I stop for a minute and remember how to breathe. Push aside the memories that try to make their way into the forefront of my mind. The screaming, the crying, the pain on people’s faces, the loss and the anger…everything that has haunted my dreams since the first time I went to a third world country.
“You don’t have to talk about this if you don’t want to,” Cameron says, her hand moving to my back, making small, soothing circles against it with her palm.
“I know, but I need to. I spent too much time keeping things like this locked up inside, and it kept me away from you for months staring at the bottom of a bottle, when I should have been here.”
She nods in understanding and doesn’t say anything else, waiting quietly for me to continue.
“I dreamed all my life of being a doctor. Helping people and being a hero. I thought it was the best thing I could do with my life, and for a while, it was,” I continue. “Until it suddenly became really easy to stick my toe over that line. To play God with people’s lives. I know I did what I had to do, what I was trained to do. I know there’s only a split second to make a decision when someone is dying right in front of you, and you damn well better make it count. I know I couldn’t save everyone, but I made choices about who I saved. Who I thought deserved it more. Someone’s son, someone’s daughter, someone’s father. I played God, knowing I only had enough vaccinations and medicine for half of the village I was in, picking and choosing the people I thought were worthy. I turned away mothers I thought weren’t good enough, I turned away fathers I thought were already too sick to benefit from medication. I didn’t know these people. I didn’t know their lives or their struggles or what they’d been through. I waltzed into their villages and judged them, and I don’t know how to forgive myself for that. I don’t know how to get back over that line where I’m supposed to be. I don’t even know if I can at this point.”
I let out a shaky breath, closing my eyes and running my hand through my hair, knowing if I wasn’t here right now, if I hadn’t finally gotten my head out of my ass months ago, I’d be going in search of the closest liquor store and drinking myself into a coma.
My eyes open back up when I feel Cameron’s hands press to either side of my face and she turns my head toward her.
“I don’t care what you say, you never crossed that line, Everett,” she whispers, staring into my eyes. “I know you lost people, but the things you did saved so many others. You are the bravest, strongest man I’ve ever met. Never, for one minute, think you are anything less than that.”
Her words are like a soothing balm to my soul, and for the first time, I actually start to believe what she’s saying. I did things I’ll never be able to forget. I made decisions that will haunt me for the rest of my life, but with this woman by my side, giving me more than I ever deserved, I might be able to stop doubting whether or not I’m good enough for her.
I might finally be able to let go, and do whatever I can to prove her dad wrong.
Chapter 35
Cameron
I cradle Everett’s body between my thighs, tilting my hips to meet him as he slowly pushes inside me. He groans my name and I cling tightly to his shoulders, still unable to believe that this is us. That this is where we are right now.
Even after two weeks, having him inside me still feels like a dream. I’ll never get used to how good he feels. How perfectly we fit.
He kisses his way down the side of my neck, and I rock my hips against him, locking my ankles behind his back. He slides both of his hands behind me, grabbing my ass and pulling me tighter against him, moving inside me deeper with slow, shallow thrusts until his fullness is stretching me in the most delicious way.
Grabbing fistfuls of his hair, I pull his face away from where he’s gently biting the skin of my neck and bring his mouth to mine. His tongue slides past my lips and leisurely moves in and out of my mouth in the same unhurried rhythm as his hips pumping in and out of me, fanning the flames of the fire that’s been burning inside of me since he woke me up this morning with his hand between my legs.
“Jesus, you feel so good. So fucking perfect,” Everett mutters, pulling his mouth away from mine long enough to speak against my lips.
I open my eyes and look up at him, bringing my hand away from the back of his head to run the tips of my fingers across his lips as he holds himself deep inside of me and churns his hips, hitting a spot that sends tingles up my spine and makes my toes curl.
These lips are mine. This man is mine. After all this time, he’s finally mine. He came home to me because he needed me, even if it took him a while to admit it. I’ve always loved him, even when I denied it. Always knew I’d never be able to escape him no matter how hard I tried, and now he’s mine.
“I love you,” I whisper against his lips, knowing it’s the most clichéd time to tell someone you love them, and not caring.
It’s not the first time I’ve said these words to him anyway. I blurted them out for the first time last week when I was feeling particularly melancholy after a counseling session with a family, and he said something to make me laugh. After I said them, he quickly kissed me and pulled me to him, not giving me even a second to be embarrassed that I just let something like that slip.
I’ve whispered those words to him when we’ve been wrapped up together late at night, just about ready to fall asleep, and I’ve muttered a distracted “love you” to him in the mornings when I’m grabbing my coffee and rushing out the door before him to get to work, never really paying attention to the fact that he hasn’t returned the words because I’ve been too deliriously happy and busy with the camp.
Everett growls deep in his chest, slamming his mouth to mine as he thrusts faster, pushing inside me in long, hard strokes until I can’t hold back any longer.
