Chapter Twenty Cameron
Chapter Twenty
Cameron
Sloane had gone back to work.
She said she still wasn’t ready, and maybe she wasn’t, but she went anyway. She pushed through the hesitation, ignored the voice in her head telling her she couldn’t do it. That took guts. I was so proud of her for that.
I knew how much it cost her to get out of bed some days, let alone walk into a place filled with people, with expectations. And even if she didn’t feel strong, that didn’t change the fact that she was.
She didn’t need to be perfect. She just needed to keep going. And she was.
There was something else happening lately, too. I could feel it, even if she never said it out loud. She was learning how not to hold on to me so tightly.
It showed in the small but meaningful things.
She didn’t panic anymore, not even before she decided to go back to work.
She didn’t cling to me when I dropped her off at Mom’s before leaving for work in the morning.
At night, she still reached for my hand before falling asleep, but her grip wasn’t as tight.
She let go after a moment, like she was slowly teaching herself how to breathe without me.
I knew this was the right thing. I had talked about it with my therapist, that the best thing I could do was let her move at her own pace, in whatever way felt safest for her.
Sloane was starting to smile at me now, and every time she did, it felt like I’d accomplished something huge, like I’d earned back a small piece of her trust. Honestly, that was more than I could ask for.
I won’t lie—I was afraid she might leave me. I’d hurt her deeply, and there was no undoing that. All I could do now was accept it, be there for her, and let her find her own way forward. Let her shine on her own.
Sloane was so busy today that I barely saw her.
On her first few days back, I kept looking for her between surgeries, worried something might go wrong.
But every time I checked, she was fine. More than fine, actually.
She kept her head down and stayed focused.
Being busy seemed to help. It gave her something to do with her hands, something to quiet her mind.
She still looked tired, but she was holding herself up, even if it took effort. I didn’t want to interrupt or hover. She was finding her rhythm again, and maybe that was what she needed—just enough space to feel capable, to find her way forward on her own.
I watched her from a distance, her soft laughter rising at something a nurse said. Seeing her smile made me smile too. I was genuinely happy for her. She was trying so hard to find her own happiness, and she deserved every bit of it.
“For God’s sake, stop staring at her,” Dean’s voice came from the right as he suddenly appeared. Then I noticed Ben closing in from the left. “It boggles me she didn’t just march over and tell you to stop looking.”
“Let him,” Ben said. “She’s gorgeous, and he should feel the pain of losing someone like her.” Then he turned to me fully. “How’s everything with you?”
“I’m fine,” I answered.
He scrunched his forehead. “How’s the therapy going?”
“Going well,” I replied.
“You sound exactly like Sloane used to,” he said, frowning.
“But I really am fine,” I said defensively. “The therapy has been good.”
“When I asked her the same question, she told me a lot more than you,” Ben said. “It’s like your personalities swapped or something. It’s weird.”
That made me turn to him. “What did she say?”
Ben looked surprised. “Did you ever ask her yourself?”
“Yes, of course. I followed all the advice my therapist gave me to the letter. She opened up more, especially about how she feels after counseling. I’m just surprised she’s willing to talk to someone else now.”
“Well, she told me she knows she treated you wrong all those years by pushing you away. She said she regrets letting her fear rule her and neglecting how you felt.”
“Really?” My eyebrows went up. “She actually said that to you?”
Ben nodded. “We were having lunch together, with Lina too. Lina was surprised, and honestly, both of us were left speechless.”
My eyes drifted to her as she walked toward one of her patients’ rooms until she disappeared from view. She really had changed for the better. She was trying so hard to build a better life.
“What are you thinking now?” Dean asked. I turned to him and saw the frown on his face. “You look like you’re about to do something stupid.”
Now I was the one frowning. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“You’re thinking that you’re scared you’re going to ruin it for her.”
My eyes widened. “Sometimes it freaks me out how well you can read my mind.”
He chuckled, but only for a second. Then his expression turned serious again.
“I’ve only got one thing to say—don’t decide for her. She knows what she wants and what she needs. If she needs you, be there. If she doesn’t, then don’t push it.”
