by Lila Felix
I’d made her regret us.
I’d made her regret me.
And I regretted ever seeing her in that bar. My first instinct was perfect and I should’ve listened to it. The dirt and grime that flowed through my veins shouldn’t ever be a part of her life. She should’ve never been exposed to someone like me. Oil and water don’t ever mix. And there was a reason, the Lord above separated the light from the darkness.
He had me in mind when He did that.
I wasn’t fit for anything but an anvil and a hammer and a darkened cavern to fill my days.
She was better off without me.
She was infinitely better off without me.
And instead of going to sleep with the murmurs of her love in my ears, I stumbled into slumber with her hate burning in my heart.
~~~
Three days later and Willa still wasn’t speaking to me. Three days later and I still hadn’t slept more than an hour here and there. Three days later and the only food I could keep down was a bowl of oatmeal that Will had slammed down on the table in front of me the day before. Milk wasn’t the only thing that could curdle in your stomach.
Tuesday morning as she grabbed a piece of toast and tried to leave without saying anything, I confronted her. I just couldn’t take it anymore.
“I’m sorry, Willa,” I said, stepping in between her and the door.
“Stockton, I’m late for school.”
“You’re just going to another graduation practice. Sit down—please.”
She rolled her eyes at me openly and propped herself up on the counter. It was a clear try of my patience. The girl knew better than to sit on the kitchen counter—my mother would’ve flipped her lid.
“I need to say some things.”
She shrugged her shoulders, “No shit.”
“I don’t care if you’re mad at me or not. Don’t talk to me like that.”
“Yes, Sir.” She saluted me defiantly.
“I was wrong. I couldn’t have been more wrong, Will. I’m so sorry. I should’ve known better. It’s you, how could I have ever thought it was you?” Tears, so long dormant, pulsed in the corners of my eyes and rivered down my face.
Her chin quivered as she began to speak, “Do you remember the night mom and dad died?”
“Of course, I do.”
“Do you know what I remember?”
I shook my head. She probably remembered something Mom had said to her or the last time our father hugged her.
“I remember Bridger coming home. He was closest, and he started cleaning—cleaning! West came home next but all he could do was sit on the porch. But I waited for you. You came in last and what was the first thing you did?”
“I looked for you.”
Full blown alligator tears poured from her eyes, but she spoke with such conviction, “You looked for me. You came in my room and held me while I cried. And I knew there was a reason you and I, even though we were years apart, I knew there was a reason we were so close. It was because I would need you one day. Bridger and West couldn’t have finished raising me half as well as you can on a bad day. I can’t take losing you too, Stock. I just can’t.”
Grabbing the sides of her t-shirt, I pulled her to me while we both openly wept. She was right. I loved her like she was my own and after our parents died, there was no other choice—it was me and her. And if ever I could’ve had a daughter of my own, I’d have wanted her to be just like Willa—strong, independent, but loving, with a heart made of the purest gold.
“I love you, Will. I can’t tell you how sorry I am.”
She jerked away from my chest, “What?”
“I love you, Will. I never regret the day I came back to take care of you.”
“She changed you and you don’t even know it,” my sister, no longer crying whispered.
I shook my head of the notion and half chuckled, “She tried her damndest. I’d drive her into the ground before she even chipped the surface of this heart. It’s encased in steel—always will be. And she deserves better.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” she murmured, hopping down from the counter.
“Get to school. I’m excited to see you graduate.”
“Nice change of subject. I hope one day a boy looks at me like you look at her. And I love you too, Stock.”
She charged out of the door and waved goodbye to me.
I’d never have the chance to look at Cami like that again.
I got dressed and steeled myself back into my routine. It was the day to run my errands in town and I prayed I wouldn’t run into her. Not having her directly in front of me was my only saving grace—or so I thought.
I got my order from the grocery store and made a couple of passes through the aisles for extras. Every product she’d randomly touched—every local specialty she’d laughed about and called hillbilly, the hair bows she’d so skillfully threaded into Mrs. Richter’s girls’ hair—they all called to me. But the pain had become a reinforcement of the words she’d spoken to me. They pricked my memory and chiseled her parting words down deeper into my mind.
And yet I ached for her.
Physical repulsion at my own words now churned in my gut as a yearning craving.
I drove to Mrs. Richter’s. She was home but there was no way I was going in there. I honked the horn and she came out, thankfully, because I didn’t think I could take walking into her house and seeing Cami in my mind’s eye.
“Stockton, why didn’t you come in? The kids always want to see you. And where’s your girl?”
I handed her a box and turned to get back into the truck. She came to the window, wanting an answer to all her drilling.
“Cami and I—we’re not—she’s not here. She’s at the Macon’s.”
“Aww, Stockton. You know sometimes I think that if I’d been a better wife, made more money, had a better job, something—that I could’ve held onto Jacob. Can’t hold on to a dying man. But that girl, Cami, she’s somethin’ special. Best hold on to her.”
“And now?”
She now whispered in case any children were near, “Now, I know it was him, not me. You can love someone all you want, but unless they’re willing to let you love them, be loved—it doesn’t do jack shit. Plus, in his case, he’d have to let go of the bottle and keep his dick zipped up.” She winked at me before starting back towards the house, all of her kids waving their little hearts out at me.
