Chapter 29
Chapter twenty-nine
ASSIGNING MYSELF THE BLAME
Delaney is dead?
My limbs fill with lead as his words sink in. How could that be? She was alive not ten minutes ago, as she hurled insults at us and said she was going to leave as a result of our actions. And now she is just . . . gone?
Even as I brace myself against the onslaught of grief, a small part of me is not entirely surprised. Until this weekend, I have lived for years with the fear of bad things waiting for me around every corner, and only this past week have I tried to switch that around to look for the good instead.
Clearly, that was a mistake, and the more it sits with me, the more Delaney’s death feels like an inevitability. Like I subconsciously knew that the other shoe was going to drop at some point.
I scoff at my own naivety that, just minutes ago, I thought that fate brought Cameron and me together as some sort of gift. As if I could somehow have this trip, my nephew, and him in my life when, thus far, I have had no more than a few fleeting moments of contentment.
The depth of my anguish is reflected in Cameron’s eyes as he sinks down against the wall into a seated position on the floor.
As terrible as I am feeling, I know that he has it even worse.
His eyes focus just enough to connect with mine, and for that brief moment, we speak everything that we are thinking without having to say a word.
There’s a knock on the door, and I turn away from Cameron to look at it, dumbstruck.
How can life continue with something as mundane as a knock at the door when our lives as we know them are crumbling all around us?
When I look back down at Cameron, he is staring vacantly at a spot across the room.
The door opens after we ignore the second knock, and Ollie peeks his head inside.
“Hey, Drew. Now that the power is back on, Val and I are going back to the game room if you—” He stops as soon as he follows my line of sight down to where Cameron sits with his head in his hands, bracing his elbows on his knees. “What’s wrong with Cam?”
“It’s Delaney,” I say weakly.
“Don’t tell me she came after you guys again?”
I shake my head, and Ollie’s brow furrows.
“Then what? She left already? Good riddance, honestly.”
I wince at his choice of words.
“Drew, what’s going on?”
I swallow to push down the lump in my throat and say the awful, terrible truth. “She’s dead.”
“What?” Ollie looks wildly between us. “How? Where . . .”
“I don’t know,” I admit, as I realize that I should have asked Cameron those same questions myself.
Instead, I just accepted it and immediately moved on to assigning myself the blame.
“Cameron went to check in with her about the generator, and then when he came back, he said that she was gone. He’s soaked, so I think he may have found her in the pool. ”
“Oh my God,” Ollie says, incredulously, then kneels in front of Cameron. “Talk to me, Cam. What happened?”
Cameron remains still as a statue.
“I think he’s in shock,” I say.
“We need to call an ambulance. The police,” Ollie says, as he shoots up and spins around in a circle as if the answer is hidden somewhere in my room and turns back to me when he doesn’t find it. “Have you called 9-1-1 yet?”
“No,” I admit, as even more guilt piles on top of the endless amount I am already dealing with.
“I’ll handle it,” he says, holding out a hand for me to stay where I am, like an adult stepping up in a crisis involving children. “I am going to go find Delaney, and I need you to call Cam’s brother, Jalen. Give me your phone.”
It takes as much strength as I can muster to make my body respond to his request, but I manage to shuffle to my bed to grab it from where I left it on top of the comforter.
Ollie is right behind me when I turn around and already has the contact up on his phone to transfer it swiftly to mine. He hits the green call button.
“Tell him we’re at Ravenwood and that his brother needs him right away.” He pushes the phone back into my hand and I stare down at it blankly as it rings.
Ollie places his hands on my shoulders. “I know this is terrifying, but I need your help. We need Jalen to come here. Do this for Cameron, please.”
I nod weakly, and he lets go of my shoulders to head towards the door. Before he slips into the hallway, he pauses to add, “It’s going to be okay, Drew. I promise.”
His use of the phrase works to snap me out of my daze, but not for the reason he intended.
When things continually go wrong in your life, the cliché words that people say in an attempt to be comforting tend to produce an involuntary recoil, even though you know deep down they mean well.
And, “It’s going to be okay,” is one of the worst. Especially for me, when I’ve already accepted that my curse is going to make sure that nothing is ever going to truly be okay for me as long as I live.
At least the situation didn’t warrant the use of the absolute worst phrase of all, which is that, “Everything happens for a reason.” I’d heard that so much after my dad died that I had to start physically biting my tongue to keep from pointing out to people that it was hard to find comfort in the thought that both of my parents died for a reason, when the reason was me.
I am pulled from my own self-loathing when the call connects, and I will my hands to work so that I can click the speaker button.
“Hello?” Cameron’s brother repeats. “This is Jalen James, attorney at law. How can I help you?”
Cameron lifts his head, dazed. “Jalen?”
“Cameron, is that you? What number is this?”
“Cameron needs you,” I say, when it becomes clear that he is still too stunned to string together words. “Can you come, please?”
“Tell me where he is.”
“We’re at Ravenwood.”
“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
The call ends without Jalen needing any further explanation, and his readiness to come without needing a single detail reminds me of how Scott always comes to my rescue without hesitation, too, and how he has saved me from myself more times than I can count.
It hits me then that Scott won’t be able to save me this time, though, because he is in the middle of welcoming his baby to the world.
I’m going to have to find the strength within myself to handle this tragedy on my own, because after everything that I’ve already taken away from him, there is no way in hell that I am going to add missing out on the birth of his first child to the list.
I make a vow to myself right then and there to keep Scott and Gabe insulated from this, because if either of them got wind of something going awry, they would drop everything to come help me. I can’t allow that to happen, no matter the cost.
“Drew,” Cameron murmurs, reminding me that I need to be strong for him too.
“I’m here.” I drop my phone to the ground to kneel in front of him.
I put my hands on his knees to anchor both of us, and his brow furrows as he looks at them, then up to my face, as if he’s not sure he can believe his eyes.
“I’m right here, Cameron.”
His jaw tightens, and he blinks rapidly to keep the sorrow from spilling over.
I shift to sit next to him against the wall and tuck myself into his side to wait until Jalen arrives and can take over.
His wet clothes instantly dampen the side of my body that is pressed against him, but I welcome the distraction, because fighting off the chill that threatens to settle in my bones keeps my mind off the grim reality of what lies ahead: the aftermath of Delaney’s death, and having to end whatever this is between Cameron and I before it even had a chance to get started.