“What did you tell him?”Millie asks, now that I’ve caught her up on Cam’s morning truth bomb.
The second I walked into our apartment, she knew something was up. And honestly, I need her advice. The short walk home wasn’t enough to work through the shit between Cam and me.What letter was he talking about?He didn’t give me a letter before I left Crete, and I’ve checked my mail a couple of times over the last week.
“I told him I need time to think.”
She embraces me in a tight hug. “Fair enough,” she agrees. “But he’s right, you know.”
“Hmm?”
“He’s not like Tyler,” she calls from her closet, where she’s unpacking.
That’s obvious, but it doesn’t mean he won’t hurt me. Look at all the men my mom has dated. They started off as good guys too. Most of them, anyway.
As if she can read my mind, she yells, “You’re not like your mom. Cam is a good guy. And if there’s a time when he doestreat you poorly, you’ll kick him to the curb like the badass bitch you are. You’re self-aware as shit, and you have no problem standing up for yourself. As shitty as Tyler was, your breakup taught you a lot about yourself and what you want moving forward. Didn’t that fuckboy at least teach you there’sgoodin goodbye?”
“I think that was Taylor Swift,” I tease, despite the dull ache in my heart.
Millie sticks her head out of the closet and rolls her eyes. “While your ex may have dragged your dreams through the dirt, it doesn’t sound like Cam would do that.”
“But how do you know?” I plead.
“I don’t. You gotta have faith.”
Faith. Huh. Every type-A control freak’s nightmare.
Mumbling a dismissal, I head to the living room to unpack my own bags.
After our unfinished breakfast conversation, Cam and I fell into an oddly companionable silence while we ate. I helped him clean the kitchen, and he gave me space while I finished collecting my belongings. When he popped in to check on me and saw me fingering his copy ofThe Alchemist, he offered it to me to borrow.
“Nonsense,” he scoffed when I told him I’d already downloaded the e-book. “There’s nothing quite like holding the physical copy in your hands.”
As I unpack my suitcase, I discover a white envelope tucked under a cover-up. The blue stamp at the top left corner readsAtlas Luxury Resort and Spa; my name is scrawled in the middle. I turn the envelope over in my hand. Written on the back is a quote, one I already recognize from his favorite book. The one that says that everything that happens once can’t ever happen again, but if it happens twice, it’ll happen a third time.
My heart stutters. We met last year. That’s one. Then wewere thrown together a second time. And last night? That was our third. Or am I stretching to make truths out of nothing?
Carefully, I tear open the envelope, remembering then the moment I realized Cam is a leftie. When he was hunched over the desk in his hotel room writing on a piece of resort letterhead.
Five minutes later, after having read the most encouraging letter of my life, and wiping the tears from my eyes, I reach for my phone.
Me
Hi. Thanks again for breakfast. It was delicious
Also… my answer is yes
After I tuck my phone into my laptop bag, I add my laundry to Millie’s pile. She’s a saint, offering to take care of it since I’ve got a busy day ahead of me. I shout a goodbye, then make the trek to the Black Hole. There’s a little extra pep in my step as I pass Cam’s place along the way.
“An Andalusian Dream?” Iris asks when I walk in.
I laugh. “How did you know?”
She shrugs, her jet-black hair swaying at her shoulders. “I had a feeling.”
As it turns out, my new favorite coffee shop has a selection of aluminum water bottles for purchase. Knowing nothing about the woman I knocked over last Monday, I choose one with a purplish-blue Milky Way design. The pages that scattered on the sidewalk were full of sketches, and this bottle looks artsy to me.
As I’m paying, my phone buzzes from inside my laptop bag, so I wedge the bottle under my arm and dig it out.
Cam
