Chapter 27 Cam
CAM
Ivy opens the front door just as I step up onto the porch, as if she’s been waiting for me the same way I have been for this moment. For what feels like forever…
Because the first time I stood here, I came to her with guilt I couldn’t unload and longing I never thought would amount to anything.
I came to her seeking redemption I didn’t think was possible.
And when that package from Drew arrived, I knew it wasn’t.
But as snow starts to fall and she steps back with bare feet to let me into the home she once shared with him, I can feel the shift in the air that has nothing to do with the flakes hitting my skin.
I don’t know what she’s thinking after the meeting, after hearing me say all those words. She seemed confused enough about even being there, but now that I’ve confessed all those things out loud to her, it feels like we’ve reached some sort of breaking point.
Or at the very least, a tipping one.
She retreats as I move in and push the door closed behind me, arms wrapped around herself in an ivory oversized sweater that falls off one shoulder in a way that makes me very glad she kept her coat on at the meeting.
Her soulful eyes watch me carefully, and she bites her bottom lip, shifting nervously as she rubs at her belly and moves back another step, like she wants or needs to put some physical distance between us.
And that’s probably a good idea, given what has happened far more times than it should have between us within these walls.
Even now, that crackling energy that always seems to surge when we’re alone together permeates the air between us. Electrifying my skin, making my fingers itch to touch her.
She didn’t tell me to come over, didn’t say a word after I spoke. She just held my hand for the rest of the meeting and slipped out when it was done, but I couldn’t go home like I probably should have.
I couldn’t walk away after she showed up like that, when it feels like there are so many things that still need to be said that we’ve been dancing around for months.
“Why did you come tonight, Ivy?”
The answer she offered me at the meeting was enough for that moment, but now, here, I need more.
So much more.
I can’t keep pretending that it doesn’t break my fucking heart and shatter my soul every time I come over here and touch her and then have to pretend it didn’t happen and walk away. I can’t keep living day in and day out acting like this can go on indefinitely when we both know it can’t.
And the way she’s looking at me tells me she knows that as well.
She releases her lip and shakes her head.
“I honestly don’t know, Cam. It just…” Her eyes drift closed, and she draws in a long breath and releases it slowly, almost like her answer is something she needs to prepare herself for.
When her lids flutter open again, there’s a steely resolve in her gaze.
“It just felt like where I needed to be.”
Such simple words that hold so much meaning.
The only time this woman has willingly been in a room with me since she learned the truth has been when she needed something physical from me.
When she was seeking something familiar and comforting that only I could give her.
And even then, she let me know that nothing about her feelings had changed, no matter what her body might have wanted.
“Why, Ivy? You’ve told me over and over again how much you hate me. How much I hurt you. And even when you didn’t say those words, I still know they’re true. So, why would you want to be there for that? For me?”
That flicker of light I saw, that hint of hope I felt when she entwined her hand with mine, hovers in the distance now, waiting to be fully lit or snuffed out completely.
Tears well in her eyes, and her bottom lip trembles. “That’s what I’ve been asking myself. I’ve been trying to find an answer. And then, after last week—”
“Last week?”
She glances down the hallway and gives me a soft smile. “The nursery. I was…confused.”
“Why?”
Ivy has to know I’d do anything for her by now, that every breath I take is to ensure she and her baby are taken care of the way they deserve to be. So, why would me wanting to do something like that for her be so confusing?
“Because I don’t understand how someone who could do something like that for me could also have done so many horrible things to Drew.”
Her words cut through me like a knife, flaying me open and leaving me bleeding out on her floor.
I try to take a step toward her, to clutch her to me to try to stem the flow and keep myself together, but I stop myself because I’m terrified of doing or saying the wrong thing.
Ivy motions toward Gladys sitting on the end table next to the photo of her with Drew on the beach. “It’s hard for me to reconcile those two people, Cam. Who I know you are, who you’ve shown me you are, over and over again, and that person.”
It’s a dichotomy that has torn me apart for far longer than Ivy has been in my life.
My ability to shut other things and people out to hyper-fixate on a canvas or idea in my head, juxtaposed against my soul-deep love for those people who do mean something in my life and my desire to ensure they have everything they ever need.
She became that focus. To the detriment of everything and everyone around me. To the detriment of myself. It pulled me away from that other part that was so damn happy for Drew when he met her…before I saw her and everything changed.
It’s the part of me that will always struggle with those voices in my head.
“I don’t know if I can explain it, Ivy, because that’s something I don’t understand myself.
Every fucking minute of every day, I look back and wonder who the fuck that person was who made so many horrible decisions and hurt so many people.
” I shake my head, as if the motion might somehow alleviate some of the pain centered there with the memories.
