Story of My Life (Story Lake #1)

44. We could have been fucked-up together

44

WE COULD HAVE BEEN FUCKED-UP TOGETHER

CAMPBELL

September advanced with lower humidity and cooler temperatures. The days were still sunny and warm, but the nights took on a distinct autumnal chill. Pumpkin spice was everywhere, and Hazel’s renovations were progressing. The cabinets in the kitchen and dining room had been installed and were in varying stages of being finished. The roof was done, the deck started, and the upstairs guest bathrooms were complete except for the thresholds and wall trim. Demo had begun on Hazel’s en suite, where I’d talked her into a bigger walk-in shower.

And Bishop Brothers was pulling together quotes for a home office addition and storefront renovations for the new café. Plans for a Fall Fest and a weekend-long bingo tournament were in the works. Hazel and the newly appointed Story Lake grant-writing team were busy researching funding options.

Progress was happening everywhere.

I didn’t know if it counted as progress, but more and more of my belongings—clothing, books, tools—were finding their way into Heart House. Hazel and I pretended not to notice that I was spending every night there. Everything felt…good. Right. I liked it enough that I had no intentions of rocking the boat by discussing any of it.

“How’s the book coming?” Levi asked me as I loaded the cooler into the back seat of his runabout.

The crickets and tree frogs of summer were quieter in the early fall twilight.

“Good,” I said, hiding my smirk. Hazel’s new complaint was that my inspiration was making her write a story with all sex and no conflict.

“Heard Zoey say she’s going to start submitting it to other publishers,” Gage said, untying the line from the dock.

It was a Friday night after a long, productive week. Hazel and I had a weekend full of guest room furniture assembly plans, so I’d agreed to drinks on the lake with my brothers. We were getting along better, not that I noticed that kind of thing. And not that any of us were going to actually admit it. But it seemed like we were finally finding a new groove.

“Yeah. It’s a smart move. Her old publisher sounded like a real shit waffle. You start writing anything that doesn’t suck yet?” I asked Levi as he guided the boat into deeper water.

“Maybe. Hard to tell,” he said.

“What have you been up to?” I asked Gage. “Lawyering picking up?”

“Did two wills this week, a divorce consult, and Zoey has me writing up a new client contract.”

I poked Levi in the shoulder with one of the beers I was distributing. “You gonna say it or am I?”

“Go for it.”

“Say what?” Gage asked from the front seat.

“We’ve been in the boat thirty fucking seconds and you’ve mentioned Zoey’s name twice already,” I pointed out.

“So?” he hedged.

“You liiiiiike her,” Levi and I sang together. And for one second, I was transported back to Miller telling us he was taking our sister to homecoming. Gage had been doing the teasing. I’d taken a swing at my friend. Levi had held me back and then threatened to shove Miller’s head so far up his ass he could do his own colonoscopies if he ever hurt Laura.

“I’m the youngest. Why am I the only adult in this boat?” Gage complained, dragging me out of the memory. I rubbed absently at my chest and forced the past back into its box.

“She’s hot,” Levi said succinctly.

“And a handful,” I pointed out.

“I’m not discussing this with you idiots,” Gage said.

“You fell off a roof the first time you saw her,” Levi said.

“If either of you say a goddamn word to Larry about this?—”

“Who the hell do you think clued us in?” I said. “She noticed you slobbering over her at Summer Fest.”

“We should get a pontoon boat,” Levi said.

Gage and I shot him looks in the dark.

“Huh?” Gage said.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“So Larry can come out with us,” he explained.

“That’s…not a terrible idea,” I admitted.

“You’re a good brother…at least to Larry,” Gage said.

Levi shrugged in the dark. “Figured she probably misses coming out here, but she’s too fucking stubborn to say anything.”

“Speaking of being too fucking stubborn to say anything. I sketched up some plans for her. First-floor bathroom, bedroom,” I said.

“You gonna show her?” Levi asked.

“Dunno. She didn’t ask for them, and she kinda scares me. Might make Dad show her.”

Levi grunted.

Gage scrubbed a hand over his face. “Christ. You guys ever get tired of not talking about shit?”

“No,” Levi and I said in unison.

“You’re both assholes,” Gage grumbled.

Levi’s phone screen lit up just as Gage reached for his pocket. I felt my own phone buzz against my leg.

Dad: Laura fell pretty bad. She’s in the hospital.

I hated this fucking place with its antiseptic smells and intermittent beeping and scrub-wearing staff who acted like it was just a normal fucking day. Memories I’d done my best to keep buried clawed their way to the surface.

