“What happened that day?” she asked, cutting him off yet again to take the focus off of her. Her tone softened when she clarified. “The day they took your dad away for good?”
His jaw dropped, but he snapped it shut before she looked at him with her huge eyes. His hand flew to his stomach, not expecting her to go there. Her gaze dropped to his hand and back to his eyes.
“Jesus, Cam…”
She sprang to a sitting position. “I’m sorry. I…I always wanted to know. The caseworker just said he was getting locked away for a long time. You were eighteen, but she came to our house anyway, and asked if we’d take you in until you finished high school.”
He ran a hand over his face, but the images wouldn’t disappear. He was expecting honesty from her, she deserved his. Maybe talking about his past would take the pain away. Or much, much worse, show her just how bad it still hurt.
He swallowed, praying he wouldn’t cry and make an ass of himself. “Remember my birthday that year? You and Heather came by the house with a gift. A new shirt and a cake.” She didn’t answer, so he looked at her, seeing the only person he’d dare to tell this to. “I don’t even remember what kind of cake…”
“Strawberry shortcake,” she said. “I remembered it was your favorite, so Heather and I made one.”
“It was my first and only birthday cake.”
Her eyes bulged. “Excuse me?”
“Dad wasn’t domestic.” He shrugged it off, like everything else. “His memory wasn’t great either, especially on Christmas and birthdays.”
“But we celebrate your birthday every year at home.”
“Without a cake. My request of your mother.”
She looked around the room, not seeing anything, but trying to remember. He could tell just by watching her that the gears were turning. While she was distracted, he blurted out the rest.
“He shot the cake with a hunting rifle and blew a hole clean through the new blue shirt before raising the gun on me. A neighbor heard the shots and called the police.”
Her hands fisted in the sheets. “I almost got you killed?”
Leave it to her to conclude that by this conversation. “No,
he
almost killed me. You played no part in his drunken tirades. The whole year had been building to that point. He’d been drinking more than ever. I had enough sense to run to my bedroom, but he followed. It was the stupidest thing I could’ve done. He saw the things your family had given me through the years. I tried to save them instead of myself.”
She clutched the sheet to her chest, tears spilling onto her pale cheeks. “What things did you try and save? What was more important than running away, Troy?”
She’d never understand, no one would, yet he told her anyway. “Fisher’s old tackle box from the first time we went fishing. The Christmas ornaments from Heather. A book Nana gave me.”
A little blue Matchbox truck from you, which I still, to this day, carry in the glove compartment of my car.
Slowly, her head shook. “You don’t think we would’ve been mad, do you? You’re more important than some stupid stuff.”
“They weren’t stupid. Not to me.”
As her tears dried, recognition dawned. He should’ve known Cam would understand. Never underestimate her, never. Perhaps this was why he never talked about it, so she didn’t feel that kind of fear and emptiness too. She stared at him so long he felt like he was ten again and trying to be strong in front of her. When he looked down, her hands were shaking.
“Because they were the only nice things someone did for you, so you tried to save them,” she said, her voice flat. “It was bad, wasn’t it? Worse than I ever thought. What did he do, Troy? I want to know.”
This game was getting out of control. “No, you don’t.”
Her beautiful cherubic face transformed into a hardened, sad version he wanted erased. To never see on her again. “Tell me.”
He rubbed the back of his neck, trying to find a way to tell her without reliving it. “It started with food. He’d hold it over me for control. Not feed me as punishment. Stupid things like not wearing a hat to school or leaving toothpaste in the sink. When I got old enough, he’d punch or hit instead, often with whatever was available. There was usually no reason for those outbursts. Sometimes it would only be a few hits, sometimes I couldn’t stand after. If I yelled, it was worse. He was smart enough not to leave bruises where anyone would see, that’s how he got away with it for so long. One day, he went too far and broke my arm. Social Services stepped in, and I was dropped off on your doorstep.”
When silence filled the room, he finally looked at her, expecting pity or contempt. Instead, he found tears again. Hers and…his. He swiped a hand over his face.
“I should’ve done more,” she whispered.
The tremor in her voice had him stumbling to stop his tears. “No.”
She looked him straight in the eye and must’ve seen something in his expression. She tried to subdue a sob, but couldn’t. As her tears pooled and fell, his chest cracked watching her. “I should’ve done more, Troy.”
“You did everything,” he said, grabbing her arms and shaking her. “Don’t you get it? I was damn lucky compared to most. It’s rare to be placed with the same foster family. In the end, I think I spent more time at your place than mine. Your parents took me in, gave me a home. Your brother was the first friend I ever had. Heather drove me crazy, finally having a little sister around to bug me and help me forget. She made me feel normal. And you…”
Oh, Camryn. She didn’t even know how much she meant to him. There were no words.
“Me?”
Yes, her. “You got my ass out of bed and made me go to school. You helped me with homework. You made me sandwiches and…and never told anyone the things you saw or heard. You told me I could do things, made me think I was somebody.”
That was the damndest part. Camryn made him feel like a somebody, when inside he was just no one. The only time in his life he felt worthy of anything was when she was around. He’d spent the better part of his life in pursuit of that feeling, only to realize now she was the reason for it. He let go of her arms and sat back.
He never should’ve touched her in the first place.
“That’s what this list is about, isn’t it, Troy? Payback for being nice to you? Some twisted form of thanks?”
Yes. No. Partly.
It may have started out that way, but it wasn’t why he was doing it now. “No. And don’t you pity me now.”
