Chapter 26 Cam
CAM
ONE WEEK LATER
Quiet conversations float through the air as everyone takes their seats and settles in for the start of the meeting. I slide into my usual spot in the back row and pull off my leather jacket, draping it on the seat next to me and running a hand through my hair to push it off my face.
Though tonight, I feel more like hiding behind it.
Not a word from Ivy since last week when we spoke in the nursery.
No texts.
No calls.
Just an endless void in my chest.
I’m not sure what I expected after that night, but returning to slipping into her house like some deranged stalker while she’s gone to leave her food and random fruits on the counter definitely wasn’t it.
Nor was feeling like I had somehow done something wrong when she insisted it was perfect and that she didn’t want anything changed.
Each time it feels like there might be a tiny step forward with Ivy, I end up right back where I started—desperate for any way to help her.
And I feel like I’m failing over and over again.
So, tonight’s meeting will be good.
I need to talk.
I’ve been coming here long enough that almost everyone knows what happened by now—at least those parts I’ve shared, which have given them the basics—and as much as I may not want to discuss all the things I’ve done wrong and ways I’ve hurt everyone around me, it does help.
Sometimes, it’s the only thing that does.
It’s better than sitting alone in my studio, staring at another canvas, struggling to find a way to express all this turmoil while that little voice tries to tell me there are ways to make it go away…
Dale approaches, inclining his head and giving me a look that says how shitty I feel is written all over my face. He settles to my left, leaning back in the metal chair and resting his arms across those on either side. “You good?”
It’s the same question he always asks, and my answer has varied greatly the past several months.
There have been nights when he’s come to the studio and sat with me over a carafe of coffee because I didn’t want to call Mom and couldn’t be alone with the thoughts in my head.
There have been breakfasts and lunches when I actually felt good and walked away thinking things were going to get better.
And in many ways, they have.
I’m in a much better place than I was that night I almost went back down that very dark path. Even with all the anguish and uncertainty revolving around Ivy, I can at least breathe again most days.
So, even though I may want to hide tonight and wallow, I refuse to give in to it.
Instead, I nod—despite the silence from Ivy weighing down on me like a thousand-pound elephant on my chest.
“You don’t look okay.” His assessing gaze rakes over me, and I know what he sees.
My uncut hair that has grown completely out of control.
My unshaven face. The bags under my eyes.
My shaking hands that keep searching for something to do since the only paintings that have truly felt right recently have been the mural I did of Drew and me and the nursery. “Are you sleeping?”
I shake my head because there’s no denying what must be written all over my face. “Not a lot.”
The only time I seem to be able to close my eyes and actually find any sort of peace is when I’m with Ivy, and every time, I force myself to get up. To get dressed again. To leave her alone in Drew’s bed and walk away.
Because it’s just sex.
It’s just giving her what she physically needs right now.
It’s just being what I can for her in any way I can.
And I don’t have a right to take anything for myself, even a few hours of contented sleep I so desperately need with her in my arms.
I’ve done that selfish thing before and look where it got all of us…
Dale opens his mouth to say something that would no doubt be wise and just as likely something I don’t want to hear, but his eyes widen slightly at something behind me. “I…think you have a guest tonight.”
Mom?
She has offered to come to meetings with me more times than I can count, and I’ve taken her up on it occasionally. But we talked earlier today, and she never mentioned it—
I turn, expecting to see her waiting.
But a different dark-haired woman fills my gaze instead, the one I’ve longed so hard to see that for a brief moment, I wonder if she’s some sort of mirage.
Ivy stands inside the doors to the meeting room, bundled up in her peacoat that barely closes around her protruding belly, her eyes scanning nervously over the chairs. When they find me, her shoulders stiffen slightly, and she seems to suck in a sharp breath before she slowly walks forward.
Each step she moves closer, my heart beats faster until it’s thundering against my ribs. All the air rushes from my lungs when she reaches me, all the words I’ve been wanting to say suddenly stuck in my throat.
I hear—rather than see—Dale get up and move out of his chair as she stares down at me, her soft brow furrowed.
She chews on her bottom lip, looking around again before returning her uncertain gaze to me. “Hi.”