I cranked the engine back to life and looked to my right before getting back on the road when I realized what I was doing. I had been looking for Cami in the passenger seat. She’d become like one of my limbs. If you don’t feel your leg, you look down and make sure it’s still there. I couldn’t feel Cami next to me in that damned truck, so I’d made the mistake of looking for her. And just as an amputee patient can still feel the ghost sensation—I could almost reach over and hold her hand, smell her hair, feel her hand lazily grazing my thigh as I drove.
The scalpel cut a little deeper.
Old man Lambert’s house was next but his rocking chair had been moved under the porch of late and his squirrel was nowhere to be seen.
“Where’s your wife?”
At least some things never changed.
“Don’t have one.”
“What happened to that good lookin’ lady, the one who squealed like a stuck sow?”
“Nothing happened.”
“Fine young lady.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“What’d you do?”
I shrugged but then admitted, “Acted stupid.”
“Gabriel Wright didn’t raise no fools.”
“Turned out to be one anyway.”
“What’d you do?” He repeated.
“Got mad, yelled, said some stuff I shouldn’t have.”
“I did that once—maybe twice. Threw Thelma’s favorite tea cup clear out the kitchen winder.” He said window like ‘winder’, the duchess would get a kick out of that. I could see her do that thing where she turned aroun
d and pretended to hug my bicep when really she was hiding a smile and a giggle but didn’t want to be rude.
“And?”
“And nothin’,“ he stopped to take a huge gulp out of his Mason jar. “Said I was sorry, kissed her, bought her a whole set of new damned tea cups.”
I loved the old man’s advice, but it didn’t quite fit the situation.
“I gotta get to work.”
“Dark, dirty place that smithing shop.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Your Daddy’s coffin was empty.”
“I remember. I was there.”
“You sure?”
Now even Mr. Lambert was chafing my hide, “Yes, Sir, pretty damned sure.”
“Looks like to me it wasn’t empty.”
“Is that so—who was in it?”
The man had already met his quota of the white lightning already. He wasn’t making sense. But he took another big gulp and finished it with an ‘Ahhhh’.
“You.”
I sat down in the rocking chair next to him and let his answer wash over me.
And instead of getting up to work, I spent the rest of the afternoon with Mr. Lambert in silence.
Looking towards the peaks of the judgmental mountains, I made my mind be still and purposefully let it wander to Cami. Even in anger she was breathtakingly beautiful. But that was only a shred of the reasons why I loved her. I still loved her—it couldn’t be denied. I thought maybe it would disintegrate, fail to exist after the rage had blinded me. She was braver than anyone I’d ever known and honest to a fault. And she didn’t play games or bullshit around. If she wanted something she told me—if she wanted to kiss me, she made sure I knew—and when I told her I loved her in that damned river—she didn’t hesitate to match my words with her own and demand to hear it again. I chuckled to myself at her tenacity. She wasn’t like everyone else in my life. She didn’t back down, cowered by the boom of my voice or the brawn of my stature. She bowed up to me and stood her ground. And I respected the hell out of her for it. And Old Man Moonshine was right, I’d left one foot in the grave all this time. And it was about damned time I took it out.
And I was now ready to let another truth out of the bag. That letter praising my work and certainly that fat check—weren’t so bad. And there were so many useful things I could do with the money. Maybe Cami was right. Maybe pursuing a dream wasn’t my downfall. That’s what I wanted for Will. I wanted her to leave the house and go after a life worth living. I wanted her to have something better than I did. Because that’s what parents want for their children, right? I could start a real company, maybe make enough to pay for Bridger and West to finish school too.
I didn’t want to go back to that tomb yet. Because that’s how I saw my home without Cami—a tomb. When she was there, it was a different place. Everything was good when she was around. And then it hit me like a volt of electricity. I’d once convinced myself in the throes of love that I’d wrestle even myself to get to her light. But the Stockton on the bank was a conniving, cowardly piece of shit. He’d convinced me to get back into the water and drown myself. And I’d obeyed like a mindless minion.
And again, Mr. Lambert was dead on. Gabriel Wright hadn’t raised me to be so stupid.
I needed her.
I needed her.
And whether she’d admit it or not, she needed me.
I couldn’t let it end like this.
I wouldn’t let it end lie this.
She was mine and I wasn’t gonna give up that easy.
She belonged with me.
“I’m gonna get going now, Mr. Lambert. Thank you.”
“Mmmmmhmmmmm….” He nodded slowly and mountain-man like.
Jumping in the truck, I was a man on a mission.
I dialed the Macon’s and Mallory answered, “Hello?”
“It’s Stockton, please tell me she hasn’t left yet.”
“No, Sir.” Her tone was all business and I figured Cami must be in hearing range.
“Is it too late?”
“No, Sir. Right now is a great time.”
“What do I do, Mallory?” I’d never sounded or felt so vulnerable in my life. And it was painful to show it, but I had no choice. The blond haired girl who traipsed through sheep shit in heels had brought me to my feeble knees. And I’d stay on my knees until she took me back.
