23. Niko
Niko
Frankie and Rosalyn dragged Ivy out of the apartment, telling her some fresh air would do her good. At this point, I didn’t disagree. The atmosphere reminded me of the funeral home we had visited. Even though Ivy slept nightly in the same bed as me, it was only because it still smelled like Cam. Even when she went out, she still wore Cam’s hoodies over her clothes, trying to feel like she was close to him.
The funeral hadn’t felt like it was enough. It was impersonal. Lowering a casket into the ground didn’t help any of us to mourn him. Handfuls of dirt and roses thrown into the hole felt empty. We were empty.
Slowly, I walked through the room, allowing my fingers to trace along all the places Cam had touched a week ago. If I focused hard enough, it wasn’t almost as if he was in the room with me, still hanging in the shadows. I could still feel his fingertips on my skin and his mouth on my lips.
I hadn’t talked to anyone about what had happened the night he died. Not really. Ivy had wanted answers, which I respected. So had Dominic. It broke my heart to say yes, Cam had died alone. If I had stayed with him like I wanted to, I would be dead too. Two bodies that would never be found. Two people that Ivy would have lost forever.
It was more than I could stand, even knowing our attack was partially successful. Twenty-one dead—twenty-two if you counted Cam—and twenty-nine additional injuries. We hadn’t heard if Vance was one of the casualties, and the information available on media outlets was negligible. None of it mattered.
What did matter was that we had spent the last weeks of his life fighting. Only after Ivy shot Wells did we start to make amends, but it wasn’t enough. Even though we had been friends since we were young and had raised our siblings together, we had only just found each other. We finally had given in to our feelings and the tension between the two of us. Now, we’d never have the chance to talk it out or to fix how we left things.
How could someone be here one second and gone the next?
For years, I’d talked to Cam before I fell asleep each night. I knew when I woke up each morning, he’d already be awake. If I had a nightmare, he’d be the first thing I saw when I rolled over. He was the one who comforted me when I was younger and cried over the loss of my mother—even though, looking back, I wasn’t sure how much of a loss it was. Drugs had already taken over her life, but she was still my mother. He was the one who was there when my father had used our grocery money for drugs, alcohol, or gambling.
Cam joined the Forsaken with me and never looked back. He’d been the one to dress my wounds. He was the one who held my hand through every bad thing that happened.
If I had listened to what social graces told me, I would have called and told his mother. I never would, though. She was a shitty parent in a way that I couldn’t express. The things that he told me under the cover of the night sickened me and made me sad.
Cam was broken from the beginning, betrayed by the person he should have been able to trust the most. If it were up to me, I would have murdered her years ago. She didn’t deserve to know he had died. And she certainly didn’t deserve to meet the child we would be raising. None of our parents did.
My father wouldn’t be aware enough to recognize it was his grandchild. Ivy’s “father” was now dead, which was exactly where he deserved to be, hopefully burning in hell for all of eternity. Trey’s mother would steal whatever the child had of value and act like it was their fault. None of them deserved to know their grandchild.
I didn’t know why I tortured myself looking through the sparse remnants of his life. After the Order had torched the house we’d been living in, so little of him was left. All of his photographs, his football gear, the awards he’d won over the years... all of it was gone. All his hopes and dreams were gone, and the flames left nothing more than ash behind.
I lingered in the room, letting my fingers trace over the sheets he had slept on, the clothes he wore, and the toiletries he used. I uncapped the small bottle of cologne and smelled it, letting myself just feel. When my eyes stung, I didn’t stop the tears from flowing. When the memory of him whispering to me played out in my mind, I let it. I let myself feel as I sat on the floor with his camera.
As my soul shattered, I skimmed through things he’d shot since we’d been in Strathmore. There were so many that we hadn’t seen. So many showed who he was beneath all of his damaged parts.
A knock at the door interrupted me from my grief. I used my sleeves to wipe my face and cleared my throat, trying to disguise the sorrow I felt. “Come in,” I said.
One look was all Trey needed to see how I had crumbled on the floor. I was nothing more than an empty shell, and I wondered how I was ever going to get over this—over him.
He took the camera from my hands and sat silently, looking at what I had. “The funeral was bullshit,” he muttered and pushed his glasses up. “What if we celebrate him differently? A way that would show all the pieces of him no one else knew. The parts of himself he’d hidden.”
I nodded at him, unsure of his plan.
“Give me two days to figure out the details and don’t tell Ivy. Let’s surprise her.”
I didn’t know what Trey had in mind, but I’d do anything if it helped bring me closure. If it helped Ivy sleep instead of cry, I would try it.
He left, leaving me to continue sifting through what remained. In the side pocket of Cam’s backpack, I found two letters. One was addressed to Ivy, and the other to me.
I opened the letter, not stopping even though I didn’t know what the contents contained.
The familiar scrawl tugged at my heart, and for just a moment, I almost felt like he was still with me, his hand on my knee encouraging me. It was easy to pretend he wasn’t gone as I read his words, hearing his voice in my head.
Niko:
If I don’t make it back, I want to tell you what has been on my mind.
I wish every day that I had acted on my feelings sooner and hadn’t denied them for so long. As much as we have had each other’s backs for longer than I want to admit, and as long as we were best friends, we were always more. I was scared, terrified of messing up what we had between us, and in the end, I still managed to fuck everything up.
I always do.
None of that matters now. What does matter is that I have always loved you and always will. I’m just bad at showing it, and I wish that were something I could change.
I don’t have any right to ask for your favor or anyone else’s, but I’m going to. I have this deep-seated fear that something will happen on New Year’s Eve, and I can’t shake it. No matter what happens, please keep Ivy safe. Make sure she and the baby know they are loved. There is no one better than you to ask. Take care of the rest of the Order so she doesn’t spend the rest of her life looking over her shoulder.
If I make it back, I won’t waste any more time. I want to show you how much you mean to me. I know these are empty words written on cheap paper, but I mean them with everything inside me.
If I don’t make it back, know I have always loved you. I was a coward for not telling you sooner. We wasted so much time. If I could rewind time, live this life over, make different choices, or be someone else, I’d choose you every time.
My heart belongs to you.
Camden Barrett
My hands shook as I read the letter again and again. I had never doubted he had loved me, even though he had a funny way of showing it. As I reread the last lines, I murmured into the dark, “And I’d choose you.”
Just in case he somehow could hear it.