Be Mine Forever (25 page)
Jo’s four-inch heels eliminated the space between them before he had time to blink. She stood toe-to-toe and eye-to-eye with him.
“You idiot.” She spat the words into the cold. They crystallized in the air and shattered as soon as they left her mouth. “You jump on your Harley in the middle of the night, ride off to Greece, and leave me nothing but a note? Are you kidding me right now with this jealous foolishness?”
“I’m not jealous.” Lie. “You just didn’t exactly look like you were suffering.”
“Is that what you want?” Jo raised her brows over the blizzard in her eyes. “You want me to suffer?”
“No, you know I don’t.” Everything stiff and stupid in Cam yielded, collapsed. He couldn’t be angry with her. This was all his fault. “I just…When Etty showed me those pictures, I—”
“Etty?” Jo’s eyes snapped from wide to so narrow they were almost shut. “And where was Etty in all this?”
Dumb. Dumb. Dumb.
“Um, her family owns a villa in Crete and she—”
“You have
got
to be kidding me.” Jo kept the volume of her voice low, but he could practically see her hackles rise. “Tell me you have not been with that…
girl
this whole time.”
“I haven’t
been
with her. Not the way you mean. She was just…She came to visit…Jo, you know I would never cheat on you. For God’s sake, calm down.”
“You don’t get to tell me to calm the hell down.” Jo held up a hand between them, staying the words on his lips. “How dare you. You have the nerve to even ask me about Peter when you’ve been holed up with a girl I saw you kissing in New York? Who you know wants you?”
“Jo, let me explain.”
“I’m done, Cam.” Jo glanced around, blinking at the tears slipping from the corners of her eyes. “I have been miserable, and Peter has kept the adoption process on track. He has been a good friend.”
I just bet he has.
“I see that look, Cam.”
“Etty is my friend. Nothing more. And she knows the score. Can you say the same for Peter?”
“Peter knows the score, too.”
“I doubt it. He’s just waiting for me to screw up.”
“Well you just did.”
Jo turned and zipped down the steps. Cam skipped steps to cut her off before she reached the bottom, blocking her path out of this conversation. He took her wrist between his fingers, frowning at how fragile her bones felt in his hand.
“Jo, you have to take better care of yourself.” He looked up into the silver fire of her angry stare. “You’ve lost so much weight in just a few weeks.”
“I’m sure Etty has enough meat on her bones for the both of us.” She tugged, but he refused to let go.
“Do you honestly think I want anyone else?” He leaned in, pressing his hand to the small of her back to draw their bodies together like magnets. “Do you remember how it is with us? I think about you every night. Every day, Jo. Etty is just…She reminds me of myself. Kind of lost. She needs a friend. That’s it.”
“I don’t think you slept with her, Cam.” The hurt in Jo’s eyes sawed at his heart. “I think you let her in when you shut me out. I wanted to be there for you. I wanted to help, and you left.”
“Baby, we—”
“Is everything okay, Jo?” Peter’s question came from just below them. He glanced from Jo’s wrist trapped in Cam’s hand up to Cam’s face.
How much would he be tested today? First Deuce’s funeral. Then Jo shows up like a fantasy until everything goes wrong. And now he had to endure the Viking.
Would it be wrong to drop an F-bomb on the church steps?
“Everything’s fine.” Cam minced the words, serving them with a hard look to warn Peter off.
“I’d like to hear that from Jo.” Peter took an audacious step up and toward them. He grabbed Jo’s other hand and touched her back.
Jo looked from Peter to Cam like she was trapped between a rock and a very hard place. Cam wasn’t sure which he was, but he wanted to crush the bones in both Peter’s hands. That he was sure of.
“I’m fine, Peter, but let’s just go.”
She pulled away, letting Peter lead her down the steps. Cam walked down ahead of them, stepping into her path again, ignoring Peter’s protective presence. He cupped her face, but she wouldn’t look at him, instead studying the sidewalk beneath her feet.
“Baby, you know I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“You’re one of those guys, aren’t you?” Peter asked, a sneer distorting his neat mouth above his neat goatee. “One of those guys who kind of stumbles through life, accidentally hurting everyone and then offering lame apologies.”
Cam leveled a look on Peter that should have felt like a flesh-eating virus.
“No, I’m one of those guys who will beat the living shit out of any preppy dickhead who thinks he can steal my girl.” Cam creased his mouth into a fake smile. “Met those before?”
“Cam, stop.” Jo put her hand to his chest. She knew him well enough to know if Peter breathed wrong, he’d be flat on the sidewalk. “I’m just going to…just going to go.”
