Chapter 4 - Cam
CAM
My hand trembles as I flip my one-year medallion between my fingers, the chain that normally hangs it around my neck now dangling below it, tinkling in the quiet room.
Holding it used to help settle me. It gave me something physical to remind myself of what I had accomplished.
That’s why I wore it—to always have it touching my skin and connecting me to something tangible that represented my success.
But today, it feels more like a reminder of my failure.
Because I did fail even if I’m technically clean today.
I failed Ivy.
I failed Mom.
I failed Drew.
And I failed myself.
Over and over again, I gave into that part of me that only saw what I wanted, zeroed in on what I craved, and ignored the consequences to myself and anyone else.
Envisioning the look on Ivy’s face last night confirms I hurt her in the worst way possible. And standing here in front of a room filled with unfamiliar faces—except the one sitting in the back row—all those wrongs I’ve done to myself somehow seem unimportant compared to the damage I did to them.
Mom gives me a reassuring smile, but seeing the tears streaming down her cheeks and her swollen eyes, knowing what she’s suffering right now, it’s impossible to return it.
It’s hard enough to stay upright on my shaking legs.
I shove my free hand through my hair, inhale a deep breath, and let it out slowly, gathering myself the best I can to say what I need to today. Because there are so many things to say, only the people I really want to say them to are gone forever. “Hi, my name is Camden, and I’m an addict.”
The chorus of “Hello, Camden” comes back at me, and clutching my medallion in my hand, I rub at my neck.
“I’ve been clean for 427 days, and I had been sober for that long, too…
until yesterday.” I swallow as the taste of whiskey fills my mouth again, and my stomach churns violently, reminding me of just how much I drank.
“And I’d like to say I’ve been sober for at least today, but frankly, I think I’m probably still a little drunk. ”
I glance out at the people watching me speak, but none of them look on in judgment.
All I get are sympathetic gazes.
“This isn’t my usual meeting, and maybe that’s a good thing because none of you know me. And somehow, it seems easier to come here today and tell this to people I don’t know…”
That’s a lie.
It’s hard to say this to these strangers, too.
And especially with Mom here.
Because I genuinely never thought I’d be back in this place again.
I thought I had a grip on my addiction and my emotions, but I couldn’t have been more wrong.
“I was this close”—I hold my fingers only a few millimeters apart—“to using again last night. I even called one of my old dealers and had him deliver it to my place.” A little sardonic laugh slips from my lips.
“And it felt like welcoming back an old friend when I opened the door to him. How fucked up is that?”
I shake my head, clasping the small piece of metal like it’s a lifeline when last night it was the woman I hurt more than anyone on this planet who kept me from doing something truly stupid.
“The only thing that stopped me from using it when it was right there was someone showing up at my place unexpectedly.” I flick my gaze to Mom, knowing how hard this will be for her to hear. “If she hadn’t shown up, in the next five minutes, that needle would have been in my arm.”
And this would have all been for nothing…
My hand tightens around the medallion until the edges dig into my skin.
“I kept telling myself that maybe the alcohol would do it, that maybe once I finished the bottle, I would feel better. That the guilt and agony that were overwhelming me would somehow ebb the more I swallowed. But by the time she walked in, I was three-quarters of the way through it, and all I felt was worse.”
The pain of seeing Drew’s handwriting on that box…
Of opening it and finding the doll…
It rushes back, almost knocking me on my ass the same way it did yesterday.
I had it all so wrong.
From the moment I saw Ivy, I let my addiction to her consume me. And I let it turn me into someone who would believe the worst about the person I loved most in this world…
“I was drowning in it. Stuck in my own head. Suffocated by these feelings that have been building up for the last several months since…” I suck in a sharp breath, trying to swallow a sob that wants to slip out. “Since my twin brother died…”
I squeeze my eyes closed, unable to look at the group or Mom when I say these words that tighten my chest.
“It was my fault. The accident that took his life. None of it would have happened if I’d been in control of myself, if I hadn’t been a selfish asshole.
” Shaking my head, I envision his face as I threw those hateful words at him, as I threatened to take Ivy from him.
“I blame so many of the things that I’ve done on making bad decisions when I was using, but the truth of the matter is, the decision that led me to all this.
The one that destroyed my life and so many other people’s and took my brother’s was one made when I was completely sober. ”
The garden flashes through my head.
Seeing Ivy on that bench.
The way my footsteps faltered the moment I laid eyes on her.
How my heart stuttered.
How fucking hard I fell in that instant.
I instantly understood everything Drew had been telling me about her over the previous weeks. Why he said the moment they met he knew he was going to marry her. I saw the way she seemed to just glow in the moonlight, and when she smiled…I was a goner.
But I knew it was wrong.
I knew I shouldn’t do it, and I did it anyway.
Because I had never wanted that way before.
