If I gave him money for gas then it wasn’t really a favor. I’d be paying him for a service — I could think of him as a taxi driver.
“Come on, Charlotte, you know I’m not going to leave you out here alone, so you make the choice. Either you let me take you home, or I’ll just stand in the rain until your dad gets here.”
I thought about leaving him to stand in the rain all afternoon, but I liked the idea of being home…and dry. So I grabbed my handbag from the passenger seat and got out of the car, back into the pouring rain. I made sure the doors were locked before running over to Cameron’s car and climbing inside.
The warm air from the heater sent shivers down my spine as I settled into the seat and pulled my seatbelt across my chest. Cameron climbed in as well and pulled back out onto the street. He made a quick U-turn to head back toward Fairfield.
“What about your conference?” I asked.
“I’ll tell them I couldn’t get through because of flooding on the road.”
That sounded like a favor to me, and I scowled. Gas money. Right! I pulled out my purse and grabbed a twenty, slamming it down on the dashboard.
“That’s too much! It wouldn’t even be five dollars’ worth of gas to get you back to Michael’s house.”
“The other fifteen is for your inconvenience.”
“Whatever makes you happy, Char,” Cameron said, chuckling and shaking his head.
I held my hands up in front of the heater, allowing my gloves to dry and fingers to defrost.
“Can I ask you a question?” Cameron asked.
“No,” I shot back a little too quickly.
“Well, I’ve got you trapped in my car,” he said, laughing. “So I’ll ask it anyway, and you can decide not to answer if you choose.”
I kept my eyes on the heater.
“Why did you leave?
I turned to stare at him incredulously. Had he really just asked me why I left town?
“Are you serious?”
“Completely. I never understood why you left without even talking to me. Didn’t you want to hear anything I had to say? Or even say goodbye?” His voice was full of sorrow, and I felt the same sympathy for him I had the other night in the park. “After everything we’d been through together…how much we loved each other, I thought I at least deserved a goodbye.”
“I left because I saw you sucking face with your mistress, and I was angry with you!”
An unidentifiable emotion flashed over Cameron’s face before he turned off the highway toward Fairfield. “I wasn’t sucking face with her. It was a peck…and she wasn’t my mistress,” he said, finishing so softly I could barely hear him.
I opened my mouth to yell but thought better of it. I crossed my arms firmly over my chest to stop myself from slapping him again. “I don’t want to talk about this right now!” I seethed before turning my back to him and staring out the window.
“This was always our problem.”
I spun around to face him again, furious. “And what is that supposed to mean?” I demanded.
“This,” he said, waving his hand between us, “is exactly why we didn’t work out. We never communicated.”
“Really? I always thought we didn’t work out because you liked putting your dick in my friend,” I snarled before turning away again.
Cameron was silent, and I smiled, knowing I’d won that round. When he didn’t say anything for several minutes, I got curious and turned slowly to look at him over my shoulder.
He gripped the steering wheel, his jaw clenched.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said as we turned onto my dad’s street.
“Is that so? So, you weren’t fucking Lucy while we were married?” I shot back as he pulled up in the driveway and turned off the car.
He turned in his seat, looked me straight in the eye, and sighed. “If you’d allowed me to explain this five years ago, things might be very different.”
How would talking about the details have made me accept his affair? He wasn’t making any sense.
He must have noticed my blank stare because he continued without waiting for me to speak.
“I know it won’t change anything now. I can see you’ve moved on, and I’m honestly happy for you, but don’t you want to know what really happened with us, Charlotte? Don’t you have any curiosity or sentimentality at all? Have you been able to forget what we had so easily?”
I sat in silence and processed his words. “What do you mean when you say what really happened?” I asked cautiously.
Cameron sighed again and braced himself on the steering wheel.
“This isn’t the place to talk about it. Will you meet me later tonight?”
“I can’t,” I said automatically.
Cameron gave me a half-smile. “Is your big policeman afraid of us spending time together?”
I laughed. “Hardly! He’s the one encouraging me to speak to you, so I can put the past behind me.”
“You mean, put me behind you.”
I didn’t say anything. We both knew he was right, and at the moment I didn’t feel like rubbing it in his face.
“He’s not good enough for you, Charlotte,” Cameron whispered.
My anger resurfaced, and I turned quickly to face him. “Owen has nothing to do with this. If you want to talk about our past, that’s one thing. But you can’t talk about my present life!”
“I do want to talk about the past, and I’m more than happy to leave Owen out of any future conversations. Trust me — he’s not my favorite topic.”
“Good.” We sat in silence for a moment as I stared at my father’s house.
“So will you listen to what I have to say?”
“I’ll admit that I’m curious about what you want to tell me. I don’t know what could possibly make me think differently about all this,” I told him. “I’ll let you know when I can meet you.”
I could have met him that night, but I didn’t want him to think I’d just drop everything whenever he wanted. Cameron could adapt to my schedule.
“Here’s my cell number,” he said, handing me a business card from his wallet. “Call me anytime.”
I looked at the card and flicked the corner of the cardboard with my fingernail.