“Baby, I—”
“When you needed space, you took it.” She straightened out the trembling line of her mouth before going on. “Now I’m asking you to give me the space I need.”
She finally shifted her eyes to him, and Cam really wished she hadn’t. He’d never seen that look before. Like he had whittled something away. Like he’d broken something he wasn’t sure he could fix. It was a hypodermic needle stabbing his heart. Cam stepped back, giving them space to pass. Jo walked past him and Peter followed, opening the door to his Land Rover. Peter didn’t bother glancing back. Just climbed into the driver’s seat and drove off.
Cam’s phone alert went off. Great. Time for Dr. Stein. Could his day get any worse?
Y
ou seem agitated.”
Cam glanced from his triple-time bouncing knee to the mangled Kleenex in his lap.
“So it’s your superior deductive reasoning that justifies your outrageous rate.”
Dr. Stein tilted her chin down, eyes peering over her spectacles.
“Does that usually work for you?”
“Does what usually work?” Cam crushed the question between his eyebrows.
“You know.” Dr. Stein leaned back in her leather seat, folding her hands over her stomach. “Lashing out so people don’t get too close. It’s a defense mechanism. It won’t bring you any closer to what you want, though.”
“And what do you think I want?”
“You tell me what you want. Based on the conversations we’ve had by Skype, I think I know.” Dr. Stein patted the sleek auburn bob that looked much more vibrant in real life than on-screen. “But I’d be interested in hearing from you.”
“What do you think?”
“Oh no. It’s not that easy. It doesn’t work like that.” Dr. Stein eased her glasses back up her nose, leaning forward to settle her elbows on the desk. “
I
don’t work like that. You have to tell me what you want out of this process because you have to know.”
What did he want? He couldn’t see past the image of Jo leaving him today with tears in her eyes. He wanted to stop fucking things up.
“Tell me what you’re thinking right now. Don’t edit.”
“I want to stop fucking things up.”
“How do you think you ruin things?”
“Now who’s editing?” Cam managed a grin. “I didn’t say ‘ruin.’”
She wasn’t fast enough to hide how her face softened infinitesimally. She kept her eyes stern, but he’d flaked an inch or two off her professional impassivity.
“What have you messed up?”
What was left of the grin curdled on Cam’s lips, spoiled by the memory of all the things he’d screwed up.
“You want a comprehensive list?”
“Sure, if you have one.”
“I had a little girl.” Cam’s throat was a furnace, with the words trapped like fiery coals. “Kerris was pregnant with her when she had a car accident.”
“It was an accident, Cam. You realize that, right?”
“It was my fault, though. Kerris was chasing me.”
“What else was your fault?”
“I see through you, you know. I know what you’re doing.”
“Oh, what’s that?” Dr. Stein seemed genuinely curious, but Cam wasn’t fooled.
“You want me to admit I think Mac abusing me was somehow my fault, but I don’t think that.”
“Good. Then we can move on. That would be ridiculous. To blame yourself for things that aren’t your fault.”
“I see what you’re doing. You’re still doing it. I’ve seen
Good Will Hunting
.”
“I typically recommend all my patients watch that movie.” Dr. Stein scribbled in the margin of her journal. “Just making a note that that won’t be necessary with you.”
The smile was on Cam’s face before he could help it.
“Talk to me about Mac.”
So much for smiles.
“What about him? He molested me for about a year and then he died.”
“And you killed him, correct?” Dr. Stein glanced at her notes, looking up to see Cam nod. She’d assured him that his secret would be safe under patient-therapist privilege. “That must have been traumatic.”
“No more traumatic than stepping on a poisonous spider.”
“Why did you keep the gun?”
Cam shifted in his seat, eyeing her degrees on the wall.
“A souvenir, I guess.”
“And the bullet? You left it loaded as a souvenir, too?”
Cam rubbed his fingertips together but didn’t answer.
“You said you’d always reach for the gun under your bed. What did the gun represent to you?”
“Safety.” The word snuck out from between Cam’s slammed-shut lips.
“But he was dead. Why did you still need protection?”
“No one else protects you. You have to protect yourself.”
“You mean like your mother didn’t protect you?”
“You think this is about my mother?” Cam snorted. “That’s original.”
“She did know about the abuse, right?”
“Yeah, she knew.”
“And she did nothing?”
“Oh, she did something all right.” Bitterness twisted Cam’s lips. “She smoked that crack when Mac gave it to her to keep her under control.”