I wondered if my brothers felt the tightening in their chests, the closing of their throats as the three of us hustled through the halls. She wasn’t in the ICU. This wasn’t like last time. I chanted it to myself over and over again.

We weren’t going to walk out of here short one family member this time.

But no matter what I told myself, I couldn’t stop from feeling like I was in free fall again. Like the rug had just been yanked out from under me when I should have been expecting it again.

“What room?” I demanded as we turned down another corridor.

“402,” Levi said grimly.

“She’s fine. Mom said she’s fine,” Gage insisted, without slowing his pace.

I hadn’t been with them last time. I imagined my brothers racing through hallways a year ago while I was getting the news hours away. That time there hadn’t been any assurances and the what-ifs that we worried about weren’t nearly as bad as the reality waiting for us.

“There,” Levi said, pointing past two nurses.

We burst into the room, nearly getting wedged in the doorway.

“Seriously? You called the three stooges?” Laura complained from the bed. She had a bandage on her forehead and bruising on her face. She was fine. This time.

She’s had a traumatic spinal injury. We won’t know how extensive the damage is until she regains consciousness. I shook my head to dislodge the memory of the grim-faced doctor delivering news that changed our family’s trajectory.

“Your brothers are just worried about you,” Mom said, patting Laura’s knee.

“What the hell happened, Larry? You decide to wrestle with Melvin?” Gage asked, all easygoing charm.

Miller didn’t make it. Gage had been the one to tell me. They’d waited to share that bit of devastation until I’d arrived at the hospital.

“Yeah, you look like shit,” Levi added, leaning against the wall next to the whiteboard.

Patient Laura Upcraft.

I felt sweaty and dizzy. There wasn’t enough oxygen in the room as my panicked brain combined past with present.

Laura sighed. “If I tell you, will you all promise to go the hell home?”

“Yes,” we lied in unison.

“I was transferring off the toilet and didn’t lock my fucking wheel. I cracked my head on the stupid vanity, okay? Happy now?”

Gage snorted. Levi smirked. I stood there, trying to catch my breath.

“Oh, fuck you. At least I can still do this,” Laura said, giving us all the middle finger.

“Your sister’s got a couple of stitches and a bump on the head,” Mom explained cheerfully.

She doesn’t know. The kids don’t know, Mom had whispered from my sister’s bedside where she clutched Laura’s bandaged hand.

“Good thing she’s got a thick head,” Levi interjected.

We don’t know if she’s going to make it. I remembered Levi delivering that news with the finesse of a sledgehammer.

“Thanks for that breaking news, Mom. Now can everyone just go home. Maybe one of you doofuses can check on the kids while I talk them out of trying to keep me overnight? They’re blowing up my phone with stupid memes, and Isla said Dad tripped over Melvin while making them dinner.”

“I’ll check in on them,” Gage volunteered.

What are we gonna do if she doesn’t wake up? No one had dared ask that question out loud. But I knew we had all been thinking it.

“You want anything from home? I can swing by with him and pick up some girl shit,” Levi offered.

I wanted to do something helpful. But my tongue felt like it was three sizes too big for my mouth and I couldn’t stop sweating.

My phone vibrated in my hand, and I glanced down at it.

Hazel: Is Laura okay? Are you okay?

I looked up, and for a second, it wasn’t Laura in the hospital bed. It was Hazel.

We don’t know if she’s going to make it.

Jesus, this was some royally fucked-up panic attack. Hazel was fine. Laura was fine. I was fucking fine. Wasn’t I?

“You okay there, Cammie? You look like you’re gonna puke,” Laura observed.

“Sweetie, you do look pale,” Mom said, jumping up from her chair and slapping a hand to my forehead.

“I’m fine, Mom.” I managed to get the words out, but they sounded unconvincing, even to my own ears. “I’m gonna…take off.”

“Later, loser,” Laura said.

When the beer didn’t do anything to take the edge off, I moved on to bourbon I found in my kitchen.

I hadn’t even bothered to turn the lights on in my apartment. I just wanted the darkness. I didn’t want to feel this again. I’d buried the loss, the fear, the pain before. I could do it again.

I’d gotten distracted. I’d let Hazel make me forget the most important, unforgiving rule in life.

You lose the people you love.

Sometimes they went to dinner and never came back to their three young sons. Sometimes it was a run and someone never made the finish line. Sometimes it was a sudden diagnosis, or sometimes they just left. But in the end, the results were always the same.

Through my misery, I heard a knock at the door.

I swung it open. Hazel looked up at me. She had helmet hair and concern in her eyes. I wanted to reach for her, to wrap my arms around her and hold on tight. But I couldn’t afford to. I already loved my family. There was nothing I could do about that. I’d have to survive the devastation of losing them one by one to whatever tragedies life cruelly dealt out.

