me is aching for him, and not just in the physical sense.
“Mom, are you almost ready?” Josie yells up the stairs.
Checking myself in the mirror one more time before heading downstairs, I shout back, “I’ll be right there!”
Cameron is waiting for me at the foot of the steps. He runs a hand nervously through his jet-black hair as he takes me in from my head to my toes, making me worry that there’s something wrong.
Walking right up to him, I ask him quietly, “Is everything okay?”
“Yes, more than okay,” he says. “It’s just . . . it’s just that you’re so beautiful and amazing that every time I see you I wonder what a woman like you could ever be doing with a man like me.”
I loop my arms around his neck, bringing my face a breath away from his. “I ask myself the same exact question all the time . . . but the other way around.”
The corners of Cameron’s mouth curl up in a smile when I close the almost miniscule distance between our lips and press a kiss there.
“Ahem.” That comes from Josie, who is still in the room. For a moment, I’m mortified, but she quickly adds, “It’s okay, Mom, I was only joking. You guys are pretty cute together, even if Mr. Thomas is my science teacher.”
She’s got a huge grin on her face when I look at her over Cameron’s shoulder. When I notice that she’s right by my purse, which is sitting on the kitchen counter, I ask her to grab it for me so we can start heading out.
Leaning over the counter, Josie yanks the corner of my purse, and I watch as it slowly starts to tip and then falls completely over to the side as the contents spill out all over the kitchen floor.
“Sorry, Mom,” she says and gets on her knees with my now empty purse in her hand. “I’ll put everything back together for you.”
Cameron draws me closer and links my hands in his. “I know it’s only been a few days since . . .” He hesitates a second, searching my eyes. “But it’s different, right? You feel it too.”
The undercurrent of emotion is evident in his eyes and by the way his fingers grip mine lightly. I know that whatever it is between us is clear as day to both of us, and I don’t want to lose whatever it is. But I also don’t want to jinx myself either. That’s why he didn’t have to ask me if I feel it too, since I know exactly what he means.
“It’s good different, Cameron,” I say to him. “Really good different.”
“So you’re not scared off by it?”
“A little,” I admit with a small smile. “But it’s only because I’ve been alone for so long that it takes some getting used to.”
“I never thought I’d say this to someone so soon, but I think I’m—”
“Mom!” Josie yells.
I look over to the kitchen counter, where she’s standing again. “What’s the matter?”
“When were you going to tell me about this?!”
In her left hand she’s holding a piece of paper. Having no idea what it is and wanting to defuse an already awkward situation with Cameron present, I ask her calmly, “Josie, sweetie, what are you talking about?” I turn to Cameron and excuse myself. And then I realize what she’s holding: Matthew’s letter.
My heart sinks as tears well up in Josie’s eyes.
“Sweetie, I was going to tell you, I swear.” My voice quavers slightly.
“When? In between your dates with him?” Her voice drips with venom and raw anger as she points behind me to where Cameron is probably wondering what is going on. “When, Mom?”
Cameron looks extremely uncomfortable at what is playing out in front of him. He rubs the back of his neck with his hand and starts to say something, but I stop him. “Cameron, I’m so sorry, but can we reschedule for another night?”
“Sure, sure,” he says with a polite smile. “I’ll let myself out and I’ll call you later to make sure everything is okay.”
“Okay, thanks.” He leaves and I turn back around to Josie, who is still seething with anger.
She has every right to be upset. I have completely let her down. But how do I explain that it was only to protect her? That I thought it wasn’t the right time to tell her about what Matthew has been trying to do. She knows about him in the sense that she knows I didn’t have a miracle pregnancy, but she doesn’t know all the details of what happened then and obviously nothing of what’s happening now. Where do I even start?
“Listen, sweetie, let me explain.”
She waves the letter in the air. “I read in the letter that my dad wants to meet me! He sent it months ago! When were you planning to fit it in?!”
“Josie, I—”
“Forget it, I don’t want to hear it! It’s too late, Mom!”
She storms off, making a beeline to the stairs.
“Josie, wait, I need to talk to you about this!”
