Page 26 of What He Always Knew

Even if it wasn’t anything substantial, just hearing his voice again, seeing his laugh — it had brought a warmth to my heart that had been absent for far too long.

And then, last night, he’d asked me to take this trip with him. And I’d agreed.

“How’s it going in here?”

His voice startled my thoughts, and they scattered away like birds, flying back to the little cages of my mind reserved for each of them as I zipped up my suitcase.

“All packed up,” I said, heaving my suitcase off the bed as I turned to Cameron.

He was already rushing to my side, taking the suitcase from my hand with a smile so big it made a new ache split my heart.

He was so excited, and I only wanted to crawl into bed and not see him for the rest of the night. Hell, the rest of the weekend.

“I’ll get this in the car, then. Do you need anything else?”

I shook my head. “I’ll just freshen up and meet you downstairs.”

“Okay,” he said, bouncing a little as he leaned in to kiss my cheek. “You look beautiful, by the way.”

“I don’t have any makeup on,” I pointed out. “And my hair is a mess from school. And I’m exhausted.”

Cameron’s eyes circled my features as I pointed them out, but he just smiled wider.

“Exactly. And you’re still beautiful.”

I flushed, a long breath leaving my chest as Cameron took my bag and headed for the stairs.

After I’d used the restroom, I checked our bathroom mirror, staring at the reflection Cameron had called beautiful. My eyes were heavy, the skin puffy underneath them, and my hair was piled into a messier bun than usual on top of my head. I wore just a casual, mint green, long-sleeve shirt and jeans with my favorite pair of brown boots. There was nothing particularly special about how I looked or what I wore, yet he had called me beautiful.

He’d said that the day I gave birth to our sons, too.

A flash of his smile on that day hit me out of nowhere, like a lightning bolt set to kill, but I shook it off, packing that memory away along with the clothes in my suitcase. I’d take it with me this weekend, and, as I’d promised Cameron, I’d try.

I’d try to give him the chance he’d asked for.

But as I turned out the lights in our room, fingers trailing the wood of our staircase as I made my way down, I couldn’t hide the hurt that underlined my intention. Because what played in my mind on repeat each time I was with him was that he hadn’t wanted a chance to keep me — at least, not until he’d lost me in the first place.

And that was one truth I couldn’t pack away.

Cameron

I had less than two hours in the car to breathe some life into Charlie.

Ever since the evening of our dinner at The Kinky Starfish, she’d been like a turtle that had retreated into her shell, refusing to poke so much as a toe out, let alone her head. She woke up, went to work, came home, ate dinner, gave me what little energy she could in our conversations, and then she was right back to bed.

And I was running out of time.

Two months wasn’t long, and here I’d already lost almost two weeks. I needed to get her away from the house, away from the every day… away from him.

My heart had done a little jump for joy when she agreed to let me take her out of town this weekend, but it would be a pointless trip if I couldn’t reach inside the shell she was hiding under and coax her out.

“We’ve got a couple hours in the car,” I told her once we were outside the Mount Lebanon city limits. “Feel free to kick off your shoes and get comfortable.”

“Okay,” she said softly, but her tired eyes stayed glued on the trees we passed outside her window. She was leaning so close to her door that I couldn’t reach over and rest my right hand on her knee, but I left it open on the center console — just in case.

Ideas for how to get her to laugh popped through my mind like lottery balls as I drove, and I waited for one to jump out and stick. I should have asked Patrick ifhehad any ideas before I left, since it had been his suggestion to take the trip. Then again, my time with Patrick was already packed, and I needed every minute he had to filter through my own shit.

I met with Patrick for the first time the very next evening after Charlie rejected me in our bed, and I’d been with him every day since — save for Saturday and Sunday. Charlie thought I was working late again, and as much as I hated it, I let her believe that was the truth. I didn’t want to tell her I was talking to a therapist until I had something more substantial than that to say.