“I know you can’t forgive me, Ivy, and it’s okay if you never can, but that isn’t going to stop this. ”
I motion between us.
A tear slips from her eye, slowly making its way down her cheek. “Stop what?”
“Whatever this is between us.” My hands tremble as I shove them through my hair.
“I can’t do it anymore. I can’t keep pretending I don’t love you with every fucking fiber of my being.
That I don’t want to be here with you every moment of every fucking day.
That it doesn’t destroy me every time I walk away from you.
That I’m terrified I’m going to miss something important with you, with this baby.
That I’m going to miss out on your life, on hers.
And believe me, I know how fucking selfish it is to want that when Drew can’t have it, but it doesn’t mean I don’t. ”
Ivy sobs, crumpling in on herself, and I can’t take it anymore.
I close the distance between us and pull her against me, burying my face in her hair as her hands press into my stomach and her forehead falls to my chest, her belly into mine.
Each labored breath, every anguished sound that falls from her lips, makes it harder and harder for me to fight my own tears.
“I don’t hate you.” She pulls her head back and looks up at me, tears now streaking down her cheeks.
“I wanted to so badly.” Fingers cling to my shirt, twisting the soft fabric.
“I wanted to hate you, but even the night you told me everything, I couldn’t.
If I had, I would have left you to your own devices.
I would have let you drink yourself to death or shoot that poison into your veins.
I would have gotten my revenge that way, but I couldn’t hate you. ”
“Why not?”
I’m terrified of her answer, of what might come out, but I need to know.
“Because it isn’t your fault.”
Her declaration stiffens my spine.
She can’t be saying what I think she is…
“What?”
“I’ve been blaming you for everything, but it isn’t really your fault.”
I tighten my hold on her. “Of course it is, Ivy—”
“No, Cam.” She clutches my shirt tighter, jerking me toward her, forcing me to hold her gaze. “Marlo said something to me last week that stuck, and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. About everything that happened in minute detail.”
The same thing I’ve been doing for months…
Reliving every word said.
Every action.
Every thought that led to this.
Ivy offers me the saddest smile. “It was all just some weird twist of fate.” Her eyebrows rise.
“Why did I meet Drew first and not you? Why did I go out into the yard alone that night? Why did you find me before Drew did? Why didn’t I notice all the things that should have told me you weren’t him?
” She reaches up and trails her fingers across my cheek.
“Why didn’t he tell me the truth when he had so much time to?
Why was he so afraid? What did I do to make him question that?
Why didn’t that doll get delivered when my invitation did?
Why did I choose to fucking send it? Why did that car have to be crossing that intersection at the exact moment Drew was distracted enough to run the stop sign? ”
A sob slips from her lips as all the questions she just asked, ones I’ve anguished over, continue to float through my head. Each one a single millisecond in time. A chance for things to go differently.
But they didn’t.
For some inexplicable reason, this is where we ended.
Tears blur my vision, and I blink them away, needing to see her clearly.
“None of it makes sense, Cam, because none of it was in anyone’s control.
Not really. There are so many variables, and any one of them being different would have changed everything.
” She huffs out a labored breath. “I can’t keep blaming you for all of it.
I can’t. Because there were so many opportunities for things to turn out differently, which means there’s a reason they turned out like this. ”
One of her hands slips down between us to press against her swollen belly.
“Maybe this baby wouldn’t have happened if everything else hadn’t.” The corner of her lips tips up. “Maybe she is my chance to let go of all of this pain and anger because holding it in feels like constantly drinking poison.” Her eyes search mine. “I can’t keep acting like I don’t love you.”
All the air rushes from my lungs as I stare down at her.
She loves me.
I’ve longed to hear those words for so many fucking years, struggled through so many nights I didn’t think I’d survive, wanting them, but now that she’s said them, I have a hard time believing it.
A hard time understanding.
“You love me…”
She offers me a sad smile and pushes up to feather her lips across mine gently. “God fucking help me, but I do. Remember how you told me that kissing me tasted like red, that I brought color back into your life?”
I nod.
“Well, kissing you brought me back to life. If you hadn’t shown up on my doorstep that night, I don’t know where I’d be. I don’t know that I’d be here. Or that Drew’s daughter would be about to come into this world.”
I gaze at her through the haze of tears and capture her face between my palms, sweeping my thumb across her trembling lips.
Ones I’ve kissed.
Ones I’ve craved.
Ones I’ve fought so hard to forget.
But now they’ve brought me the most beautiful words I’ve ever heard from the only woman in the world who has ever held my heart.
“I’m going to make sure she knows who her dad was and how much he loves her. And I promise you, Ivy, I’m going to love the two of you enough for the both of us.”