I feel like I’m coming outta my skin, man. I need a drink so bad it hurts.”

I stare at Bobby across the table of the small coffeehouse in town where I met him, wondering where in the hell the guy went that I met at my first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting over six months ago. Out of everyone I’ve met at those meetings, Bobby was the last person I thought would call me needing help.

At my first meeting, he’d been the leader of the small group since he’d been sober the longest and had been coming to the meetings the longest. He was a natural leader and helpful person with a clear head and mind and a charismatic personality. In those meetings, we learned a lot about one another and our reasons for turning to alcohol to numb the pain, but Bobby was never very forthcoming about his past, always letting others do the talking because he said they needed help more than him.

I wonder now if there were signs that he was slipping during my last couple of meetings, but I was too wrapped up in Cameron and what was happening at the camp to notice them. I’d never blame her for distracting me. She was the best kind of distraction there was. It’s my own damn fault for not being able to focus on what I was supposed to at the time.

“When was the last time you had a drink? Or maybe something stronger?” I ask, taking in his disheveled appearance, unkempt hair, dirty and wrinkled clothes, and the way he keeps scratching at his arms and scrubbing his face with his hands.

This guy is withdrawing from a lot more than booze.

“I don’t know. What does it matter? I’m sober now and I called you. I did what I was supposed to. I just can’t take it anymore. I can’t believe Milly did this to us. I can’t believe she fucked me over and took everything from me.”

I’ve been listening to Bobby talk about his wife for last hour, saying more to me in sixty minutes than he’s said in the six months I’ve known him. His emotions are all over the place. One minute he’s sad and quiet, and the next he’s pissed off and cursing her name.

“She moved on. She found someone else. It sucks and it hurts, but you can’t change it. You can’t change her. All you can do is worry about yourself and change you. Say it with me.”

I give him a pointed look and he finally stops maniacally scratching his arms. He drops his hands into his lap as he recites the prayer with me that we start every meeting with.

“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference,” we say in unison.

We share a moment of silence and it looks like Bobby has calmed down some. He’s no longer fidgeting in his chair or getting distracted, his eyes shifting and his head jerking all around the coffee shop every time the espresso machine fires up or there’d a loud clanging of coffee cups being dumped into the sink.

He’s breathing easier and his face is smooth and calm and no longer scrunched up in anger.

“You good now?” I ask, glancing down at my watch when he brings his folded hands up to the table and stares down at them.

I don’t want to leave if he still needs me, but I’m anxious to get back to Cameron. As soon as she said she’d be right there, waiting for me when I got back, all I could think about was how many times I wished she’d said those words to me over the years. I need to get back to her. We need to celebrate Camp Rylan and we need to talk. I still don’t know what’s happening between us, but I’m sick and tired of waiting. Exhausted from trying to keep everything buried when it’s screaming to get out.

“I’m good, man. Thanks for coming and thanks for the talk,” Bobby tells me, reaching across the table with his hand outstretched.

I shake his hand, squeezing it a little harder before I let it go.

“You call me anytime you need to talk, okay? You don’t need a crutch to get through this. You’re strong and you’re gonna be fine. Just take it one day at a time.”

With a promise from Bobby that he’ll call me tomorrow and let me know how he is, I race out of the coffee shop and try not to break any speed limits getting back to the camp.

By the time I finished with Bobby and felt good about leaving him alone, the sun had gone down and most of the staff had gone home for the night. It takes me a while of wandering around the camp before I finally find someone who knows where Cameron is, and I can’t wipe the sappy grin off my face as I race toward our treehouse.

I can’t stop thinking about the words she whispered in my ear; I can’t stop thinking about the look in her eyes right before my lips touched hers and we got interrupted. I can’t stop thinking about everything I want to say to her that I’ve kept locked up inside for so long. I climb the ladder faster than I ever have before, but my feet turn into blocks of cement when I get to the top and stop in the doorway.

Cameron’s back is to me as she sits cross-legged on the floor in the middle of the room, but I hear her sniffle and watch her hand come up to wipe the tears off her cheeks. I hear them in her voice when she speaks out loud, telling Aiden she misses him, and will always miss him. The pain in my chest explodes, and I’m surprised I don’t stumble backward and fall off the damn ledge around the edge of the treehouse.

I should let her know I’m here. I should move into the room and wrap her in my arms and say something to take away her pain, but I can’t. I’m too busy trying to remember how to breathe through my own agony.

All this time, I thought something was happening between us, but maybe I was just seeing what I wanted to see, instead of what was really there. She’s still hurting, she’s still mourning, and I was a good distraction from all of that. I made her forget about her broken heart. She said my being back here made her happy again, but maybe all it did was make her forget about what she lost.

Leaving Cameron to be alone with her grief, I back out of the treehouse quietly and take the ladder down slowly, calling myself all kinds of a fool for thinking it was a good idea to dig something up that should have stayed buried.