Chapter Thirty-One
Cameron
It was getting dark earlier every day. I stood on the porch looking out over the front of the cabin. It was snowing. It had been like that since Natalie had left the day before. Like she had left, and the sky just opened up. I hadn't been able to go out all day. Not that I really wanted to, but getting up and doing something that distracted me from thinking about her wouldn't have been the worst thing. It would have been great, actually; better than the alternative.
I still couldn't fucking believe it. I should have known better, let my initial judgments of her stand because they had been true. Okay, maybe that wasn't entirely fair. She wasn't exactly who I had thought she was, a stuck-up girl who couldn't carry a conversation about anything that wasn't makeup or fashion. No, she had depth, but that didn't make her different. She wasn't. She was just another one.
At the end of the day, she had only been after one thing. I hadn't been able to stop thinking about it: everything she had said, everything she had asked me; she hadn't given a fuck. The one thing that had mattered to her had been money. She wanted to make the stockholders happy. Acting like she gave the barest fuck about me and what was happening in my life had all been to keep the ball rolling. Make sure the company was still raking it in, make sure the people at the top's millions kept multiplying.
I had thought that she and I understood each other. In fact, she had said that she did. Had it all been lies? Maybe not all of it but enough that I had to be suspicious of anything else she would try say to me.
Like that's going to happen again, I thought. She wasn't coming back. What the hell for? She had said her peace and gotten her answer. What was left?
Nothing. She got what she wanted, and now she could move on. Shame about that, though. I had really thought that there was something there with her. I had honestly considered moving back to Provo because it would be easier to see her. She did you a favor, I thought, showed you who she was before you found out the hard way.
I walked back inside. The fire was burning out, but I didn't feel like throwing any more logs in. I flopped onto the couch, stretching out. I wasn't tired, not really, but I didn't want to get up or do anything either. I felt like shit. I hadn't felt agitated and pissed like this in a long time. She was gone; so what? She had left before. Yeah, but not like that. I hadn't even gotten the chance to tell her bye before she left. I didn't want to see her again, speak to her again, any of it, but I still fucking missed her. I hated it. I shouldn't have felt that way, but she had gotten to me a lot worse than I thought.
Awesome. How can you never want to see the woman again but want to fuck her again at the same time? I couldn't help thinking maybe she could have said something else, maybe then... fuck it, it didn't matter. It wasn't happening. It was over. I got up and walked to the kitchen. I filled a glass of straight whiskey and threw it back in one shot. It stung going down. I grimaced and filled the glass, throwing the liquid back in a single shot again. The third glass I filled higher and took back to the couch with me.
I was already beginning to feel the first two shots as I sat down, not enough to really make me drunk, but enough to make me tipsy. I stared into the dying fire. The smaller splits burn hot; the logs burn long; she had told me that. I watched a log disintegrate into ash and crumble, the embers slowly extinguishing as the fire continued to burn out. I made a grab for one of my books: How Not to Die in The Woods; the title had gotten me. It had a lot of tips about camping, enough that it made me want to try it out, maybe when the snow cleared. I opened a random page and started reading, nursing my third glass of whiskey.
My parents' personal library had probably over a thousand books. Their joined collection across dozens of genres had filled the room from floor to ceiling. It was still all there in the house. When I left, I hadn't really touched anything. Their housekeeper, security, and groundskeepers all still had their jobs. I didn't want the estate to completely decay before I decided to go back. All their holdings that had come to me I hadn't decided what to do with them yet.
I was going back; this was never meant to be permanent, but Natalie had almost completely changed my plans. Funny how that had happened. She'd probably never know but honestly, wouldn't likely care if she did. My dad had known her, but I was pretty sure my mother had never met her. What would she have thought of her? If everything hadn't gone to shit at the end, what would they have thought about her?
The whiskey must have been getting to me because I was feeling drowsy. I fell asleep thinking about my parents. I didn't want to forget them. I didn't want to get to that day when I tried to remember something about them, and it wasn't there anymore. It would be like them dying all over again.
Evie and Grayson Porter. The last time we had been together before the airport was at their place, having breakfast. They had been kidding about my love life, talking about their trip, having a good time. That was how I wanted to remember them. It was how they deserved to be remembered.
"Do you guys shit talk me like this in public?"
"Of course not, dear. Only when you can hear us," Evie said, smiling at me. She was kidding. I never took her good-natured teasing to heart. More than she would do that, she'd talk about how proud she was of who her son had become.
"That's encouraging. So it's only other people you're trying to impress, not me? Got it."
"What's wrong with that?" she asked, taking a sip from her teacup. I thought about it for a second.
"I can't think of anyone's opinion of me enough to try to change it."
"It’s like it happened backward with you," Grayson said. "I've met men in their fifties more optimistic than you."
"We talked about this, Dad."
"I understand the way you feel, but I think you might be missing the point with this one."
"What do you mean?"
"What he means, Cameron, is you're judging too harshly. Too fast. There are things about the lives that we live and the people around us live that change them. You don't have to put your head down and follow anyone's lead. You can live your own life." I looked at my mother, frowning.
"So you don't think it's a bad thing? What people do because they have enough money and power to say a big fuck you to everything that makes them human?"
"No, dear," she said, "All this," she motioned generally to the house, "is an incredible reward, gained through decades of hard work and luck. That's what your life is, and you are the only one who can choose how you're going to live it."
"You're in a position to do incredible things, change hundreds of lives, Cameron," my father said. "That's why you're in it."
"What do you mean?"
"Everything we've ever done, it's been for you, son. All of this, the company, we can't take it with us when we go. It's yours."
"I don't understand."
"You will, sweetheart," my mom said. My eyes opened, and I looked around the cabin. I was alone. Not only that, I had been dreaming. What the fuck. I got up. It took a few seconds to reorient myself. The fire was dead; I walked over to build another.
I could have sworn that... it had been so real. It had been like watching them from someplace outside, then being there with them. What the hell did that mean? It probably doesn't matter, I thought, feeding logs into the fireplace. I'd miss them sometimes; that was normal. This was normal. I told myself that as I went to the kitchen to start making something for dinner.
"Everything we've ever done, it's been for you, son. All of this, the company, we can't take it with us when we go. It's yours."
I shook my head; I had been out here alone too long.