Dr. Cameron Harper, D.D.S.
Harper Allied Health Clinic
Below this was a phone number and email address. I stared at the card for a long time. The first emotion I felt was pride. He’d done it — finished school and gone into partnership with his father, just like he always said he would. Something nagged at the back of my mind as I stared at the card, and I clenched my jaw as I remembered.
Harper Allied Health Clinic. He worked with his father, who worked with Lucy.
My chest tightened, and I crumpled the card in my hand, a hard lump forming in my throat.
“What is it?” Cameron asked.
“Nothing.”
“Charlotte, please. Lack of communication has always been an issue for us. Please, just this once, tell me what’s upsetting you,” he begged, touching my arm.
I jerked away from him and took a deep breath, then another.
“You work with your father.”
Cameron gave me a confused look. “Well, not exactly. We work in the same building, but my office is three floors above his.”
“Your mother told me Lucy works for your Dad,” I added, gauging his reaction.
His eyes hardened instantly at Lucy’s name, and I couldn’t work out why that would be. Maybe they’d broken up, maybe she’d broken his heart, maybe…he still loved her.
I wasn’t sure why it bothered me. I was with Owen now. It shouldn’t matter if Cameron had feelings for someone else…but it did.
“I’m sorry about that. I didn’t want her to work there, but I don’t have any say about who my father hires. Bonnie, Sarah, and Lucy are still friends, and Dad hired her as a favor to my sister. I don’t ever speak to her, or even acknowledge her when I see her in the buildin
g,” he said, giving me an intense stare.
He doesn’t speak to her? I felt compelled to ask him what had happened between them, but I knew the answer would probably hurt more than I was ready to deal with. I’d have to prepare myself.
My cell phone rang, and Cameron and I both jumped in our seats. I picked up the phone and stared at it, as if looking would answer it, before I remembered to press the button and put the device to my ear.
“Hello?”
“Char, is everything okay? I was told you called and it was urgent,” Dad said, a hint of panic in his voice.
“Yes, I’m fine, Dad, really. I got a flat tire, and I was hoping you could pick me up and change it.”
“Sure, where are you? I’ll come right away,” Dad replied, sounding relieved.
“I’m at home actually. Ca — a man picked me up and dropped me here so I wouldn’t have to wait in the rain.”
“I don’t like that, Charlotte. Getting into a car with strangers can be dangerous.”
I rolled my eyes and gave my dad a grunt of acknowledgement. I wasn’t in the mood to be lectured, especially not with Cameron sitting a few feet away.
“I’ll be right home, and we’ll go get your car,” he said before hanging up.
I pulled the phone from my ear and turned to Cameron, unfastening my seatbelt. “My dad’s on his way.”
“We still have a lot to talk about,” Cameron said, an urgency in his voice.
“I’ll call you when I’m ready,” I said, holding up the crumpled card.
“Thank you.”
“It really means a lot to you that we talk about this, doesn’t it?”
He nodded. “It does.”
“It won’t change anything.”
“Maybe it won’t. But it might change everything,” he replied. “Goodbye.”
“Goodbye, Cam. Thank you for the ride,” I said, surprised that there wasn’t the slightest hint of anger or resentment in my voice as I said his name.
“Anything for you, Charlotte.”
That smile used to melt me into a pile of goo. Now it pulled on my heart strings and made me feel sad.
I stepped out and watched as he drove off down the street. Not one minute after Cameron left, my dad’s police cruiser turned the corner and drove toward me.
***
“Hello?” I said cheerily into the phone as I sat on the couch flicking channels, looking for something to watch.
“Hey, baby, sorry I couldn’t call yesterday. How are you?” Owen asked. He sounded tired.
“Not bad. I took my car to the shop this morning to have my tire replaced. I got a flat yesterday.”
I had a feeling Owen wouldn’t mind that I’d seen Cameron, but I didn’t think he’d want to hear about him being my knight in shining armor, saving me from being stuck on the side of the road in a storm. Nothing had really happened, so it wasn’t worth mentioning.
“I have some bad news. A couple of guys called in sick, and they need me to work a double shift. So I won’t be able to call you again tonight.”
We’d gotten into a routine of talking on the phone for about an hour just about every night while we were apart. We didn’t talk about anything important, just what we’d been up to that day, but it allowed us to feel together, and it eased the ache his absence caused in my heart.
“Oh, I’m sorry. Won’t you be tired?”
“I’ll be fine. You have a good night, and I’ll call you in the morning.”
“Okay, don’t work too hard,” I said as I stood up and went into the kitchen and leaned against the wall. “I love you.”
“Love you more,” he replied before hanging up.
The smile that appeared at the sound of Owen’s voice slowly slipped away as I remembered a similar situation from a few years ago…
…I’d heard footsteps coming down the hall and rolled over in bed as a crack of light appeared in the doorway and Cameron slipped into the room.
I sat up and rubbed my eyes.
“Oh, damn, I didn’t want to wake you,” he whispered, sitting on the bed and stroking my hair and face.
