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He is. Cameron is worth every exhausting moment, every lie, every performance. He’s worth more than I can ever give him, and that’s the problem, isn’t it? I gave him everything I had, and it still wasn’t enough. It still came out wrong.

I literally saved him. I pulled him back from the edge, and he looked at me like I betrayed him. Like everything between us had been a lie.

The grief hits me so hard that I have to lean against the garden wall to stay upright. Gwen’s hand is on my arm, concerned, but I can’t look at her. Can’t let her see how close I am to falling apart.

“I need to go to bed,” I manage. “Long drive. I’m just— I’m tired.”

She lets me go, and I’m grateful. I make my way through the house, past the caterers cleaning up, past my mother’s concerned glance, up the grand staircase to my bedroom, the room I grew up in, with its high ceilings and antique furniture and the bed that’s too big for one person.

I close the door and lean against it, breathing hard.

Cameron is hurt. And I understand why. God, I understand. What I did, the way I did it, it must have looked like manipulation. Like I’ve been playing him all along.

But that’s not what it was. That’s not what any of it was.

I sink onto the edge of my bed, my head in my hands.

He’s hurt because it mattered. Because I mattered.

The realization hits me like lightning, sudden and illuminating. If there were no feelings there, if everything between us had been nothing, Cameron wouldn’t have reacted so strongly. He wouldn’t have looked at me with such betrayal in his eyes. He wouldn’t have pushed me away like my touch meant something.

You can’t be hurt by someone who means nothing to you, which means there’s something there. My heart is pounding, but it’s not from grief anymore.

I lift my head and stare at the moonlight streaming through my window. It’s haunting blue light soaks my room, lending it a surreal quality. I’m haunted by him, by the fantasies I’ve spun of him, and I make myself a promise: I won’t give up. I can’t. Giving up on Cameron would be like giving up on breathing.

I need to be patient and persistent. If I can just make Cameron listen, make him understand that everything between us was real, every conversation, every moment, every feeling, then maybe he’ll let me in again. Maybe he’ll let me show him what I can give him, what we can be together.

We’re meant to be. I’ve never been more certain of anything in my life. Cameron is mine, and I’m his, and the fact that he doesn’t see it yet doesn’t make it any less true.

I change into pajama pants and slide between the sheets, staring up at the ceiling. The house is quiet now, the guests gone, my family asleep or getting drunk in their respective wings. I’m alone with my thoughts, and my thoughts are full of him.

Is he asleep? Is he thinking about me?

When I close my eyes, I imagine him. Cameron in bed, lying on his side the way he told me he sometimes sleeps, his body warm and loose. The shape of him would fit perfectly against me, like we were designed to click together. I would mold myself to his back, my chest against his spine, my arm draped over his waist.

I would stroke his hair, and it would be smooth, slipping between my fingers like silk. Dark and soft and smelling faintly of his shampoo. I would kiss his neck, right where it meets his shoulder, and learn the deeper and more masculine scent he carries now. I would bury my face there and breathe him in until he’s part of me.

“I’m sorry,” I would whisper against his neck. “I’m so sorry, Cameron. I never meant to hurt you.”

And in my fantasy, Cameron takes my hand and pulls it to the center of his chest. I feel his heartbeat under my palm, steady and strong. He holds my hand there, over his heart, and says my name.

It means everything.

We fall asleep like that, holding each other.

But when I open my eyes, the fantasy dissolves like fog.

I’m alone in my bed. Cameron is hundreds of miles away, probably hating me. The hand I imagined on his chest is empty, clutching at nothing but expensive sheets.

A sob rises in my throat before I can stop it, and I clamp my jaw shut, forcing it back down. But it doesn’t disappear. It just sits there, trapped, growing larger and more painful until my throat aches from the effort of containing it.

Tears slip down my temples. I don’t make a sound. I learned a long time ago how to cry without anyone knowing, how to break apart quietly so no one witnesses it.

But God, it hurts. It hurts so much I can barely breathe around it. The absence of Cameron is a wound that will never close, and I’m bleeding out in this grand bed in this grand house, surrounded by everything money can buy and none of what I actually need.

I press my face into the pillow and let the tears come, spilling until the ache settles so deep I think it might be permanent.

Somewhere out there, Cameron is sleeping without me.