22. Ivy #2
The cracking of his voice on that final word rips my chest open, as if his pain has become my own. But I don’t understand what he’s saying. I don’t understand any of it.
“What do you mean?”
“Just because I knew it was wrong doesn’t mean I regretted it.
Not for a fucking second because I was fucking obsessed with you, Ivy.
Obsessed. I followed your social media, stalked your posts about romantic dinners with Drew, watched you two fall even more in love through photos and words you said…
and every minute of every day afterward, you were all I thought about.
How your lips felt against mine, how your tongue tasted, how fucking wet you were, and mostly how, for the first time in my life that I could remember, it wasn’t all black and white.
For the first time that night, with my hand between your legs and your mouth on mine, I saw fucking red .
An explosion of color. That vibrancy of life was pushed back into me, and it was all because of you.
” He shakes his head, as if he can’t find the words to express what he’s really trying to say.
“Kissing you tasted like red, Ivy, and knowing that I couldn’t have you… it broke me.”
It broke him.
That word echoes in my head, along with the confessions he made to me over the past several weeks.
“Oh, God. Is that when you…”
I can’t even get the question out because I know the answer.
He told me.
Explained it all when he tried to warn me away from him so many times.
His life crumbled, and he fell down that hole of addiction that took him so long to climb out of, that he still battles every day.
And it all started because of me.
Cam shoves his hands through his hair, shaking his head.
“I’m not blaming you. None of this was your fault.
It was mine . My weakness, my inability to cope with all the emotions exploding within me.
The guilt over what I did to Drew. The shame of not feeling guilty and wanting to do it again.
The want that I couldn’t stop feeling for what wasn’t mine.
It was volatile, Ivy. I was. It was my selfishness that made me descend into that pit I dug for myself. All of it was my fault.”
He destroyed his life.
He went down a path that left him this tortured, anguished person…
“No.” I shake my head, the tears streaming down my cheeks as hot as the anger and shame burning through me. “It was mine. I should have known. I should have?—”
Cam closes the distance between us in two steps and takes my face in his palms. “Stop saying that, and stop thinking that way. This is why I didn’t tell you when I showed up at your house.
Because I didn’t want you questioning everything, didn’t want you thinking that your entire relationship with Drew was a lie or that you could have, in any way, known in that garden.
One night doesn’t change what four years built.
It doesn’t.” He presses his chest into mine and tightens his grip on my face, ensuring I’m holding his gaze.
“But now you see why I warned you away, why I told you that I was toxic and bad for you, why what happened the other night when we got back from the shore never should have happened. And never should again.”
Everything he says, every single agonizing word of it is true.
Cam is selfish.
He’s unhinged.
He has no control over his life or his emotions.
He’s exactly the type of guy women should avoid.
He’s the opposite of Drew in every way.
Drew never would have done what Cam did that night.
He never would have lied to me?—
But he did, didn’t he?
Instead of telling me it wasn’t him out in the garden that night, instead of coming clean and exposing what Cam had done, what I had allowed to happen, he simply maintained the lie.
He took that memory that I made with Cam and made me believe it was ours .
He lied to me as much as Cam did.
Why?
To spare me the shame of what I did?
To spare himself that embarrassment?
Or because he was afraid of losing me to his brother?
As I stand here now, staring at the man who slid into my damn heart, pretending to be someone else that night, everything I thought I knew crumbles away to ashes.
And all I want is to let myself float away the same way Drew did on that dark beach.
I squeeze my eyes closed, a sob tearing from my chest, cracking me open, splintering the last four years of my life into fragmented lies, unspoken truths, meaningless words and promises filled with deception and deceit.
“Ivy…” Cam shifts his hold on me, swiping at my tears with his calloused thumbs. “Please look at me.”
It’s the last thing I want to do.
Because I don’t trust him.
But more importantly, I don’t trust myself with him.
He waits.
Holding me steady.
And eventually, I force my eyes open to look into his again.
The sadness floating in them twists my stomach tightly.
“All I’ve ever wanted since that moment was you, but I’ll never be good enough for you.
I’ve done horrible things, Ivy. Things…”—the tortured waver in his voice makes my knees give out, only his hand dropping from my face to wrap around my waist keeps me upright and pressed to him—“you need to stay out of my life. You need to stay far away from me. All I do is bring pain to people I love, and I won’t keep doing that to you.
I can’t. Not after everything you’ve already suffered. ”
The past two months have been a living hell.
Moving through each second, each minute, each hour, each day with forced breaths, dragging steps, false smiles, and fake strength I never had.
Time passed, but I felt like I was standing still.
Stuck in quicksand sucking me down into the black abyss created by a world without Drew.
One where I was alone forever.
But as Cam gazes down at me, the warning written in his darkened-blue eyes, red flags waving violently like on the beach with a dangerous riptide, I can’t help noticing the heat seeping into my body and the unwavering power of his hold.
He prevents me from completely collapsing the same way he has every time I’ve needed him since he arrived in my life.
Every moment I’ve needed him—he’s been there.
Offering me what I could never have found on my own.
Laughter.
Joy.
Strength.
Even when he was suffering just as badly.
That first night brought color back into his life.
And kissing him last week seemed to bring a spark back to mine.
For the first time in months, I felt alive, if only for a few moments.
Even though it was wrong, even though I knew it was, it was somehow the only thing that felt right in a long time.
That release was more than just sexual. It was an unleashing of everything that had kept me prone and stagnant. It was what I needed .
I don’t know what to do with him.
I don’t know what to do with myself.
I don’t know what to do with this.
All I know is that walking away and heeding his warning when he did that for me isn’t an option.