Page 11 of What He Always Knew
“Thank you, Cam.”
She smiled, squeezing my hand, and I wrapped her coat around her before walking her to the car.
On the drive to the restaurant where we would watch Reese play piano, I squeezed her thigh and told her I loved her.
She told me she loved me, too.
I believed her, and I knew that was what I needed to hold onto — that love. I had to bring it back to life from where it hung on with futile breaths now. Time was working against me, and I had years to make up for, with just days to do it. Days and weeks and two insufficient months. It wasn’t enough time, but it had to be.
The only thing I could know to be true was that she still loved me.
I hoped that love was enough to bring her back to me, too.
Charlie
I thought about Jane again on the drive to dinner Wednesday evening.
It hadn’t yet been a week since I’d let her loose, since I’d opened our bedroom window and told her to fly free. The more time passed, the more I missed her.
As I stared out the window on our drive to dinner, I wondered if she was out there, staring right back at me from a distance.
Cameron’s hand rested easily on my leg, just above my knee, his fingers keeping the inside of my thigh warm as we drove. He’d watched me get ready that evening, from the time I started doing my hair until I applied the very last of my lipstick. It was something he used to do —before.
Every time I looked in the mirror and found his gaze staring back at me, my stomach warmed.
It had always been so special to me, that he would just follow me around while I got ready. It never took him long, and he could have easily done a number of other things. But he always stayed, watching, talking, laughing.
It was like every minute he got to spend with me was a precious one.
Just like on our way to dinner two months before when I couldn’t remember when his hand had stopped finding my knee in the car, I couldn’t remember when he’d stopped watching me get ready. But tonight, he’d done both again.
It should have made me swoon. Itwouldhave, just weeks before. I stared at his hand and willed myself to feel that same fluttery joy I’d felt the night after my parents’ house, the night I thought we’d have sex again. I tried to remember what it felt like the night he claimed me after I’d been at Happy Hour with Reese. I searched for the love and adoration I’d felt when I walked in on him redoing my library to surprise me.
But I came up empty.
And if those feelings were the needles, the excitement I felt over seeing Reese was the hay that made the stack.Thosefeelings were bountiful. The very knee that Cameron held onto bounced with anticipation of seeing another man — one I couldn’t stop thinking about.
We hadn’t had the chance to be alone since Monday night, since before Cameron surprised us both on stage at the spring concert. Thankfully, I’d been able to talk to him during school yesterday, but we hadn’t had a single moment in passing today. There were several times he’d tried to catch me, to talk to me, but we’d been interrupted every time. I couldn’t wait to see him, to finally be able to have more than a crossing of paths.
I wondered how he’d look tonight, what tuxedo he would wear, how he’d style his hair. I wondered if he’d look at me while he played. I wondered if he’d find a way to steal a moment from me.
I wondered if hell was nice, since all signs pointed to me going there now.
My husband was in the car with me, begging me for my attention, and I couldn’t stop fantasizing about Reese. I’d waited so long to have this want from Cameron, to have him look at me the way he used to, to hear the words he’d always held silently in his heart.
And when my mind wandered like that, I thought about Jane, my beloved Budgie that I’d set loose.
I wondered if she still loved me and thought of me, too. I wondered if she was thankful I’d set her free, or if she was devastated that I had let her go. In two months, I’d be in her place, only I’d have the choice — fly out the window to a new life, or stay inside with the one I’ve known for years.
I was only two days into the two months I’d promised Cameron, and I already felt the truth of it all like it was a necklace I never took off — one I didn’t have to examine to know what it looked like, to know it was there.
Two months wouldn’t be enough.
Still, when we arrived at the restaurant and Cameron circled the car to my side at valet, opening my door for me and helping me out with his hand in mine, I made a promise to myself that I would at least try. I would at least hear him out. I would at least give him the chance I promised him.
At least then, at the end of it all, I could say I’d made the right decision.
I looped my arm in Cameron’s as we made our way inside The Kinky Starfish, a swanky dinner and cocktail spot in the heart of downtown Pittsburgh. I’d never been before, though Mom and Dad had spent a couple of anniversaries there. All I knew was that one dinner there cost about as much as our entire electric bill, and the dinner was served slowly and purposefully over the course of four hours.