Chapter Four #2
But then there are moments like this—his jaw tight, eyes soft, giving me space without drifting away—and I wonder if I’ve been wrong about him all along.
A thought flickers through me, so bright it hurts: What would happen if I asked him not to leave when we get to the house?
If I asked him to come inside and… hold me.
Not sex. Not even kissing. Just a big, warm body and a heartbeat next to mine until I fall asleep.
For one night, I want to wake up to something other than grief and guilt.
The wanting is so strong it feels like an open wound. My hands shake. I close my eyes and let the tears dry where they’ve fallen, ashamed and exhausted. I’m so tired of crying. So tired of feeling like an orphan even while my father’s still alive.
We’ve been driving in silence long enough for the AC to evaporate any remaining moisture in my eyes. Camden keeps flexing his hands on the wheel, like he’s arguing with himself. When we finally stop, the engine cuts off, but he doesn’t get out.
When I don’t move right away, he clears his throat. “So, um. I’m realizing that this might not have been the best idea.”
“What?” I open my eyes. Everything is too bright. I block the sun with one hand and examine his profile.
“I thought I was being helpful, but in hindsight, I’ve probably put more on your plate. This was probably awful timing.” We’re parked, but you wouldn’t know it from his death grip on the steering wheel.
I don’t know what he means. It sounds like he’s breaking up with me, which would be a real trick given that we’re, you know, not dating.
I lick my lips. “Cam—”
He doesn’t look at me. “I can put it in the garage for you. If you want.”
I blink a few times. After a moment, I follow his gaze toward the house, but the only thing I can see is entirely new. Between the car and the house is a giant object wrapped in plastic. If I turned it on its side, it would be the size of the car.
“What am I looking at?” I squint out at the… whatever it is.
“Books,” Camden says. His Adam’s apple bobs.
“Books?” I repeat. “How many?”
“Um. Like… fourteen hundred or so?” His voice lilts up, the way it did back when he was sixteen and trying not to admit he liked indie music.
“You’ve always turned to reading when you’re overwhelmed, so I was going to get you some books, but then I thought, what if you’ve already read half of them?
So I looked up your wish list but you hadn’t updated it in forever, and then I found this site that sells mystery book pallets, and I thought it could be fun for you to open them, you know, see what worlds are waiting for you, and we could donate the extras or start a tiny library somewhere, like by the lake, or—”
He runs out of air mid-sentence, looks at his hands on the wheel, and swallows hard. “Anyway. You’re going to be busy getting things ready for Coach, so I’ll move it all to the garage for now.”
Between hospital updates, insurance calls, and estate paperwork, the garage is fine. “Okay.”
That’s all I can manage at first. My throat’s tight and stupidly hot. The mountain of boxes outside my window is ridiculous and perfect, exactly the kind of impossible gesture that only Camden Beck would make.
I try to joke because the real thing—the surge of affection and grief and something that feels a lot like love—might break me open. “You could’ve gotten me flowers,” I whisper.
My voice shakes on the word flowers. Mom loved flowers. But Cam gave me something that won’t wilt.
He laughs once, short and nervous. “Yeah, but books don’t die in a week.”
The silence after that is too full to move through. I press my hand to the window, watching sunlight glint off the shrink wrap, and think about all the stories inside those boxes. Fourteen hundred escapes. Fourteen hundred ways to breathe again.
And somehow, without ever touching me, he gave me the first one.
“This is really sweet. Nobody’s ever gotten me an entire pallet of books before.”
I open my door and step out, heat slapping my face the second I hit the sunlight. The smell of cardboard and shrink-wrap fills the air—like rain and ink and new beginnings.
Camden gets out too but hangs back a second, hands shoved in his pockets. I circle the mountain of boxes, fingertips grazing the plastic. “And you have no idea what’s in here?”
He shrugs, coming up beside me. My brain feels fogged over, static from too little sleep and too much grief.
“It’s random,” he says. “Could all be trash.”
I swing at his shoulder, a pathetic ghost of a punch. “How dare you. We don’t slander books in this house.”
Camden’s snort turns into a half-laugh. “Fine. Maybe it’s nothing but C++ programming manuals.”
I wrinkle my nose. “Okay, that’d be a tragedy. Do we know how they’re packed in there? Are we gonna need forklifts?” I extend my arms and make a couple of beeping noises for emphasis.
He huffs out another small laugh. “They’re in boxes.” He jerks his chin toward the door. “I’ll drop your stuff inside, then I’ll open the wrap and start hauling them into the garage.”
