Chapter 5

Present Day

 

London and I sit outside a while longer, reminiscing and talking as the sun begins to beat down, reflecting off the water and heating us up with its hot rays. I can feel the prickle of sweat beading in between my shoulder blades and at the base of my neck.

Or maybe that’s just from the burn I feel under my skin anytime I’m around London.

Fuck, I screwed my life up so bad.

Why did I ever think it would be a good idea to leave London?

It was because I was a coward. I was scared of my feelings that had developed toward Sage and what happened between us. London was just in the cross-hairs and a collateral victim.

“Hey, what’s going on in that head of yours, Mr. Lucas.” London taps me on the temple with her finger. “You’ve always been the thinker amongst…”

She stops herself before saying any more, but I know what she was going to say. She was alluding to the way the three of us were together. Me, Sage and London.

“I know what you mean. You don’t have to say it. Honestly, that was partially what I was ruminating over. All my past mistakes. The direction my life took. Yours. Sage’s.”

I blink and look away, suddenly uneasy about where the topic of Sage might lead to. Things were already difficult for me with Lisa and Taylor, now my sister’s death and staying with my mom while she sorts things out. It’s just all a lot to process.

My dad died five years ago. Heart attack. I was stationed in Italy at the time, but when it happened I was on a mission in Afghanistan and couldn’t get leave to return home. In fact, it was three days after my father’s death that I’d actually received word. It fucked me up in the head and that’s when I concluded that I wasn’t cut out to remain in the military. Another one of my regrets in life, but something I had absolutely no control over and couldn’t take back.

Thankfully, my mother knew the score, as she’d lived it with my dad, who had retired just right after my fourth birthday and they returned to their hometown to raise their family.

Although when I returned to Italy and had made the decision not to re-enlist, that was the beginning of the end for me and Lisa. When I asked if she could take Taylor home and spend some time with my mother, she flat out refused. Said she didn’t want to travel overseas with our young son because it would be a hassle and she didn’t know how she could possibly help my mother since she barely knew her.

As if she knows I’m thinking about that, London asks, “You want to tell me what happened between you and Lisa?”

I snort uncomfortably. “Let’s just say you were right.”

“Cam,” she says, her voice soft and remorseful. “I’m so sorry. For everything. I only wanted the best for you. I should’ve been a better friend.”

After that summer and everything that happened between me and Sage, I was so confused and mixed up and angry at myself and the circumstances, I did everything I could to ruin the friendship we had. Nothing London could have said or done would have changed anything, and it eats away at me that she thinks otherwise.

I place my hand at the small of her back. “London, stop it. You were a good friend and flat out told me I was making a mistake. You were honest and that’s what friends are. I just didn’t want to listen. I did what I did out of anger and confusion. It felt like everything was spinning out of control and I just needed something – or someone – who was there to help stop the madness. Someone other than you or Sage. Lisa just happened to be the first person I grabbed onto. I was young and made a rash decision. I was stupid.”

“No, you weren’t. We were in an impossibly difficult situation. You were off at boot camp, and I know that was so hard for you. I was away at school trying to come out of my shell a little bit and figure out who I was when I wasn’t with you or Sage. Plus, if you’d done something different or gone a different direction, you wouldn’t have had Taylor.”

She turns and looks over her shoulder at the house. We can hear the distant laughter of my son, who is singing along to my mother’s favorite Elvis song, Blue Suede Shoes.  London returns her gaze to me with a grin on her face.

“At least he sings better than you.” Her joke is emphasized with a quirk of an eyebrow and I nudge her shoulder with mine.

“Yeah, well you know I have many other talents,” I reply, but the innuendo falls between us like a lead balloon.

That’s a topic of conversation we steer clear of since that fateful night.

I quickly recover with a question of my own. “Tell me what you’ve been up to these past few years? Are you still with Clay?”

Clay Christopherson was the guy that swept London off her feet her third year in college after she’d transferred to NYU. I never asked or found out the reason why London moved to New York and left behind Nashville. She would never tell me, except for the fact that she wanted to study sociology and felt the program at the bigger school was better and aimed more at the work she wanted to do in the future.

Because we’d lost touch, I had no idea what was going on in her life now. All I knew was she’d returned to Nashville and began work as a social worker, helping and guiding foster children who were being pulled out of abusive homes and abandoned situations. Although she’s never said so, I think it’s based out of guilt for never stepping up and saying something about Sage’s abusive father. Maybe things would’ve been drastically different had that happened.

But none of us did that. And we all have to make amends in different ways.

London shakes her head, scrunching her nose like she smells something rancid.

“Um, no. Clay and I broke up a long time ago. He hated Nashville and returned up to his hometown in Connecticut. He’s practicing law there now and I think he’s married.” She shrugs her shoulders, as if uninterested and couldn’t care less about his whereabouts in life.

I’d never met him, just like she’d never met Lisa, but he sounded like a stuck up, conceited douchenozzle. He wore collared polo shirts and loafers, for fuck’s sake.

Now I’m curious if she’s dating anyone else.

I give her the eyeballs. “Well then? Anyone else in your life right now?”

The air between us grows heavy as if a thick fog descended and created a murky film in the space between our bodies.

She clears her throat. “I see Sage every once in a while when he’s in town.”

My jaw drops to the floor like an anvil.

“What? Where?”

She breaks our gaze and looks off into the distance, her fingers toying with her lips. I reach out to grab her wrist, drawing her attention back to me.

“London, how is he?”

The unshed tears glisten like crystals in her eyes, her lips quivering uncontrollably.

“Being on the road doesn’t help him…I’ve tried, Cam. I really have. I love him so much, but I don’t think I’m good for him, but I know I’m the only stable force he has. Everyone else around him – his manager, his agents, the music producers, fans…they all bring out the worst possible environment for him. I know he loves me too, but it’s just hard for him. I think I only serve to resurface all his pain and past suffering when I’m with him.” 

She lowers her head in despair. “And I think he’s using again and I can’t do anything to help.”

I loop my arm around her shoulder and draw her into me. Just like I would’ve done in the past when we were together. Friends. Confidantes. My only aim is to shield her from more suffering.

There’s one thing I know just as plainly as London does. And it’s that Sage can bring out the best in us and also the worst. After everything he’s been through, that pain manifests itself into an armor that repels love and kindness. We tried to help Sage. We were young and foolish and thought our love could get him through it.

We were naïve to think that the three of us together would be enough to make things right and help Sage sort out all the shit his life and that dreadful ordeal lumped on him.

But as that summer drew to a close, and London and I went off in opposite directions, we lost that final connection and hold we’d had on one another. And the ties were eventually severed between me and Sage over something I still feel guilty over.

London held on a little longer, though. Until Sage finally cut those strings, as well. I didn’t even know that they had reconnected again.

“Shh,” I murmur against her ear. “You’ve probably saved his life more times than we can count. You’ve shown him more love and more compassion than anyone else has ever done, just like you always have. He just doesn’t know how to reciprocate. Maybe, London, it’s time to let go.”

She looks up into my eyes, her green eyes sparkling like gems, and I can clearly see that’s not an option.

“Cameron, will you help me?”

My eyes go wide because I don’t know what she’s asking. “Help you with what?”

“Help me prove to him that he is loved and worth something. That he means something to us and we need him. He won’t listen to just me. I sound like a broken record with him. It has to be you, Cam. It has to be you.”