Cam stares at me like I’ve confessed to something unforgivable. His mouth opens, the shuts again. He takes a step back, shaking his head. “No. No, that’s not?—”
“We were all fucked up and grieving, but Em and I found peace in each other. It wasn’t supposed to happen, but it did. We loved each other, Cam.”
He laughs, empty and bitter. “So, you supposedly loved her but still let her leave?”
I don’t flinch. “Sheleftme.”
Cam blinks, momentarily thrown off.
“You want to talk about abandonment?” I go on, my voice is quieter but no less sharp. “She walked away without even saying goodbye. One day she was mine, and the next, she was in a car to Manhattan with some bullshit story about needing a fresh start.”
“She did need one,” Cam bites back. “She was barely eighteen, grieving our mom, scared out of her mind?—”
“So were you! And Leo and Frankie. And so was I!” I explode. “And then I lost her too. I waited for a call, a text, a letter, anything so I could beg her to come back and just talk to me. She ignored every single fucking message. You all let me bethe villain in her story when I was the one standing there, watching her walk away.”
Cam’s eyes flash. “Because youlether. You let my sister leave heartbroken and alone, and now you have the nerve to stand here, in this fucking hospital, and tell me you’ve loved her all long. If you really loved her you would’ve stopped her or followed her. You could’ve?—”
“I tried!” I shout. “I went after her. I went to New York to see her, but she looked so fucking happy at one of her art shows that I believed she was better off without me.”
Cam doesn’t respond. There is only silence except for the steady hum of machines throughout the hall.
I swallow hard, my voice breaking as I lower it. “She made me believe she hated me. And she probably did. Maybe I was just this reminder of everything she wanted to escape. So I stayed away after that. Forher.” I take a shaky breath. “And now she’s in there, hooked up to a dozen machines, and all I can think about is how I wasted all those years trying to pretend like I didn’t still love her.”
Cam’s jaw twitches. “You should’ve tried harder.”
He’s right. I should’ve tried harder, fought harder. But I let my own shit—my fears, my insecurities, the fucked up way I’ve always handled my feelings—get in the way.
“I didn’t stop loving her,” I say quietly. “But she didn’t want to be loved back then. But now I can’t fucking lose her again.”
The anger is Cam’s eyes soften for a second, long enough for me to see the fear underneath. “She could die, Alex,” he says quietly. “She could die. And now you’re telling me this, after all this time?”
My throat is too tight, no words forming in response.
Cam stares at me for a long moment, then looks away, jaw clenching. “You need to figure out what the hell you’re doing here, Alex. Because if you’re just gonna break her again, youneed to leave before she wakes up.” He pauses. “If you do, you won’t just lose her again, you’ll lose me too.”
I press the heels of my hands against my eyes, trying to hold myself together.
I need to see her.
I move toward the door, but Cam steps in front of me. “Alex, wait?—”
I shove past him, throwing the door open.
22
EMMA
The first thing I hear is the steadybeep beep beepof a heart monitor, then the distant hum of a voice. A horrible antiseptic scent clings to the back of my throat. The sheets are scratchy and stiff underneath me. It’s the last place I want to be.
A hospital.
I don’t even have to open my eyes to know where I am.
Shit.
My limbs feel like they’re submerged in concrete, every muscle aching, every breath is a chore. My chest feels like there’s a weight sitting directly on top of it or I’ve run a marathon in my sleep and came in last.
“Em, please.” The voice is wrecked. Broken.