I shake my head before he can move. “No. Bring them in. Let’s open them together.”
He freezes mid-step. Camden’s not the kind of guy whose smiles light up a room—he’s quieter than that—but something in his face shifts, softens. “Really? You don’t have to. I can… do the heavy lifting.”
“Cam,” I say, voice low. “I think I need to open them with you.”
And for a second, all the noise fades—the traffic, the desert heat, even the grief. It’s just the two of us, standing in the driveway, trying to remember how it feels to want something that isn’t survival.
I shake my head. I’m not ready to tackle the rest of the house.
Having Camden here with me, doing something fun and not at all related to the accident, sounds like a great way to psych myself up for being in the house again.
“Bring ‘em in. If it’s all textbooks, we can have a bonfire in the backyard tonight.”
It’s Cam’s turn to mock-gasp. “You would burn books?”
“Depends on the book, I guess. Tell you what: anything about Javascript, we’ll save. Anything C++ goes on the grill.”
He laughs on our way up to the front door. His mirth is almost enough to distract me from my anxiety about stepping into the house. I type in the door code, turn the handle, and step inside.
We leave my purse inside and focus on unwrapping and relocating the boxes of books from the pallet.
I wish I could muster the enthusiasm the gift deserves.
Mostly, I’m grateful that he’s given me an opportunity to keep my brain occupied.
By the time we’ve moved all the boxes indoors and gotten down to the business of sorting, I’ve almost forgotten the conversation I had with Dad.
Almost. At least I’m not crying anymore.
Camden rips into one of the boxes. His face immediately contorts in horror. “Um. What the fuck?”
“What?” I peer into the box. When I see the cover of the topmost book, I burst out laughing.
The image on the front shows an extremely muscular white guy—he’s got to be a bodybuilder—wearing an apron.
He’s brandishing a spatula with one hand and cradling a baby with the other.
The title is sprawled across the top in a font that looks like dripping paint: Cooking with Baby Batter.
“Is that… a cookbook with semen-based recipes?” My face heats up, but the concept is so far from sexy that I can’t help cackling.
Camden holds the book out at arm’s length. His eye twitches. “Yup.”
I reach for it. “Show me the recipes.” When he raises an eyebrow, I shrug. “What? I’m curious. What do you think he recommends?”
Without missing a beat, Camden says, “Jizzled pound cake.”
“Gross.” I cover my eyes. “I take it back. I don’t want to know.”
“Creamed egg salad sandwiches?”
“Camden!”
He chuckles. “Sorry. So, do you want me to set this aside for you?”
“Well, we can’t very well put it in a little free library.” I lower my hands. “And I’m afraid to offer it to anyone we know. Molly might keep it for herself.”
“We could give it to Viktor,” Camden suggests. “Ooh, no, never mind, I bet Knova would be into that. We could never eat anything either of them cooks ever again, just in case.”
I laugh again. “I bet Mom would—” The word Mom slips out before I can stop it, and my laugh folds in on itself. For one tortured second, the room feels hollow, like the world’s holding its breath.
Mom would want this as a book for her coffee table. She’d enjoy the startled expressions on her guests’ faces when they spotted the cover. But I’ll never get to share this book with her. I’ll never make another memory with her, good or bad, ever again.
“Dot?” Camden lowers the book.
“Sorry, I spaced out for a second. You can, uh, put that aside, and we can figure out who to torment with it later.” I play with the ends of my hair. “What else is in there?”
We get through three boxes before my stomach growls. Camden smiles and reaches for his phone. “We should get some food. How about…” His brow furrows.
I don’t know if I want to eat something familiar. I know my parents’ orders for most of the restaurants in the immediate area, so if we order from one of those places, I’ll know what they would want if they were here.
“There’s that new Brazilian place,” Camden suggests.
I let out a soft breath. “That sounds great. Order whatever, and we can split it.” I have no appetite, but I should eat, and at least whatever I eat tonight won’t be too emotionally charged.
“Are you in the mood for anything specific?”
“Not really. As long as there’s no—”
“No cilantro.” Camden gives me a thumbs-up. “You got it.”
Camden places an order. My brain feels like I put it through a pressure washer, so I migrate to the couch and turn on the TV.
“They don’t deliver here,” Camden says. “I’ve got to go pick it up. You gonna be okay here?”
“Of course,” I say. “It’s just a house.”