I sit back down in the booth, determined to be unaffected by him. “Fine. Talk.” I hold my pen to the paper and focus on watching the lines blur together.
“When I came to Riverton, I was messed up, okay? I didn’t want anything to do with anyone.” He sits down again, leaning toward me, and I can feel his eyes on me, but I refuse to look up. “At some point you made me start to forget—you made me feel like I could be someone different. Even if it was just for a little while. Even though I didn’t want it.”
“You didn’t wantme.” I can’t believe I said it out loud. When the words escape my lips they feel like the truth. I think this is what I’ve feared all along; that Cam meant so much more to me than I meant to him. That I needed him more than he needed me.
“I did—I do. I just couldn’t do it, Vee. It was just”—he shakes his head like it hurts to remember—“it was too much.”
“It was you, not me? You’re kidding, right?” I push myselfup out of the booth—I need to leave. Words can’t go back in time and undo it all.
Cam stands up, blocking me again. “Itwas,Vee. It is.” He’s approaching me with one hand up, like I’m a rabid dog, waiting for a chance to bite a finger off. Which isn’t far from how I feel right now.
I focus on the shiny black handle of the refrigerator, so I don’t have to look at him. “I don’t know what you want me to do, Cam. I’m not slashing your bunk or setting your clothes on fire. I’m being cordial. I’m slapping a smile on my face. I don’t know what else you want from me.” I’m glad everyone is gone, because the scene playing out right now is the last thing I want on national television.
“Slash my bunk! Admit you fucking care!” The anger in his voice startles me. He has absolutely no right to ask me for anything, but I can hear the pain in his voice.
“You’re the one who ended it.” I take a deep breath and bite my lip, trying to will away the hot tears that are threatening to spill over.I will not cry here. Not in front of him.Not in front of whatever cameras are probably hidden in this kitchen.
Cam steps toward me, his hand reaching for my face, and I slap it away. “I was a kid, Vee.”
“So was I. Ineededyou, and you weren’t there.” My calm, controlled voice is quickly slipping, the words catching in my throat as it collapses in on itself.Deep breath, Virginia. Deep breath.“I guess it just wasn’t good enough.Weweren’t good enough.” I turn away. I don’t owe him anything.
Cam’s face hardens as I push past him. “Right, just go. Walk away. Run to Logan.” He throws the words at me like a knife, and I stop. My hand twitches at my side, eager to grab something. Or hit something. Anything to release the energy surging through me. “That’s your thing, right?” Every word is slow and controlled, acerbic.
“You fucking asshole.” I turn and close the gap between us in three quick steps. “You want to know what you meant to me? What our time together meant to me? You need me to say it so you can feel good about yourself?” Angry energy is filling me, eager to get out.If he doesn’t like my silence, I’ll give him something to listen to.
He glares at me, his eyes full of passion, and throws his hands in the air. “Just be real with me.”
I focus on my bare toes, unsure of where to even start. At the beginning? The end? He was both.
“I’m not going to let you pretend there’s not something between us, Vee. That you don’t feel it.”
I feel his warm fingers rest on my arm, and push them away. “You wereeverythingto me.” I swallow, almost choking on the words as a loud sob rips out of me. “You were the missing lyrics to a song I didn’t even know I was writing.” I take a step back, needing as much space between us as I can get. “You made me believe in myself… made me want to change. You made me feel strong.”
“Youarestrong, Vee.” Cam’s eyes look the way I remember them—sad and full of heartbreak. His strong shoulders sag and he looks as defeated as I feel.
I let the warm air slowly fill my nostrils and slip out past my lips as I raise my eyes to meet his. “You did everything you could to pry me open. You took everything you could, and then you took it all away. My heart. My hope. My trust.” My eyes are burning, my cheeks hot. Everything feels like it’s on fire. “And the worst part is that when it was all over, I realized I was in love with someone I didn’t even know.”
Cam looks shocked. “You knew me.”
What a joke. I wipe at my wet cheek with the back of my hand and try to laugh, but it comes out like a strangled squawk. “You don’t get it. It doesn’t even matter.” I take a step back fromhim, wishing it were a mile. “You want me to feel something? Well, I do. I feel something for you. I just don’t know what to call it. There’s this strange gray area in my heart—somewhere south of love and north of hate—and that’s where you live now. I think it’s where you’ll always live.”
Cam doesn’t say anything. He just stands there. His hands are shoved into his pockets, his shoulders slumped, as I slowly back away. I finally get my chance to leave him before he can leave me, and it doesn’t feel anything like I’d always hoped it would. I stop in front of the bunks, my voice quiet.
“You’re right, though; you were just a kid, and so was I. It was naive to think it would be forever. I can take some of the blame too… for not realizing how ridiculous it was to think it could last.”
***
Cam is gone. Probably not for years this time, but I still feel the absence. Everyone is out or at rehearsal, and the entire bus is empty, quiet. Logan’s acoustic is lying on his bed, so I take it and sit in the lounge, my notebook beside me. I let my feelings seep onto the paper, and echo off the strings, and ring in my voice. The words I spoke this afternoon were angry, but the words that land on the page aren’t. I think that, maybe, I’m finally moving forward. I’m letting it go.
CHAPTER TWENTY
THEN
CAM
Vee is shouting through my closed bedroom door. “Your phone!”
“Who is it?”
