Turning my head away, I shove the discomfort in my chest away. I don’t feel like talking, but my sister is pretty damn persistent and I’m sure she’ll find a way to get me to talk.
“What’s her name?” Candice asks.
I sigh, admitting defeat. I never really stood a chance, so why fight the inevitable? My sister and I might be eight years apart, but growing up she was one of my best friends, and she has always been on my side, even the times I was wrong. She’s protected me, given me “important life advice”, as she called it, and seemed to have the ability to keep me together when everything around us, including our family, fell apart.
“Her name’s Hayley,” I answer.
“Do you like her?”
I shrug, unsure of how to answer this. I’ve never been one to ‘like’ a girl. Sure, I had Rachel for over a year, but we were never a couple. She knew from the beginning what our arrangement was. I was allowed to see other girls, and she was allowed to see other guys. When we wanted to get together it was with sex in mind, but otherwise we were both free to do whatever or whom ever we wanted. It worked for me. Until now.
“I care about her,” I reply. “But it’s complicated, and I’m pretty sure I ruined my chances with her.”
Snorting, Candice says, “Life is complicated, Cameron, we know that. But you won’t know what your chances are with her if you don’t at least try again.”
I rub my hand down my face, feeling the exhaustion from my sleepless night make its way into my bones. “I don’t think that’s going to happen since we can’t even get being just friends right.”
“Why? What happened between you two?”
I steel myself for how Candice is going to react after I tell her how I reacted when Hayley told me she had a daughter. This isn’t going to be pretty.
I fill her in, starting with how Hayley and I met in the parking lot of Jordan’s day care center and ending with last night’s kiss in the alley. I don’t leave out a single detail, not even the way I reacted when I found out about Hayley’s daughter. When I’m done, I feel like a huge weight is lifted from my shoulders, only to be replaced by another. The kind that comes with knowing that I’ll have to tell Hayley everything I keep inside, the hardest of which is what lies behind the closed door at the end of our hallway upstairs.
I slowly look back at Candice. Her face is somewhat unreadable but I know her well enough to see the mixture of disappointment, sadness and anger swimming in the depths of her brown eyes.
“Wow,” she breathes. “That’s a lot to take in, but I’m a little disappointed in you, Cam. You treated that girl so poorly, and all because you found out she has a little girl? How do you think that made her feel?”
I hang my head again, feeling dejected and pissed with myself all at once. “I know, I know,” I concede. “I acted like a complete asshole, and I wish I hadn’t, but I totally freaked out, alright? I’m twenty -one, Candice, and the last thing I ever imagined, especially at my age, was getting involved with someone who has a kid. I just didn’t see it happening.”
“So what changed?” Candice asks.
“I just, I don’t know. Like I said, I care about her, a lot, and those few weeks when we didn’t talk and then pretended to be friends was torture. I hated every goddamn minute of it.”
“Do you want to try again? I mean, you know it’ll be different because she has a little girl, but does that change how you feel about her?”
Candice’s question catches me a little off guard, but only because I never realized that my feelings for Hayley didn’t change when I found out about her daughter. I just freaked out without asking questions and ran like hell. I’ve never thought about it until now, and maybe if I had, things between Hayley and I could’ve been far less complicated.
“No,” I say honestly. “It doesn’t change how I feel about her, but I’d have to admit that the thought of having more with her at the time scared me. It’s always been easier to not get emotionally involved. After everything with dad, it just became easier to feel nothing.”
Candice’s hand rests on my knee and she scoots closer to me until her head rests on my shoulder. “Cam,” she says softly. “You can’t allow what happened with dad to prevent you from being in a relationship with someone. What are you afraid of?”
Another question I’m not prepared for. “I’m afraid that once Hayley knows what I did she’ll see me for who I am and then leave.”
Candice frowns. “What happened with daddy was an accident, Cameron,” her voice hitches and I immediately feel guilty for upsetting her. “And mom and I never blamed you, but you’ve never forgiven yourself. You have to see that you are still our Cam, the amazing young man with a heart of gold who just had to grow up much quicker than most other kids your age.”
I wish I could believe her, I really do, but I simply can’t.
“And I think if you really care about Hayley,” Candice continues. “And want to give things a shot with her, then you should trust her enough to tell her everything. If she leaves then you know it wasn’t meant to be, but you won’t know until you tell her the truth.”
Exhaling audibly, I resign myself to the fact that my sister is, once again, right. I have to do this.
I squeeze my sister's hand and look at her, her head still resting on my shoulders. Wiping a stray tear from her cheek, I reply, “Okay. I’ll do it. I’ll tell her.”
Today.
Chapter 12
~ Hayley ~
The house is too quiet. With Ari and my grandmother gone for most of the afternoon, I’ve had time to clean my room, put clean sheets on my bed, organize Ari’s toys alphabetically, wash the dishes and organize my underwear by color. But it only stopped me from thinking about last night’s disastrous girls night out with Taylor, and how it ended with me kissing Cameron in an alley.
I sigh. How did my life end up like this? By agreeing to be friends with Cameron with the full knowledge that it was the worst idea imaginable. We’ve spent the past few weeks skirting around our attraction for each other, going as far as avoiding each other just to make it easier. And it’s been driving me crazy. Last night only proved the extent of my idiocy when Cameron kissed me, and I forgot every logical reason why being just friends was the right decision.
I sit down on the sofa, staring out of the living room bay windows, and put my fingers to my lips as if Cameron’s kiss still lingers. I was so angry with him before, but then his lips brushed mine, his hands made themselves at home all over my body and I forgot that I was angry. When I left the bar I felt confused, overwhelmingly so, and the only thing that soothed my emotionally frazzled state was curling up with Ari as soon as I got home. I took one whiff of her baby scent and felt instantly calmer, like she centers me, brings me back to earth.
When there’s a knock at the door, I startle, after being lost in my own headspace. I get up quickly to open the door, and immediately regret not checking the peephole first. The door swings open and Cameron is standing on the porch. He looks damn fine, as always, in his light blue jeans and plain white t-shirt. Only this time he’s wearing a snug leather jacket to keep out the cooler temperatures that have arrived with fall. My eyes trail up his body and stop on his face. I notice the dark circles under his eyes, giving away the weariness on his face. He looks exhausted.