I closed my laptop, relieved to be out of the virtual meeting. I finally understood the meaning of the coffee cup that read I survived another meeting that should have been an email. I walked down the stairs of my three-flat, nervous for the first time in months. I’d shot off a text to Cameron earlier that morning and asked him to meet me. He’d replied instantly letting me know he would be there. I was finally ready for the answers. The ache of missing him, the need to know, was too much. I wasn’t sure if we had a future, but I needed clarity. Some sort of justification for the pain. He’d stopped texting me a week ago due to my refusal to acknowledge him. I couldn’t bring myself to answer any of his calls. I needed, no, I deserved the one on one. It was anger that kept me away. But it was also the anger that kept me lost.
Due to the meeting, I was already running late and did a last-minute change into black slacks and a cuffed purple blouse. In a rush, I grabbed my purse and paused when I opened my front door.
She stood in a long black designer trench coat, perfectly put together and I cringed at the guilt that must have surfaced on my face the minute my eyes met hers.
“Kat.”
I was fumbling for words that would never come. She had bared witness to the beginning of my relationship with her husband and heard about it as it evolved.
It was too fucked up to decipher. It struck me then she’d never once asked his name. She really was a bit narcissistic in that sense, and in all probability, feigning interest while calling Cameron ‘coffee shop guy’.
Even so, I’d given her first-hand accounts no woman should have to endure. I felt responsible and angrier than ever as she looked over to me. It was enough to make me second guess my decision to reach out.
But it wasn’t only Cameron’s deception that irked me. I didn’t know the truth from a lie where Kat was concerned. And though I was blissfully ignorant of the truth on her end of things, I felt a sense of relief seeing her at my house. But no words would come, so I let her take the lead.
“I’ve been standing here for twenty minutes trying to get the courage to knock.” It was a rare sign of weakness on her part. “I’m sorry to show up like this unannounced. I didn’t know if Cameron would be here.”
“Is that why you’re here?” I asked cautiously. If she wanted to stir the pot she had a leg to stand on at that point. I had no idea what was going on as far as Cameron was concerned, but I had every intention of finding out.
“No. I’m here to see you.”
“Okay,” I said carefully taking a step forward. “Kat, I didn’t know.”
She nodded. “He told me.”
“So, you have to know I told you what I told you out of friendship and confidence, not out of cruelty,” I said with a trembling voice. I’d felt so justified in loving him moments earlier. I needed that strength back, but looking at the ghostly thin woman in front of me, I was on shaky ground. Was she high? I would never know the truth, but I did want the truth that I could see building on the tip of her tongue.
“Did he leave you?”
She nodded. “Almost a year ago.”
Relief for myself and anguish for my friend ran the gauntlet.
“I don’t understand. Why would you act like you were still married?”
“Because I was,” she said harshly.
I felt that blow to my toes.
“That’s not why I’m here. It’s not,” she back peddled.
“So, you were never trying to work things out?”
“I was raised to keep up appearances,” she said in a hushed tone. “I was an Olympic hopeful. I never took Cameron’s name when we married. I was a golden child, remember? I didn’t want to admit my husband left me.”
I nodded, though the irony wasn’t lost on me that she looked nothing like a doting wife with her treatment of him. She’d saved nothing as far as appearance went. Her addiction made her nothing short of a monster.
She seemed to read my thoughts. “Not so much a golden adult. I’ve made so many mistakes.”
“We all have, Kat. I could have been there for you.”
She gave me a weary smile, “While my husband fell in love with you?”
“God, what the hell did I just say?” Mortified, I hung my head.
“It’s okay, you know,” she said descending the steps. She looked stoic in her stance from years of practice. I had little in the weight of posture. I was hanging off the ledge myself. “All of those times you spoke to him?”
“He was always talking divorce, begging me to set him free. But I wanted to punish him.”
“For what?” I asked thinking of Cameron’s beauty and wondering how she could treat him so vile.
“For being everything I wasn’t,” she said with a trembling voice. “I was angry. I was resentful. And I hurt him in ways no woman should ever hurt a man,” she admitted. My eyes snapped to hers. “In every way you can imagine,” she added, but didn’t elaborate. But she didn’t need to, I saw it all there. I felt sick.
I wasn’t letting her go that easily.
“You hurt him?”
She swallowed casting her eyes down sweeping over it. “Yes. And he deserves someone like you Abbie, someone with tolerance who could never wound him the way I did. Who could never talk to him the way I did. I don’t want you to hold it against him. The way I treated him,” she swallowed again, “is unforgivable.”
Anger rushed through my veins but all I could do was pity her. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because maybe he won’t, and he deserves a little understanding. And maybe it won’t be easy for you to break through what I did, but if anyone can do it, you can.”
“What is he, that you aren’t?” I asked as she sniffed and wiped her nose. It was as if the weight of what she was telling me was getting to her and she stumbled a little in her heels. My hands shot out and I caught her.
“Kat! Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” she said weakly ripping away from my hands. “I have a headache and I haven’t eaten today,” she said dismissively. I didn’t believe her for a second. “Kat, I can help.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Take a number Miss Fix It,” she snapped using things I told her in confidence against me. “Let’s not go down this road,” she warned with a clear hint of ice in her voice. She was definitely high and for the first time ever, I saw what Cameron saw. I bit my tongue and nodded. “Can I help get you home at least?”
