“Why not?” I exclaimed with unnecessary whininess. “Carly does it.”
“Carly can’t do anything else. You …” He took a breath to calm himself and his voice. “You
have a life, school, a family, friends. And you would be much more at risk than Carly because of
my position.”
“I’ll take my chances,” I grumbled.
“Well, I’m not willing to take any chances. Not with you.” His voice was icy. “Besides, it’
s not just up to me. You become a risk to the whole organization if you get caught by rivals.
The leaders would have our heads before they let any of that happen.”
“So promise them that you won’t do anything if something does happen to me. That you’ll let
me die if I’m dense enough to get caught.”
Cameron stared at me vacantly. “That’s the stupidest thing I ever heard. Don’t ever say that
again.” He briskly stood and started packing everything up. “We need to go before it starts
getting dark.”
I did what I was told and struggled to keep up with him as he stomped back to the bike.
It started raining about one hour left into our trip home. By the time we drove up the gravel
driveway, it was dark, we were soaked, and Meatball was anxiously waiting by the cottage door,
waiting to get out of the rain. Cameron immediately got a fire burning in the cast-iron stove
while he was on his cell phone, dictating numbers to Spider. He smiled at me on occasion,
particularly when he repeated the day’s purchase prices to a flabbergasted Spider. He was
keeping busy, throwing paperwork into the fire as he went through them one-by-one with Spider
and making supper for the both of us while he replayed the day’s events over the phone. He
stayed on the phone the whole time we were eating, talking about what I assumed to be business,
though I didn’t understand any of it. Eventually his phone died, and he had to reluctantly hang
up. He insisted that I sit, or even better, go to bed, while he did the dishes.
I didn’t want to believe it. But while I continued to watch him, while he tried his best to
pretend that everything was okay, something was creeping inside of me. A remembrance of my
former life—the one that I could never go back to. I was aware of the sharp stab in my heart,
like the stitches on an old wound were coming undone.
Things inside me were shattering, falling to pieces. It was the look on his face that gave him
away.
I had seen it played out in front of me a thousand times. It was the look that my brother had
given me the last time I saw him. It was my mother’s pressed smile on the day she had come for
a surprise visit in Callister, right before she came up with a lame excuse as to why she needed
to leave, quickly. It was the avoidance of eye contact that the inconsequential boys had when
they were getting annoyed with my lack of affection … Cameron was getting ready to leave me. I
wanted to latch onto him, hard, so that we would never be separated. At the same time, I wanted
to run away, so that perhaps I wouldn’t feel the pain when he found a way to let me go.
Whoever said that love hurts was wrong. Love is excruciating, especially when you can feel it
slipping through your fingers and there is nothing you can do about it. Like someone was playing
tug-of-war with my limbs, ripping to shreds whatever was left behind. What it would feel like
when love was lost … I wouldn’t survive that. I closed my eyes, willing the tears to stay
hidden behind my eyelids and focusing on breathing in and out instead of the pain that was
ramming in my heart.
Cameron finished the dishes and turned the tiny kitchen light off. With the only light coming
from the shimmering flames that shone through the square of the stove window, my tears were
safely out of sight.
“We should get some sleep. It’s been a long day,” he said with a fake yawn and a bogus
stretch of the arms.
I noiselessly followed. It didn’t matter that the tears blurred my vision. I wouldn’t be able
to see anything anyway. But Cameron caught my arm as we climbed up the stairs.
“Are you crying?” he asked with utter surprise. “Emmy, what’s wrong?”
“You’re going to leave me no matter what I do, won’t you?” I sobbed. “I won’t go back
without you, Cameron. I can’t. You’re all I have.”
Cameron laughed softly. “Is that what you’re crying about? That whole thing about you going
back home?”
He wrapped his arms around me, pinning my arms to my sides, whispering through my sobs. “Em, I
’m not going anywhere. We’ll make it work, I promise. Whatever it takes. Please don’t cry.”
I stood in his arms until the sobs finally subsided into sniffles. He let me go and gently
lifted my shaking chin. He kept my eyes for a bit while sadness swelled his darkened features.
“I never knew you were this broken.”
“Only when you’re not there.” I sniffed and let him wipe the remaining tears.