Chapter 2
CHAPTER 2
AVERY
Camryn drives my car to the rented cabin, her phone spouting directions. “We’ll get my car later,” she explains, and I nod absently. The rain stopped a few minutes ago, and now the sun peeks from neutral clouds. She helps me carry in my bags, and Ruby’s things.
“Avery?” Camryn’s eyes are on Ruby as she sniffs every inch of the place. “You need to say something.”
I’ve yet to speak a full sentence. Mostly because I can’t locate enough words to form one.
“You’re scaring me.” Camryn’s using her authoritative voice, so I know she’s not actually scared. “Don’t hold it in. Whatever you’re feeling, you need to let it out.”
How can I explain my feelings? I cannot decide if I’m happy to see Gabriel, or devastated. I think I may be a little of both, along with everything in between. When did he get out of prison? Why didn’t anybody tell me? Shouldn’t I have received a call from… somebody? Doug, Corinne, Gabriel himself? Hi, it’s me. Just wanted to let you know I’m out, in case we run into each other in a small town up north.
“Whatever you’re experiencing over there”—Cam glances my way across the living room, eyeing me momentarily before looking out of the window to the trees that surround this place—“is acceptable. All of it. It’s not good or bad.”
“You sound like my therapist.” I’m trying to get a handle on my emotions, but they’re too damn hard to put my arms around.
“Whom you don’t see anymore,” Cam reminds me, as if to say, you’re cured, remember? Like I’m a solved problem instead of a work-in-progress.
“Who I might have to start seeing again, after that.” I thumb behind me, unsure if I’m pointing in the right direction. “Whatever that was.”
“That was your ex-husband building my wedding arch. Never knew he possessed woodworking talent.” Cam sounds breezy, but her throat undulates with a hard swallow. She loved Gabriel, too. Her fisted hands float in the air on either side of her face, and she unfurls her fingers at once. “Surprise,” she deadpans.
I slide a palm over my face, rubbing away one eyelid of shimmery brown eye shadow. “I hope that’s the last surprise I receive for a year.”
“Five years,” Cam amends.
“Ten,” I add. I sigh and bite my lip to keep from crying. When I’m certain the threat has passed, I say, “I keep seeing his face. The shock. And the way he followed me.”
Cam nods. “He went after you like he was shot from a cannon.”
“He touched me,” I murmur. The sting, the bite, the unbridled electricity of his touch, even in its absence it remains.
“I noticed.” Cam doesn’t sound happy.
“What did the owner—Joel?— say? About the way I ran out? And Gabriel coming after me?”
“He asked what the hell that was about. I told him you used to be married.”
Used to be married . I hate that sentence. I used to be young, and na?ve. By most accounts, I’m still young, but my na?veté has dissolved. I didn't know what could break a couple, the weight two people could be tasked with carrying. But Lord, I sure know now.
“Why was he there?” Cam asks.
I shrug. I have no idea. “He didn’t say.”
“He said something to you. He didn’t stand there, silent.”
I look out the window to the glistening pine trees. Like Gabriel’s touch, I feel his gaze and his words and his warm breath on that square of space beside my ear. Something stabs at my chest, and it hurts enough that I palm my skin. “He told me I’m still as beautiful as the day we met.”
Camryn frowns, disbelieving. She pats my shoulder and grimaces. “I love you, Avery, but you’re not at your best right now. You’re a little crying homecoming queen meets cat who fell in a swimming pool .” Camryn is a master at making jokes to avoid emotion.
“To be fair, I wasn’t at my best the day we met, either, so he’s not comparing it to much.” I walk to the mirror above the small table next to the front door.
Ugh. She’s right. I run my hands under my eyes, but the smeared mascara doesn’t budge.
Cam joins me at the mirror, looking at my reflection and saying, “Only Gabriel would find you physically attractive in your current state.”
“Don’t be a bitch.” I push away from the mirror.
She blows out a heavy breath. “Honestly, I don’t know what to say. All conversation is a landmine right now.”
I hear her padding down the hall behind me, following me to the main bedroom. She begins unpacking my largest suitcase, the one with all my clothes. I open a second, smaller bag.
It holds my toiletries, my notebooks, my favorite pens. And my laptop, which contains the first half of my manuscript.
Cam eyes the laptop. “Did you send your book to Jill?” She’s steering the conversation away from me and Gabriel, but it’s not going very far, considering the book is about everything that happened to us.
I heft the bag onto the bed. “I sent her what I had this morning before we left to come here.” Nerves twist around my stomach. Jill may very well hate what I wrote.
“Did you choose a title?”
“Not yet.” I poke at a freckle on the top of my left hand. “It’s a heavy decision. Makes me wonder how parents choose a name for a child.”
“For real.” Cam leans forward, her torso bumping the bed. “Read it to me.”
“You want me to read my book out loud to you?” Knots form in my stomach. It’s not your average I feel shy about what I wrote knots. It’s more This is my version of real events and you might not like it knots. There are some parts she won’t appreciate. Some parts she still doesn’t know.
Cam presses. “It’ll be like when we were kids and you wrote short stories and read them to me.”
“Except this one is based on real events.” There’s a bit of warning in my tone. I wrestled with writing this book at all, even when I had Gabriel’s permission.
“Look at it this way,” she reasons, placing the clothes in a drawer, “I’m going to read the book once it’s published anyhow. You might as well do me the honor of letting me hear it first.”
I can’t believe, after all the confusion and pain from seeing Gabriel, I’m almost smiling at my sister’s convoluted rationale. “It may never be published. It could be so bad, Jill will drop me as a client.” I close my eyes and press the pads of my fingers to them. “What if it’s awful?” Little bits of light spring across my vision, and I open my eyes.
Cam flops across the bed, one hand propped under her head. “What if it’s awesome?”
I stare at her for a moment, deciding if I’m ready to read my words out loud. If she hates it, at least she’ll be on the road soon and I won’t have to see her for two weeks. I tuck a pillow behind my back, cross my legs underneath me, and open my computer.
I glance at Cam, and she nods her encouragement for me to begin. “I have nowhere to be and nothing but time. Read to me.”
“We need to get your car from—” I almost said Gabriel’s .
Is that in my lexicon now? Gabriel has a physical place again?
“The woodworking shop,” I finish.
Cam eyes me. She knows what I nearly said. “It’s not going anywhere.”
I take a deep breath and open my mouth.
Here we go.