Page 94 of Every Silent Lie

Every muscle in me hardens in preparation to stand up and get out of here.

And then loosens again when Dec appears in the doorway.

Still naked.

His expression now not blank but pained.

He has a short, fat crystal glass in each hand, both half full of clear liquid. Something tells me it isn’t water. Dec takes a swig of one. “Is your hand bleeding?” I ask, catching the scuffs on his knuckles.

“It’s nothing.” He comes to me and puts the drink in my hand. “Drink it.”

“All of it?”

He doesn’t answer, instead necking his own and hissing. Putting his glass on the vanity unit, he shakes the bite of the strong alcohol away and steps back into the tub, kneeling opposite me. “Are you going to drink that?”

I look at the glass, just as Dec takes it and leans out of the bath, putting it on the floor. “I’m sorry I left.”

My strung muscles loosen. “I understand.”

He shakes his head. “I just needed a moment to process what you just told me. I didn’t want to say the wrong thing.”

“There’s no wrong thing to say.”

His face falls, his palms clamping my cheeks between them. “I love you.”

The tables have turned. It’s now me motionless and stunned. Staring. Watching him as he watches me trying to wrap my mind around it.

“Deeply, Camryn.” His smile could make me burst into tears on the spot. “I’m so deeply in love with you, I don’t know my fucking arse from my elbow.”

I think I’m supposed to laugh at that.

“I love you so much, my heart aches for you. I love the ballsy career woman, but I hate why you need to be her now. I love the smile you rarely give out, which makes it all the more special when you smile for me. I love the way you close one eye when you’re thinking hard. I love the way you can be in perfect silence, and I can be in it with you. I love the way you hate Christmas, but it breaks me to now know why. I love your passion. I love the mole on your cheek. I love the way you scissor your cocktail glass with your fingers, and the way you chew your lip when you’re nervous.” He takes in air, his shoulders slumping. “How you laughed at Fawlty Towers and quickly corrected yourself. I love how you kiss me, but more than all of that,” he says, releasing my face and resting back on his heels. “More than anything, I love the way you look at me. And I want you to look at me like that every day for the rest of my life.”

Stunned, I drop back onto my arse, the pessimistic part of my brain telling me I’ve misheard him. Dreamed the last few minutes. This isn’t real, he can’t possibly love me. Who could?

But Dec . . . does?

I want to get to know the woman I’m falling for.

And now he truly does. And . . . he loves me.

I cup my hands over my face, bringing my knees up to my chin. The tears can’t be kept at bay, and I don’t have it in me to even try. Seeing Dominic today, the girlfriend I didn’t know he had blooming, felt like the worst day of my life since I watched the surgeon walk out of the theatre, his face grave, and I knew. I just . . . knew.

Now?

I feel like a safety net has been cast beneath me. Something to cushion the constant blows I feel each and every day I fall, when I’m doing something and then I remember . . .

My little boy died.

In a few days it will be three years since I last held his little hand. Kissed his little forehead. Saw his little smile. Heard his little voice.

“I love you, Mummy. Thiiiiiis much,” he says around a cheese puff, his little arms wide.

The pain hits hard, never easing off, as strong today as it was the day I lost him. My shoulders lift and fall, my heart squeezes, my lungs burn as I try to get air into them.

I feel Dec’s hands wrap around my wrists and pull firmly, revealing my tear-streaked, blotchy face. And seeing Dec’s pained expression now, it just makes me cry harder. But he doesn’t let me hide. He doesn’t pull me close for a hug. It’s as if he wants to see my emotion. Wants to see me fall apart. But I know Dec, and this, what he’s doing now, leaving me wide open, exposed, crying, is because he knows I’ve suppressed it for years.

I’ve suppressed it so much I could burst.