The shock on her face couldn’t be more evident. Her mouth drops open and her eyes widen as she shakes her head at me.
“But…Everett? Really? I mean, I always wondered if he had a thing for you, but I never thought you felt the same. He was always such a troubled young man and then he leaves and doesn’t even come home for Aiden’s funeral. I’m sorry, Cameron, I just don’t trust him.”
It takes everything in me not to yell at my mother and cause a scene in front of everyone. I take a step closer to her and speak with barely concealed anger and disappointment.
“Didn’t your own mother hate Dad so much that she had him sent off to war, where he was tortured for five years and almost killed? You should understand what it’s like to be unfairly judged. Please, don’t fault him for the things he did when he was younger. You don’t know anything about him now. You don’t know how much he went through helping all those people overseas or the kinds of horrors he saw. You don’t know how much he struggles every day not to break down from those memories,” I tell her, taking a minute to swallow back my tears before I continue.
My mother and I look so much alike that we’re often confused for sisters instead of mother and daughter. She has the same long, strawberry blond hair, the same piercing green eyes with thick lashes, the same slim build and long legs. Suddenly, I don’t feel like I’m looking in a mirror when I look at her. I see sadness and regret on her face when I know mine is filled with anger and indignation on Everett’s behalf.
“This camp is still able to stay open because of him and what he did for me. He put his life on hold for me. He spent every waking moment of the last few weeks doing whatever he could so that the dream you and Dad started could keep going. I’ve been in love with him since I was thirteen years old. I thought I had it under control, I thought I had grown up and moved on, and then suddenly he’s back, and all of those same feelings, all of those same wants and needs, are screaming at me to do something about it. To finally tell him how I feel, how I’ve always felt, and hope to God he feels the same way, because I can’t do this without him. I can’t breathe without him.” I choke on a sob as my mother quickly closes the distance and wraps her arms around me.
She rocks me back and forth in her arms as I swipe the tears from my cheeks and get myself under control.
“I’m sorry. Oh, baby girl, I’m so sorry. You’re right. You’re absolutely right. I’m an idiot and a hypocrite and you have every right to be pissed at me,” she says, pulling back to help me wipe a stray tear off my cheek. “My mother kept me away from your father and it was the one of the darkest times in my life. I swore I’d never do that to you. I swore I’d never judge anyone who wanted to love you and cherish you. I guess I’m just in shock. I always saw the way he looked at you, but never the other way around. You are my whole world, Cameron. You are a piece of my heart, living and breathing outside of my body, and I just don’t want you to get hurt. I saw what his leaving did to you all those years ago, and I just don’t want you to ever hurt like that again.”
Her explanation makes me feel better. At least now I know that she doesn’t actually hate Everett; she’s just worried for me.
“I know. I don’t want to get hurt like that again either, and you just have to trust that I know what I’m doing. Sort of,” I tell her with a small laugh and a deep breath. “I was good at hiding the way I felt about Everett for a long time, but I’m tired of hiding. The camp is going to be fine, I just don’t know if I am. Were you afraid to tell Dad how you felt when you were younger?” I ask her, staring out at the sea of people laughing and enjoying the food and music all around us.
“Terrified,” she laughs. “Telling him gave him power. The power to love me back more fiercely than I’d ever known, or the power to break me harder than anything I’d ever suffered before.”
She turns back to face me, pressing her hands against either side of my face.
“No one gets anywhere in life without taking risks, baby girl. What scares you more? Telling him how you feel and getting rejected, or keeping it to yourself and spending the rest of your life wondering?”
“I’m tired of wondering. I can’t do it anymore,” I whisper, staring up at the soft smile on her face.
“Then you have your answer. Telling your dad I was in love with him was like jumping off a cliff. Scary and exciting all at the same time. Take the leap. From everything you’ve said about him, I have a feeling he’ll be there to catch you when you land.”
She leans toward me and gives me a kiss on the cheek, then walks away in search of my father. There’s a crowd of people, but some of them are moving to the dance floor, and I have a clear view of the opposite side of the tent, where the main doorway is leading into the dinner. My heart stutters in my chest when I see Everett walk inside the tent.
It’s been a long time since I’ve seen him in something other than jeans or shorts and a T-shirt, and I’d almost forgotten how breathtakingly handsome he is dressed up. Since this year’s event has a more relaxed dress code, I made sure everyone invited knew that tuxedos and ball gowns were not necessary like in previous years. As much as I would have liked to see Everett in a tuxedo again, watching him walk into the room in a pair of straight-leg black pants, white button-down with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows, and a pair of black and white striped suspenders was enough to keep my jaw permanently dropped open and my mouth watering. All of the facial hair I’d been fantasizing about feeling against my skin has been groomed neatly and I can’t wait to feel it against my body.
My feet automatically start moving, taking me in his direction, needing to be close to him, needing to put my hands on him and needing to feel his arms around me. I come to a stuttering stop when all of a sudden the fantasy standing across the room starts to fade away.
“Uh-oh. You were looking all dreamy there for a second, and now you look like someone killed your dog. What happened?” Amelia asks, coming up next to me.
