Chapter Thirty-Five #4
“Life isn’t weighted, sweetheart. It’s not more important to be happy when you’re old, or to have something good later on.
We don’t know what’s going to happen. And we don’t get to decide.
All we can choose is who we do it with.” Quieter, Elaine adds, “I’m glad I chose your dad.
And if she makes you happy now, that’s reason enough to see this through. ”
Vivian’s voice chimes in, softly. “It’s good for you, Cammy.”
Campbell’s voice is gravel. “What is?”
“Taking the risk,” Vivian says. “Letting something into your life that could decimate you, and keeping faith that it won’t.”
It’s too much. I push myself out of the hallway, and Campbell lurches up from his chair.
“I’m going to the hotel,” I say, a little too loudly. I feel unsteady and conspicuous, like I’ve overstepped in every single way. Elaine rises from the table, still holding Josie’s flowers.
“Don’t be silly,” she says. “You’ll stay here. There’s plenty of room.”
Before I can reply, Campbell says, “I’ll walk you.”
His eyes are red and glassy. When he swallows, steadying, I want to reach for him and hide his face against my body.
Hug his head into my shoulder and tuck my fingers through his hair.
I feel, watching Campbell choke back tears in the house where he grew up, that I’d risk anything for any part of a life with him.
But the choice is his to make, now. I smile at his mom and force my voice steady. “Thank you so much for including me, today. I had a really lovely evening.”
Elaine’s eyes flit to her son, then back to me. “It was our pleasure to meet you, Mattie.”
Vivian stands and folds me into a hug. She gives Campbell one last, long look before we step out, together, into the night.
“It’s better this way,” he says. He holds the gate open for me with one hand and rubs his eyes with the other.
I slip past him, missing every lost centimeter of his touch when our bodies don’t brush against each other.
It’s cool out, now, a salt-sharpened breeze coming in off the water.
“If you stayed at the house, I’d do something stupid. ”
I look over at him as we cut down the driveway. His tuxedo jacket is gone, his bow tie undone and loose around his neck. He’s unbuttoned the top few buttons of his dress shirt, and I can see the white T-shirt he’s wearing underneath, thin and soft.
“Like what?” I ask. I want him to reach for me, bring me back inside.
I want to kiss the wet corners of his eyes, and I want him to brush a fingertip over that spot on my nose, and I want his hands on my skin through the open back of my dress.
I want him to call me baby in the dark, disappearing space between our bodies.
But Campbell only meets my gaze and shoves both hands in his pockets. “Use your imagination.”
“I don’t want to,” I say, quiet. I stop in the middle of the street.
There are no cars, no streetlamps, hardly any light at all.
Just the ocean at the other end of the sand and the moon hanging full above it.
“I want you to tell me. I want you to do it, actually, whatever stupid thing you want to do.”
Campbell looks at me and it’s awful. He looks grief-stricken, maybe even scared. He reaches for me, but it’s only to take my purse and my shoes from my hands. “Get out of the road,” he says, lowly. “Please.”
I follow him the rest of the way to my motel in silence. Just his footsteps in those dress shoes, the ocean rasping at the shore. My bare arms are covered in goose bumps. When we get to my door, Campbell holds my things between us until finally, reluctantly, I take them.
“Come in,” I say. I could hold him. Just on the other side of this door, just the two of us, we could fix all this.
“Mattie.” He sounds like he’s begging. For once, I can’t stand it. “I can’t.”
“You can.”
I step toward him, brush my fingertips over his bruised forehead and into his hair. His eyes fall shut. It was an easy walk, but he’s breathing hard.
“I don’t want to decimate you, Campbell.”
His eyes draw open, deep and liquid in the dark. He whispers, “Already did, French.”
Then he kisses my cheek. His mouth is hot and familiar and gone too fast.
He leaves before I can say a single other thing, disappearing down the beach with his hands in his pockets.
That night I lie awake listening to the ocean. Flat on my back in bed, every light off, blue moon through the thin curtains. There is no sound machine and no mulberry silk. There’s only the rush of the tide, and the heaviness at the base of my throat that makes it hard to breathe.
I think of all the nights I’ve spent in a hotel room by the sea.
I think of my forehead pressed to the wall between my room and Campbell’s, and I think of his body under mine on a patio by the water, and I think of every part of him he showed to me in spaces that—when I close my eyes—aren’t so different from this one.
I think of how lucky I was, to hold all that in my hands.
I think, Maybe it was worth it just to feel that way for as long as I got to.
And then it rises in me, a sure and solid knowing: It was worth it. Even if I’ll be decimated by it now.
I’m still awake when the sun finally rises over the water.