Page 66 of My Sweetest Agony

He may not have been happy with his brother, but I never heard him speak about anyone that way during our entire time together. Drew was forgiving of just about anything with anyone, always looking for the best in people and situations. Yet, with his own brother, he was unwilling to bend. And apparently, he was relentless in his belief that he was righteous in his anger toward him.

Maybe he had a good reason.

Cam is lying to his mother even now, when she needs him the most. And prior to Drew’s death, Cam didn’t come home once in the entire time we were together. Four long years of never setting foot in his mother’s home for a birthday or a holiday.

It’s easy to write it off as being selfish, but knowing Cam the way I do, I think there’s more to the story. He’s been so selfless and giving with me that I can’t imagine he would intentionally keep his mother at arm’s length unless there was a very good reason.

Like his addiction issues…

He didn’t want her to know.

The answer slaps me in the face, and I don’t know why it never occurred to me before that he was keeping it from her—and probably from Drew as well. He already told me Drew suspected he was using, and if he had come home, Drew likely would have seen the evidence and been able to read his brother like an open book.

Coming home would have meant admitting he had a problem to the two people he loved most in this world.

My heart shatters for him.

For having to bear that burden all alone.

But Nancy has no idea.

If she did, she would have mentioned something—to Drew, to me. I would have known she knew.

“Do you think their rift had anything to do with the fact that he rarely came back from London?”

She gives me a soft smile. “Maybe, but I understood. Cam’s studio, his business…when he’s working, when he gets in that headspace, he kind of…”—she lifts one shoulder and lets it fall—“shuts down and blocks everything else out, including people, and anything else he cares about. It all takes second seat behind whatever he’s working on.”

“Isn’t that kind of what all artists do?”

She laughs lightly and nods, pushing out of her chair and motioning for me to follow her into the living room. “That’s why it never really bothered me. Of course, I would have loved to see him more, loved for him to call more, but I also understood it. He has a life there. A business, friends…”

Something ugly twists in my gut.

Something that feels an awful lot like jealousy I shouldn’t be feeling.

I trail after her, pressing my hand over my churning stomach. “Does he have a girlfriend?”

Her brow furrows as she stops in front of several black-and-white sketches Cam did in high school that Nancy framed and hung along with some of their family photos—the only time I’ve ever seen any of his artwork. “You know, I don’t actually know the answer to that.” She shrugs. “Maybe. Cam never had any problems in that department.”

That doesn’t surprise me at all, really.

There’s something about Cam that just draws you in, makes you want to be close when he gives you every reason to move away.

I got caught in that trap far too easily.

Nancy stares at the stunning portrait of Cam’s grandmother he did in charcoal and the landscape beside it showing the small house just miles from Strathmere Beach where they spent so much time with the woman.

Drew always said it was like a second home for them growing up.

But this is Cam’s real home.

The place he belongs, even though he insists on staying away.

I swallow through my suddenly dry throat, glancing toward Nancy. “Do you think Cam will ever come home?”

She offers me the saddest smile I may have ever seen from her and shrugs. “I hope so. I’ve prayed that he will, but I think losing his brother may have been too much for him.”

“What do you mean?”