Reese
I’d never been so sick in my entire life.
I couldn’t eat, couldn’t even drink a damn beer as I paced my house and waited to hear from Charlie. Catching her in my arms when she fainted back stage should have brought me comfort. The ambulance was called, and she was cleared as being okay before I’d even left the school.
But I didn’t feel comforted, because though I’d been the one to catch her when she fell, it was Cameron who was holding her when she woke up.
I didn’t even bother to crack the door in my house as I lit up the fifth consecutive cigarette and smoked it aggressively as I paced. Back and forth, back and forth, from the kitchen to the door, my eyes catching on the fort Charlie and I spent the entire weekend in each time I passed it.
We should be together under those sheets right now, but instead, she was halfway across town with him.
I’d been so naïve when the morning had started, comforted by a false assurance that everything would be okay and she would be mine now. It’d been so easy to feel that way after three nights of having her to myself, after hours spent talking and touching and sealing what I’d always felt for her, and what I’d known she’d always felt for me.
Even at the concert, when I held her in the dark costume room, I only halfway felt the fear I knew my words portrayed. I was scared, sure, but at the same time I was confident. I told her I’d wait forever, knowing in my heart that I wouldn’t have to wait long.
That was, until Cameron showed up.
The second I saw him on stage, my stomach twisted into the most horrid knot of my life. Watching Charlie’s emotions as he talked, as he spoke directly to her heart — it killed me. I couldn’t touch her, couldn’t pull her into me, couldn’t force her to look at me instead of him and remember everything she’d felt the past few days.
I could only watch, helplessly, as my opponent rolled up his sleeves to fight back.
It was the last thing I expected him to do.
Now, I didn’t know what Charlie was feeling. I didn’t know where her head was at as she talked to her husband in their home after being in mine all weekend. Would she still tell him about us? And even if she did, would she tell him I was her choice, or had tonight changed everything?
I sucked my cigarette down to the butt before cursing and snuffing it out in the ashtray on the counter, raking my hands back through my hair. I was going to go mad in the hours that stretched between now and when I would see her at school the next morning, and there was nothing I could do about it.
A timid knock at the door stopped me dead in my tracks before I could light another cigarette. It balanced between my lips, hanging there limply as I stared at the door as if I’d imagined the knock.
But then it came again.
The cigarette dropped to the floor as I sprinted for the door, tearing it open as I sent a prayer up to whatever God was listening to find Charlie on the other side of it. My heart pounded with the force of a cannon, but at the sight of the literal last person I expected, it stopped altogether.
“Surprise!”
Blake smiled at me from the other side of the screen door, suitcase in hand. My hand was frozen on the door knob. I blinked, wondering if the image would clear, if it was just a hallucination or my worst nightmare coming to fruition.
But nothing changed when I opened my eyes again.
Blake was there, pulling the door open since I couldn’t do a single thing but stare.
“Guess my surprise really worked,” Blake said with a chuckle. “You’re speechless.”
I still couldn’t believe it. Nothing would register. My heart wouldn’t start again, my hands wouldn’t move, my breath wouldn’t pull the much needed oxygen to my lungs — because it wasn’t Charlie on my doorstep. It was Blake.
Blake, my ex-roommate.
And, technically, my girlfriend.
Charlie
Jane’s cage door was still wide open, the two swings within it empty, and I stared at the gold-plated bars of that little prison as I waited for Cameron to return.
He’d helped me into bed after my episode at the concert, and though I was lucky I hadn’t cracked my head like an egg backstage, I still somewhat wished I could just pass out again to skip whatever conversation was about to happen.
I missed Jane.
If she was in her cage, I could open the door and tickle her feathers while she nudged her little head into my hand and sang me a song assuring me everything would be fine. Then again, not even her comforting song could change the fact that my life was a royal mess at the moment.
Still, I couldn’t stop staring at her empty cage, longing for her company.
The sun had set long ago, well before the spring concert even started, and our room was illuminated only by the soft white glow coming from my bedside lamp. I heard Cameron’s footsteps coming up the stairs and down the hallway before he even appeared, but I still blinked when he entered, as if he’d shaken me from a dream.
“Here,” he said, taking a seat at the foot of our bed near my ankles.
