Page 33 of What He Always Knew

“It’s not. And I could start in a lot of different places, but the first thing I want to say to you is that I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry I left you to battle the grief over losing Derrick and Jeremiah on your own. I was stupid to think you needed space and time. You’re right — you needed me, and I wasn’t there.”

Emotion strangled me like a noose, its hands wrapping tight around my throat as I wrapped my arms around Cameron tighter. He was so warm, yet he was shaking, and I tried as much as I could to make him feel comfortable.

The words he was giving me, they were more than he’d given me in years — and I knew how much they hurt for him to say.

“I was devastated,” he said, his voice just above a whisper. “When we lost them, I felt like somehow it wasmyfault — like I had failed you and them in some way I couldn’t even be sure of. And I wanted to help you, to make you feel better, but I didn’t know how. I was useless. I tried rebuilding your library and packing away any memory of our boys…” He swallowed, voice thick with emotion. “Like I could make them disappear. Like I could fix your pain by removing any reminders of the reason it existed, instead of facing it head on with you.”

My heart broke with his admission. Here I’d felt like it was my fault, like I was the one who’d failed by not carrying our boys into a healthy birth, and Cameron felt that same pressure.

It was all too much for us. Forbothof us. Why hadn’t I ever thought to ask him ifhewas okay?

“When I told Patrick about what happened, he asked me how I felt about losing them,” Cameron said. “The boys. And at first, the answer was easy. I was sad, I was angry, I was devastated and heartbroken. I blamed God, blamed myself, blamed my shit father even though I haven’t seen him since I was eight. Somehow it was his fault, too, and that’s when Patrick helped me realize something I hadn’t before.”

My breath caught, and I held it in my lungs as I waited for Cameron to continue.

“The truth is, I was more angry than anything when we lost the boys, Charlie. I couldn’t handle the pain, or the thought of not having them in our lives, but I could spend hours and hours every night being angry. And what Patrick helped me see was that I wasn’t mad at you, or at me, or at the doctors or the stupid grieving books your parents gave us,” he said, shaking his head. “I was angry because it wasn’t fair. I was angry because of the injustice of my life, of being an unwanted child who, in turn, couldn’t have the children he wanted more than anything.”

I closed my eyes, tears I hadn’t even realized were building rolling down my cheeks in two symmetrical lines.

“Oh, Cameron,” I whispered, holding him tight. “You weren’t unwanted.”

“Yes, I was,” he said louder, his voice strong and sure. “And it’s so,sofucked up that they could have me when they didn’t even want me. A druggie mother, an abusive, asshole dad. They didn’t want a kid, and yet they got me.”

He was shaking, and I smoothed my hands down his lower back where I held him, lips pressed against his chest.

“And here we are, two people who love each other more than anything in the world, and we couldn’t have our boys.” He swallowed. “That’swhat I played on repeat, over and over, until my thoughts were scrambled and knotted. All I could think was how we wanted those boys and we couldn’t have them. But we deserved them, Charlie. Damn it,youdeserved them.”

Cameron grabbed my arms, pulling me up until my eyes met his. He ran his hands up and over my shoulders, my neck, until they framed my face as his eyes searched mine, begging me to hear him.

“You will be the most amazing mother one day,” he said, his voice breaking. “Whether with me or…”

But he couldn’t finish the sentence, and I hated myself for ever making it a sentence he thought in the first place.

“You will be the best mom in the world. I know it. And I’m just so sorry those boys didn’t get to live long enough to have you as their mother because they would have been the luckiest boys in the world.” He sniffed. “And I would have been the luckiest man.” At that, he choked on a laugh. “I still am, at least for now.”

“Shhh,” I said quickly, leaning in to kiss him, and we both exhaled together once our lips met.

I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled him into me, twisting in the bath as the water sloshed over the sides again. I straddled him the best I could in the space we had, our chests fused together as he kissed my lips hard enough to bruise them.

“I’m so sorry, Charlie,” he said between kisses. “I just wanted you to know that. I was hurting, too. I lost them, too. But I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you the way I should have been. I’m sorry I haven’t been here, not really, since the day they left.”

“It’s okay, Cameron. It’s okay. I understand.” I kissed him again, softer this time — longer. “There’s no right way to handle what we went through, okay? We were both just doing what we could. That’s all we had to give, and it’s okay.”

“I’ll never forgive myself,” he whispered. “But I had to tell you. I wanted you to understand. And more than anything, I need you to know that I have always loved you, Charlie. Always. That never wavered — not ever.”

“I know,” I said quickly, but in my heart, a familiar pain stung me like a wasp. Because though I knew he’d always loved me, he had wavered — he had strayed from my love and into the arms of another woman.

And I still didn’t know why.

But I pushed those thoughts from my mind, choosing to focus on the little ray of light Cameron had chosen to shine on his darkest thoughts that night. He’d let me in, he’d let me see, and I wanted to live in that light as long as I could.

“Cameron,” I said, running my hands back through his hair until his chocolate eyes connected with mine.

“Yes?”

“Do you want me?”

He blew out a long breath, shaking his head as his forehead leaned in to mine. “More than anything.”