Never Say Never

by Rachael Sommers

  When the seat belt signs came on, Jaime returned to sit with Camila.

  Emily was relieved when the plane touched down because she was home, and she only had to hold herself together a little longer. The time difference between London and New York meant that they landed in early afternoon. Emily was bone-tired as they went through customs, grateful that Jessica engaged Camila in talk about work.

  Once they had retrieved their bags, they found Camila’s driver waiting to take her, Jaime, and Jessica back into the city. Emily spotted Cassie and Maia a short distance away. She waved, then squatted down to face Jaime.

  “Have a good Christmas, buddy.” He hugged her tight, like he didn’t want her to leave. “I’ll see you soon.”

  “I’ll miss you.”

  “I’ll miss you too.” She gave him one last squeeze before rising to her feet. “Have a good holiday, Jessica.”

  “You too.” Jessica hugged her, whispering, “I hope you feel better soon.”

  Camila was still focused on her phone. Emily forced herself to say, “See you in a few days, Ms. Evans.”

  She paused, considering whether to say thank you, because Camila had paid for her to go on this trip, and she was grateful, but at the same time she wished she had never gone, because then there wouldn’t be this awkwardness between them.

  When Camila didn’t respond, Emily turned to leave.

  “Emily.”

  She froze in her tracks, then turned, but Camila still wouldn’t look at her, still stared down at her phone, even though it was obvious the screen was black. “Don’t come back until January second. You deserve a break.”

  January sounded so far away. “What about Jaime?” she squeaked out, and she hated it, hated that Camila looked so completely unaffected while Emily’s heart was splintering, hated that Camila acted like she didn’t even care.

  “He’ll come to the office with me or spend some time with his father,” she said evenly. “Spend some time with your family.” Only then did Camila look up. Her eyes were expressionless, her face impassive, and Emily wanted to cry. Why was she the only one who felt like her world was falling apart?

  How was that fair?

  But time was what Emily wanted, what she needed, really—time and distance from Camila—but she didn’t want to be away so long. “We’ll see you in the New Year.”

  “I… Okay.” She didn’t have the energy to argue, didn’t have the energy to do anything, really. It was a miracle that she was even still standing. “Bye.”

  She turned and walked away, dragging her suitcase, refusing to look back, and her eyes were so filled with tears that she didn’t notice Cassie until she nearly crashed into her.

  “Emily?” Cassie’s gentle fingers tilted her head up. “What’s wrong?”

  Without a word, Emily fell into her sister’s arms, let Cassie hold her, and prayed Camila wasn’t looking, couldn’t see how broken she was or how many tears she was shedding over her.

  Emily never wanted Camila to know just how much she loved her.

  “You want to talk about it?” Cassie asked, after Emily’s bags were stowed in the trunk and the car had pulled away from prying eyes. Maia looked back, waiting to see what she might do.

  “Not yet.” She was exhausted, mentally and physically, and she didn’t want to think about the past few days. She rested her head against the window, using her jacket as a pillow, and quickly fell asleep.

  She woke up at the outskirts of Rockport and stared out the window as they drove toward her childhood home. Night had fallen, but she recognized all the familiar places, and she let her memories wash over her.

  They drove by the old library where she had spent many hours reading. They passed the park where she and Cassie used to play, where Emily had lain on the grass, looking at the stars and marveling at their beauty.

  The house was the same as it ever was. Sarah rushed out to greet them, wrapping the three of them in a tight squeeze.

  “Are you all right, Emily?” Sarah asked. Emily probably looked like she had been to hell and back.

  “Yeah, I’m just tired.” It wasn’t really a lie—she had slept in the car but she still couldn’t wait to lie down in an actual bed. “From the traveling and all. And I didn’t sleep well while I was there.”

  Sarah sent her up to bed, leaving the three of them to whisper about her.

  Her old room was the same—the bed, the dresser, the posters lining the walls, and the glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling.

  She dragged herself to the bathroom for a shower and felt better once the hot water had eased her aching muscles and washed away the dust of travel.

  She wished the shower had washed away the memory of last night too.

  But it didn’t, and she didn’t really expect to sleep when she crawled under the covers. She waited for thoughts of Camila to play on her mind and keep her awake, but she was too exhausted, and she slipped into unconsciousness when her head hit the pillow.

  * * *

  Emily woke early the next morning, the sun barely over the horizon.

  Her room looked out at the ocean, and she stood at the window watching the sun rise over the waves, bathing them in red.

  She felt rested—and hungry. She got dressed and headed down stairs, her stomach rumbling. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten a full meal. She vaguely recalled stopping for burgers yesterday as they got on the road, and nibbling on some fries before falling asleep against the window again.

  She made some coffee and was considering whether to make eggs, bacon, and toast—if she could without setting off the fire alarm—when she heard footsteps on the stairs.

  “Hey, Emily.” Maia was still in her pajamas and not looking very awake. “How are you feeling?”

  “Better.”

  “You look better,” Maia said as Emily poured her a mug of coffee.

