Chapter 11
eleven
cam
Iwas stupid.
And a big, masochistic, asshole, who kept rereading over the message I’d sent in my time of need—also known as the day of hell after I asked Saúl to leave me alone because I couldn’t deal with the fact that he’d seen me wearing a diaper.
waffles_and_whips
Um. Hi. Please, please, please don’t hate me for writing you?
Shit, no, forget I said that (my stupid phone doesn’t let me delete the message for some reason)
You can totes hate me and I deserve it and I was the worst and I’m clearly still the worst because how unhinged does one need to be to hire a PI to find their ex-best friend when she deleted all her accounts?
Um. Yeah
Sorry about that, by the way
I mean, I get that you don’t want to hear from me ever again in the history of ever. I was the worst and I abandoned you when you needed me and it wasn’t fair and I mean there was a story behind it but I don’t deserve to make excuses so I’m not going to, okay?
I just… I’m sorry
I told myself that I was not going to reach out, ever, and that I was just going to make sure you were okay somewhere, and that I was going to repent on my own or something, but… But I’m really overwhelmed right now, and I feel so alone, and you were my best friend and I just
I’m sorry
(again)
But. Um. I know it’s hypocritical of me to reach out to you because I need a friend, but I do? And… yeah
PS: If you ever respond to this, it will probs take me like a week to even read it and 2-3 business weeks to reply
Okay bye !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Please don’t hate me
I’m the worst
I also very clearly don’t know how to do goodbyes like a functioning adult
Sorry
The ticks below the messages showed that Kara had read it—those hadn’t been there last night.
My skin broke out in hives. The only way I’d managed to function these past weeks was by convincing myself that the PI I hired gave me the wrong details, or that Kara would just delete the conversation as soon as she saw the nickname I used to have in the app we chatted on.
No such luck, obviously.
Well, she might still have deleted the chat after reading it.
I whimpered.
“Something wrong?”
Shit!
To his benefit, this time I’d had the door wide open, and I had told him to come pick me up when he’d finished getting everything in the back of the truck.
We were driving to like the middle of Texas, and here I was, destroying my cuticles because I had given in to a moment of weakness that I couldn’t take back now, and Kara was extra sensitive to that kind of thing, and I bet she’d cried because she was a crier, and I didn’t want to make her cry, dammit.
And now the Daddy of my dreams leaned against the doorframe to my room, and he looked concerned as fuck, but I had to go and pretend everything was cool for however many days it took us to drive there. Saúl had told me, but had I listened?
Clearly, I hadn’t, and now I was reaping the rewards of my fuckery.
Fun.
I blinked fast before I lost it in front of him again. “I’m fine. Can we stop by the vet lair first? I wanna say goodbye to the pups.”
Because the other thing that had kept me up at night was the fact that it was a very real possibility that none of them would be there when we came back.
Saúl hadn’t given me any updates, but he’d said that the first day.
They had a deal with the shelter two towns over.
The dogs would be picked up, and they’d go to a good family, and I was supposed to be happy about it.
And I was, but just like with Kara, I couldn’t leave shit well alone without stirring some ugly emotions.
And now I’d be on the verge of tears for yet another reason.
The road trip to Houston was going to be hell.
“Sure.”
“Um. Can I ask you a question?”
Saúl barely moved, arm bent over the windowsill while he drove with one hand. It shouldn’t look as hot as it did. “Go on.”
I fidgeted.
I was a terrible sidekick for long trips.
It didn’t have to do with wanting a certain music playing, or stealing all the snacks, or being terrible with navigation, which I also was.
No, the problem was that I had nothing to do, and I ended up blurting out more than I had to because I kept thinking about shit I should be leaving well alone.
“So. Let’s say I had a best friend, and she was in a very bad, abusive relationship, and she got out of it, but then she was healing from all the trauma and stuff, right?
And I basically ghosted her, and obviously fucked her up even worse, and then I hired a PI and learned that she moved all the way to Spain.
But it doesn’t end there, and the other day I sent her a very lengthy, kind of embarrassing message where, among a million other things, I confessed to the PI thing, even though I know she was terrified that her ex would follow her or find her wherever she went and, um.
She read it sometime last night. And she hasn’t answered. Should I text her again?”