“So she left you vulnerable because of her addiction. You had to fend for yourself.”
“Yeah.”
“Take me back to that.”
“Take you back to what?”
“That moment when she found out. That moment when she did nothing.”
Cam locked his teeth together. Anxiety cramped low in his belly. Water flooded his mouth. Nausea. Shame. Guilt. Fear. All piercing him like acupuncture, black needles sinking into his skin until he couldn’t focus. Couldn’t concentrate on what Dr. Stein was saying. His body was sitting in this chair, still slumped. But his mind was back in that tiny kitchen with only the sunlight stabbing through the blinds illuminating the room. Violent and bright. Broad daylight.
“Where are you, Cam?” Dr. Stein asked, only a voice, disembodied. Separate from the horror show Cam was watching.
“I’m in the kitchen. On the floor.”
Cam tried to lift his head, but it hurt too badly. He licked at his puffy lip and tasted dirt from the floor. He needed to move, to get up before anyone saw him like this, but his whole body was on fire with pain. His arms and legs ached where Mac’s heavy boots had kicked him. His head
swam around from the punches Mac had landed. Fire ants raced across his scalp where Mac had tugged his hair so hard. And the worst pain of all…that dark hole that Mac had split open wide until it leaked blood down Cam’s thighs.
The sound of Mac’s zipper ripped through the quiet. Cam flinched, then went still, like an animal lying low in the grass until danger passed by. Footsteps headed toward him, and the closer they got, the harder fear squeezed his bladder.
Mac’s boots were in his face.
“Get up.” Mac nudged Cam’s shoulder with his foot.
Cam lay still.
“I said get up!” Mac leaned down and smacked Cam’s head one good time.
Cam moved like it was new and he wasn’t sure which body parts still worked. The cool air on his legs reminded him his pants were around his ankles, and he was only wearing his Ninja Turtles T-shirt. Just when he was ready to stand, to pull his pants up, the door opened. Mama walked in. Cam almost smiled. Even with every part of his body throbbing with pain and shame, he almost smiled. Mac was gonna get it now. Mama was home.
Mama looked at Cam on the floor, her eyes moving from his swollen lip down to his private parts out in the open, to his pants and underwear at his feet. Her deep brown eyes got wide, and she walked over to Mac,
still buttoning his pants and buckling his belt. Here it comes. She’s going to kick him out for hurting her baby. She’s going to slap him for what he’d done. Maybe she’d grab the butcher knife and cut him. Maybe she’d hit him over the head with a frying pan like they did in the cartoons.
Mama’s dark hair spilled around her bony shoulders. She pushed it back and reached into her bra, pulling out a roll of cash and handing it to Mac.
“Here,” she said, eyes shifty, licking her smoke-dark lips.
“This all?” Mac flipped through the bills, frowning before pulling out a money clip and trapping the money inside.
“More tonight.” Mama’s nails were already scratching at her arms. “Where my stuff?”
Mac slid his glance between Cam and Mama as if making sure Mama hadn’t overlooked her son on the floor with his privates out.
“Nothing to say about your boy?”
Cam meant to blink away the stupid tears before Mama met his eyes. Her pretty face was like an old jar of honey, the color of gold, hard and cracked, but still a little sweet. She looked at Cam but then jerked her eyes back to Mac like she couldn’t stand to see Cam for another second.
“You a sick motherfucker, Mac. Gimme my shit.”
The speed-of-light slap sent Mama to the floor, and Cam was afraid her fragile bones would shatter.
“What I tell you about back talk?” Mac reached a hand out, helping
Mama to her feet. “I’ll take care of you, but we gotta have an understanding. I’m always in charge.”
“I know that.” Mama worked her jaw, sliding her tongue across her teeth, maybe to make sure she hadn’t lost another one. “You didn’t have to…”
Her eyes landed on Cam, and for a second, maybe half a second, she looked sad. She looked sorry. But then the scratching and twitching started, and Cam knew Mama wouldn’t help him. Mama needed her fix more than she needed him.
“Where my stuff, dammit?”
By the time Cam stood to his feet and had his pants pulled up, Mama was on the couch, skeletal hands trembling around that pipe, cupping a flare of light and smoke.
She didn’t look at Cam again.
“She failed you.”
Dr. Stein’s words pulled him up out of that hell. He took in the Persian rug under his feet and the soft cushions at his back. He knew he sat in the luxury of Dr. Stein’s office, but he still tasted blood on his lip and still smelled Mama’s smoke.
