“What?” I blink a few times, try scooting into a sittingposition. When my eyes can focus on anything, I see hurt clear on Cammie’s face. “What is it, Cam?”
She holds up my phone, but it still doesn’t click for me. “When I turned off your alarm, your email notifications were on the screen. I wasn’t trying to snoop, but I saw—there was, uh, something from that Germany program. About your housing assignment. So…you’re officially going?”
Understanding crashes into me, nearly knocking me horizontal again. I scrub at my face with a hand, hoping this isn’t the beginning of the extreme fuck-up I fear it might be. “Oh, yeah, I, uh…I did make that decision. Just yesterday, officially.”
The hurt in her expression becomes more upset. With me, to be specific. “Were you going to tell me?”
I shake my head, thinking I’d give anything to snap my fingers and have a caffeine source on hand right now. “Of course. I was, sometime soon. I didn’t think you’d be so upset—we talked about doing long-distance already, right?”
“Yeah, and you never even casually mentioned there was still a good chance that distance would be a whole ocean’s worth. Were you planning to drop the news, then bounce the next day, just like three years ago?” She lets my phone drop to the bed as she stands. Her words are as effective as a gut punch. I know her emotions are high from everything else going on, but it doesn’t make her wrong about this—that I should have been more open with her, and that she deserves better.
That I’m already repeating past mistakes, when I’d been so sure I’d get it right this time.
“I wouldn’t do that to you, Cammie. I know I should havetold you sooner that I was leaning toward going, but I…I think I worried that you wouldn’t want to take that chance on me. To be the girlfriend of a guy who’s about to live thousands of miles away and might be kind of an anxious mess the whole time, especially with everything else you have going on in your life. I wouldn’t blame you if this was too much.”
She scoffs, and the hurt in her eyes before she turns and stalks toward the door makes a permanent imprint on my memory. As do the words she hurls my way before she walks out.
“If that’s what you really think of me, then maybe you’re right. Maybe I shouldn’t take the chance.”
My divorced parents are talking about me again.
I can immediately tell when my dad finds me in the library, quite literally wallowing on the floor. I didn’t know he even knew where the library was, only that Pops had to be the one who sent him looking.
I wonder how long it took Pops to call Dad after hanging up with me. I didn’t think I gave off an especially concerning vibe—I didn’t cry or even tell him much about my current emotional state or romantic situation. But I guess discussing the logistics of flying back home early—as early as today, perhaps—was enough of a red flag on its own.
“Hey there, Westie,” Dad says casually, strolling into the room and settling in on the couch like he hasn’t a care in theworld. Like everything about the past twenty-four hours and especially the present moment is just business as usual. “Heard you were looking at plane tickets.”
I close my eyes, adding to the whole corpse-in-a-library-in-a-period-drama role I’m playing. But I know I won’t get away with silence, so I reply, “Might’ve been.”
Dad clears his throat. “Also heard you might’ve asked your pops for access to his airline miles so you could book one.”
Sighing, I open my eyes again and peer over at his relaxed pose. Still just shooting the breeze.
“Can you get to what you really want to ask me?”
To my surprise, Dad smiles. Then he kneels next to me on the floor, finally lying down so we’re side by side, both looking up at the ceiling.
“West,” he says softly. “If I can take away anything from last night, aside from ‘don’t trust a Russo as far as you can throw him, and maybe not even that much’ ”—a hint of teasing colors his voice before he turns serious again—“it’s that I don’t want to waste any more time missing out on my son’s life. Not getting to know what he cares about, what makes him tick and gets him excited to get out of bed in the morning. Not being the first person he comes to—or hell, even on the list of contacts—when he needs help. Believe it or not, I’m not completely obtuse. I know I haven’t made myself available to be that person the past few years. But I want to do better, I…I do, more than I can tell you.”
Emotion thickens the words, and it’s the first time all day I feel tears sting behind my own eyes. In the silence that follows,while I hear my father sniff and clear his throat, I’m grateful my parents have never hidden their vulnerability, that I grew up with two examples of strong, capable men who also feel things deeply. Who’ve always let me fall apart in front of them without shame and been there to pick me up when I’ve needed it.
It’s that thought that finally makes me start talking.
Dad listens patiently as I spill out the story of my last few weeks, all that’s happened with Cammie, and looking for her dad, and falling for her again for what felt like the first time. I tell him about Germany, and how long I put off the choice to go, and what made me finally say yes.
Then I get to today, and the future—how I’ve started to convince myself that I should give Cammie space and time while she processes everything and decides what she needs. How I and my needs don’t have to get in her way, or loom on the other side of her bedroom wall, in the midst of all the other chaos she’s facing. How I’m not sure if she broke up with me this morning or if we were even officially together or if she was just saying stuff she didn’t mean again, but she said she would stick with me when things got tough, so I should probably believe her, right? And maybe sticking with her, for now, means taking away the pressure of my presence—supporting her, while giving her room to breathe.
I don’t know how long it takes, how long we lie there on the bizarrely comfortable carpet for a room that seems so underused. But Dad doesn’t rush me or admit how exhausted he must be. He just listens, like there’s nowhere he’d rather be.
Finally, I let out a puff of air and conclude, “I think that’s everything.”
In the ensuing silence, I hear Dad rub a hand over his jaw, a gesture I picked up from him, however unwittingly. The realization would make me smile if I didn’t feel so miserable right now.
“I’ll be honest with you,” he finally says. “I think this flight instinct—no pun intended—is not the kind of…reprieve, or whatever, that you think you’re giving to Cammie. Or to me or anyone else around you. You’re not a burden, no matter what your brain might want to tell you. And acting on the belief that you are might just hurt you and Cammie both, not help anyone. Does that make sense?”
My brows pull together as I consider his words. “Maybe. I don’t know.”
Dad lets out a soft chuckle. “Well, I am very obviously not the expert on relationships and being a good partner. But especially with where you and Cammie are in your lives—don’t put it on pause right when things are getting good! The best is yet to come, buddy. I feel fairly certain of that. If she wants to be with you, no matter that you’re in Germany, or that your brain tries to screw things up for you sometimes, or that you’re a big ol’ nerd”—he bumps his elbow against mine—“then I think you should trust her. Trust that you have so much going for you, it’s no wonder this girl who you find to be so amazing thinks the same of you. I know I come with some bias, being the parent of the best guy in the world. But Cammie is a smart girl, too—she wouldn’t fall for a dud, you know?”