“Troy…”
She swallowed, reaching out and cupping his cheeks, her hands so warm compared to how cold he’d become. The pads of her thumbs swiped the remnants of tears, reminding him of just how weak his father could still make him feel. Leaning over, she kissed each cheek, and as her lashes fluttered across his face, he had the sickening thought that this was as good as it would get for him. A temporary someone like Cam who could cry for him freely, but was ashamed to for herself. Who thought only of him and not herself.
Someone who took the cold away.
No one had ever cried for him before. “Cam, stop crying. Please.”
Her fingers clutched his biceps as she pressed a kiss to his chest, right over his heart. He closed his eyes and slid his fingers into her hair.
“I don’t pity you,” she said. “I’m killing your bastard father in my head.”
The painful knot in his gut began to loosen, his throat not so tight. “What?”
She looked at him, the pillar of poise he was used to seeing from her before this trip. “It’s what I do.”
“You kill people in your head?”
She smiled, and the knot disappeared. “No. When situations get overwhelming, I envision things in my head so I can’t overreact.”
Now that explained a lot. “Give me an example.”
She stared at his chest. “When Maxwell broke up with me, I wanted to cry, but instead I pictured him with horns and hooves. It always works.” She looked at him. “Except with you.”
Huh. “Why not with me?”
She shrugged. “Your stupid list, I guess. Or you…”
He wondered if it worked before the list, but even he wasn’t sure he was ready for the answer. “Or what?”
“Or you just bother to look deeper. See past my defense,” she said.
“For the record, Maxwell was wrong about what he said to you.”
She shook her head, closed her eyes. “Whose turn is it?”
“Mine,” he said, wanting to turn this back on her. “Where did you get this image of yourself? Why the walls and pretending to be composed?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe watching Heather cry her way out of everything as a child. Or disgust for these women who refuse to stand on their own, spending more time worrying about eye shadow and fall colors than the six o’clock news.”
“I get your independence and intelligence, Cam. In fact, I respect it. But why the walls?”
Looking down, she shrugged again. “I grew up hearing nothing but how beautiful Heather was. How handsome Fisher was. When your friends come over just to drool over your brother, and your prom date spends the night hitting on your sister, then leaving with someone else, it does things to a girl’s head.”
How did he not know this? Right under his face and still no clue.
“Where’s your mother?” she asked.
He almost got whiplash. “Um, she went to prison when I was two. For prostitution. She died of an overdose there.”
“Do you remember her?”
“No.” And perhaps that’s why he had no feelings on the subject. “How many men have you been with?”
Troy had no idea where the question came from, or why he asked, but suddenly he had to know if every guy treated her like Maxwell had. If any of them bothered to show her love, or whether they just walked out like her damn high school prom date.
“Two.”
“Two,” he repeated, the concept foreign. “Two including me?” Oh God, could it be he was only the second person she’d been with?
“Three, including you.”
With the sheet around her, she got up and walked across the room, grabbing her panties off the floor. After slipping them on, she went in search of pajamas. She only bothered with the shirt, leaving the boxers on her bag. While he watched, she hung her dress in the closet, and climbed back in bed to lie on her side, facing him.
“Did you love either of them?” he asked, laying down and facing her. He propped his head on his hand.
“Both. I don’t have sex unless…” She stopped short and slapped a hand over her mouth. “Well, I guess I do have sex without love. Or just this time. I mean, I don’t love you. You know, not like that.”
If he wasn’t so amused at her babbling he might’ve been insulted. And hurt. “Not like what?”
“Not like car shopping and sharing a bank account kind of love.”
He stared at her. This list was either teaching her nothing, or she was lying. “Don’t you mean happily ever after and two point five kids?”
“How do you have point five kids?”
“Is that your next question?” he asked, smiling. He liked this side of her, just before she fell asleep, when her voice was lulling, her eyes heavy, and she smiled without thought. She was so lovely it hurt.
“No. Did you love any of the women you slept with?”
Before he could answer, her eyes drifted closed. In seconds she was asleep. He watched her, a thousand thoughts swimming through his head, none of them appropriate or sound where he and Cam were concerned.
Facts were facts, and feelings were feelings. He’d gone and fallen in love with her. He’d probably been in love with her all along.
He wasn’t most men. The thought didn’t scare him into a blind panic. But it did make him want this list to work. Needed this list to work. Because otherwise, Cam would continue down her same sensible path of life she always had before, and marry someone who didn’t love her an eighth of how much he did. She wouldn’t know how precious a gift love truly was.
And he’d go back to dating woman after woman, hoping one of them might make him feel a semblance of how she made him feel. She’d wind up becoming the one who got away, the one he never got over. Like some Hemmingway poem.
He’d waited almost thirty years to finally feel like this, knowing it existed and wanting nothing more than to get there. And he fell for Camryn.
Here he was, a nobody pretending to be a somebody, and her, a someone pretending to be a no one. He lived his life day by day because that’s all he could handle, and she planned everything down to what color underwear to wear on Thursday.
Glancing down, he smiled. Purple underwear today. Very nice.
Slowly, to not wake her, he lifted the sheet and draped it over her, then did the same with a blanket, tucking it under her chin. He brushed a strand of hair away from her cheek, letting his fingertips linger when it didn’t disturb her.
Closing his eyes, he shook his head. “I only loved one of them.”
Chapter Fifteen
Life Lessons According to Camryn:
Other people’s opinions should matter, just not to you.
Camryn pulled a batch of blueberry muffins from the oven and set another in to bake. After a few hours of fitful sleep, she gave up trying at three and came downstairs.