I shake my head back and forth as tears fill my eyes and everything in my line of sight gets blurry. I know I should look away, but I can’t.
Amelia’s head turns in the direction I’m staring and she lets out a string of curses that under normal circumstances would make me laugh. But nothing about this is funny at all. Nothing about what I’m looking at is amusing.
“Who in the hell is that skank, and why is she draped all over Everett?” she asks, watching the train wreck happening right in front of our eyes.
I want to pretend like this isn’t really happening. Like Everett didn’t just walk into this charity dinner with a tall redhead who has her arms wrapped around his shoulders, and her mouth pressed against his ear as she whispers something in it. Maybe she’s just a guest, saw how good he looks, and thought she’d give it a shot. Any minute now he’ll politely turn her down and untangle himself from her, meeting my eyes and giving me a sheepish smile as he walks toward me.
But that doesn’t happen. One of his arms slides around her slim waist, holding her against his side as they continue moving through the crowd of people, stopping every few feet to say hello to someone.
My sleeveless satin rockabilly dress in emerald green to match my eyes, with a plunging V-neck to show off my ample cleavage and a black satin belt around the waist, which I picked out specifically with Everett in mind, suddenly seems silly and hideous compared to the skin-tight white tube top dress the woman on Everett’s arm is wearing, which shows off every curve. My long blond hair, which I took two hours to put soft curls in, with a few pieces in front pulled back into tiny braids and woven through the curls, suddenly feels childish and nowhere near as sexy as the poker-straight fire-engine red locks that hang down the woman’s back.
“Okay, so he brought a date. I mean, it’s not exactly the end of the world. It’s not like you looked him right in the eye and told him you were in love with him. We can fix this,” Amelia reassures me.
The tears in my eyes start to spill out onto my cheeks, and I shake my head back and
forth when I remember the words Everett said to me back when we were teenagers. The one thing I held on to all these years and always gave me hope.
“This place is special to me. It got me through one of the hardest times in my life. I’d never bring a girl here who wasn’t special. Who didn’t mean as much to me as this place does.”
Either he lied to me back then, or he’s had someone special in his life all this time, and I was just too stupid to realize it. Too wrapped up in my own problems and my own fantasies to even ask him if he had someone. I want to be angry. I want to storm over there and scream at him. Ask him what the hell he’s been doing with me the last few weeks if this was going to be the final result. Why flirt with me, why look at me like he wanted me and needed me and touch me like he meant it?
“It’s too late,” I tell Amelia in a small, broken voice. “He said he’d never bring someone here who wasn’t special to him. I always wished, all these years, that the reason why he never brought a girl here was because the one who was the most special to him was already here.”
I laugh, but the sound comes out cracked and not at all filled with humor.
“God, I’m such an idiot,” I mutter, the tears falling fast and hard now as I start to back away from Amelia, unable to take my eyes off of Everett and the woman he’s holding close to his side, no matter how much it hurts.
“Cameron, wait. Don’t leave,” Amelia begs.
I don’t listen to her. I can’t stay here. I turn with my head down so none of the people standing around us can see the misery on my face, and make my way out of the tent into the steadily falling rain.
I took the leap.
I jumped.
But he wasn’t there to catch me.
Chapter 30
Everett
Everything is a mess.
Starting with having someone who isn’t Cameron, with her body pressed up against me and her arms around my shoulders. It makes me cringe and it takes everything in me not to shove her off of me. She doesn’t feel the same, she doesn’t smell the same, and her hot breath in my ear giggling and whispering how drunk she is solidifies that fact. I have to wrap my arm around her waist as we move into the room just so she doesn’t stumble and fall in those fucking six-inch heels she’s wearing and make a fool out of herself.
I’m going to kill my brother for saddling me with his date because he was tied up at work. Why he decided to tell her to meet him at my house is beyond me, and I had no choice but to agree to his pathetic begging on the phone when he called to say he was running late. It was either bring her to the dinner so he could meet us here later, or stand in my kitchen half the night and continue watching her drink herself into a coma with the bottle of tequila she pulled out of her purse after I let her in the door.
Right now, I’m wishing I would have let her continue drinking and left her passed out on my couch. I have too much on my mind to worry about making sure this woman doesn’t throw up on someone’s shoes or fall down in the middle of the dance floor.
In the span of twenty-four hours, my life went to shit and I have no one to blame but myself. I’m an idiot. Such a fucking idiot.
After getting that text from Bobby, hightailing it out of camp and getting him off the ledge of wanting to take a drink, I wanted nothing more than to get back to Cameron and pick up where we’d left off, hating that I had to walk away from her when we were right on the edge of something, but I couldn’t let that guy down, and I knew she’d understand. Then I got back to camp, I saw her crying over Aiden, and it all blew up in my face.
“Hey, asshole. Who’s the skank?”
My head jerks to the side to find Amelia standing next to me, shooting daggers at the woman still plastered to my side.
“I’m Bethany!” she chirps, holding her hand out toward Amelia, too drunk to realize she was just insulted.
“Don’t care,” Amelia tells her in a bored voice, ignoring Bethany’s outstretched hand and turning her angry eyes to mine.