I kept my eyes on the cage as he handed me a steaming cup of tea on a small porcelain plate. The floral aroma of it hit my nose first, and I finally glanced down at the hot liquid, letting the steam warm my face. It was a white berry tea, one of my favorites, and I hated that Cameron knew it would bring me comfort.
I sat it on the bedside table.
“You need to try to eat something soon,” he said softly, placing a small bowl of tea biscuits next to where I’d placed the mug. “I know you don’t want to, but you should try.”
I nodded as my only acknowledgement, leaning back against the fort of pillows against our headboard with my eyes resting on that damn cage again.
“Why?”
My voice cracked a little at the first word I’d spoken all night. I tore my gaze from the cage, and Cameron’s eyes were waiting for me, steady as ever.
“Why did you do it?”
“Because I love you,” he answered easily, as if the answer was obvious. “And I’m not losing you.”
I stared at him, willing myself to believe the words he’d said, to feel something when he said them — but I only found rage.
“Damn it, Cameron!” I threw the covers back, kicking them the rest of the way off until I could climb out of bed. I needed to walk, needed to be away from him.
My hands ran back through my tangled hair, and I squeezed my eyes tight once I’d reached the far end of our room, standing right next to the cage with the door still open. I wanted to crawl out of my skin, out of the house, out of my life. It was too hard to breathe, my head swimming again like it had at the school, and I blindly felt for the handle on our window before throwing it open and letting in the freezing cold breeze.
The shock of it stole my breath, but then it came back in a slow, comforting exhale, and I braced my hands on the windowsill, letting the cold consume me.
“I know about you and Reese.”
His words should have shocked me, should have crippled me with guilt and sorrow, but they only elicited a snarky laugh that had never left my lips before in my entire life. I shook my head where it hung between my shoulders, fingers still curled around the white wood of our window sill.
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yes.”
And what does it matter?
That’s what I wanted to ask, but I simply leaned against the corner of the window, letting the frame take my weight.
“Well, then I guess there’s really nothing more to say. If you know about him, then you know what happens next.”
Cameron was still sitting at the foot of the bed, the only change in his stance being that he’d shifted so he was looking at me instead of the pillows where I’d sat before. He was calm and collected, seemingly unfazed by the fact that his wife had slept with another man.
“Enlighten me,” he challenged.
I stared at my hands, folding them over one another in my lap. “It’s over, Cameron. I’m done. I’m done with the pain, with being ignored, with this sham of a relationship we call marriage.” I shook my head, finally feeling the sinking in my gut again.
Admitting that we’d failed was the hardest part.
“I love him,” I whispered, sealing our fate, and I closed my eyes hard with the admission.
“No, you don’t.”
I frowned, opening my eyes again and finally looking at Cameron. It bothered me how calm he was, how sure he seemed.
“You don’t love him,” he repeated, his gaze hard. “You love the idea of him, the idea of what he used to be to you, and of what he never was.”
If I wasn’t clenching my jaw so hard, it would have been on the floor.
“You don’t know anything,” I spat, standing straight again. A black fog crept into the edges of my vision but I ignored it, floating on the adrenaline set loose by his words. “You haven’t known anything about me since we lost the boys. You haven’t even cared to know.”
“I was trying to give you space and let you heal, Charlie.”
“I DIDN’T NEED SPACE,” I screamed, flying toward him. I stopped just a few feet away as tears pricked the corners of my eyes. My hand flew to my chest, fisting over my heart as my face twisted with the emotion I couldn’t hold back anymore. “I needed you.”
He flinched at that, his face finally falling from the stoic expression he’d worn since he walked in the room. His eyes fell to the floor and I shook my head, turning my back on him again. A rush of cold air from the window shocked a loud breath from my chest, and I swiped at the tears I’d let escape.
“I know,” he said after a moment, voice low. “I realize that now, and I’m sorry. But I’m your husband, and you’re my wife. You love me, Charlie. Not him.”
I choked out something between a laugh and a sob, spinning on my heels to face him. “I’m leaving you.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Are you deaf?” I asked, incredulous. “I’m leaving you, Cameron. I’m done. It’s over. I want a divorce.”
“Two months,” he said loudly, his voice booming over mine as I said the dreaded d-word. His eyes snapped to mine, the crease between his brows deep and serious.
“What?”