Turning around at the foot of the stairs, she wipes her eyes, then sounds and appears eerily calm when she says what she says next.
“I don’t ever want to talk to you again. Stay away from me.”
She continues up to her room, slamming the door behind her and leaving me wondering what I can possibly do or say to fix this.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
I knew that I would have to tell her eventually, but something inside of me kept saying it was never the right time. Or maybe, just maybe, I was hanging on to the hope that I wouldn’t have to ever tell her. It sounds awful to admit that, but I can’t lie to myself anymore. I took the easy way out—the coward’s way out—by not saying a word about it to her.
It’s a fine line to walk as a parent: steering your children to believe that everything is great when it’s anything but. And when they do find out . . . the pain they inevitably experience as a result of your negligence is something that you wish you could take away from them.
I’ve been sitting here for the past half hour alone, trying to come up with a way to start this talk with Josie, but also giving her time to process the letter from Matthew. But I can’t put it off anymore . . . it’s time to tell her everything.
My legs trudge up the stairs as if I have weights strapped to my ankles. I approach her door and knock hesitantly.
She shouts, “Go away!”
“I can’t do that, Josie,” I say and open the door.
Josie is curled up in her bed. Her back is facing me and the slight shake of her shoulders lets me know that she’s crying. My heart breaks into a million pieces at the sight of her like this. But I’m here to make this right and try not to cry too much in the process.
“Mom, I told you to go away,” she says in a small voice, sounding more like the Josie I know . . . in between sniffles.
I sit down on her bed. “And I told you I couldn’t do that right now. I need to talk to you about your father.”
“It doesn’t matter anymore, I—”
“Just listen to me, and then I’ll leave you alone, I promise, okay?”
Josie doesn’t say anything to this, so I take a shaky breath, hoping that after I’m done, she’ll have a better perspective on my past with her father and how it’s shaped the decisions I’ve made for us.
“Your father and I were so in love, once upon a time. We were together for a very long time, since college, which is where we met.” I laugh at the memory, still fresh in my mind. “Did I ever tell the story of how we met?”
Josie doesn’t turn around, but I can see her head shake against the pillow she’s resting on.
“Well, I was running around campus trying to find my next class—it was the first day of my junior year—and I was having the worst day. Just everything that could go wrong went wrong. So when I finally got to the right building, I was in a full-on sprint, and when I turned the corner I ran straight into your dad.
“I was such a little pain in the ass that I actually yelled at him for getting in my way. Well, he thought that was the funniest thing ever. Because he let me yell and yell at
him while he picked up all my books from the floor and then at the very end when I was walking away to class—he was so smooth about it and smiling—he asked me, ‘What’s your name and when can I run into you again?’”
“That’s not very funny,” Josie says and rolls over onto her other side, finally, to face me. “Or smooth, Mom.”
I take the opportunity to lie down on my side facing her to continue the story.
“To me, it was. Plus—this was the best part—he was waiting for me outside of the class as soon as I got out.”
Her face lights up at that, so I go on again, knowing I’m going to have to hit the hard part sooner than later.
“So, we started dating . . . and then fell in love, of course. We were so different though, now that I think back on it.”
“How do you mean?” she asks.
“For one, I was an art major. Your dad was a finance major. That right there was enough. He was always a realist, when I was always the dreamer. But they say that opposites attract, and for us it worked. By the time we were seniors, we had our own apartment together off campus, and it was so great. Even after graduation, with him starting to work at his father’s financial firm and me getting my feet wet in the local art community, it was all like a dream come true, and it was like this for a couple years. Then . . .”
“Then I came along to ruin everything,” she says.
“Oh no, sweetie.” I reach up and brush aside some of her hair from her forehead. “Don’t ever say that. You didn’t ruin anything.”
“So then what happened?” she asks with genuine curiosity.
“I realized that I was pregnant with you, and I’m not going to lie to you and say that I was happy at first. Honestly, I was terrified. I was young and had my future already planned out in my head, just waiting for me to start living it. But the more I thought about it, the more I fell in love with you, and I hadn’t even met you yet.”
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