Chapter 43 Camden
FORTY-THREE
CAMDEN
My heart has shattered into a million pieces. Jagged little things that will never find their way back together.
This is it. This is the point of no return. Over the years, it’s been sliced and bruised, but the damage could be patched up. Now, after this, it’s irreparable.
I really thought I’d found it. Happiness. Fuck, I even silently thanked Tara for breaking me, because if she hadn’t, I wouldn’t have found the love of my life.
Only the love of my life is Tara’s daughter.
Her fucking daughter.
I hold up a hand, getting the bartender’s attention.
He saunters over, a brow cocked. “You sure you should have more?”
I toss a handful of hundreds on the bar. “Leave the bottle and keep your opinions to yourself.”
With a shake of his head, he drops the bottle of brown liquid next to my tumbler. Then he slides the money his way and wanders off.
I don’t even bother pouring the whiskey into the glass. I just tip it back, take a swig, and drop it onto the mahogany. Then I pick up my phone.
Chest aching, I reread the last message I sent.
Me: I can’t do this. I’m sorry. You should go back home.
That was hours ago.
Maybe yesterday. I have no fucking idea what time it is. I considered getting on a jet. Flying away. But where the hell would I go?
Instead, I parked myself on a stool at the airport bar. It never closes. Just goes from lunch to dinner to late night…to breakfast, I think? Is that next? Yup, the sun is coming up. Fuck.
And not a peep from Savannah. So it’s done. She knows. I’m sure she fucking knows. She’s probably seen Tara by now. They’ve put together the truth.
That’s why she texted that we needed to talk. Why she called so many damn times.
But I can’t see her. If I do, I’ll fold. I’ll sweep her back into my arms and do whatever I can to make peace with the idea that Tara’s daughter is the woman I want to be my wife.
Wife.
I take another swig of whiskey. Then I tap on her contact and hit Delete. There. It’s done. It’s over.
Fuck, it’s hard to breathe.
But it’s better this way. There’s a chance I could have worked past the truth, but how the fuck could I ever ask my sister to accept it?
What Tara and Jeremy did destroyed our family.
It cost us years. Forced my sister to leave.
Led her to a situation where she had to sell her goddamn body for a living.
With anger burning in my chest, I down the last of the bottle’s contents. It does nothing to dull the ache, though.
“All right, you’ve had enough,” the bartender says. “Is there someone I can call?”
A sharp, short laugh bursts out of me. “Nah, I’ve got no one.”
I clutch the stupid empty bottle, heft it in one hand, then reel back and throw it against the wall.
“Camden Fucking Snow, I cannot believe you.”
My head pounds, the familiar high-pitched voice too loud. I smell like death and piss, and I just want to go back into the damn cell.
“Why are you here?”
My sister fists her hands on her hips and huffs. “Good question, since you’re not the one who called me after you got arrested.”
I can’t open my eyes without being hit with piercing pain. That’s good. I don’t think I could look at her right now anyway.
“You can thank this nice officer. You’re lucky he was a fan of yours when he was a kid. When you refused to use your one phone call, he called your emergency contact—me.”
“That’s a total violation of privacy,” I mutter, head bowed.
“Oh, you want to file a complaint against the cop who got you bailed out of jail?” She smacks me on the back of the head, then stomps to the door.
I force myself to straighten and survey the group of officers milling nearby, witnessing our interaction.
By some miracle, I manage to summon some common sense and decency.
“Thanks for getting me out,” I say to the group, not knowing which one helped.
“I’ll drop off some signed merch from the team next week. ”
One of the guys lights up. “Could you get me a puck signed by JJ Hanson? And a jersey from Hawke?”
I nod, the movement sending another bolt of agony through my head, and close my eyes. “Yeah, no problem.”
“What time is it?” I ask my sister as we step out into the brutally cold February day.
“One,” she says, dropping my phone and wallet into her purse.
“And what day is it?” I ask, keeping my gaze on the sidewalk in front of me.
She glares at me. I still can’t look at her, but I can feel her ire. “Tuesday.”
“Fuck.”
“Yeah, fuck. What the fuck were you thinking?”
She pulls up short and digs through her purse. “Why are we stopping here?”
“Because I need to order a fucking Uber. I didn’t have a car, and your car is MIA.”
“It’s at the airport,” I tell her.
She huffs. “One more thing to deal with.”
“I’ll have one of the guys drop me off there later.”
She ignores me, tapping away at her phone screen.
