Chapter 11 Cam
CAM
ONE MONTH LATER
A cool fall breeze whips around me, and I tighten my jacket around myself against the blustery chill that somehow still seeps into my skin.
The weather seems fitting for my mood today.
Dark.
Overcast.
Almost as if the world itself somehow feels exactly what I do and has joined in solidarity with my mood.
The beach is almost completely deserted, the dropping temperatures and promise of an early snow keeping most people away.
Save for the lone figure standing on the sand near the shoreline, back to me.
But I don’t need to see her face to know who it is.
I’d know Ivy anywhere.
Anytime.
Anyplace.
My heart calls out for hers, even if she continues to hate me.
Her dark hair floats loose in the frigid wind, but she doesn’t seem to notice it, just stands there, staring out at the water that appears even darker today due to the heavy cloud cover overhead.
I glance at my car, tempted to go back to it rather than disturb her when I’m confident I’m the last person she wants to see—today of all days.
The weeks since I saw her last have done nothing to abate any of the guilt eating me alive, nor do I imagine it has any of her anger toward me for how I’ve ripped apart her life.
“I hate you so damn much for everything you caused…”
Every day, I hear those words and see that ultrasound picture. I watch those tears track down her cheeks and know it’s all because of me. Countless hours pass by as I imagine what their baby is going to look like—her soft eyes and Drew’s quick, bright smile.
And I’ll likely never see my niece or nephew.
At least, not in person.
Mom will show me pictures, try to make me feel connected, but I can’t expect Ivy to ever be okay with having me in her life again in any meaningful way.
Yet, I can’t walk away from her.
Not today.
Her beauty, her anguish, even her damn anger act like a fucking magnet, dragging me toward her, making my hands itch to tug her into my arms and hold her impossibly close until all her pain melts away.
It’s impossible.
But I still move toward her like the obsessed man I’ve always been when it comes to her.
My boots sink into the sand as I leave the boardwalk and make my way across the beach toward the only person on this planet who can destroy me with a single glance or word.
Each step ratchets up the tension in my body, locking my spine and making my shoulders and neck ache. Weeks of wanting to see her, of forcing myself to stay away and only drop by the house when I was sure she would be gone, have left me starving for her.
A real, painful ache, deep in my soul, that has only grown as the days pass slowly and the nights are agonizingly long and lonely. Filled with endless wondering and worrying about her and the baby…
And now she’s here.
Right in front of me.
Looking so fucking beautiful.
She stands, staring at the water with her arms wrapped around her, the collar of her peacoat flipped up against the wind. Her dark hair floats on the breeze, whipping to the side under a particularly large gust, and she shivers.
Fucking hell…
All I want to do is step up behind her and tug her to me, give her my warmth and comfort her on a day that has to be as excruciating for her as it is for me, but I can’t.
And that crushing reality lodges something squarely in my throat.
I don’t know if she senses my approach, but it definitely seems like her back stiffens as I step up next to her. She doesn’t turn to look at me, doesn’t say anything, just keeps her gaze locked on the churning water and the waves lapping at the shore.
“I should have known you’d be here…”
My words sound hollow, as empty as I’ve felt for the last several months since Drew died, and even more so since the ugly truth came out and Ivy really saw me.
Keeping her eyes on the last place we saw Drew, she nods, burrowing herself further into her coat collar.
“I can go, if you want me to…”
I never knew silence could be so loud until this moment, when all I want is to hear her voice again, to hear one single word from her. For her tell me to stay.
The longer it drags on with only the sounds of the ocean filling the tremendous distance between us now, even though we stand so close that our arms are almost touching, the more confident I am that she will ask me to leave.
She certainly has every right to.
Especially today…
But when she finally speaks, still refusing to look at me, there isn’t any malice in her tone. Only sadness. “It’s okay. You deserve to be here as much as I do.”
The way her voice cracks makes that lump in my throat swell, and I swallow thickly, trying to break through it before I go and say or do something stupid.
Ivy inhales deeply, her chest rising under her thick coat, then lets it out slowly, arms still wrapped tightly around herself. Her eyes finally drift over to me, and they don’t hold any apparent anger. “Happy birthday.”
I wince at the words.
Not because I don’t think she genuinely means them but because nothing will ever be happy about this day again.
My chest tightens, squeezing my heart painfully as I remember all those years of birthday parties I shared with Drew. Three decades of joy and love that I destroyed so completely. “Thank you, but it’s hard to think of this day ever being happy.”
Not when it’s the first one without Drew. The first one living with the guilt of what I’ve caused, bearing the weight of what I’ve cost all of us…
The breeze picks up, the icy chill making me shiver. Ivy does, too, shifting in her riding boots and rubbing her hands over her covered arms.
I can’t help but let my gaze drift down to her belly.
With the oversized coat on, it’s hard to see the swell, but I know it’s there.
It has to be by now.
Drew’s child—my niece or nephew—growing inside of her.
And who will never know their father.
Tears burn my eyes, and I blink them away, trying to clear the emotion from my throat yet again, and at the same time, I struggle to figure out what to say.
What can I?
There are no words that won’t sound completely hollow at this point.
There is nothing that can be said that will ease any of her pain or my own.
So, I stand, staring at the waves, remembering the last time we were here together to say goodbye to Drew…
And what it led to.
My body heats at the memories of her mouth on mine, of my hands roaming over her body, of my cock sinking into her blissful heat. All the things that haunt my days and keep me awake at night before my guilt douses the fire with icy reality as cold as the weather today.
There are so many things I want to say, things that need to be said.
I never got the chance to apologize to her.