People dealt with it in different ways. Hazel wrote fictional stories about unachievable happily ever afters. My sister suffered through one day at a time and called it a life. But I could at least mitigate the damage. I didn’t have to add anyone else to that list. I didn’t have to face falling for her, only to lose her the way Laura lost Miller.

“What are you doing here?” I demanded, planting myself in the doorway, refusing to let her in. As a defense, it felt like it was too little too late.

“I called and texted a couple of times, but you didn’t answer. Gage gave me an update, and I came to see if you’re okay.” She reached up to cup my face.

I wasn’t. Not by a long shot.

I jerked away from her touch, startling her. “Why? So you can use my family’s misery in your book?”

“Cam!”

She flinched like I’d hit her. Like I’d physically hurt her. I told myself it was good. That it was for the best, even as my gut churned, my lungs burned.

“What? You’ve been mining my life for weeks for your own gain, your own entertainment. Why stop now?”

“That’s not what I’ve been doing,” she insisted. “Where is this coming from?”

“Can we just not? Can’t we just say it’s been a long fucking day and we both know this isn’t working anymore?”

“It seemed to be working just fine this afternoon,” she insisted.

I shook my head like I was embarrassed for her. My level of assholery amazed even myself. “I’m sorry if I led you to believe that. This just isn’t what I want.”

“Hang on. Stop for a second before one of us—and by that, I mean you—says something unforgivable.”

I opened my mouth to do exactly that, but Hazel stopped me with the wave of her hand. “No. You were fine when you left. We were fine. We were better than fine. We were making plans. I can understand how seeing your sister in the hospital again would be triggering?—”

“Look, I just don’t have the time or space for you in my life. I’m sorry if that hurts your feelings, but this thing between us has run its course. We’ve had our fun. Now it’s over. I need to focus on my family and the business without any distractions.”

Hazel gasped. Her bike helmet slipped from her fingers and hit the floor with a hollow thunk . “Distractions? You’re the one who manipulated me into dating you, into falling for you! I didn’t want any of this, but you maneuvered me into it. You made me believe?—”

“What? In multiple orgasms?” I said flippantly.

She recoiled and blinked. “No. You made me believe I hadn’t already lost my shot at happily ever after.”

In a move guaranteed to get a fictional villain named after me, I rolled my eyes like what she was saying was the most ridiculous thing I’d ever heard. “We had an arrangement. No strings. Just sex. I’m sorry if you thought it was more than that.”

She blinked slowly, and for a second, I thought she was going to cry, which would have taken me to my knees. But instead of tears, fire sparked to life in her eyes.

“No. You don’t get to do this,” she decided.

“Do what? We had an agreement. As soon as our arrangement stopped working for one of us, we were both done,” I insisted.

She poked me in the chest with her stabby index finger. “You don’t get to unpack all this emotional baggage and trauma that you’ve been carting around since probably childhood that has nothing to do with me and then use it against me .”

“Don’t you dare start analyzing my character when you’re the one who spends your life on the sidelines watching other people live. It’s time you realized we’re not made-up characters in some book. We’re fucked-up flesh and blood,” I snapped.

“You’re damn right we are. And we could have been fucked-up together.”

“That was never going to happen, Hazel. Can’t you just let this go?”

She stabbed me harder with her finger. “No. I’m not letting you off the hook for this one. You’re going to end things after you convinced me to give this a try? After you made me fall in love with you? And now you’re just over it because it’s what? Messy? Inconvenient? No way am I making this easy for you.”

After I made her fall in love with me. Her words reverberated in the space between us.

“What do you want from me, Hazel?” I asked in a rasp.

She looked at me, really looked at me. But all I saw was disappointment and hurt.

“Nothing,” she said with a sad shake of her head. “Nothing at all.”

She turned to walk away, and I felt the darkness that lived inside me closing in. “We can still be friends, right?” I asked in desperation.

“No, Cam. We can’t,” she said as she slowly made her way to the stairs.

“I’ll still be working in your house,” I pointed out stupidly. Just because I couldn’t love her didn’t mean she had to hate me. She could still be some peripheral part of my life.

She didn’t turn around, didn’t acknowledge that I’d said anything. She just left.

I don’t know how long I stood there watching the spot I’d last seen her. But when I finally looked down, I realized she’d left her helmet at my feet.

I felt sick as a thousand what-ifs flickered through my mind. She needed that helmet. Bad things happened every fucking day. Trouble followed her. It was dark, and all it took was for one little mistake to ruin everything.

I grabbed the helmet and raced after her. But by the time I got out the back door, she was gone and I was alone.