“Cam, why did you keep the gun?” The tiniest scrap of compassion poked through Dr. Stein’s therapist mask. “Why did you sleep with a loaded gun under your bed?”
Cam stewed in a pot of his own silence, feeling the skin fall off his bones the longer words eluded him.
“I needed it.”
“No, you didn’t need it. Mac is dead. You killed him.”
“But he could…She…” Cam’s words disintegrated, died in his mouth. Watery emotion boiling over in his throat. He would not do this. He wouldn’t let her do this to him.
“Cam, it’s okay. Let it go. Let it out.”
“Fuck!” The expletive exploded from his mouth. “I’m not doing this. She’s not worth it. She never cried for me. Never cared about me. Fuck her.” He glared at Dr. Stein. “That’s what I say. Fuck. Her. Sorry excuse for a mother. Sorry excuse for a human being. Druggie. Whore. Who needs her?”
“You did. You needed her to protect you, but she didn’t. That hurts.”
“No, it makes me mad. I’m not hurt. I’m not…” Cam choked on an ill-timed sob, squeezing his eyes shut, needing to catch the tears before they fell. “She didn’t do anything. She…she saw…and she…”
Cam’s shoulders heaved and shook. He clamped his hands over his eyes, but a deluge of tears, unrelenting, streaked down his face. Oh God. Pain sliced into his heart like a razor blade, nicking every tender place he’d tried to protect or ignore. How could she not even care? How could she see her own son on the floor naked and hurt by that monster and just smoke her pipe?
“She never even asked me about it.” Cam thought his voice would come out as a roar, but it was a whimper. Weak shit. He cleared his throat. “She could have asked me about it.”
“Your mother was an addict, Cam. So out of her mind she sold her body and sold out her own son for her fix. She didn’t protect you, and you had to defend yourself.”
“But I couldn’t ever defend myself. He got me every time.”
“Until you killed him.”
“I killed him.”
“He’s dead. He can’t hurt you anymore except for the ways you are
allowing
him to. In your dreams. In your life when you shut people out. When you shut Jo out.”
“But I couldn’t even kill him right because he came back and he was going to hurt Jo the way he hurt me.”
“But that was a dream.”
“I know that, but when I’m in the dream, it’s like I don’t know.”
“What if I told you Mac is dead?”
A ragged chuckle cut Cam’s throat.
“I’d say no shit.”
“You say that like it’s self-evident, yet you held a loaded gun to your girlfriend’s head because you thought she was Mac, so obviously, somewhere in your subconscious, you think he can still hurt you.”
“But he—”
“He cannot, Cam.” Dr. Stein’s eyes never left Cam’s face. “You can let him go.”
“Let him go? I’m not holding on to him. He’s the one who won’t leave me alone.”
“I think your subconscious manifests him out of your lingering fear that you are still not safe. That you still need protection. And as an extension of that fear, you think Jo needs protection, too. You never confronted Mac in your dream until he threatened Jo. Did you notice that?”
Shit. He hadn’t. Dr. Stein should charge double.
“No.” He dropped the concession into the quiet Dr. Stein allowed him.
“Cam, I ask you again. What do you want?”
Cam let the question echo in his head for a moment, sniffing and wiping his nose to regain some semblance of composure.
“I want…I want to sleep through the night.”
“I can give you a prescription to help you with that. Go deeper.”
“I want Jo. I want to spend my life with her.” He had cracked a door open and he couldn’t stop everything that stormed out past his lips like an escaped prisoner. “And I want to have kids with her. To sleep with her in my arms all night without being afraid I’ll hurt her. Or that he’ll hurt her.”
“Jo is what you want, but you ran from her for a long time. And you ran again when you felt threatened. Why?”
“I wasn’t good enough for her. I’m still not.”
“Cam, that’s a lie. You have allowed lies to shape how you see yourself.”
“No, I’m a murderer. I’m heartless and cold. She deserves better than that.”
“I doubt she thinks she’s too good for you.” Dr. Stein allowed her eyes to be kind. “I think it’s all a convolution that will take a lot more time than we have today to sort out. How vulnerable you felt because of your mother’s indifference. The shame over what Mac did. How traumatized you were by taking a life at that age, even of someone you believed to be evil. I think that’s why you let him hang around. Free yourself from these misconceptions, and I think soon, you may free yourself from those dreams.”
“And then I can be with Jo?”
“You can be with Jo now.” Dr. Stein gave him the kindest smile he’d ever seen on her face. “Most people would give anything to have someone who stands by them no matter what.”
