Chapter Thirty-Four. Wildfire
Chapter Thirty-Four
WILDFIRE
You were driven by your imagination, by your fantasies.
Writing had always manipulated her movements, like a king exercising his divine right.
The desire consumed; the need controlled.
And there were many moments over the years, while she existed in the mundane, when an idea struck.
She was the cartoon light bulb flickering alive, the match catching, the balloon popping under pressure.
Her worldview would shift, and her fingers would itch, clawing with desperation to put pen to paper. To breathe life into the magical moment playing behind her eyelids like a silent film, just waiting for her to compose the soundtrack that would make it three-dimensional.
Cam was experiencing another light bulb moment.
The match caught.
The balloon popped.
Danny held her face in his hands, his touch heated, his kiss frantic.
Hungry. Now his mouth was responsible for manipulating her movements, guiding her into a synchronous dance.
Their lips connected, their noses nudged, their breathing aligned.
They were mirror images, twin flames, consumed by every breath and burning second.
One hand steadied her jaw, the other soothed dried tears into her skin.
He was everywhere. Biting her bottom lip, teasing her with his tongue, steadying her against his vibrating body.
She was overwhelmed by him so close, by their mouths linked, by the scent of his familiar cologne and something so distinctly Danny.
Desperate for more, for everything, she threw her arms around his neck.
His hold dropped to her hips, and with the shift, she eliminated the distance between them, until every inch of her skin touched his.
Her hands explored him greedily, one plunging into his soft hair, the other caressing his face the same way he’d done to her.
It was blinding. It was the sun in her eyes.
It was the match, too hot to hold on to.
Cam ripped away from him, terrified of being burned. Her hands split in two directions: one clutched her chest, as if it could calm her frantically beating heart; the other gripped the soft cotton of his Beau’s T-shirt, a desperate attempt to keep him at least a few inches away.
Or was it a desperate attempt to hold on to him?
“We can’t keep doing that.” She could barely hear her own voice over the thud of her heartbeat in her ears. “Danny, we can’t.”
“Why not?” he cried. “Dammit, Cam, give me one good fucking reason!”
Her lips parted, each fear screaming inside her, hellhounds desperate to wreak havoc upon release. She swallowed the cries, even if every worry was neatly inventoried in her mind, somehow entirely rational yet completely illogical.
What if we don’t work out? What if this destroys our relationship?
What if I’m the one responsible for breaking up our friend group again?
“I need some air,” she begged, already rushing out the door.
Her steps were heavy, the weight of the evening holding her down. His kiss haunted her, the truth in his words mocked her.
Danny made everything seem so simple, that life was as easy as just going for it. But how could she? How could she walk away from a job that would allow her to chip away at her debt?
How could she embrace their connection without risking the sanctity of their friend group yet again?
It didn’t matter what she wanted. Only what she could lose.
“Cam!”
Danny was right behind her, but she didn’t slow her movements as she ran towards the beach. Her destination was the glittering ocean, as if the water would be her escape. But the closer she got to the shoreline, the slower she moved, until she came to a complete stop.
She was trapped between Danny and darkness.
“Cam!” he yelled. She wasn’t ready to face him just yet. “When will you stop being afraid of this? When will you finally give in to what you want instead of running away?”
She whipped around, lips quivering as she studied him from top to bottom.
His hair, messy from two sets of hands: one driven by frustration, the other by desire.
His eyes, heavy from exhaustion, like the night was draining him as much as it drained her.
His T-shirt, wrinkly from her frantic tugging.
“I’ll stop,” she cried, “when it’s not a risk I’m terrified of taking!”
Determined strides brought them toe to toe. “This isn’t a risk.” He swallowed, and a muscle in his jaw twitched. Exhaling, he said, “Cam, you asked if I ever cared about anything. The answer is yes. I cared about you.”
He watched her, blackened eyes shiny. “I love you. I have always loved you.”
She was frozen to the sand, haunted by his stare. His words. The phantom touch of his lips on hers.
Always?
“Fuck,” he whispered, plunging both hands into his hair.