God, has it really only been a week since I’ve heard her voice?
It feels like an eternity since I held her in my arms in the nursery, and the trepidation in her eyes now crushes me almost as much as that night did.
I swallow thickly, trying to work through the shock and emotion that want to choke me. “Umm, hi. Is everything okay?”
Because why else would she be here?
For her to show up, something serious must be happening.
My gut immediately tightens, dozens of different possible reasons she could be here flickering through my head, but she nods.
Her gaze cuts around the room again, and she shifts nervously. “Is it okay that I’m here?”
She came for the meeting?
It takes a second for my brain to process her question…and her intent to stay.
She came for you…
That realization is enough to make me want to drag her down into my arms and kiss her senseless, but I don’t know what any of this means, and true fear of doing or saying something that might send her running keeps my hands clenched at my sides instead.
“Yeah. Uh, it’s an open meeting, so…family and friends are welcome…”
I trail off because I don’t know what Ivy is.
Not technically family; definitely not just a friend.
We’re forever stuck in this weird place, a vicious cycle of pain and pleasure, hate and need, and it’s reached the point that we’re about to be completely destroyed by it.
She purses her lips, nervously shuffling her feet again, and rubbing her hand across her stomach. “Is it okay with you?”
Fucking hell…
Tears threaten, already burning in my eyes, but I somehow manage to blink them back and nod as I pull my jacket from the seat closest to the aisle and move it to the one Dale just vacated on my other side, giving her room to sit.
She offers me a tentative smile and slides in, settling and adjusting herself as if she’s uncomfortable—but whether it’s with the shitty chairs or the fact that she’s here at all remains as much of a mystery to me as what is going on inside her head.
Manny starts the meeting, and her hand slides over to mine.
She twines our fingers together and squeezes, and the warmth of her palm against mine floods up my arm and through my entire body, melting away all those chilling thoughts I had when I took this seat.
My heart stutters as I look at our entwined hands resting on my thigh.
We’ve touched each other in so many intimate ways, but somehow, this feels so much more meaningful than anything we’ve ever done together.
I tip my head toward her, trying to keep my voice low while Manny continues his welcoming thoughts. Her scent fills my lungs, and I breathe her in before I ask the question I probably shouldn’t.
“What are you doing here, Ivy?”
She pulls her bottom lip under her teeth and shakes her head, and I see the glisten of unshed tears in her eyes. Her slender shoulders rise and fall apologetically. “I don’t know.”
That waver in her voice…
Her unsteady but honest admission…
They’re enough to tell me all I need to know without her saying another word.
This is all she can give me right now.
Being here with me like this.
Sitting beside me and supporting my recovery by being here.
Trying to understand me better, even when she’s seen the bad.
And she may not see it the way I do, but it feels like a giant step I didn’t realize I’ve been holding my breath for.
She saw me that night.
In a very dark place.
The worst I had been since I got out of rehab.
So fucking close to breaking.
And she sat there while I unloaded the horrific truth of all that I had done, those things I was never able to admit, even when we were drawn closer by our shared grief.
Ivy saw it that night, how easily I could fall back into being that person who resorts to injecting poison into their veins when the pain becomes too much.
Yet, she’s here.
She’s beside me.
And that’s enough.
That light at the end of the tunnel that I talked about when I stood in this room the morning after my epic crash seems somehow closer.
More real.
Reachable.
We refocus our attention on the front of the room as Manny finishes his opening remarks, and Riley gets up to speak first. I try to concentrate on his words, on everything he’s saying, because it’s so fucking important for me to give him the attention and support he does me, but all I can feel is how tightly she’s gripping my hand, how warm her body is where her shoulder presses against mine, the slight shifts she makes as she tries to find a more comfortable position on the shitty folding chairs, the sound of every little breath she takes.
She’s here…
And by the time Riley finishes and steps down, I feel like I’m about to jump out of my skin.
Because my body craves her.
It wants her just as bad as it did that heroin sitting on the floor beside me that night.
My knee bounces, and when Manny asks who wants to speak next, I raise my hand and push to my feet before anyone else takes that opportunity.
Because I needed to break that connection.