I don't wait for another response from them, and I don't offer to help. They know where my house is, and they have a truck that they probably stole from someone else.
They can move their own things.
While I get to my office and try to figure out what the fuck I've just done.
Try to figure out how my ego thought this was any sort of good idea. I've been in town three months, and that was morethan enough time to figure out that these two are two peas from the same pod–and that I'm the third wheel they never wanted.
Forcing them to live in my house isn't going to make that any better. The truth is, it's probably going to make all three of us miserable.
Though that's on brand for nearly every experience I've had in Wood since my father decided I wasn't good enough for him.
I turn on my heel and head for the door, my stomach roiling at the memory. I fucking hate this town. I never wanted to come back here, and now I remember why.
The memories here are too thick, my past laying in every shadow, and none of it is anything but depressing. I ran all the way to the Middle East to get away from it, and now that I'm back...
I remember why I ran in the first place.
Sammy
Iwas born and raised in Wood, which means I've been here nineteen years, grown up with the kids and played pranks on the adults. I've played in the park and snuck into the library in the middle of the night to read the books my mother didn't want me to read. Helped to decorate the town for Christmas and served food at the local restaurant, when people couldn't afford their own meals. I've worked in the shelter and been into the forest to cut wood.
And that means I've been in nearly every building in town, at least once. I've spent nights in most of the houses and even lived in a couple of them.
But this house, with its red-and-white shingles and brown roof that definitely needs repair?
This home, I've never been in.
And the moment we open the door and walk in, I stop referring to it as a 'home' at all.
Because the place is bare of anything that might make a place livable. It's roomy–bigger than Aunt Sue's house by several hundred square feet, I'd guess–but there's absolutely nothing inside of it. We walk through a door so old that the paint isfalling off it, and enter a room that must have been a family room once, but is now an empty shell. Bare walls, bare floors, and no furniture. Zero artwork. No TV or bookshelf or even a couch to sit on.
Just a shell of a room and a haunting, empty feeling that makes me feel vaguely sorry for the house itself. It feels like no one has cared for this place in at least ten years, and though sure, it's stone and concrete and wood and nothing else, sorrow echoes through my heart at how deserted it is. What's more, there's a man living here now, but he's done almost nothing to make the house his own.
This isn't a man who's unpacked and planning to stay for long. He's a man just waiting for another reason to run again.
And if I'm seeing all of that, I can't imagine how Cameron is feeling.
I turn to look at him and find him staring blankly around, his expression guarded and his lips pressed together. When he finishes taking in the room and looks to me, his eyes are flat and emotionless. Closed off like he doesn't want anyone to see what's going on behind them.
Right. He's already thinking too much, then, and doesn't want anyone to know those thoughts. Though I can guess what they look like. Sorrow, pain, betrayal, and a deep, aching grief, and that's probably just the start.
Because this is the house that once belonged to Cameron's mother.
The one she left when she decided she didn't want this life anymore–and the place where she told Bear he was now in charge of their seven-year-old son, who she could no longer take care of.
This is the house Cameron had thought was safe, and where his life had changed irrevocably because his mother didn't want to be a mom anymore. And though I have some hollow spots inmy own heart, where my mother and father should have been, my dad left when I was too young to remember, and my mom waited until I was old enough to know how to take care of myself.
And by that time, I'd had Cameron to keep me safe.
Cameron's mom left him when he didn't have anyone, and I've never been able to truly fathom what that did to him.
By the look on his face, it's a wound that never actually healed.
"Guess we can cross interior decoration off his list of talents," I say quietly, giving him the first joke that comes to mind. Anything to warm that hollow look in his eyes. Anything to bring life back into that face.
It works, and he gives me a quick, feral grin, his chin sharp and his eyes flashing. "Are you actually keeping a list of his talents? I thought you didn't even like him."
I huff out a laugh, thanking the universe formybiggest talent–getting him to laugh–and then shove him with my shoulder.
