“I still keep in touch with Mrs. Aucoin at Crescent House.” The name slithers down my spine and makes me want to puke just hearing it, a flurry of unwanted memories hurdling back. “She asks about you, and I know that it’s not a very pleasant place for you, Wilder, but she asked if you would be willing to stop by while you’re in town and talk with the kids there.”
Goddamnit.
Somehow, I knew the moment she said her name, that fucking place, this is where the conversation would be headed. She knows a lot about my childhood, but she doesn’t know all of the worst shit. The shit I could never speak out loud.
“Cam.”
“It would be for the kids, Wilder,” she says softly, and my stomach twists so sharp, my head swimming so hard that the road blurs in front of the windshield. “You know how much it would’ve meant to you back then. Listen, I understand if you choose not to. A hundred percent, and I wouldn’t blame you. But I also think that this could be part of healing yourself, healing your heart… healing that little boy who’s still somewhere in there.”
I snatch the phone out of the cup holder, my finger hovering over the button on the screen to end the call.
But I don’t.
I never fucking do because it’s Cam. The closest thing I’ll ever have to a family.
“I don’t… I don’t know if I can.”
I can hear the smile in her voice. “You can, Wilder. You can do anything. I think it would be good for you, and who knows, you might just change someone’s life. Give them someone to look up to and show them that there is a big, beautiful life waiting for them.”
I swallow down the bile that’s sliding up my throat, my fingers tightening around the steering wheel.
“I’ll think about it.”
“That’s all I’m asking. I know it would mean so much to those kids.”
My thoughts flit to Maisie.
She’d be ecstatic working with more kids, introducing them to reading. Her eyes light up when she talks about the program, when she’s around the kids, a smile so bright and beautiful overtaking her face.
“Yeah. Maybe.” I haven’t the slightest clue why, but the words spill out of me so quickly I don’t even have the chance to stop them. “I don’t know, Camila. I’ll think about it. That’s got to be enough for now.”
I have no idea if I’m ever going to be able to face that place again, whether it’s for her or anyone.
“It is. I’ve got to go run and feed Lily, but I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?”
“Yep.”
I end the call before she says anything else, and then I hurl it across the truck with a roar that shakes the entire cab.
“Fuck!”
I keep running, and no matter where I go, no matter what happens, I’m never going to outrun the past that’s haunting me.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-ONE
MAISIE
I was notthis nervous last time Wilder was in my apartment.
That’s mostly because I was hungover and then unable to focus on anything except that he was making me lose my mind.
Literally.
But this time, it’s different. He’s coming over for dinner, and it’s not a date or anything, but it is a different circumstance that’s led him here.
I spent the rest of the day doing the world’s fastest speed clean, and then I took aneverythingshower, which obviously took up the majority of my time.