  “I don’t think I could look much worse.” At least she could joke a little now—she felt refreshed after a good night’s sleep, a little less breakable, though it would take her a long, long time to heal. “Sorry if I freaked you guys out yesterday.”

  “We were worried,” Maia admitted, “but you looked like you needed the rest.” Maia glanced at the kitchen counter where Emily had lined up food from the fridge. “Please tell me you weren’t about to cook breakfast.”

  “Um, kinda. I’m hungry.”

  “Out of the way.” Maia hip checked her and started bustling around the kitchen like it was her own. “You can’t be trusted.”

  “I’m getting better!”

  “At some things,” Maia conceded, and set the bacon to sizzling.

  Emily hopped up on the kitchen counter. “How was your week?”

  “Same old, same old.” Maia shrugged. “Glad to have a break.”

  “Yeah, me too.” Though it would be longer than she had planned.

  Maia watched her, curious.

  Emily sighed. “We, um… We kissed again. Me and Camila. The night before we left.”

  Maia turned down the heat on the stove and faced her, leaning back against the counter.

  “I don’t really know what happened… We had been getting closer all week, and we stayed up late that night, and then we just…we were kissing, and then her stupid phone rang and everything went to hell.” She had wondered more than once what might have happened if Camila’s phone hadn’t gone off—how far they might have gone, if she might have woken up in Camila’s bed the next morning instead of on the couch alone.

  Wondered if Camila would have pushed her away anyway, and wondered if she should be thankful that they hadn’t gone further.

  “She said it was a mistake and that it could never happen again because she wasn’t interested in me like that.” She looked at her hands folded in her lap and willed herself not to cry. “And then she walked away and didn’t lo
ok at me again until I was about to go look for you and Cassie. She told me not to come back to work until January.”

  “Oh, Emily.” Maia wrapped her in a hug, squeezing her so tight it was hard to breathe. “I’m so sorry.”

  “At least I know where I stand this time, right?” Her voice quivered and moisture filled her eyes. Maia leaned back, wiping away the tears before they fell.

  “She doesn’t deserve you,” she said fiercely. “If she can’t see how amazing you are, then she’s an idiot.”

  “Thanks.” She was relieved when her stomach rumbled—she didn’t want to talk about it anymore. Maia moved away and turned back to the stove. “Could you, um, tell Cassie? I really don’t want to relive it again.”

  “Of course.”

  Upstairs a door opened, followed by footsteps as Sarah and Cassie came downstairs.

  “The smell of food must have lured them out,” Maia said with a grin, and Emily jumped off the counter to set the table.

  “Thanks for making breakfast, babe.” Cassie said, kissing Maia on her cheek and accepting a plate of food.

  “No problem.” Maia looked at Emily. “It was either that or leave your sister to burn down the kitchen, so really, I had no choice.”

  “Rude.”

  Maia stuck out her tongue, and Emily grinned. This was exactly what she needed—to be surrounded by her family.

  * * *

  Christmas morning, Camila woke up with Jaime’s face inches from her own. He had apparently snuck into her bed in the night.

  “Merry Christmas, sweetheart,” Camila said, rubbing a hand over her eyes. She glanced at the time—Christmas and his birthday were the only days he woke up before her.

  “Merry Christmas,” he said brightly. He seemed happier than he had since they returned from London.

  Ever since they had arrived, Jaime had been grumpy and some days barely spoke to her. Maybe today would be the turning point and they could get back to normal.

  “Is it presents time yet?” he asked, buzzing with excitement, but Camila needed coffee first.

  “After breakfast,” she said. “Do you want pancakes?”

  “Okay.” He followed Camila as she made her way to the kitchen. The rising sun shone brightly through the beach house window. “Emily makes good pancakes,” Jaime said offhandedly. Camila almost dropped the pan.

  “Does she?” Camila asked. She kept her back to Jaime so he couldn’t see how shaken she was. She had tried so hard not to think about her, about the pain in her eyes or how she had walked away zombie-like that day.

  “Yeah.” Jaime’s eyes were vacant when she turned around, and Camila hated that it was because of her. She was supposed to protect him, she wasn’t supposed to fall for Emily, sure as hell wasn’t supposed to act on it. “I miss her.”

  “You’ll see her soon.”

  “It feels like a long time, though,” Jaime muttered. He was still angry with her for giving Emily a few extra days off, but she thought that both of them needed the reprieve. She certainly did. She needed time to put her walls back in place so that she wouldn’t break down the second Emily looked at her.

  Camila gathered the ingredients for pancake batter, still thinking about when she would see Emily again. She dreaded the moment but knew there was no point in dwelling on it, that it would only make her crazy, but she couldn’t stop, couldn’t stop thinking about her, wondering how it would be when their paths crossed again.

  Because she didn’t know how she was going to react. She had tried before to keep Emily at arm’s length, but the second they had been alone together in London she cracked, somehow convincing herself that it was different there, that it wouldn’t count, that whatever happened wouldn’t matter once they got home.

  “Presents now?” Jaime asked the second he finished his pancakes. She let him take her hand and drag her over to where presents were scattered under the tree.