“Sorry I’m late. What did I miss?”
Jason appears on the other side of Bethany, and she immediately unwraps her arms from around my shoulders and throws herself at my brother, causing him to stumble backward a few steps before bracing himself and the woman teetering on her heels of death by placing his hands on her hips to steady her swaying body.
“You missed about a gallon of tequila shooters,” I tell him. “You owe me so big right now it’s not even funny.”
Jason laughs, but the smile on his face quickly dies when he notices Amelia standing on the other side of me.
“Wait. This is your date?” she asks him, putting her hands on her hips and glaring at him.
“I…um…well…” Jason stutters, trying to untangle himself from Bethany, who isn’t so much holding on to him because she wants to, but because she has to.
“Would it have killed you to ask me if I wanted to be your date?” Amelia asks in annoyance as Jason continues standing here staring at her with his mouth wide open. “Forget it. I’ll deal with you later.”
She looks away from my brother and his drunk date to point at me.
“You. Come with me.”
She whirls around and stomps off, and I decide to follow her when I hear gagging noises coming from Bethany. Leaving my brother to deal with his own mess, I quickly move through the crowd of people until I catch up with Amelia standing by the opening of the tent opposite the main door I just came through.
“You are so lucky right now that woman was not really your date,” Amelia tells me as soon as I get to her. “You’re going to have to do a lot of groveling with Cameron, but I’ve got your back.”
I have no idea what she’s talking about, but the more she speaks, the angrier I get.
“I don’t need you to have my back. I’m sure Cameron is fine.”
Amelia’s eyes narrow as she stares at me.
“You’re sure Cameron’s fine? Are you kidding me right now? I have never seen her so devastated as when you walked in that damn door with another woman on your arm. What the hell has gotten into you?” she asks.
“Maybe I finally realized I wasn’t in the mood to be her fucking rebound from Aiden!” I fire back, clenching my hands into fists when the truth of the words I just said hit me like a ton of bricks.
I feel sick to my stomach saying something like that out loud, but now that it’s out, I can’t take it back. I hate myself for being so damn jealous of my best friend, but I can’t help it. It hurts everything inside of me that he got what I’d always wanted, and will never have.
Her mouth opens and closes like a fish out of water and I angrily shove my hands into the front pockets of my pants. I don’t want to have this discussion right now, especially with Amelia. She has no idea what’s going on and she’d never understand.
“You’re a goddamn idiot,” she finally mutters, shaking her head at me.
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me. You, are a goddamn idiot!” she tells me, her voice rising, not giving a shit if people in our general vicinity can hear her.
“You could never, in a million years, be Cameron’s rebound from Aiden.”
“Really?” I scoff. “And why is that?”
She takes a step closer to me and lowers her voice, the anger suddenly gone from it and replaced with sincerity.
“Because Aiden was always her rebound from you. You goddamn idiot,” she says again with a sigh. “And really, you can’t even call what she had with him a rebound. Three dates in the span of two weeks right after you left, each one more awkward and weird than the last, until they finally realized it was a dumb idea. And don’t even get me started on the guy she dated in high school that she ran into after Aiden died. She keeps that guy so far at arm’s length it’s a wonder he can even hear her when she speaks. Jesus, do you two ever talk about anything even remotely important?”
What the hell is happening right now? There’s no way what she’s saying is true. No fucking way.
“Th
ey were in love. He was getting ready to propose. Aiden told me that himself and she still wears his fucking ring on her finger,” I reply lamely, my heart beating faster and my body breaking out into a cold sweat.
“Uh, they definitely were not in love,” Amelia laughs. “Cameron was heartbroken and lonely after you left, and Aiden wanted to get laid. The farthest he got was trying to hold her hand at dinner at a fancy restaurant and she freaked out and yanked it away, knocking over an entire bottle of wine, which spilled onto his lap. Two weeks later, she introduced him to a single mother here at camp, and he fell head over heels in love with her and her daughter. He proposed to her a few months before he died. Yeah, that ring she wears was from Aiden. It was a birthday present from him.”
No, no, no. This is not happening. This can’t be happening. Why in the hell didn’t he tell me? Why didn’t he come right out and say he was in love with someone other than Cameron and that he was going to marry someone other than Cameron?
I’m pissed at Aiden for all of thirty seconds. Half a minute is all it takes for my anger to morph into guilt. He never told me, because I never asked. I never once asked him for more details. I never once asked him to tell me all about the woman he was in love with, because I assumed it was Cameron. I knew he’d asked her out right after I left, and I couldn’t handle knowing anything about it. I couldn’t stand hearing all of the details about what was happening between them. Imagining everything they were doing together was bad enough; I was the worst friend in the world, all because I couldn’t see anything through my jealousy. I stayed away for four years because I couldn’t handle coming home and seeing Cameron happy with someone who wasn’t me, even if he was my best friend.
“And if you’re still doubting things, take a look around you, my friend. Anything look familiar?” Amelia asks.
I finally take the time to look around the tent and all the air in my lungs rushes out of me like someone punched me in the stomach.