He looked away, jaw clenching. “Whatever. Have a good Christmas, Avery.”
Cam stalked toward his apartment and I expected to hear the door slam, but didn’t and somehow that was much worse. I closed my door, my eyes already blurry. This was the right thing to happen. I kept telling myself as I backed up from the door. Brit had been wrong. There wasn’t anything to work out or fix. It was better this way. It had to be.
Except it didn’t feel that way at all.
Chapter 21
Two things happened on Christmas Day. My father texted me to wish me a “Merry Xmas.” Xmas. Couldn’t even type out Christmas. So personal. Love you too, Dad.
And it snowed that evening.
I hadn’t ever seen it snow on Christmas.
Caving into the tiny trill of excitement, I pulled on my jacket and a pair of thick boots and then slipped out of my apartment. Even though I knew no one was home in their apartment, not even Ollie, I glanced at their door as I reached the stairs. I wondered who was taking care of Raphael.
A heavy feeling settled in my chest as I forced myself down the steps and out from under the awning of the apartment building. Strings of multi-colored lights hung from the windows of some of the apartments. Christmas tree lights shone from others. I hadn’t put up any decorations. Didn’t seem like it made sense to go through all of that, but I had ordered myself a Christmas present.
A new messenger bag—distressed leather. A new bag for a new semester.
I don’t know where I was heading, but I found myself in the little patch of field on the other side of the last building. Fluffy white flakes already dusted the ground and were falling thickly.
Shoving my hands into the pockets of my jacket, I tipped my head back and closed my eyes. Tiny flakes dropped onto my cheeks and lips. Each little sliver was cold and wet. I stood there long enough that if anyone looked out the window, they’d think I’d lost my damn mind, but I didn’t care.
Cam hadn’t contacted me since the day with the groceries.
Not that I had expected him to, but there was a knot in my chest whenever I checked my phone and there was nothing from him. How twisted was that? I told him that I didn’t want to talk to him, so he stopped. That was what I wanted, wasn’t it?
A different kind of dampness covered my cheeks, mingling with the misty snow, and I sighed. Opening my eyes, I watched the snow fall for a few more seconds and then I headed back inside.
As I stood outside my door, I looked over at Cam’s and whispered, “Merry Christmas.”
#
The day after New Year’s, I had enough of my solitary confinement and did what I wanted to do. On the cold and blustery day, I pulled up Google maps and drove into the nation’s capital and visited the museums.
I was proud of myself by the time I found a place to park. I didn’t take out a family of four driving in the city, but growing up near Houston sort of prepared me for the insanity of these kinds of roads.
The museums were packed with mostly families, and I wasn’t sure if that was normal for a day after a holiday. I spent most of my time in the Eternal Life of Ancient Egypt portion of the Smithsonian. Truly amazing to see the artifacts from thousands of years ago.
And the mummy was pretty damn awesome too.
The history nerd in me was all kinds of excited as I roamed the wide corridors, even though I was alone and every so many minutes, no matter how many times I told myself to stop, I thought about how Cam had seemed like he had wanted to do this with me. Granted, that had been right before he’d kissed me, so he might have been down for just about anything at that point.
I couldn’t even fool myself into thinking he was still back home, because when I left this morning, I spotted his silver truck parked at the back of the parking lot. Cam was home.
I stopped in front of a display of pottery. Thinking about him kissing so did not help. It made all of this worse. I turned, spying a teenage couple more interested in the feel of each other’s mouths than all the wonder of history laid out before them.
A pang hit my chest.
Okay, maybe coming here wasn’t the smartest of all ideas, but I couldn’t stay home today.
Not when it was my birthday.
The big 2-0.
I hadn’t heard from my parents yet, but I figured they’d text or something, but by the time I left the capital a little before four in the afternoon, I hadn’t heard anything from them.
Yeah, that carried a jelly fish type of sting.
I stopped at the Dairy Queen near my apartment and picked up one of those ice cream cakes. I wasn’t a huge fan of ice cream, but whatever made up that crunchy stuff in the middle was absolutely divine.