“We always say that we relapse before we pick back up.” I rub at that itch on the nape of my neck that won’t go away, as if I’m going through withdrawals again.
“The truth is, I’ve been relapsing for years, before I even went to rehab.
I just substituted a different kind of addiction.
This woman…” I release a little half-laugh that doesn’t have any humor in it.
Picturing her face. Hearing those little noises she makes when I’m inside her.
Feeling her trembling under my touch and that rush that floods my system every time my lips touch hers.
“She’s intoxicating, and the more time I spent with her, the more I wanted to.
The more I needed to be around her, to hear her laugh, to see her smile, to know that I put that on her face when she had every reason never to smile again…
” I swallow thickly, scanning the room. “Because she was my brother’s fiancée. ”
Several sets of eyes widen slightly at my confession, but Mom doesn’t react—either because my confession to her earlier told her everything she needed to know or she was able to read between the lines and saw what had happened before I was even cognizant of it.
“So”—I offer a tight smile, clenching the little piece of metal tighter—“the woman whose life I ruined is the one who saved mine last night.” I release a sardonic laugh and shake my head.
“And I don’t really know what to do with that.
But I’m here today, and I still have this.
” I hold up my medallion. “And I’m going to go back to taking it one day at a time.
Or maybe just one minute at a time because that might be all I can handle right now. ”
A sob threatens to make its way up my throat, but I force it down and look to the back row, to the woman who has every reason not to be here after the pain I’ve caused her. But Mom just offers me a sad smile, her eyes brimming with more tears.
“But I do have a tiny sliver of hope that I might make it through all this…because I have my mom here.” I shrug.
“Maybe, though I can’t see it right now, there’s a light at the end of this dark tunnel?
Somewhere. I’m not really sure if it does exist—a place where I’m not drowning in the same guilt and agony that sent me down that dangerous road last night.
I hope it does, but maybe it doesn’t. Maybe I just have to learn to swim harder. ”
Those dark waves that lapped at the shore when we spread Drew’s ashes
Everyone claps, and I step down from the small riser and make my way back toward Mom, unable to look at her as I slide into the chair next to her. I bury my face in my hands, the tears soaking them and my medallion.
She wraps her arm around me and presses a kiss to the top of my head. “Everything will be okay, Cam. Why don’t you come home with me? Come stay at the house.”
People start filing past, conversations floating through the air as the meeting concludes, though I didn’t even register hearing the final words.
I keep my head dipped low, unable to look at Mom as I decline her offer. “I don’t think I can, Mom…”
“You shouldn’t be alone right now.”
Nodding, I swipe my cheeks and finally lift my face to her. “I know, but…I can’t be in that house right now. There are too many memories.”
Almost two decades of them jumbled in my head that are hard enough to remember without being in that space, seeing all the reminders of Drew’s life that is gone because of me.
It’s where we took our first steps together. Where we said our first words. Where we opened Christmas and birthday gifts and grew into adults under Mom’s watchful eye and with all her love focused on us so intensely.
I couldn’t survive it—walking in that door and those memories flooding me.
Mom presses her lips together tightly. She isn’t happy about my refusal, and I’m sure it’s a mix of concern and offense that I don’t want to be with her, but eventually, she nods. “Okay, but will you please promise me something?”
I want to say anything.
But that would be a lie.
There are things I can’t promise.
Things I shouldn’t.
Not when it feels like I’m spinning out of control.
“What?”
Mom holds my gaze, her eyes somehow clear at the moment when I can’t seem to stop the tears from falling. “Day or night, anytime, you’re going to call me if you need me.”
I nod, a sob lodging in my throat. “I’ll always need you, Mom.”
And that’s truer than I even realized.
For four years, I’ve kept my distance, stayed in London rather than coming back here to face the consequences of my actions.
I couldn’t be in the same room as Drew and not know how badly I wounded him, feel that guilt eating away at me.
But that meant hurting this woman as much as it hurt me.
Maybe even more. Because she didn’t know what kept me away.
It wasn’t just what I had done to Drew and Ivy.
It was because I couldn’t let her see what I had become.
A shell of myself.
She would have taken one look at me and known I was deep into something I shouldn’t be. And that confrontation would have meant admitting my true addiction was to the one woman on the planet I couldn’t have.
Those years of excommunicating myself to keep her insulated from my downward spiral tore me apart as much as my guilt and the drugs and alcohol did.
Because I love her so damn much and needed her so many times when I couldn’t call her, couldn’t hop on a plane and fly home to feel her arms around me or hear her comforting words.
But now she knows everything.
All the dark and dirty secrets.
It simultaneously feels like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders and a new one has settled.
Because now that she knows, if I fail, if I take the step that Ivy stopped me from last night, it’s going to hurt that much more.
Because I’ll be failing not just myself but her as well.