  He gleefully tore the paper off his gifts, his face brighter than Camila had seen it in days, and she recorded a few videos to watch later when she needed cheering up.

  “Do you like it?” Camila asked. He sat in a pile of wrapping paper, playing with his new Batmobile.

  “Yeah!” He tore himself away to disappear under the tree and emerged with a bag that Camila hadn’t noticed was there. Jaime dropped it in front of her.

  “This is from Emily.” He looked more cheerful than ever, and it stung to know that Emily was the reason for it.

  Emily had quickly won him over, and now Camila wondered if they were too attached. She dreaded to think what it might do to him when she left to go back to college or left for another reason.

  Camila assumed that both presents were for Jaime, but he handed one to her. She ran a fingertip over the tag with Emily’s writing, her throat tight.

  Emily had given Jaime his very own sketch pad and art supplies. Camila took a picture as he opened it, knowing Emily would want to see.

  She opened her present with trembling fingers, tearing off the paper to reveal a black folder. Inside was a collection of Jaime’s drawings. Some had been sketched by Emily for him to color, but some he had sketched himself.

  She clenched her jaw, trying not to cry, because it was such an Emily gift. She imagined her collecting them one by one, setting them aside, and putting them together, all the while knowing how much Camila would love it.

  She was so thoughtful, so wonderful, and Camila didn’t deserve her, and yet her heart felt like it was being squeezed in a fist, tighter and tighter, and the pressure on her chest was unrelenting.

  “Mama? Are you okay?”

  Camila tore her gaze away from the folder to find Jaime looking up at her with a frown. “I…I’m fine, sweetheart.” But her voice shook and so did her hands, and she had to close the folder and set it down before Jaime noticed.

  “Don’t you like your present?”

  “I love it.” More than that—she thought it was probably one of the best gifts anyone had ever given her. Emily had thought about it carefully, given her something she knew she would like rather than something off a shelf.

  “Then why is your face all funny?”

  Damn him for being so perceptive. “Because I…I didn’t get Emily anything,” she lied.

  “Oh.” Jaime blinked up at her. “Just don’t be mad at her anymore. That’ll make her happy.”

  Camila sucked in her breath, feeling like he had stuck a knife in her chest. “I’m not… I’m not mad at her.”

  “She said you were.”

  Maybe blasting music through her headphones on the flight home hadn’t been the wisest decision or she might know what Emily had said to him when they were sitting together.

  “Why won’t you talk to her?”

  “It’s complicated.”

  He looked like he wanted to ask more questions, but Camila did not want to talk about it anymore, not with him—she’d never be able to explain it.

  “Why don’t you try out your new art supplies, and I’ll send a photo to Emily so she can see you, hmm?”

  That distracted him, and she wrote a message to Emily, attaching a couple of pictures with the sketch pad.

  Thank you for these. You made his day. And mine. Merry Christmas.

  Maybe it wasn’t appropriate—she had, after all, completely ignored Emily on the flight home—but it would be rude not to say thank you.

  There was no response.

  Chapter 21

  Emily considered not showing up for work when January second rolled around.

  The two weeks with her family had been a nice break, but when she went to bed on New Year’s Day, knowing she was going to see Camila in the morning, her stomach tied up in knots. She tossed and turned late into the night until she finally slept from sheer exhaustion.

  With herculean effort, she dragged herself out of bed the next mo
rning, forcing her legs to propel herself out the door and onto the street, and set off on her usual route to Camila’s apartment.

  She used her key when she got there instead of knocking, just to buy herself some time before she came face-to-face with the woman who still haunted her dreams.

  She took a deep breath and started down the hallway, but before she took two steps, Jaime ran to meet her, hurling himself into her arms.

  She laughed and swung him around in a circle, her nerves easing the second she had him in her arms.

  “Hey, kiddo.”

  “I missed you.”

  “I missed you too.” She really had, so much, and if not for how much she adored him, she might not have come back at all.

  In fact, she still thought she might quit. The only thing holding her back was Jaime.

  “Did you have a good Christmas?”

  “It was okay.”

  Emily wondered if he was mad at Camila for Emily being gone so long.

  “Thank you for my presents.”

  “You liked them?”

  “Yeah!”

  “Have you used them yet?”

  “Yeah, come see.”

  She was still near the front door, rooted to the spot, but she forced herself forward, drawing strength from the boy in her arms, telling herself she could do this, that everything was going to be just fine.

  But then she saw Camila leaning against the back of the couch, tapping on her phone. When she heard Emily she looked up, meeting her gaze. Emily froze—she thought she was ready, but God, she really, really wasn’t.

  She had thought she was okay, that over the past two weeks she had pulled herself together, the memory and pain of their last night in London fading a little. She thought she’d be able to face Camila and not have it all come rushing back.

  But she still wanted her. She still looked beautiful, even after everything, and she wondered if she would ever look at Camila again without wanting something more than she could give.

  “Emily.” Camila gazed at her coolly, and she couldn’t breathe, squeezing Jaime so tight that he wriggled in her arms and she set him down.