“I know we need to talk,” I say, “but can I shower and eat something before you tell me what a complete disappointment I am?”
“Yup.”
It takes several minutes for the rideshare to arrive. We spend the time standing side by side in silence.
No matter how hard I try, I can’t stop thinking about Savannah. I haven’t seen her in three days. She probably hates me. I don’t blame her. I hate myself.
She’s better off without me. They’d all be better off without me. My sister included.
Cora doesn’t even sit in the back of the car with me when it pulls up. I settle behind the passenger seat, my head against the window, and she gets in the front and keeps up a friendly conversation with the driver the whole way.
When we pull up to my house, I take in the facade of the place that, only a few days ago, I thought we’d raise a family in. I thought we’d be engaged this week. That when my sister arrived, we’d celebrate. That we’d be planning a wedding.
Maybe she’s here. Maybe she didn’t leave when I told her to go home.
With a burst of hope, I stagger out of the car and take the steps two at a time. I type in the code for the front door and throw it open.
“Savannah? Baby girl?” I rush past the kitchen.
“Savannah?” Upstairs, I dart down the hall toward my bedroom.
When I pass the open door to the guest room, I pull up short, and the pieces of my shattered heart disintegrate further.
Because the room that was filled with all her boxes is completely empty.
She’s really gone.
“She’s not here,” Cora says when she finds me still standing in the empty bedroom.
I nod.
“What happened?” Her voice is soft. Too kind. I don’t deserve it.
Head hanging, I squeeze my eyes shut, fighting back the tears.
She cups my shoulder and squeezes. “Go shower. I’ll order lunch, and then you can fill me in. We’ll figure this out.”
“There’s no figuring this out.” I cough out a painful laugh. “Tara ruined everything. And then I pissed all over it and lit it on fire.”
“I can’t believe she’s Tara’s daughter,” Cora says for probably the fifth time since I finished telling her the whole sordid story.
“So you’ve said.” I take a bite of the burger my sister had delivered and bite back a moan. Fuck, that’s good.
“So how are you going to fix this?”
I freeze mid-chew and snap my head up. “Fix what?”
“Your relationship with Savannah. You went off the deep end when you found out, right? And now she’s pissed at you? So how are you going to fix it?”
“She’s Tara’s daughter. There is no fixing it.”
Cora’s lips turn down as she studies me. “But you love her.”
The place in my chest where my heart used to be pangs. “Yeah, and? I can’t be with her. She’s Tara’s fucking child.”
“You really need to stop saying that. It’s not like she’s your daughter.”
I drop my burger and pound a fist against the table. “But she could have been.”
My sister’s head snaps back and her eyes go wide. “Whoa. Calm down before you have a heart attack.”
Maybe I should listen to her. My chest feels like someone is sitting on it. I can barely get a breath in.
“How am I supposed to calm down? For the first time in my life, I had it all. I was in love. And I found a woman who truly loved me back. I’ve never felt like this before, Cor.
Savannah was”—I suck in a deep breath, ignoring the pain that comes with it—“is everything to me. I thought I’d finally found her.
I finally understand what all my friends have been talking about for years.
And now to find out that she’s her daughter?
That she’s part of the reason you ran away—”
Cora throws a hand up. “No.” She shakes her head.
“We aren’t doing this. We aren’t going to blame an innocent woman.
She had nothing to do with her parents’ decisions.
Or ours. Jeremy was an asshole.” She sucks in a long, angry breath and closes her eyes.
“And Tara is the worst. But they don’t get to control any more of our story.
Or hers.” Her shoulders lower a bit, her usual calm, confident demeanor returning.
“Because it sounds like they were even worse than we thought they were, and she is stuck with them for parents. Doesn’t she deserve to be happy?
” She tilts her head, her brow furrowed.
“Take you and me out of the equation. Does Savannah deserve to have another person disappoint her? Another person to let her down?”
The thought of Savannah having to deal with all of this bullshit alone kills me. It’s like being tossed into the ocean during a storm. She doesn’t have family to rely on. No mother or father to pick up the pieces.
My mother may hate me when she’s lucid and be confused when she’s not, but at least I have Cora. Savannah has no one. No sibling to help her shoulder the burden of being brought into this world by hateful parents. No reprieve from that sadness.
And I just turned my back on her.
I push back from the table. “Fuck.”
“Exactly,” Cora says. “So how are you going to fix this? Maybe you’re right. Maybe you don’t deserve her after the way you’ve acted, but doesn’t she deserve you? Doesn’t she deserve to be loved?”