She stormed out of the studio before I had an opportunity to say what I wanted to, but she had every right not to want to hear it. Not when I was unraveling like that. Not when I revealed the god-awful truth to her while I was sitting next to a damn needle and bag of heroin.
But this isn’t the place or time, either.
Ivy doesn’t need my apology, nor does she want it.
What she needs is happiness, something to make her smile, to help her get through the minutes and hours and days and weeks.
Hopefully, that baby will be that thing that pulls her out of this, a reason to keep pushing on when things feel far too hard and far too complicated to do so.
I shove my hands into my pockets, trying to keep them from trembling. But it doesn’t have anything to do with the cool temperature; it’s more about the cool, icy look in her eyes that used to be so warm when they met mine.
The silence becomes too much, though.
And the longer I look at the water, the more vividly decades of memories race back, and despite how shitty I feel, my chest warms. “We spent most of our birthdays here with our grandmother, on the beach.”
“Even when it was this cold?”
A sad smile pulls at my lips, and I nod. “We wouldn’t go in the water, just walk on the sand, looking for seashells and cool rocks and any other beach junk we could collect.”
Ivy offers me a smile that matches the pain in my heart. “How old were you when she died?”
I tilt my head slightly, trying to remember exactly. “Ten. It was kind of like losing a second mother…”
She nods and returns her focus to the water. “That’s how my nonni was, too. It was always just the three of us.”
For all the intensely intimate details I know about this woman, there are so many other things I’m still so clueless about.
What the fuck does that say about me?
“What about your mom’s father?”
Her shoulders rise and fall. “I don’t know if Nonni even knew who he was, to be honest.” She releases a little sardonic laugh. “She was a true hippie. Went to Woodstock and everything. Believed in free love. Back then…they were less careful.”
I cringe at the implication. “And your father?”
She glances over at me. “Mom never wanted him involved. As far as she was concerned, he was a sperm donor and nothing more, but I never felt like I was missing out on anything.”
Images of my childhood flash through my head.
Of birthdays and Christmases.
Hugs and tears.
The man who somehow shaped us, despite not being in our lives for very long…
“Our dad was around…but not much.” We were lucky if we saw him for a three-day weekend once a month and then a few weeks here and there while he was on leave.
And now, all those memories are tainted by what Mom revealed about Dad’s struggles that so closely mirror my own. “I found out he was an alcoholic.”
Her head whips toward me, her eyes wide. “Really?”
I nod. “Mom told me that night.”
Ivy pulls her lip under her teeth, and guilt clouds her eyes at the mere mention of the night that changed everything between us.
“You did the right thing, Ivy, calling her, getting her over there.”
Moisture pools in her eyes, and I don’t dare hope that they’re for me rather than just caused by the wind and sand. But a little hiccupped sob slips from her lips. “I shouldn’t have left you like that…”
She shakes her head, and a tear trickles from her eye before she looks back to the water.
I so badly want to reach out and wipe it away, but I don’t have the right to touch her anymore.
No.
I never had the right to touch her.
That’s what started this whole mess in the first place.
“You needed to get out of there, Ivy. I understand that.” I attempt to keep my voice level, trying to stop myself from breaking before I say what she desperately needs to hear.
“It was a shitty position to put you in. But you saved my life that night.” I release a long, heavy breath, wishing I didn’t have to admit this to her.
“If you hadn’t come over, I…” I squeeze my eyes closed, remembering the vicious spiral I was in, but then I force my eyes open, force myself to look at her and see her agony. “Ivy, please look at me.”
She turns her head, and her watery gaze locks with mine.
“It’s okay. You did the right thing.” I press my hands to my chest. “I’m the one who fucked up. Over and over again. Please don’t feel guilty about leaving because you had to.”
Her lip trembles, and she nods, twisting back to face the waves. “He wanted to have his ashes spread because he didn’t want me to be staring at an urn constantly, but”—she shrugs—“here I am, staring out at the water as if he’s still here.”
Fuck.
There is no hope of restraining my own tears anymore.
They fall easily, sliding hot down my cheeks and cooling before they drop from my jaw. “He is still here. I feel him every time I’m on this beach.”
Which I’ve been coming to far too much lately.
At least once a week, sometimes more, I stand right in this spot, needing to be close to him even if he wouldn’t want this.
“Yeah.” Her voice cracks as she nods. “Me, too.”
This time, the silence that settles over us is comfortable.
There are so many more things to say, but today is about Drew.
My guilt can wait…
All that exists in this moment is the two of us loving Drew, the lapping of the waves, and the breeze blowing around us.
The temperature seems to drop again, and Ivy shivers more violently.
Immediately, the desire to get her somewhere safe and warm overtakes me. “Should you be out here?”
Her hard eyes flick to mine. “I’m pregnant, not sick.”
“I know, I’m just…I worry about you.”
Every second of every day, I worry about her and the baby.
And I always will.
Her jaw sets, and her lips press into a firm line. “Well, stop. You don’t have to.” She shakes her head as if to enforce her statement. “I don’t want you to. I don’t want anything from you, Cam. Not ever again.”
She turns and stalks through the sand back toward the boardwalk, leaving me standing at the waterline alone.
The smell of the ocean, the sand, and all my regrets fills my lungs, and I squeeze my burning eyes closed as I process what she just said.
So much hurt and anger laced her words and voice.
Not that I didn’t know that’s how she felt, but hearing it from her lips makes it a thousand times worse.
It makes it more real.
It makes any hope I might have had of being involved in that baby’s life evaporate in an instant.
Ivy doesn’t want me in her life.
She doesn’t want me in the baby’s.
And that’s probably for the best.
But I can’t just walk away.
I open my eyes, and tears flow down my cheeks. “Happy birthday, brother. I’ll make sure she’s okay. I promise.”