“It’s best to go back to the beginning with these things. Thanks for calling.”
I shivered with fear at the task before me—I had to get Cami back, even if it killed me.
Chapter Twenty-One
Cami
I looked out into the valley in front of me, breathing in the clean mountain air and feeling inspired by the fresh spring greens and cool breeze. My journal-the one that now felt like an extension of my soul-rested on the railing I was tucked into with my pen paused over the soul-wrenching words I was composing about heartbreak. I kicked my dangling legs against the deck siding and enjoyed the evening from the Macon’s front porch-a place I had once sworn I would never visit.
I was pushing myself to turn my pain into something beautiful. And I was struggling to make this about me-about who I was going to become because of this, of what I was going to make myself into from the ashes of my pain-instead of just about the rat bastard that pulverized my soul in the palm of his mammoth-sized, freakishly strong hand.
I was also listening to music out of my phone, headphones securely in place. I’d spent the last few days with angry chick music blaring in my ears night and day. Mallory and Henry probably regretted asking the emotional disaster that I was these days to stay with them. I was a mess and they were most likely second-guessing their very generous offer. But plans had already been put into motion and I had gratefully agreed to their proposal.
They were officially stuck with me.
For at least the next four years-as long as I was accepted to Milligan College and the few credits I did have from previous attempts at finishing my education transferred. I was going to live as an off-campus college student commuting the twenty minutes from the Macon’s house to campus every day. I submitted my online application a few days ago and they called yesterday for the phone interview.
So things were looking up. Which wasn’t hard to do since I felt six feet under, buried and suffocating in the crumbled remains of my wasted love.
Oooh. That was good. Better write it down.
My phone pinged in my ear, signaling a text message. I laid my journal down next to me and picked up my phone to see who it could be. For half a second my heart went to my throat thinking it would be Stockton-whether he was texting to yell at me some more or not, I was embarrassed by how desperate I was to hear from him. But it wasn’t Stockton, it was my sister.
Katie: I have the perfect man for you when you get back!! He’s so gorge. And ripped. And did I mention HAWT!!!!! Plus he deals in futures, so he has enough money to support your coke habit.
WTH! I didn’t have a coke habit.
Me: I don’t have a coke habit.
Katie: Ok, then whatever self-destructive vice got you sent away. Just get over it already and come home. Cali misses you.
Me: Katie I am not ever going on another date you find for me again. Like ever. For real, never ever. The last guy was a date-rapist and every guy before that were total tools. I’m over it. – Not to mention the very thought of spending time with a man that was not Stockton sent my stomach churning violently and made my skin crawl and itch. There wouldn’t be a date in my future for a very, very long time-possibly ever. I would always compare it to skinny-dipping in the river and a waist-level black tattoo I would dream of tracing with my tongue till the day I died.
Katie: God you’re so pretentious! Just find someone to pay your bills, it’s not like you can take care of yourself. You’re only 21, biotch. And already in rehab. Even if you have to settle for someone below your almighty standards, I’m pretty sure that feeling of disappointment will go both ways.
God, my sister w
as such a cold bitch. I was trying to be a better person, but I was pretty sure siblings were excluded from the list of people that needed to notice.
Me: I don’t need a man to make me happy, Katie-this was officially true as of one day ago-and I feel sorry for you because you do. And I don’t have impossible standards for the person I fall in love with. But I do have high standards for myself and I won’t choose to be unhappy just to make myself equally as miserable as you so you have some company. And I’m not coming home. I’m getting over my issues and doing something with my life. You might not even recognize your coked-out-little-whore of a sister when you see me next.
Katie: I’m not miserable. I’m happy. You’re miserable!!! – came immediately back.
Me: No, you’re toxic. And I’m over it. Mom’s calling. I’ll talk to you later.
“Hello?” I asked into my phone. My family had been ignoring me for weeks; suddenly they all wanted to talk to me? I would have preferred they kept up with the whole neglect thing now that I was scraping together pieces of happiness and direction.
“Camdyn, thank God,” my mother gasped into the phone, sounding out of breath and panicked. “Your father just received the most disturbing call from your Aunt Mallory.” She rushed on, not waiting for me to cut in or ask questions. “She told him you’re planning on staying in Tennessee? She said you’re going to work on her farm?” The tones of disgust in her voice were so strong and palpable I felt like they were tangible fingers of revulsion reaching through the phone to strangle me. “Is she delusional? Why in the hell would she think you want to work with sheep? For god’s sake, Camdyn, get on the next plane home. Your father called a rehab place in the desert; we will check you in on Monday.”
So many things tumbled through my brain-so many. Where to start? How to make this woman see beyond her shallow Beverly Hills existence?
“I don’t need rehab, mom,” I explained patiently. “I’m not addicted to anything.” Except maybe Stockton, but he was putting me through a version of rehab-hell all on his own. “And I’m not coming home. But don’t worry; I’m not just sticking around to work with sheep. I’m going to college too. I’m going to become a writer.” I smiled before I could stop myself. This was definitely going to piss her off.