“What time is it?” I asked groggily.
“Almost three in the morning. You should go back to sleep.”
“Are you just getting home? Doesn’t the library close at eleven?”
Cameron often stayed at the library late to study for his exams, and I’d gone to bed thinking he was studying.
“Yeah,” he said, chuckling nervously as he rubbed the back of his neck. “I fell asleep at the desk and woke up when the janitor started vacuuming.”
“You poor thing, you study so much. Did you have dinner?”
“Ah, no,” he replied as he got up from the bed to undress.
I threw the blankets off and stood up.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m going to make you something to eat. You work so hard, and I don’t want you getting sick or starving,” I told him, walking down the hall to the kitchen.
“No, go back to bed, sweetheart. You must be tired.” He followed me down the hall in his boxer-briefs.
“I don’t mind, really. I want you taken care of.”
Cameron sighed and looked down at me with love in his eyes. I realized I hadn’t seen that expression for a while. He leaned down and pressed his lips to mine softly.
“I love you,” he said…
At the time it had seemed so ordinary, but in retrospect, he’d probably been out with Lucy that night.
The same anguish and despair I felt when I first found out about the affair washed over me again, and I knew nothing Cameron could say now would make things better. Nothing.
But I was still curious. Curiosity overcame sadness, and I pulled his card out of my pocket, staring at the number.
“I’m going out, Dad,” I called as I grabbed my coat and went to the car.
I sat with my hands on the steering wheel and stared at my knuckles. I was so conflicted. If Owen was here he could calm me down and make me feel safe. Then I could forget all about this. But he was in Boston, and I felt completely unsure about what to do.
With a sigh, I leaned my head back on the car seat. The only way for me to get closure — and satisfy my nagging curiosity — was to know the whole story. There was only person who could help me with that.
I pulled my cell phone out of my bag and dialed the number, listening to the phone ring and almost losing my nerve a few times before it stopped.
“Hello?” he answered.
“I’m ready to talk,” I blurted. “Can you meet me now?”
“Yes,” he replied eagerly.
I was dreading this conversation, and he was happy about it?
“Where?” I asked.
I didn’t mean to be rude, but my hands were shaking, my voice was quivering, and I just wanted to get off the phone as quickly as possible and get this night over with.
“You know where.”
I did know. I supposed it was only right; we’d gone there to express our love several times, so it seemed fitting to go there to discuss the end of it.
“Ten minutes,” I said before hanging up.
I steered the car to the highway that left town. I tried to concentrate on driving and not on the many possibilities of what Cameron had to say to me. Just past the exit I used to get to the harbor, a small dirt street came into view. I pulled up in a clearing to find Cameron’s car already there.
I got out and walked into the forest. As a child I’d loved playing in these trees, running over the logs and jumping from rock to rock. The forest had always been a happy place for me. But right now it seemed eerie, frightening even. I looked up at the gnarled branches and jumped whenever a bird screeched.
I made my way through the trees slowly, being careful not to trip, and I breathed a sigh of relief when my destination became visible.
Cameron smiled when he saw me. He stood next to a fallen tree covered in moss. It was our tree. We’d come here many times to sit and talk when we we
re dating; we’d made love right in the very spot where Cameron stood right now. He’d also brought me here the day before our wedding to remind me that being married wasn’t going to change our love or our commitment to each other.
He’d been wrong.
I walked over and sat on the log. He sat beside me.
“Thank you for coming,” he said with a smile.
I crossed my arms firmly over my chest. “Where do we start?”
Cameron stood and sat instead on the mossy ground so we were facing each other. He looked up at me. “Would you like me to just explain what was happening for me or do you have specific questions?” he asked, his voice nothing but calm.
“Why don’t you start, and I’ll stop you if I have questions,” I suggested, shifting nervously.
Cameron nodded and took a deep breath before looking up at me again. “When did you first notice a problem with our relationship?”
I wanted to say it was when I read Lucy’s text message, but after years of thinking about it I knew that it was long before that — it had been right around the time my mother left. I hadn’t made love to Cameron for months, and I’d spent most of my time with my father for about six months before I knew anything about the affair.
“I suppose about six months before I found out about Lucy.”
Cameron nodded. He had a far away look in his eyes, like he was lost in the memories he was about to describe. “After your mother left, you just disappeared,” he said. “I knew you were hurting, and I tried to be there for you, but you just didn’t seem to want me around. You spent all your time with your father, which I understood, but you never wanted me to come visit him with you. You just shut me out.”
He paused to breathe, and I gently stroked the side of his face. I wasn’t sure what made me touch him, but it felt right. Cameron’s eyes shot to mine quickly, but then he appeared to relax, and he leaned his cheek into my palm.
“I’m sorry I acted like that. I was so lost.” I had checked out emotionally, but that still didn’t justify cheating.
“I wanted so much to be there for you, and I tried for a long time, but over and over you rejected me, ignoring my requests to help you and pushing me away. We barely even talked.”
I dropped my hand from his face and wrapped my arms around my body again for protection.
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