CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CAMERON. I sat in the dark quiet of the room, listening to the seconds tick by on the new clock Olivia had hung on the wall. Everything was perfect, I guess. Furniture, fucking throw pillows, even art on the walls. Somewhere in Olivia’s world, pleasing our parents still mattered this much.
It was past one o’clock in the morning. They’d descend on the house in a matter of hours, yet I couldn’t bring myself to sleep. Maya had made it clear that she didn’t want me coming after her. I’d promised not to let her run anymore, but the guilt had overrun the frustration. I’d reacted without giving it a second thought, without considering for a moment what all of it meant for her personally. I’d been a complete asshole for freaking out on her, for passing judgment too quickly. She’d already walked out on me for that before. Apparently I had to learn that lesson more than once.
I jerked when the phone rang. Maya’s number came up.
“Maya?”
“It’s Vanessa. Are you home?”
“Yeah, why what’s up? Is everything okay?”
“It’s Maya. She’s...”
I stood quickly. “What’s wrong?”
“She showed up at my apartment about twenty minutes ago. She nearly fell out of the cab. I’d have her stay here, Cameron, but my parents are going to be here in the morning. I just don’t want her to be uncomfortable when she comes out of it. I’m sorry—”
“It’s fine. Text me the address. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
I hung up, rushed downstairs, and jumped into the SUV parked on the street.
When I arrived, Vanessa came out front to flag me down. She was in her pajamas, her arms wrapped around herself.
“Where is she?”
She led me inside and through a hall to a small bedroom. In it Maya was sprawled across the bedspread, passed out. Her face was obscured by the tangled mess of her hair. Her limbs were limp and outstretched in different directions.
“How much did she drink?”
Vanessa chewed her lip, her eyes never leaving Maya. “I’m not sure. She said she came from Delaney’s. It’s this bar near the office that she goes to sometimes.”
“I’ve never heard of it.”
“I doubt she’d bring you there. It’s kind of a seedy joint. I wouldn’t be surprised if they served her whatever she wanted for as long as she wanted. That could be a lot. She doesn’t really know when to stop when she gets going.”
“You think?” My voice was clipped, dripping with disappointment that she could allow her friend to carry on this way.
Her shoulders slumped a little, betraying her guilt. “I’m sorry for bothering you with this. Usually Eli is around to help, but he left town to visit his family. I didn’t know who else to call.”
“I’m glad you called. But what the fuck, Vanessa? How can you two watch her keep doing this and not say something?”
She crossed her arms, hugging her body. She avoided my eyes.
“This ends tonight.”
Her gaze shot up to mine.
“If I find out she gets like this again with you or Eli, you will personally answer to me.”
“I can’t control how much she drinks. She’s an adult.”
“Then don’t go out with her.”
Not waiting for a response, I went to Maya. Unable to rouse her with words and determined nudging, I scooped her into my arms.
“Can you open the car for me?”
Vanessa nodded, moving quickly ahead to lead me out. I laid her down in the back seat, covered her with my coat, and switched the heat on high. Despite all the movement and negotiating her position, Maya never woke.
“Should I take her to the hospital? She’s not responsive at all.” I held my hand over her heart. A steady beat matched the slow rhythm of her breath. At least she was breathing.
“I know this seems bad, Cameron, but I think she’s okay. I mean, she’ll feel like shit in the morning, but this isn’t the first time this has happened.”
“Apparently.” I pushed down a host of other scathing remarks and shut the door. “Good night, Vanessa.”
“Merry Christmas.” Her voice was sad, with a hint of sarcasm that a little part of me appreciated. Merry fucking Christmas.
I drove to Maya’s apartment. I carefully arranged her in my arms and managed to find her keys in her purse, gaining us entrance. Her body tensed as we entered her bedroom, and I thought I heard a moan muffled into my chest. I lowered her onto the bed and switched on the side lamp. She squinted, covering her eyes with her hands.
“Cam, is that you?”
“Yeah, it’s me.”
