Where We Meet Again, стр. 56

Nathan arrives shortly after we do and finds me alone in the waiting room. After they take Evelyn up to the O.R., a nurse comes and brings us to a private waiting room instead.

I need to pass the time, so I pull out my phone and call the two other people who exist in my life.

Kiersten’s up first. She’s out of town and can’t do anything, and I need time to stall. I don’t have a clue what I’ll say to Law.

I keep it brief with her, holding onto my pain long enough to tell her Evelyn was in an accident. She offers to leave right away to be with me, but I tell her to stay. It’s her family holiday, and the roads are dangerous. After promising hourly updates, she tells me she’ll be home as soon as the roads are safe, and lets me go. Once I hang up, Nathan stands and hugs me hard.

“I have to get back to work. If you want, I can get someone to cover for me so I can stay.” The statement lingers like a question.

“I have people coming. Go back to work. I’ll keep you updated.”

“Keep the faith,” he says, giving me one last lingering hug.

I’m thankful for a few minutes alone to call Law. I know why I need to call him, and it’s more than my desperation for the comfort only he can bring. He doesn’t know that, though, and if questions arise, being alone is the best way for me to answer them.

The phone rings three times before he answers, and at the sound of his voice, I nearly lose it.

“Did you miss me already?”

I pace across the ugly blue carpet in a path that quickly becomes comforting. Words fail me. The only thing I can do is choke on the sob that overcomes me.

“Cami, what is it?” His voice turns insistent.

“You need to come to the hospital.”

A clattering sounds through the phone. “I’m coming, baby. What’s happened?”

His engine roars in my ear moments later. This is my Law, just like old times. I need him, and he’s there. No questions asked.

“Evelyn was in an accident.”

“I’m coming, baby, you hear me? Stay calm.”

“Law, hurry.”

“I am, but you stay calm for me.”

I whimper, calm the last thing on my mind.

“Close your eyes, Cam.”

“Law,” the desperation in my voice begs him to help me.

“Do it, baby.”

I do as he asks.

“Are they closed?”

My voice is a strangled whisper. “Yes.”

“Remember our waterfall? Imagine you’re there. You’re surrounded by the deep greenery, sitting in the shade beneath the rocks. Water rushes overhead and pours into the pool of water beside you. You’re so close, if you reached your hand out, you could feel how cool the water is.”

My breathing slows.

“Are you there? Do you see it?”

Another whimper. “I’m there.”

“Good. Hold tight. I’m coming. I’m almost there.”

“Okay, Law.”

The calmness of his voice keeps coming at me. “See you soon.”

The line clicks off.

I lower the phone from my ear, trying to hold on to the image of the waterfall in my head.

Eventually, the image fades, replaced with the memory of Evelyn’s bloodied face, and I crumple to the floor and cry.

* * *

I don’t know how much time has passed, but I know it’s him without opening my eyes. His scent surrounds me; the smell of cedar the most distinguishable. And the feel of his body pressed against mine has become familiar. As if I weigh nothing, he picks me up from the floor and cradles me in his arms. He sits in one of the double chairs with me in his lap.

My hands find the open halves of his jacket, and I clutch them tightly in my fists. I want to crawl inside his body and live there until all this is over. I can’t do it again. The thought of losing another person I love eviscerates me.

“I won’t survive losing her.”

“Shh.” He strokes my hair, my shoulders, my back.

Abruptly, I sit up. “I’m serious,” I state in a tone that matches my words. “I can’t do it. I lost my parents, Ritchie, you.”

“You haven’t lost me. I’m right here.”

“But I did. I lost you, and it nearly killed me. I can’t do it again. I can’t lose anybody else.”

Pain etches across his features. He cups the side of my head and tucks me in the space beneath his chin.

“I’m right here, Cami, and you aren’t gonna lose anybody else.”

I slip my arms beneath his jacket, holding on tight as if by letting go I’d float away into the ether, never to return.

“Three days before Ritchie died, I visited him for the last time.” I don’t know why I tell him this, but in light of what’s happening, it feels like the time to come clean. Too much heaviness weighs on me. The only way to lighten the load is to set it free. Something I should have done a long time ago.

“When it was time to go, I drove to Logansville instead of Arrow Creek. I parked outside your house.”

The ministrations of his fingers in my hair help to ground me.

“I know,” he says, after a few moments of silence.

“You did?”

“Not then. I found out the day of your birthday when you were drunkenly rambling to Ritchie’s headstone.”

“Oh. Well, I forgot about that.”

Law chuckles and moves his fingers from my hair to trace my arm. “Why did you bring it up?”

“I just wondered what would have happened. If I’d have come back. Knocked on the door or something.”

His body stills beneath mine. “You can’t think like that,” he says in a gruff voice.

“I’m sorry. I was just thinking about how much I have hurt us. Directly and indirectly from my mistakes.”

“Our mistakes.” His inhale lifts me with the rise and fall with his chest. “I spent years focusing on the what-if’s. We’ve found our way back to each other now. No use in running through imaginary scenarios. It’ll just