2. Ava
I dropped the last packed box, filled with the last of my kitchen items, including a couple bottles of wine, and scanned my now-empty apartment that, up until today, I’d shared for the last year with my boyfriend, Kip. Everything else was boxed and moved to my storage unit, except for the last one I had to carry down with me. I had two weeks before my new apartment opened up, but after last week, there was no way I could stay there another second.
I wasn’t mad at Kip. Couldn’t even blame him for wanting me out as soon as possible.
He was a mortgage broker, a good one, in Denver and made an awesome salary. I was a social media coordinator for a farming equipment and feed store. Kip and I were together for three years. Lived together for the last one. I’d known a proposal was coming. He’d hinted at it enough. But in the end, when he was on his knee, thankfully in our currently empty living room, with candles and flowers all over, I didn’t embarrass him in public.
Instead, I’d stuttered. Opened and closed my mouth like a fish and then gaped at him.
He’d be a wonderful husband. He’d call me beautiful like my dad called my mom that every day for every day we had together. He’d give me babies. Let me stay home with them if I wanted, and boy, did I want that.
The only con in Kip’s column? He wasn’t Cameron, and three and a half months after that horrific day at the ranch, I still hadn’t been able to follow through with my vow to forget him.
In the end, Kip stood, taking my silence as a no, which was exactly what it was because I couldn’t force myself to say the word and verbally break his heart.
“I’m going to go stay at Rob’s for the night. We’ll talk tomorrow.”
He went to his best friend’s house and stayed the night, and the next morning, we began dividing our belongings—not much for me other than kitchen appliances and the kitchen dining set, and I’d started finding a new place to live.
I couldn’t move home until the apartment opened up because the commute was way too long to get to work every day. I had vacation time I could take. Lord knew I needed it, but I was saving it.
It was Isaiah who came up with the plan.
The worst plan in history of any plans made.
It was also my only option.
I was also on the phone with him, triple-checking it’d be safe. “You’re one hundred percent positive he’s not there.”
“Cam’s in the Caribbean. Barbados this week, the Dominican Republic next. He won’t be back until he has to report to training camp at the end of the month, so you’re fine, Ava. I swear it.”
“And you’ve told him I’m staying there.”
“Sure, I have.” He said it so quickly, I hesitated.
“Isaiah…”
“I’ve talked to him, Ava. It’s all good. I swear it. Go. It’s Cam’s house or no house, and we both know you can’t afford to stay at a hotel and don’t want to ask Mom or Dad for help.”
No way I didn’t. They hadn’t been necessarily surprised when I told them about Kip, but sad. They’d liked him enough. He wasn’t a farming kind of guy, but he’d tried. He’d helped Dad harvest our winter wheat and potatoes, and he never complained, but when the day was over, he’d always mutter, “Damn, this sucks.”
Which meant my parents liked him enough, but they never loved him.
I suppose I was a lot more like my parents than I thought.
“All right. If you’re sure.”
“Go, Ava. Relax. Take a dip in his pool and figure yourself out, okay?”
My big brother was my best friend. He’d always looked out for me, but even when we were kids, he never treated me like an annoying little sister or a child.
“Thanks, Isaiah. Love you.”
“You too. You need me, call. I can change a shift or something, okay?”
“Will do.” I wouldn’t, though. He was a deputy for the sheriff’s office and always busy. They were also understaffed. He clocked more overtime than a medical student.
The apartment door opened, and Kip stepped in. His head was down, paying attention to something on his phone screen so he didn’t see me right away. I had no doubt he’d hoped for me to be long gone too.
He saw the box, and his head snapped up. “Hey,” he said.
It was the only word we spoke to each other. “Gotta go, Zaiah.”
I hung up on my brother and dropped my phone to my side. “Hey. Sorry. I meant to be gone.”
“It’s all right.” He glanced at the box, the empty space where there used to be a small dining table and chairs I’d bought that he told me to take. Everything else was Kip’s. “You need help?”
“No.” I shook my head, and Lord, this was awkward. So awkward. “I’m?—”
“Don’t. Just don’t, Ava. I already know you’re sorry.”
“Right. Then I should go.”
“Why?” he asked.
I was crouching down to grab the box, so I had to stand up. “What?”
“Why?” When I stayed silent, he shoved a hand through his short but neatly styled and gelled hair. Side-parted, combed to the right. It always looked perfect. Still did even after his hand fell to his hip. “Why couldn’t you love me enough?”
Oh god. Now was not the time.
In the end, it wasn’t him. It was me. No way was I giving him that, though.
I couldn’t love him more because Cameron had ruined me. Destroyed me. I was in love with a man I’d never have, and Kip didn’t compare. It was as simple as that.
“I don’t know,” I finally admitted. “But I wish I could.”
That was the absolute truth. If I could fall in love with anyone else, I’d wish it was Kip. My life might not be flashy or exciting, but it’d be filled with love and peace. For another woman, what he offered would be more than enough.
“Right. Take care then.”
“You too.” I crouched back down and grabbed the box. He moved back and held the door open for me, ever the gentleman, and as I took the last step out of my apartment, out of the life he’d been sure we were starting to build together, I looked back one more time. “Someday you’re going to find someone who thinks you’re the best man in the entire world and loves you to pieces, and you’re going to realize that if we’d stayed together, you would have settled for a love that wasn’t nearly as good as what you deserve.”
He flinched. Eyes filled with pain, and then he stepped back. “Hope you know you can always call me if you need anything, Ava. And I mean that.”
The fact he did was what made him so wonderful.
I crossed the threshold.
He stepped back into the apartment and shut the door.
I made the trek across town to Cameron’s home. A new house he’d bought last year that was half as large as his family home and twice as large as what he needed as a single guy.
It was gorgeous, at the top of a hill. The infinity pool and backyard faced west, and he had the most glorious view of the mountains.
I didn’t spend time enjoying it.
I went out to my Honda Civic and hauled my suitcases upstairs to the first guest bedroom I came across, then went back to my car and grabbed the box I’d carried out of Kip’s apartment. It held the last of my cold food items and two bottles of wine. After unloading everything into his refrigerator and tossing the box into the garage to deal with later, I opened one of the bottles of wine.
I spent the night in the living room, drinking my wine, staring at a blank television screen larger than any I’d ever seen outside a movie theater, and I did it, swearing that starting tomorrow, I was truly moving on from Cameron Kelley.
I had to, before I destroyed everything good in my life and the rest of me with it.
In the morning, I woke up on the same couch, with a throbbing headache, a dead cell phone, and Cameron Kelley standing over me, hands on his hips, glaring.
“What the hell are you doing here, Sunshine?”