My hips move faster against him, straining, reaching, needing to feel the sweet oblivion of falling and having him finally here to catch me.
Pleasure bursts out of me, and I scream into Everett’s mouth, where he swallows my cries, his fingers clutching harder to my ass as he pistons his hips, slamming into me, making the bed creak and groan with the force of his thrusts. My body is still clenching and pulsing around him with a release that feels like it will never end, until he rips his mouth away from mine, buries his face into the side of my neck, and curses, moaning my name as he comes inside of me.
My arms fall out to the sides of the bed as he collapses on top of me, our breaths coming out fast and hard as we lie here tangled up in each other until our hearts start being normally again.
After a few minutes, Everett pushes himself up on his elbows and looks down at me, reaching up to brush my hair off my forehead.
“Good morning,” he says with a smile.
“Good morning to you, too. You’re better than an alarm clock.”
He laughs and rolls off of me. Pulling the sheet up to cover me, I rest my elbow on the pillow and prop my head in my hands, staring at his naked body as he gets out of bed, grabs his boxer briefs from the floor, and pulls them on, keeping a smile plastered on my face and trying not to let my emotions ruin what has started off as a great day.
I don’t want to be one of those women who tell a man she loves him and then feel insecure because he didn’t say it back, but he’s starting to make me self-conscious. He’s shown me, in more ways than one that he does, but sometimes, a woman just needs to hear the words before she can believe them. After everything we’ve gone through to get to this point, I don’t want to let doubt start clouding things, but it’s impossible to push it away when it’s rooted itself into my brain and won’t let go.
“Busy day today. Want to share a shower with me to save time?” he asks, turning around and pressing his palms to the mattress to lean toward me, peppering kisses along my cheek.
“If I share a shower with you, that will definitely not save time,” I tell him, pushing on his chest until he moves away and stands back up.
Tomorrow is the official start day of the summer
session. Knowing things are about to get incredibly hectic, Everett convinced me to take a night off last night and brought me back to his house so we could enjoy some peace and quiet away from the camp and the demands that seem to always find a way to interrupt us. He cooked me dinner, we talked, we made love, we made plans for the rest of the week and the things he’ll be helping with at camp in between his construction job, then we woke up this morning and made love again.
It was perfect. It was easy. It was natural. Crossing the line from friendship to this was seamless, but I can’t help feeling like I’ve given him everything, and he’s given me only small pieces in return.
I give Everett another small smile when he turns away from me and closes himself in the bathroom attached to his bedroom. When I hear the shower turn on, I let my smile fall and I sigh, throwing the sheet off me and getting out of bed.
I’m being a stupid girl, and it’s starting to annoy me. Everett has been through a lot and I don’t want to rush him. I have no reason to doubt how he feels about me. He told me the first time we had sex in the stables about all the times over the years he wanted me. Too bad my brain and my heart can’t seem to get on the same page, and I know that wanting someone and being in love with them are two totally different things.
Grabbing my bra and underwear from the floor, where they were tossed aside last night, I put them on, doing the same with my sundress, pulling it down over my head and trying to smooth some of the wrinkles out.
I start walking around Everett’s bedroom, picking up his discarded clothes from last night and laying them on the end of the bed. Reaching for his jeans, I shake them out, pausing when a piece of paper flies out of the back pocket.
Tossing the jeans onto the bed, I bend down and pick up the small square of folded paper, opening it up as I move over to the window and slide my feet into my flip-flops.
My heart stutters in my chest when I get the paper unfolded and see the familiar handwriting across the page. My stomach drops down to my toes and my knees give out when I skim the letter, my body dropping into the chair next to the window, my hands shaking so hard I’m surprised I don’t accidentally rip the letter in half, since it looks like it’s been folded and unfolded, read and reread, a million times before.
Every doubt and insecurity that I forced myself to push back just a few minutes ago flares back to life and starts eating away at everything inside of me. My eyes blur with tears until the words on the page in my hand can no longer be seen.
“Do we have time for breakfast before you need to leave?”
I don’t even look over at Everett when he walks out of the bathroom. I know if I look at him, if I see the smile on his face, look at the lips that were just on me, stare at the hands that just touched me so perfectly, I’ll be tempted to hide my tears and pretend like everything is fine. I’m a stupid, stupid girl and everything is not fine.
“Did you come back because you wanted me, or because you felt guilty?” I whisper, still staring down at the letter in my hand, my voice coming out cracked and full of emotion that I wish I could just turn off.
“What are you—”
Everett’s question is abruptly cut off and I finally turn my head to look at him, and see him staring at the letter that I hold in my hand.
“Cameron…” he whispers, looking away from the letter, his face filled with anguish when he sees a tear fall down my cheek.
“I know it shouldn’t matter, especially now, but it does,” I continue, clearing my throat around the knot that has started to form as I try to hold back my tears. “Did you come back because you were in love with me, just like I’ve always been in love with you, or because Aiden made you feel guilty for being gone and he told you to come back and take care of me?”