She rolled onto her side and hummed, a drunk happy sound. I undressed her, tugging her clothes off with all the finesse of a child undressing a ragdoll. Afterward, I stripped down to my boxers and slid into the bed beside her, pulling the blankets over us.
I brushed the hair back from her face. “You okay, baby?”
The slits of her eyes opened, seeming to focus on me. Confusion then recognition passed over them.
“Why do you do this to yourself, Maya?” I whispered. I brushed her cheek, watching her slip back into sleep.
She opened her eyes, finding me again in the fog. She reached for my hand, feebly pulling it away from her face and down to her chest. “Cam... I love you. Even though this’ll never last. You and me. I still love you. I want you to know that.”
“Why are you saying that?”
“I’ll fuck it up. Somehow… The way everything’s all fucked up now. And you’ll leave again.”
Her lips wrinkled into a sad line, one that made me wonder if she’d been crying tonight. Her eyes were red and swollen, as if she had been.
My jaw tightened, my teeth gnashing against the unexplainable jolt of pain that shot through me with those words. If what I’d done to us years ago was the root of her sadness, of whatever had brought her this low, I knew her more intimately than anyone. After all, I’d brought the same torture onto myself. I’d lived with it. I’d survived it too.
I kissed her gently. “I’m not leaving. I’m going to take care of you, okay?”
She closed her eyes. A sad smile faded as quickly as it arrived, and she slid back into unconsciousness. I watched her, studied the motion of her breathing until sleep finally beckoned me too. I fought it, filled with an irrational fear that as soon as I closed my eyes, I’d lose her again.
MAYA. I’d been ill for hours before it struck me that today was Christmas. Too embarrassed to have him see me this way, I’d begged Cameron to leave me alone to purge all my horrible stupidity in privacy. Over and over, the waves of sickness came, and then the tears. I couldn’t remember much but I knew it wasn’t good. I’d woken up in bed with him, to the worried look in his eyes. He hadn’t been anywhere in my memories of the night, which wasn’t a good sign.
A while later he knocked on the door. I stirred from a merciful respite on the soft padded rug on the bathroom floor.
“Maya, are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
I rose, painfully slow to avoid the terrible rush of blood to my already throbbing head. No part of me wanted to see my face. I feared one look at myself would send me right back to the toilet, so I kept my eyes downcast as I washed my face and brushed my teeth again. I toweled dry and emerged, walking past him and back into the bedroom.
I sank into the bed, pulling the covers up around me as if they could protect me, save me somehow. He sat by my feet, silent and still.
“Can I get you anything?”
“No,” I rasped. “Thank you for...taking care of me last night.”
“How do you feel?”
“I feel like I’d probably rather be dead than as hung over as I am right now. It hurts to talk.” I wasn’t exaggerating.
“I didn’t rule out death last night.”
I closed my eyes. The reality of how fucked up I must have been last night sank in. “I just drank too much.”
“No, you drank at a bar without anyone you knew around you and then blacked out and fell out of a cab which, thank God, dropped you in front of Vanessa’s house. How you made it that far in the state you were in I’ll never know.”
Tears threatened again, causing the thrum in my head to grow louder and stronger.
“Please.” The plea came out in a whisper. “You can’t make me feel any worse than I already feel.”
“I’m not trying to make you feel bad. I’m trying to make you understand what you put me through. And Vanessa. Do you have any idea?”
His voice was strained. I could sense the unleashed anger from last night coming through each word, but that was what had set me off to begin with.
Against every instinct, I opened my eyes. The way he looked at me, with so much hurt and worry, destroyed the last part of me. I swallowed over the nausea that threatened anew. My body was still very much at war with itself.
“I’m sorry. You don’t have to stay here with me. I’m sure you want to be with your family. It’s Christmas after all.”
“As angry as I am, no, I’d rather be here with you.” He tossed a small wrapped package next to me.
“What’s this?”
“A present. One of them anyway. I didn’t really come prepared for Christmas morning when I was running after you last night.”
The edge of his voice stoked my guilt again. I wanted to reach for the simple wrapping of the gift but felt as undeserving of it as anything.
“Open it.”
I looked up at him, my eyes brimming with unshed tears. “Are we breaking up?”