“I’m always going to be there for her, Dean. Even when I left... she was still the first thing on my mind, no matter how hard I tried to push it away.”
“You’re both divorced now,” Ben said. Then he paused, looking thoughtful. “Honestly, I’m surprised you actually went through with it. Last time, you barely made it to the lawyer’s office, then you showed up at our place and were so distraught you threw up in our bathroom.”
“Yeah,” I grimaced. “I still threw up, though. But this time it was before, not after. I almost didn’t make it to the lawyer’s office.”
“But you couldn’t go through with it last time,” Ben said. “What changed?”
“Because I fucked up, Ben. Badly. She deserved happiness, and all I gave her was pain.”
“You know, she said the same thing,” Ben replied quietly, his gaze softening as he looked at me. “She told me she only ever gave you pain.”
He let out a breath, shaking his head. “You two blame yourselves so much. It’s like you’re both martyrs. Sometimes I want to shake the hell out of you—make you see how much you love each other.”
He paused, then added, “But you cheated on her. And yeah, I get it. You felt trapped in a marriage that wasn’t working, like there was no other way out. But still... you cheated.”
Ben’s voice dropped, gentler now. “I do hope you find your way back to each other someday. But not yet. Not until you’ve sat with the pain. Because maybe then, you’ll understand what she’s worth.”
He spun around dramatically and then walked away. Dean and I looked at each other.
“Does it scare you that he always says the right thing?”
“Yeah,” I nodded slowly.
“Cam,” Dean said, his tone serious. “Sloane, she’s your one. In this lifetime, she’s it. You realize that now, don’t you? There’s no one else who could ever take her place.”
He looked me straight in the eye. “So, think about it carefully. What do you really want? Are you going to fight for her and be what she needs, or stand back and watch her end up with someone else—and still be what she needs?” He paused, studying my expression.
“Because that’s exactly what you’re going to do, isn’t it?
Be there for her, but only from the sidelines. ”
He paused, lowering his voice. “She has to get past the hurt to come back to you truly, and after what you did, that’s not easy. But, Cam, she might not realize it yet—or maybe she does. You’re her one, too.”
I sat at the edge of the bed, watching as Sloane moved quietly around the room, going through her usual bedtime routine. She looked calm and composed now. There was no trace of the breakdown from before. I could only hope that what she showed on the outside matched what she felt inside.
It had been a week since my conversation with Ben and Dean, and their words still hadn’t left my mind, especially what Ben said about sitting with my pain. He was right. Even though I’d always known Sloane’s worth, I betrayed her in the worst possible way.
Sloane was my love. She always had been, and she always would be. I kept holding on to that. I knew how deep my disappointment had run—how I let it take over until it drove me to do something unforgivable. I didn’t know how she could ever move past it. I wasn’t sure anyone could.
But would I give up on her?
Would I really try to move on with someone else after already proving to myself how fucking pointless that was? Everything I kept telling myself made sense in my head, but not in my heart. It had always been Sloane. It would always come back to her.
I’ve discussed this a lot with my therapist. I’d come to realize that the way we depended on each other wasn’t healthy.
We held on so tightly that the fear of losing one another became overwhelming.
It scared us so much that we tried to protect ourselves by pushing each other away.
Sloane did it with her harsh words and cold distance.
I did it by turning to someone else, using her as a crutch, convincing myself it was the only way to escape the wreckage of our marriage.
Now, I was trying to be better for her. She was trying too, and I held on to the hope that maybe, somehow, things could get better between us.
No, I wasn’t going to give up on her.
But I also knew it had to happen on her terms, at her pace.
Still, we couldn’t keep avoiding this. We’d been tiptoeing around it for too long.
We needed to talk, really talk. I needed a chance to start over and earn her back, even if that meant accepting that for now she might want me out of her life, and that meant truly living with the reality of our divorce.
I closed my eyes for a moment and prayed I was doing the right thing, that I wasn’t about to blow everything up instead.
“Sloane,” I said, swallowing hard as the nerves began to creep in. “Can you sit with me for a minute?”
She was perched at the vanity, rubbing cream into her hands. When she turned to look at me, something in my face must’ve given me away because her expression changed. She nodded, stood up, and walked over to me.