Page 84 of What He Always Knew

He clenched his jaw, looking back over the yard.

“Look, I didn’t come here to defend myself, either — or to try to change your perception of me. You have your mind made up about the kind of man I am just like I have mine made up about you. But I do need you to understand me when I say that I love my wife,” he said. His voice broke a little at the end, and he turned to face me, his eyes hard on mine. “And I will love her every day until I take my last breath, just like I vowed to eight years ago.”

“And I’ve loved her since I was a teenager,” I told him. “We can go tit for tat all day here, Cameron. You love her, I love her, we both think we deserve her over the other. You keep saying you didn’t come here to fight, so just get to the point, already.”

Cameron stood, uncrossing his arms. “The reason I reminded you that I love her, that I always will, is because I cannot pretend that there isn’t a very large chance that my wife will not be mine anymore after today.”

A cool breeze swept between us, like the Earth was listening, like it needed to cool the tension before it was too hot not to explode.

“Charlie could choose you,” he said, and my heart thumped hard in my chest.

She could choose me.

God,I hoped she would.

“And if she does,” he continued. “Then I will bow out gracefully. I will wish you both the best, pack my bags, and be gone. I won’t bother her, I won’t fight you, and I won’t beg for more time. She gave me what I asked of her,” he said. “And she knows her heart better than both of us. She knows what, and who, will make her happy.” He shrugged. “And that’s all I want. More than the breath in my own lungs, I want Charlie’s happiness.”

“As do I.”

Cameron nodded, as if he didn’t doubt me one bit. “Then, you’ll understand why I came today. Because if she does choose you, Reese, then I need you to be everything she wants and desires in life. I need you to promise me, right here and now, that you will never intentionally hurt her, that you will always put her first, that you will listen to what she doesn’t even say out loud. Charlie is so selfless, so kind and caring, that sometimes she forgets to love herself and putherfirst. I need you to be the man to do that. I need you to be the one who makes her laugh on the bad days, and the one who lets her cry on the worst, and—”

“So, be all the things you couldn’t be?”

Cameron still had his mouth open, but his tangent died on his tongue. His jaw clenched with his eyes still on me, and he took another deep breath, shaking his head.

“I guess so,” he said after a moment, his voice low. “Charlie deserves the greatest love of all time. I think that’s one thing you and I can both agree on. So, I’m just saying, if you’re the one she chooses…” He swallowed, like the possibility of it was enough to make him physically ill. It was the same for me.

“Love her like she deserves,” I finished for him.

Cameron’s eyes softened a little, and he nodded.

In that moment, we were just two men who understood each other, who were in very different shoes yet nearly the same. We recognized each other’s battles, each other’s wounds, and perhaps there was even a level of respect present on that porch where we stood.

As much as he irritated me, Cameron had put his pride aside to come to my house. He was being a man, coming to me as an opponent, seeing the worthiness in me and the possibility that he could lose to me.

And more than that, he was here for Charlie.

I could see that most of all. He loved Charlie enough to accept the fact that he could lose her, and if that was the case, that he would wish the best for her, even still.

I respected him, but I still didn’t have to like him.

“Look,” I said to Cameron. “I don’t have much to say to you. Honestly, I just don’t think you deserve Charlie and I never have — not since the moment I came back into town and saw a lifeless shell in the place of a girl who used to be full of so much light. And I’m not saying you stole all of that away,” I clarified. “But, I do think you were part of it. And I want you to know if she chooses you, and you hurt her again, I will literally murder you.”

Cameron chuffed, as if the possibility were ludicrous, but I narrowed my eyes more.

“I’m serious.”

We stared at each other, each of us standing tall and square.

“But, if she chooses me, I promise you I will treat her right. I have never loved another the way I love Charlie, and I know I never will again. So, I will treat her like the air I’m lucky to breathe, and I’ll show her every day how much she means to me. I will give her everything she wants and needs, and I will not lose her the way you did,” I said, and Cameron swallowed, his demeanor breaking a little. “You have my word.”

He stared at me, like he was looking for a sign of weakness, a glimpse of what could be a lie. I knew he found nothing when he simply nodded, making his way toward the stairs of the porch.

“Then I guess there’s nothing left to say,” he said, and he held out his hand for mine.

I took his hand in a firm grip, shaking it just twice.

“May the best man win,” I said.