He winced. “No. Why are you saying that?”
A quiet laugh rasped from me. “Because I’m a fucking mess, that’s why. I don’t understand why you would want to be with me like this.” I waved a hand over my sad, sick, torn up self.
“Well, thank God you’re not always blackout drunk. I happen to really enjoy you when you’re not. I’m invested in that part.”
“And what about the rest of me.”
“We’ll talk about it when you’re not feeling so rotten.” He gestured toward the package. “Open your gift.”
I reached for it, untying the twine and carefully revealing a notebook hidden inside the paper wrapping. My fingers grazed the soft brown leather of the cover. I flipped through the pages, sepia tinted parchment.
“This is beautiful.”
“For your writing.”
I looked up too quickly, my headache resurfacing immediately.
“This is too nice.” Too nice for my words. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
He took a deep breath, full of relief and exhaustion, it seemed. I wondered how late I’d kept him up, how scared I’d made him.
“Maya, I’m sorry too…about last night. I shouldn’t have let you leave like that.”
“You’re sorry?”
“I overreacted about Dermott. I mean, I’m not excusing his or Jia’s behavior, but I flew off the handle and you didn’t deserve that. I’m sure you wouldn’t have done this to yourself if I hadn’t been such an asshole.”
“It’s not your fault I drank so much. I can find an excuse to do that any day of the week without your help, trust me.”
“Why?” His gaze found mine. “I can’t promise to understand, but at least try to explain what possesses you to do this.”
I let my forehead fall into my hand. Why? Why did I do this? Time and again, after swearing to myself that I’ll never drink again. After I punish my body so terribly, the way I had last night.
“Sometimes I need to make everything go away for a little while.” I closed my eyes against the reality that I was faced with now, but I couldn’t escape it. “When I’m in the moment, I’m happy,” I muttered, all too aware of my present and overwhelming lack of happiness.
“When all you’re trying to do is cover up feeling miserable, it’s an artificial kind of happiness, wouldn’t you say?”
“Maybe. The relief is what’s addictive, whether it’s real happiness or not. I’m afraid that feeling will stop, that reality will creep back in, and I’ll start feeling miserable before I’m ready to deal with my life again. So I drink more, and then at some point, I don’t realize what I’m doing. I get too far gone, and…yeah, sometimes I black out.”
“And someone catches you when you fall.”
I nodded slowly. “Vanessa and Eli are always around, which is probably why I called Vanessa.”
“I know they’re your best friends, but it’s not their job to make sure you don’t get murdered or taken advantage of by someone.”
I frowned, unable to rationalize that he was overreacting. “It’s not like I haven’t taken care of them too. I’ve held Vanessa’s hair back plenty of times.”
“This isn’t college, Maya. You’re an adult. How long are you going to keep doing this?”
My face heated, my frustration rising to the surface. “You know what, I’m suffering for it enough. I don’t need you judging me. Trust me, this isn’t how I wanted to spend Christmas.” I pressed my fingers to my temples, willing away the pain that came with the force of my words. “What time is it?”
“Almost noon, why?”
“I should head out soon.”
“Where are you going?”
“My grandmother. Not like she’ll miss me, but I should go so she isn’t alone on Christmas. Now that this deal is done anyway.”
“Where does she live?”
“A home, a few hours outside the city.”
“Let me drive you.”
“It’s fine. I usually just rent a car.” I groaned inwardly at the thought of doing absolutely anything in my current condition, let alone coordinating the last minute details of this trip.
“You’re in no condition to drive. Plus it’s supposed to start snowing soon.”
“I’m not still drunk!” I snapped.
He stood up. “I wouldn’t be surprised if you were, honestly. Even so, I can’t imagine you feel well enough to drive. I’ll take you. Go get cleaned up, and maybe we can get some food into you before we leave.”
CAMERON. The snow started not long after we left. I registered immediate relief when the city skyline was in our rearview, as if we’d passed out of a noise and chaos filled bubble and entered another country, the country. It happened every time I left, and every time I found myself eager to reenter the bubble upon my return.