I slowly push myself up from the chair as Everett moves farther into the room, until he’s standing right in front of me.
“It wasn’t like that. Not exactly…” He trails off. “I mean, of course I felt guilty. Jesus, Cameron. I pushed you away and kept myself out of your life because I was jealous of my best fucking friend, and for no reason. I let you mourn him alone because I was an asshole. Yes, the guilt was eating me alive, but you know how I feel about you. You know how I’ve always felt about you.”
He takes another step toward me and reaches his hands out to me, but I step to the side. I know if I let him put his arms around me, I’ll push aside everything I’m feeling right now. I’ll let him fill my head and my heart with explanations and promises, bury my worries down deep, and they will eat me alive. I did that for too many years and I’m not doing it again. I won’t.
“Do I? Do I know how you feel about me? I know you wanted me. I know you still want me, that’s something you can’t exactly hide,” I tell him. “I’m in love with you, Everett. I’ve been in love with you for almost all my life, hiding it away and pretending like I wasn’t. Do you know how exhausting it is being in love with your best friend for as long as you can remember? Always wondering if you’re staring too long, standing too close, laughing too loudly at his jokes. Scared to death about telling him how you feel and finding out he doesn’t feel the same. Jesus, I feel like I’m in high school again and it pisses me off!”
I hate that I feel so insecure. I hate that I’m questioning everything right now, but I can’t help it. Seeing Aiden’s letter—knowing Everett has been carrying it around all this time, reading those words, and possibly doing everything he has with me out of some sort of misplaced guilt—has broken apart something inside of me.
“How can you even question what I feel for you? After everything that has happened between us. After everything we’ve done together,” Everett mutters with a shake of his head, running his hand through his hair in frustration. “Goddammit, Cameron! What more do you want from me? Tell me, and I’ll give it to you. I’ll do anything. Say anything. Just tell me what you need.”
I back away from him again when he tries to get closer, shaking my head and holding my hand up between us. I can’t think with him standing this close.
“I wished for you, every fucking year, I wished for you. You are everything I’ve ever wanted, everything I’ve ever needed. Don’t do this, Cameron, please. Tell me what to do.”
Handing Aiden’s letter to him, he takes it from my hand and tosses it to the ground. I swipe away at the tears on my cheeks and continue moving backward until I’m standing in the doorway.
“Tell me you love me, too,” I whisper. “Tell me you’ve been in love with me for as long as you can remember, and you love me so much that sometimes it hurts to breathe with how overwhelming it is. Because that’s how I feel about you. That’s how I’ve always felt about you.”
Everett doesn’t move and doesn’t say anything, just continues to stand there across the room, staring at me with the same sad look of regret on his face.
“Then I guess you can’t do anything,” I tell him.
Turning away from him, I walk out of the room, hurry down the stairs and out the front door, not giving him a chance to come after me. I just need to be away from him right now so I can think more clearly. I know I’m behaving like a child. I know I should trust him and believe in the things he’s saying to me, trust all the ways he’s shown me how much he cares about me, but I can’t. Aiden’s letter screwed everything up in my head and my heart, and nothing makes sense anymore.
Chapter 36
Everett
You’re being a pussy, you know that?” Jason asks, tossing the two boxes I asked him to get for me onto my kitchen table.
I quickly grab them and remove the lids, dumping the contents onto the table top.
“I’m not being a pussy. I’m giving her some space. Giving her time to think and realize she has no reason to doubt how I feel about her,” I tell him, flipping over all the little pieces, my heart feeling like someone stuck a knife in it when I see Cameron’s handwriting, which hasn’t really changed much over the years.
Each star has the date written on it, and each on
e of her stars from the time she was twelve has the exact same wish scribbled on it. I want to laugh when I start flipping my own stars over, but I’m not exactly in a laughing mood right now.
Why in the hell didn’t I just tell her I’m in love with her?
“Besides,” I continue, standing up from the chair and organizing everything I need on the table. “Three days is long enough. I’m going over there today and I’m not leaving until she talks to me.”
Three days without Cameron have been more than long enough. Too long. Each night I’ve gone to bed without her in my arms has been torture. Each text message and voice mail I’ve left her without a response has pushed me past my limit. My limit should have been the other morning in my bedroom when I let her walk away from me, but I honestly thought she’d come to her senses and realize none of what she was accusing me of is true.
That I didn’t love her.
That I only came back here and stayed and poured my heart out to her out of guilt.
That I hadn’t also been exhausted after years of being in love with my best friend and not doing anything about it because I was afraid.
“Are you actually going to tell her you love her this time?” Jason asks me, flopping down on the chair and picking up one of the pieces of paper.
I smack it out of his hand, glare at him, and go back to work with my project.
“I told her I love her.”
Jason laughs, the sound grating on my already frayed nerves.