He tugged at the strands, shaking his head.
“I wasn’t gonna do this right now, but fuck it.
Cam, I never let myself look at you for too long.
How could I? Within weeks of us meeting, you were all I could think about.
And all of freshman year, I was too nervous to do anything, too scared of rejection and messing with the friendship the five of us had formed.
But then summer came around, and the time apart made me realize how much I cared.
When we got back to school, I was gonna tell you how I felt. ”
She knew where his story was going. Because it was the summer after freshman year when she and Cory connected on a romantic level. They spent weeks texting, and FaceTiming, and when they returned to campus, flirtations turned into more.
They stayed that way until nearly graduation.
“Ultimately I didn’t, because you and Cory got together,” he continued.
“And it hurt, but I accepted your relationship. I respected it. You both were my friends, and I wasn’t gonna do anything to destroy that.
Our friendship came first, and yeah, sometimes it was really hard, but I was okay being the sidekick in your love story because you were happy and that was all that mattered.
“But then you weren’t happy. I always think about Tulum.
I think about finding you crying in the hotel lobby.
You were so sad, about Cory, about whatever the fuck was going on between Drew and Morgan.
And all I wanted was to see you smile again.
I was willing to do anything. I wanted to kiss away your tears.
I wanted to hold your hand while we explored.
I wanted to dance the night away in that beachside bar until neither of us could feel our feet. ”
Danny snapped his bracelet against his skin, and she was hypnotized by the colored strings twisting like a kaleidoscope.
She circled her wrist with her hand, angry at herself for the nakedness.
Angry at herself for relegating her bracelet to a key chain, and not wearing it as proof of how much she cared about him.
He lifted his head to the sky, flushed skin glowing in the moonlight.
“I’ve wanted to tell you for a long time, but I pushed it down.
I was worried about upsetting Cory, about messing up the group dynamics again.
But now…” His gaze dropped to hers and he wet his lips, pink catching between his teeth. “I’m tired of loving you from afar.”
“Danny…”
He smiled tightly, and she knew he misunderstood her silence. “I’m sorry,” he continued. “I didn’t mean to dump this on you tonight. I don’t like unloading years of feelings on you when you have so much you gotta figure out. But it was time you knew.”
Cam tried pushing through the million thoughts in her head, only able to get out: “I can’t be the one to mess us up again.”
“I love them,” he whispered. “Despite everything. I love Drew, even if he can be obnoxious as hell. I love Cory, even if he’s stupidly competitive. I love Morgan, even if she’s always one decibel too loud. But Cam, the truth is, I don’t give a fuck what they think because I love you more.”
Her stomach flipped, and at the first glimpse of tears in his eyes, she couldn’t breathe.
“And because of that,” he said, “I won’t stand in your way.
I know you feel this between us, but I can’t be your tether.
” He leaned forward and cupped her cheek, his thumb brushing away a fresh tear.
“I won’t hold you back while you figure out what’s best for you.
If that means taking the job in Boston, or putting them first, I’ll …
I’ll understand. Because the most important thing to me has always been your happiness. ”
“Danny.” She leaned into his touch, her vision blurred from tears, her body weightless from his love confession sucking up her gravity. “What am I supposed to say?”
“Don’t say anything.” His thumb trailed downward until it skimmed her bottom lip.
“I just wanted you to know. We’ll finish the summer, you’ll figure out what you’re doing next, and if you’ll have me…
” He pressed their foreheads together, his soft breath tickling her lips.
“Then I’ll spend every day showing you how much I love you. ”
Unable to help herself, she kissed him gently and dropped her head to his shoulder, immediately burrowing into his T-shirt. They remained on the sand, his arms around her, her sniffles washed away by the sound of the waves rolling ashore.
Danny loved her. And even though he made her heart soar, she was scared of letting herself love him. Scared of leaving for a future she didn’t like, scared of ruining the four-person reminder of the best years of her life.
Her entire summer in Elswick had been devoted to figuring out her story. Now, she knew what she wanted in her next chapter.
But she still had no idea how to write it.