Maya had fallen asleep against her coat. She’d barely eaten, but her color had returned a little. She was on her way to better, at least.
A couple hours had passed when the phone rang. I answered quickly to silence it. Olivia. “What’s up?”
“Where are you?”
“I’m with Maya.”
“That’s great, but Mom and Dad are here. Everyone’s wondering where you are.”
“Well, you can tell them I’m with Maya. They’ll love that. We’re going to visit her grandmother.”
“What? Where? Are you driving?”
“Yes, I’m driving, and I probably won’t be back until late. So feel free to be merry without me.”
“Cameron, you can’t leave us here with them.” Her voice had degraded into an angry whisper.
I suppressed a laugh. In a way, I was devilishly happy about her current predicament. On the other hand, I did feel a pang of regret that I’d abandoned her. There were strength in numbers, and usually between the three of us, we could keep any one of us from being fully sabotaged by the onslaught of their judgments and snide remarks. Our army of three had been reduced by one, but we wouldn’t have needed an army at all if she’d kept her mouth shut.
“You made your bed, Liv. Deal with it. Send my condolences to Darren.”
“They are going to freak out. You need to get back here.”
“Tell them to get a hotel, and I’ll be back later. Maybe we’ll have a chance to visit before they go. I’m sorry, but there’s no chance I’m coming back right now.”
“Fuck you,” she snapped before ending the call.
I dropped the phone into the drink holder and focused ahead.
“Who was that?”
Maya had straightened in her seat, her tired eyes looking to me from under her dark lashes.
“Olivia.”
“What’s going on?”
I shrugged, not wanting to get into it.
“Here’s a teachable moment, Cameron. You lecture me about shutting you out, and that’s exactly what you’re doing to me right now. If I’m going to learn by example, you might want to rethink the silent shrug and tell me what’s going on.”
“You must be feeling better. You’re starting to piss me off me again.”
She turned to look out the window, and I caught her smile in the reflection of the window.
“Fine. My parents are visiting. Olivia invited them, sort of.”
“What’s that mean?”
I wasn’t about to tell her that both Olivia and my parents had pegged her as the scapegoat for my mostly self-imposed deployments.
“They’re nosy, and they wanted to check in on us. Once they make up their mind about something like that, it’s difficult to sway them.”
“You still hold a grudge against them? They paid for your school. They’ve given you so much.”
“That’s not what it’s all about, believe it or not. They’ve done a lot for me. I don’t take that for granted. I really don’t, but we don’t see eye-to-eye about what’s important in life. That makes it really difficult to spend time with them without some sort of argument erupting.”
She rested her head on her hand and stared impassively out the window. “I guess I wouldn’t know.”
“What makes you think I want to be dependent on them any more than I did when we were together? The pressure to do exactly what they did, but more and better and to the letter was too much then, and they haven’t let up much since. My father doesn’t negotiate, and my mother is obsessed with what the rest of the world thinks about her. Not a lot of wiggle room for me to fit into that world.”
Maya had been one of the only people who really understood my situation back then. She’d been the one who made me believe that somehow I could make it all work even when my plans ran in such contrast to what my parents had planned and wanted for me. Had she forgotten all that?
“At least you have a world. It would have been easy for you to step right in to help your dad.”
“Of course it would have. But that’s not what I wanted.”
“Maybe I’m bitter. We don’t all get to do what we want.”
I caught her hand. “You could. What do you want?”
She shrugged. “I’m too busy to even think about what else I could want. Not to mention that I have to support myself.”
“Couldn’t you support yourself doing something that made you a little less miserable?”
“I don’t know, Cam. It’s a little late for dreaming.”
“Why? You can’t afford to be happy?”
She was silent for a long time. When she turned to me, her eyes were thoughtful and serious. “Are you happy?”
I shifted my focus back on the road, not sure how to answer that loaded question. I gave her hand a squeeze, hoping she realized that my happiness was beginning to rely on hers. If I had any chance at happiness, we needed to figure things out between us.
As I struggled for the right words, she pointed up the road to a sign partially obscured by the falling snow that read Laurel Estates.
“The place is up here.”