“That’s how long he’s been back in your life, right?” he probed, jaw clenched. “That’s how long it took you to realize that you love him, that you don’t want to be my wife anymore, that you want to turn your back on everything we’ve built, on everything we’ve been through, to be with him?”
I just stared at him, mouth open to fight back, but I didn’t have words.
“The least you can do is give me a fair playing field,” he continued, and he straightened his shoulders with his next request. “Give me two months.”
I scoffed, pacing the room, my eyes flicking from the cage to the window to him and back again. “You’re kidding, right? There’s nothing you can do, Cameron. You’ve had the past five years,” I reminded him. “Five years since we lost our sons. Five years since you turned your back on me and left me alone in this marriage. What could you possibly do to change my mind now?”
“Two months, Charlie.”
A scream ripped from my throat, and I grabbed the open door of the bird cage, throwing it to the floor in a thunderous crash. I dragged my hands through my hair once it was at my feet, squeezing my eyes shut as more tears broke free.
“I just don’t understand,” I cried. “Nothing makes sense. Why now? Why did it take losing me for you to care?”
My hands fell to my side, exasperated, and I met his eyes with my own. Emotion tore through me like a razor blade to a healing wound, and I didn’t bother fighting against the tears anymore as I begged my husband for mercy.
“You waited too long,” I croaked. “And now, it’s too late. You don’t even love me, Cameron. You haven’t for years. You know you don’t love me anymore. Why can’t you let me go?” I choked on another sob, shaking my head as my vision blurred. “Please, please, just let me go.”
I broke in the middle of our bedroom.
My shoulders caved, knees giving out next, and I reached blindly for our bedpost to keep me standing upright as I succumbed to the flood of emotions soaring through me.
Guilt.
Desperation.
Pain.
Sorrow.
Loss.
All of it swirled inside me like the deadliest tornado, and all I wanted was to escape it. To escape him.
“Come here.”
Cameron’s voice was low, and in my peripheral, I saw his hand outstretched toward where I stood.
“Please, come here and let me hold you.”
“No.”
“Just…” He sighed, hand falling to the bed before he held it up again, this time curling his fingers. “Come here.”
I shook my head, annoyed that he wouldn’t just leave me be as I gave in to his ridiculous request. I didn’t understand why he wanted to hold me, why he wanted to comfort me only now that he’d lost me.
But when my hand slipped into his, he tightened his grip, pulling me gently until I was in his lap. He framed my face with one hand as the other wrapped around me, pulling me flush against him, and his eyes searched mine.
And I saw him.
In that brief, lightning flash of a moment, I saw the man I’d married.
I saw lazy afternoons on the beach during our honeymoon, and laughter shared over candlelit dinners, and comfort in the form of hugs after long, hard days. He brushed my cheek with his thumb, wiping away a tear, and I couldn’t fight against the urge to melt into him.
I collapsed in his arms as he pulled me in closer, one arm pulling my legs up until I was cradled in his lap like a child. He rocked me, soothing me with his hands over my hair, my arms, my back as his lips pressed against my forehead. He didn’t kiss me, though — he just let his lips rest against the warm skin as a sigh left his chest.
“Two months,” he whispered, still rocking me, and a new wave of tears broke loose at the sound of his voice so close to my ears. “That’s all I’m asking. Two months to prove to you that the vows I made to you still hold true, and that it’s me you’re meant to be with — not him. Please,” he begged, and emotion robbed his next words as his own tears met mine.
I hadn’t ever seen him cry. Ever.
Not even when we lost the boys.
He was quiet a moment, battling against his emotion’s betrayal of the calmness he’d tried so hard to contain. When he finally found his voice again, it was quiet and raw. “Please. Just give me a chance.”
I swallowed, closing my eyes as I leaned into his warm chest.
“Two months?” I asked.
“Two months.”
Reese flashed into my mind, but he was erased in an instant with a gentle sweep of Cameron’s hand over my lower back. My husband was asking me for a chance to keep me, for a chance to fight for our love. Was he too late? Maybe. Did I think he could change my mind? If I was being honest with myself, no.
But I owed him the chance to try.
They say there are two sides to every story, and it was in that moment, in that dark, desperate snapshot of my life that I realized I hadn’t asked him for his.
So, I opened my eyes again, leaning back in his arms until our eyes connected, and I offered the only word I could.
“Okay.”