Chapter 55 Cam
CAM
The silence in the house should have been relaxing. Natascha had picked the girls up an hour ago, leaving me with a free weekend, but I couldn’t sit still.
I paced the length of the living room, running through the plan for tomorrow one more time.
The picnic basket was already packed and hidden in the pantry. I’d found the perfect spot by the river, a place where the trees broke to let the sun in. That was where I was going to do it.
That was where I was finally going to tell Emily I loved her.
A car engine hummed outside, making my pulse jump. I was off the couch before I could think better of it, stepping out onto my porch just as Emily’s car pulled into her driveway.
My brows pinched together. She wasn’t supposed to be back yet. Dinner with her parents should have taken at least another hour, maybe two.
I checked my watch, confusion warring with anticipation. It was barely seven thirty.
I forced myself to stay on the porch. I wasn’t going to bombard her with the ‘L’ word the second she stepped out of the car, even if it was sitting right on the tip of my tongue. I’d play it cool. Ask her inside. See if she wanted a drink. Then I’d ask her to stay.
My heart thudded against my ribs as I watched the driver’s side door, waiting for it to open. The engine cut off. The headlights went dark.
But she didn’t get out of the car.
The seconds dragged into a minute, then two minutes.
Still she didn’t move.
Something cold settled in my stomach.
Another full minute passed before she finally climbed out. Even from here, I could see something was very wrong. Her movements were too careful, too controlled, like she was concentrating on each individual motion. Get out of car. Close door. Lock car. Walk to house.
Robotic.
“Emily?” I called her name softly as I stepped off my porch and crossed into her yard.
She didn’t look at me. Didn’t acknowledge me at all as she kept moving toward her porch, her steps measured and precise.
I followed, my concern sharpening into something closer to fear. “Em, hey. Are you okay?”
She fumbled with her keys, her fingers moving mechanically until she got the door unlocked. She stepped inside and I followed without thinking, unable to shake the feeling that if I let her out of my sight for even a moment, something terrible would happen.
“Emily.” I tried again, gentler this time. “What’s going on? Talk to me.”
She turned to face me and I swear my heart stopped beating for a moment. Her eyes were glassy, blank and fucking terrifying. When she finally spoke, her voice was flat and emotionless, like she was reading from a script.
“I didn’t get the scholarship.”
Fuck. “Sweetheart, I’m so sorry.” I kept my voice low and steady. “I know how much that meant to you.”
“It’s fine.” Her gaze was fixed on some point past my shoulder. “I’ve experienced worse.”
Her words landed like a stone in my stomach. Experienced worse. I knew exactly what worse meant. The shed. The food control. The scars on her skin. It didn’t take a genius to connect the dots.
“Emily, sweetheart, what happened at your parents’ house?”
She turned and walked toward her bedroom, ignoring the question entirely. I followed, my fear escalating with every step.
In her room, she pulled a duffel bag from her closet and started throwing clothes into it. Jeans. Shirts. A hoodie. Her movements were jerky now, less controlled, like the careful facade was starting to crack.
“What are you doing?” I kept my voice calm even though panic was clawing at my throat. “Where are you going?”
“Mia’s.” Her attention stayed fixated on the bag. “I forgot I was supposed to visit her tonight.”
It was a lie. An obvious, transparent lie.
“Emily, please. Just stop for a second and talk to me.”
She kept packing.
“You don’t have to run.” I moved closer, careful not to crowd her. “Whatever happened tonight, you don’t have to deal with it on your own.”
“I’m fine.” The words were clipped. Mechanical.
“You’re not fine.”
“I said I’m fine, Cam.” She zipped the bag with unnecessary force.
I was losing her. She was slipping away right in front of me, retreating behind walls I didn’t know how to break through.
The fear morphed into something desperate and raw.
“Sweetheart, please.” My voice cracked. “I love you. Don’t shut me out.”
She flinched. She actually physically recoiled, like I’d slapped her instead of offering her my heart.
“Don’t say that.” Her voice was sharp, almost angry. “That’s crazy talk.”
The words felt like shards of glass in my chest. “It’s not crazy. I love you, Emily. Do you hear me? I want to sp—”
“Stop.” She grabbed her bag, her eyes sliding past me like I wasn’t even there. “Just stop.”
I stood there, my feet stuck to the floor, as she walked past me. My brain was screaming at me to do something, say something, anything, to make her stay. But the look on her face, that blank, glassy-eyed expression, told me that nothing I said would reach her right now.
She was already gone, to some place I couldn’t follow.
I somehow managed to force my body into motion, going to the front door, to watch helplessly as she walked out to her car. She threw her bag in the backseat, climbed in, and started the engine without once looking back at the house.
Without once looking at me.
I stood there as she backed out of the driveway and drove away, her taillights disappearing into the night.
The silence that followed was absolute. Crushing. Suffocating.
I walked back to my house in a daze, my mind replaying everything on a loop. The robotic movements. The flat voice. The flinch when I told her I loved her.
Crazy talk.
I shut the front door and leaned my forehead against the wood for a long second. My heart hurt. Actually physically hurt.
I pushed off and wandered into the living room, collapsing onto the sofa where I’d been planning our weekend just ten minutes ago.
Ten minutes. That was all it took to burn everything down.
I couldn’t say how long I sat there for before a new kind of panic set in.
She’d been in shock. Disassociated. Moving on autopilot. And I’d just let her drive away like that.
What if she got in an accident?
What if she pulled over somewhere and fell apart and there was no one there to help her?
I grabbed my phone and tapped her name, barely hesitating before I pressed call.
It went straight to voicemail. No. Not even voicemail. An automated operator voice filled my ear.
“We’re sorry. The number you are trying to reach cannot be completed as dialed.”
I pulled the phone away from my ear and stared at the screen, my chest hollow, as the realization sank in.
She’d blocked me.