AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Pressing the call button, I burst from the bathroom and pace around the kitchen area. I’m too spun up to sit still. It rings once.
“Cam?” his voice comes across in a rush.
“Pete…” I choke on my guilt over avoiding him. It feels like it's been an eternity since we last spoke.
“Where are you? Are you alright?”
“I’m fine. I just had to go out of town for a little–"
“Don’t give me that,” he cuts me off. “I talked to your father. Where did he send you?”
He went to my parents’ house already?
“You went there already? But you said…you said I had an hour before–”
“I talked to him earlier at the office—our own private little meeting with Randy about how he thinks we violated the interoffice relationship policy.”
“What? Oh, God! How did they find out? Did Heather file a complaint?”
“I thought maybe she did, but she looked baffled about getting notice of your resignation when I went to ask her this morning if you were coming in.”
He went looking for me? My heart overflows with a much-needed burst of comfort, along with another wave of guilt. I freaking abandoned him and now Heather’s been put in the middle of this entire ordeal.
“I didn’t resign. I…they…”
“I know, Cam. I know.”
“Well, if it wasn’t Heather, then who? I didn’t say anything. I swear. My brothers were waiting for me when I got home Wednesday night and told me to get in the car. I thought maybe something had happened to my parents, so I went with them.”
As I stop rambling to catch my breath, I hear him swear under his. How gullible I must look in his eyes right now.
“I’m pretty sure it was my friend Mark from the office, although he’s lost that title. He said something that makes me think he came over one day and must have seen us.”
The bottom of my stomach drops out, and I slump against the wall. I’m the one who practically insisted we spend all our time together on Pete’s turf. First, it caused him to be outed to his family. By a saving grace, which turned out not to be a bad thing, but he should have had a choice. I shouldn’t have gone with him that first weekend. Now, he’s lost a friend because of me.
“Oh, God. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Pete.”
“The only thing you should feel sorry for is yourself for having a family who doesn’t appreciate you.”
I know he meant to assuage my guilt, but that brutal truth crushes another piece of my soul. He’s right, and I don’t know what I could have done to make it otherwise.
I still remember the feel of Travis’ pen in my hand as I stared down at a page full of words that I was too distraught to read.
“Just sign it, Cameron. Nothing is worth throwing away your family.”
I can’t help but feel the irony now. They threw me away and made me throw Pete away.
“What did my father say to you?”
“It doesn’t matter. Come home.”
His plea strikes me to my core. A fat, hot tear slides down my cheek.
How can he still want me when he finds out what I’ve done? How can he want me after seeing what my father is capable of?
“I can’t.” The words are painful.
“What do you mean, you can’t? Where the hell are you? I’ll come get you. You just up and disappeared on me. I’ve been worried sick.”
