Where We Meet Again, стр. 17
We sip in silence. Seconds pass like minutes. “How’s the hand?”
“Oh.” I bring my hand to my face, inspecting the fresh gauze I’d forgotten about until his question. “It’s fine.” I shrug.
“Good to hear.”
Silence descends again while I struggle for something to say. “Thanks. For, um…” I flap my bandaged hand in the air. “You know.”
Why does he have to be so fricken hot? Even in the cheesy uniform, he looks confident and calm. Relaxed against my countertop, one booted foot rests over the other, and he grasps his mug by the handle in front of his stomach. He examines me. Not like I confuse him and he can’t make sense of me. No, he studies me like a puzzle. When he draws another drink and swipes his lips with his tongue, my attention snags on his mouth.
“Cami,” he calls softly. His tone isn’t warm, but it isn’t ice either. The tenor feels like a crisp breeze on a fall day when winter is nearby. The hair on my arms stands on end.
“Yeah?” My answer isn’t soft. The one word is high. Maybe a little pleading.
“What happened to you?”
He comes right out with it, not beating around the bush, not playing nice. Law doesn’t pretend not to have some idea of why I disappeared now that he knows about Evelyn. But, for the prior decade and a half, he lived without a clue.
How do I tell him the truth without giving him everything?
“You know what happened. You’ve seen my daughter, Law. I—you can put it together.”
His grip tightens subtly on the mug. “What I can put together is that you got pregnant and took off. What I’m missing here is why? I don’t want the watered-down PG version. I want it all. I’ve always wanted it all with you, Cami. Don’t hide it from me now.”
As he utters the word pregnant, his mouth twists in disgust. Can I blame him for finding me revolting? Not when I feel the same about myself.
Rather than look at him, I busy myself with tracing my index finger around the rim of my mug. Steam condenses on my fingers. “I did something stupid, and that’s all that matters.”
“I won’t ask you again. I have a right to know why you left me.”
I flip out a hand. “I don’t think you do. We were kids. Now we’re not. A long time has passed since then.”
“Dammit, Cami. Tell me! Tell me why you crushed me all those years ago. Tell me why I’ve spent the last fourteen years haunted by the ghost of the love of my life,” he spits bitterly.
Flames lick my insides, chasing away the perpetual chill. “You didn’t want to be with me. You wanted to see other people.”
“I didn’t mean permanently, and you damn well knew that.”
“Law-ˮ
He cuts me off. “Lawrence.”
“Lawrence,” I amend, hating the chasm using his full name puts between us. “I was a sixteen-year-old girl. Back then, it was the most unimaginable thing to happen. I’d already lost my dad, my mom was practically a piece of furniture, and Ritchie–”. Saying his name in context to a time when he was alive chokes me. I blink back the heavy wave of tears threatening to fall.
“You were all I had left,” I whisper.
“Christ,” he bites out and examines his boots.
“I was lost.” The dryness of my throat and the regret obstructs my ability to speak. “I felt unwanted and lonely. I know how this makes me sound. If it were my daughter, I’d be so sad and ashamed of her behavior, but I just wanted to feel something other than hurt and unwanted all the time.”
His head snaps back up. “Yeah? Did you find what you were looking for?” His anger stokes my fire. The tears in my eyes evaporate.
“Yeah, actually, I did. Obviously, not from you. Not from him either! I found my love in Evelyn, and as much as this all sucks, I wouldn’t trade her for anything.”
“Typical words of a parent. Must be nice to have shit on everyone around you and still come out on top.”
His words slap me in the face. “What is that supposed to mean?” I throw up my hands and slosh coffee over the side of my mug. The fiery liquid runs down my hand, soiling my bandage, and drips to the floor.
His torso lurches toward me. “What it means is you’ve got a fancy house, nice clothes, obviously a good job. You got someone to love you. Looks to me like everything worked out for poor, sad Cami.”
“How dare you?” I seethe. “You don’t know the first thing about me, or what I’ve been through.”
Law doesn’t bother with an answer. He dumps the rest of his coffee down the sink drain and slams the mug beside it. His hands clutch the edge as if trying to regain some control.
Watching him fascinates me. The setting sun from the window transforms his broad back into a silhouette and outlines the tension in his shoulders, once again defining how much stronger he is than the boy I used to know.
All signs of rage vanish when he turns, replaced by a haggard sadness that doesn’t come from a minor disappointment. For the first time since he returned to my life, I see the toll of my choices and mistakes.
I was right before with what I said to Kiersten; I was the catalyst for all of this. Not Law.
“You don’t either,” he starts cryptically, and I redirect my attention so I don’t miss what he imparts.
“Because you didn’t wait around to find out. It took me less than a month to realize what a stupid mistake I’d made. You didn’t take me back, because you were already knocked up. It’s all coming together now. You let somebody fuck you so you could feel an ounce of love? Well, I did it too.
“The difference between us is that you were already gone in