That was the question I kept going back and forth on. Did I realize the hypocrisy when I’d told her it would take me up to an entire month to text back if she ever replied? Yes. Did that stop me?
No, no, it didn’t.
I was fretting, and there was nothing to distract me, and I also blamed Saúl for dragging me to Texas when I could’ve just been burying my face in Golden’s fur and pretending the world around me didn’t exist.
Of course, there was no sudden reaction from Saúl. He did turn his head to stare at me, which made me a bit nervous, but I reasoned that we were in the middle of a highway with no other cars around and nothing but a straight road ahead of us.
Still.
“Do I get the story of why you ghosted her?”
“Do you have to?”
I curled up against the passenger door. Not the best, and a few sheriffs could take offense to it, but it wasn’t like I’d moved my feet all the way to the seat or anything really noticeable like that.
It was easy to find things to panic about when I was avoiding a topic, though.
“You don’t seem like the ghosting type.”
I laughed. It came out shrill, but… Yeah.
He clearly didn’t know enough about me if he thought I wasn’t the ghosting type.
Look, it wasn’t great, but ghosting was doable.
It avoided conflict and uncomfortable conversations, and sure, those weren’t the reasons I’d driven away from Kara, but I wasn’t going to sit here and pretend I had never done it.
Besides, maybe part of the responsibility also lay on the people I had genuinely ghosted for not taking a first negative the way it was intended.
“Surprise?”
Was that too self-deprecating?
Yeah.
I was in a self-deprecating mood, sue me.
“You do realize we have more than two days on the road ahead of us, and you’ve already proven you can’t handle silence well.”
“I still think I could’ve got us an airplane.”
“An airplane doesn’t let us carry everything we need.”
Yeah, he’d said that already. Seventeen hours, though? I shivered.
Why the fuck did I say yes to this? To being trapped in a truck for two days with Saúl? Only to go to Houston and have to speak with people we needed to drain their bank accounts? It was a terrible idea. I was not made for marketing enterprises.
“Can I yeet off the truck after I tell you?”
It might be worth it long-term for everyone involved.
But if I did that, I should definitely text Kara again.
Okay, fine, I’ll stop.
No bad, dark thoughts camouflaged with humor for me.
“No.”
Saúl switched the hand on the steering wheel and used the other to touch one of the controls in the middle.
I gasped.
The fucker switched on the child safety thingies. I wasn’t actually going to open the door while he was driving slightly over the speed limit. I almost felt offended that he thought otherwise.
Then I remembered I’d just talked myself out of covering dark thoughts with humor, and I sobered up.
“So. Um. Kara is the best, okay? Like, purest cinnamon in the entire realm of cinnamons. Must be protected at all costs cinnamon. We met online because she’s also Little, and, um.
Yeah. We had online playdates, and we got along, and you are forbidden to ask about Little time because I’m still embarrassed around you, but I need to give context. ”
Saúl snorted. “Okay.”
Well, at least my tale of how I became the worst person in the whole world was amusing to someone.
“Anyway, so eventually she started talking about her then Mommy, and it sounded super abusive and bad and sad, and, well, she knew it, but it took her a while to break it off, you know? And then she was struggling with it a lot, and super paranoid that her ex would find her, or try to do something to her, and obviously, law enforcement didn’t help because misogyny, and it wasn’t just the ex but the local club who was on the ex’s side.
I don’t know. It was weird. But, um. Yeah.
She basically stopped playing in person, and so it was just the two of us for a while, and I mean, I was chronically online, so it was fine. ”
“Cam?”
What?
I whipped my head up to see him because I’d obviously been keeping my gaze trained on the GPS screen. It was called survival skills, and I was not about to apologize for having those.
“I understand it’s a hard topic for you, but please breathe between sentences.”
“I’m breathing.”
Everyone knew that if you didn’t breathe, you died.
Duh.
“Agree to disagree.”
His arm flexed when he sighed. Was that a normal thing? And why was it alluring? I wanted to see more of what his body did with mundane things.
Ugh.
Bad Cam.
“Anyway!” If I didn’t keep talking and going back to the somber mood, I was going to say something else, and that would be even worse of a colossal idea than staying to work under the guy who knew you wore a diaper for funsies.
“So, at first I was all about… Yes, I’m going to be the best emotional support companion there is, and win all the awards for best friend of the world, right? ”
“Right.”