“No,” she said with the shake of her head. “This is not why I’m here. You need my help, I don’t need yours.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” I said with my own bite. “Kat, you look terrible.” And beautiful. But she was a disaster and we both knew it. “If you’re feeling sick, I can—”
“Damn it, listen to me. I’ll figure my shit out. I’m here to talk about Cameron.”
“Well I don’t need your assurances, I know who I fell in love with. And really what gives you the right? You forget I heard the way you spoke to him. I heard it.”
Something close to remorse covered her guilt-ridden features before she squared her shoulders. “Fine,” she snapped before she pressed past me and walked toward my gate.
Unsatisfied I shook my head. “Wait, Kat, wait,” I said catching up with her just as she made it through and shut the gate closed behind her.
“I appreciate you coming by, but I’m worried. And I’m ashamed and I don’t know how to even approach this. Tell me how to do this Kat, tell me how to help.”
“You can’t.” She looked over to me and gripped my hand tightly before she let go. “Just . . . love him like I couldn’t. Take care, Abbie.”
I stared at her retreating back as I walked up my steps and sat on my stoop trying to process it all. The sun was slowly descending on another day without him.
“Hey Abbie,” Mrs. Zingaro greeted as she checked the mailbox outside her door in her usual attire. She slowly flipped through the envelopes as I looked on after Kat. “Same old garbage,” Jenny huffed.
In my headspace, I wondered how much of Cameron still existed and how much of Jefferson was left. I wondered if somehow the two had merged into the man I fell in love with. I didn’t know Jefferson. And I was still reeling from the fact that the same man Kat made a mockery of was the same man I’d been in awe of. Maybe that was his bigger confession. Not that he had a failed marriage, but he lay victim to his ex-wife. Her treatment of him was vile, cruel, intolerable.
There was a fine line between keeping his dignity and our downfall. I couldn’t bear the thought of him hiding. But I cringed at the way Kat smiled at me when she hung up the phone with him. It was a sardonic victory that I saw.
I wasn’t a better woman because Luke left me terrified and guarded. I was different, sure, less trusting, that was a given. But I wasn’t finished living. And from what I knew of the man I met, he wasn’t either, despite his deeper issues. He had a shitty marriage, a marriage he kept hidden. There was nothing subtle about it. It was a glaring obstacle and he somehow expected me to forgive him despite the gravity of it. Maybe he never expected us to become a we. But then again, neither did I.
“Another bill collector spelled my name the wrong way,” Jenny chimed in as I hummed in agreement.
Cameron and I had already hurdled our mountains before we met. Alone and in our own way, we fought the good fight and won to give ourselves a chance. And when the other shoe dropped, I ran from his scars instead of brushing over them with fingertips of admiration. That’s the kind of love I expected, so why hadn’t I given it? No matter what cross he’d bared it helped him evolve to the man who I loved and who loved me.
“Guess I don’t have to pay them.”
“Pardon?” I said looking over at her.
“They spelled my name wrong, I said I won’t have to pay the bill.”
“That’s not exactly how it works, Jenny,” I said absently.
“No, but to try to escape it on a technicality, it would represent the name well.”
I frowned. “I’m not following.”
“Zingaro is Italian for gypsy. I told you that when we met, remember, but I promised not to skip out on rent.”
Say hello to your gypsy neighbor.
“You forgot. It’s okay sweetheart it was a long time ago.”
My jaw dropped.
“Abbie. Are you okay?”
I looked over at Jenny and nodded. I was so far from okay.
Bree’s words struck next.
It was like kismet or fate or destiny or that stuff you don’t believe in.
Jenny studied me from where she stood. “Okay, well if you get hungry I have some stuffed shells in the freezer,” she said before she shuffled back into her apartment and shut the door while I sat stunned.
How much proof did I need? How much more could he have shown me? He’d proven himself in every way. Before I found out about Kat, I had complete faith in Cameron. He’d earned my trust. I believed him, he made sure of it.
It’s really not so hard to believe in me, is it?
My eyes flooded as my heart sank.
He didn’t ask me for anything other than to love him back. He never manipulated me or used my words against me. Why was I punishing us both for misconception when I never fucking asked? When I refused to let him confess. When no matter how cliché his truth was in women of jilted past—those who unknowingly entangled themselves with married men—I had refused to let his attempt at honesty be enough to cushion the blow. I erupted even as he begged me not too.
Abbie, I had no idea what this would be. You have to believe I didn’t know it was you I was looking for. This, us, it means everything to me. I didn’t expect this.
In hiding our paths and with Kat’s confession I realized we’d triggered each other’s biggest fears in seconds. He’d turned into someone I didn’t recognize right before my eyes while I hurt him in the same way Kat had while he lay crippled in her wake.
We had hindered and hurt ourselves despite our warnings. Did that make us worse off, volatile, or just vulnerable?
It made us human.
“Jesus, Cameron, what have we done?” I said as I raced toward the train.
I had him. I found him, I had the love I envied in spades. And I lost it to my insecurity and fear and he did the same. Did he know that? Did he realize it? And why wasn’t he here fighting for us, for me?
The answer was clear. He’d given up.
And I’d given him every reason to.
Utter panic ripped through me as for the first time, I ran for my life.