A foreign feeling rolled through me as he talked, one I wasn't sure I'd ever felt before. It was like the final thread holding my life in place was being stretched taut, as if one end of it were being singed slowly by a cool fire. Words weren't Cameron's thing, and now that he was using them, they were only making things worse.
I stared at him like I didn't know him at all.
And that's when I realized that I didn't. Not anymore.
"Wow. Thanks for telling me my job responsibilities. I'm not sure how I would have ever known that without you saying it out loud." I stood from the bed, swiping at the tears on my face as I moved toward the bathroom. "I'm going to take a bath."
"Wait," Cameron said, jumping up to grab my wrist. "What's wrong? I'm just trying to help."
"Well you're doing a shit job!"
My hands slapped over my mouth in unison, and I shook my head, eyes flooding with tears.
"I'm sorry. I just … I feel like you don't understand."
"But I do. I get it. He's the same age … and has the same name. I can't imagine how hard that must be some days, and how confusing it can get." Cameron pulled me into him again, framing my face with his hands. "But he's not our Jeremiah, Charlie." His voice broke a little when he said the name, but he pushed through it. "He's not our son."
///
"I know that, but-"
"Do you?" Cameron searched my eyes, like he was trying to find a woman who hadn't existed for five years. "If this would have happened to any other kid in your class, would you have felt the same way? Would you have called me like a mad woman and sped home and cried and felt a need to fix it?"
"Mad woman?"
"He's got the same name, sweetheart, but he's not the same boy."
My mouth popped open, heart picking up speed like it had before. "I can't believe you would say that to me. I know he's not the same boy. But I care about him and I'm concerned and hurt. Why are you making it out like I'm crazy for feeling that way?"
"You're not crazy," he said, his voice softer. He pulled me into him again, soothing a hand over my back.
For a long while he just held me there, and the anger I'd felt started to fade. It was like when he had his arms around me like that, I could feel the part of him he never showed me, the part he never said out loud. I thought I felt his heart break under his chest just like mine had.
He let out a shaky breath, holding me tighter, and in that embrace I knew he had to feel it, too.
Cameron had always been quiet. He'd always been reserved. He showed me he loved me with his hands, with his eyes, more than he ever showed me with his words.
But I needed to hear them in that moment. I needed him to tell me what to do.
I needed him to understand.
"I'm sorry," I said into his chest. "I didn't mean to worry you. I just don't know what to do."
"I'm sorry, too."
I waited, hoping he was searching for the right words to say. He held me tighter, lips pressed against my forehead, and then he pulled back to look into my eyes.
"Listen. Why don't I run you a hot bath and bring you some wine. Take your time, just relax and try to process, okay? And when you get out, I know exactly how to fix this."
"You do?"
He smiled, sweeping a fallen strand of hair behind my ear. "Let's go get you another bird."
I blinked.
In that moment, I swore I heard the façade we'd built for years crack in half.
"What?"
"I know you've been hurting since Edward passed, and with me forgetting our anniversary … I'm still trying to make up for that. So, after your bath, let's go get Jane a friend."
I stepped back from him, crossing my arms over my middle, eyes on the floor. "You're kidding, right?"
Cameron didn't answer me, and a powerful silence fell over the room, like a vacuum had stolen every other sound apart from our breathing.
I lifted my eyes to his, nose flaring. "A bird? You think going to get another bird is going to make everything better?"
"I … I just know you loved Edward, and Jane has been sad. I thought it would make you happy."
"You thought it would make me happy," I repeated, laughing at the ridiculousness of it.
And that was it.
The final thread of that string anchoring me to the ground snapped in two, and everything I'd tried to hold together on my own for years went up in flames with the last of it.
I stormed across the room, tugging hard on the window handle until it unlatched and swung open. Then, I grabbed the door of Jane's cage, ripping it open just the same. For a moment she just stood there on her swing, her feathers fluttering out like she wanted to fly but then she thought better of it.
"You think she wants another bird?" I screamed, rage blending with my tears as I stared through them at Cameron. "That I want another bird? That's your solution to all this?" I put my hand in the cage, letting Jane hop onto my first finger, and then I held her outside the window.
In a flash, she was gone.
"Charlie!" Cameron rushed toward me, but it was too late. Jane was already halfway across our yard, and I was already completely unglued.
"This isn't something a bird can fix, Cameron. Or a garden, or a library, or whatever else you think you need to buy or build for me. Is this really how little you know me? Is this really how far we've grown apart?"
"I know you better than anyone," he tried, grabbing for my hands, but I ripped them away.
"YOU KNOW NOTHING ABOUT ME!"
My chest heaved as I watched him hold up his hands. I'd surprised him, maybe even scared him, and I was glad.
Maybe now he'd wake up.
"Please," he said, taking a tentative step toward me again. "You said before that I don't understand, but I'm trying to. You have to help me, Charlie. Help me understand."
///
"But that's just it, isn't it?" I challenged, stepping right into him. I met his chest with my own, burning his eyes with a gaze so strong I felt it in every nerve of my body. "You don't want to understand. You want to forget."
Cameron's jaw clenched, his nose flaring. "I'm trying."
"You're trying?!" I laughed the words as another tear fell down my cheek. "Hiding the baby stuff, that's trying? Huh? Never saying their names, that's trying, too? Going right back to work, right back to our normal routine, never asking me if I was okay or if I needed you or if I needed anything at all - that was all trying to you?"
I trembled as emotion surged through me like a tidal wave, pummeling every rational thought out of my head.
"Let me guess - cheating on me? Finding comfort in another woman while your wife had night terrors in the bed you shared with her, was that trying, too?"
Cameron broke at that, tears welling in his eyes as he reached for my hand, but I tore it away, storming to the bed for my coat.
"Charlie, I never-"
"Don't!" I warned, spinning on my heel. "Don't you dare finish that sentence, not when you know it's a lie."
He clamped his mouth shut again, and I saw the flash of helplessness in his eyes.
Good. Now he knew how it felt.
"I'm leaving."
"Where are you going?"
"Out."
He lunged for me, wrapping his hand around my wrist and whipping me back around to face him. His eyes searched mine, his jaw set.
"Please, don't do this."
"Do what?"
"Don't go to him."
He pinned me with his pleading gaze, and a cold flood of guilt soaked me to the bones.
I tried to find my husband in the man who stood before me, in the eyes glossed over with unshed tears, in the hand wrapped around my wrist. I tried to find the boy who had shook the first time he took me to bed, who had danced with me in the rain the night he asked me to marry him, who had held my hand through every beautiful, agonizing minute of the birth of our children.
But I couldn't see him.
I only saw a stranger, one I didn't want to pretend with any longer.
"I'm sorry," I whispered.
And with those two words, we both knew it was over.
I pulled until he let my hand go free, along with the tears he'd been holding back.
Reese
I needed to get out of the house.
That thought had been on repeat ever since I'd walked in the door after school.
Through every cigarette, every beer, and every timeless minute that ticked by, I had that thought in the back of my mind.
But I still had her in the front.
Between the snow days and my slow burn of longing for Charlie, the last thing I needed to be doing was sitting by myself, alone with my thoughts, a twelve-pack, and two packs of cigarettes. I'd been destroying my body for almost two weeks now, ever since she walked out my front door. Blake was the only one who'd thought to check on me, and I'd ignored the call, opting for misery, instead.