“I’ll help,” he promises. “Nunc meus esse potes.”
I don’t care what he’s saying; I just need him to hold me.
As he lays me on my back, pressing surprisingly soft kisses to my throat, I close my eyes and imagine he’smyAtticus.
And maybe he is, because he’s the one who stayed, even if I don’t truly understand it. If I can’t be enough for Atticus in broad daylight, I’ll take this version, here in the dark.
Because I love him. Because without him, there is only pain. Especially now that he’s forgiven me, now that he’s held me so tenderly.
Especially now.
Atticus
24
I RUN FASTER THANI ever have before. My lungs burn, my calves strain, yet nothing compares to the ache in my chest. The raw, unfiltered anguish that courses through my veins.
The memory of Cameron on his knees, his cries blending in with the sound of the current, is on repeat in my mind.
He told me he loved me again, and this time I believed him. I truly, completely did. Only it doesn’t matter. Not with this deal hanging over my head, not with how it’ll hurt him.
The day he turned up at Chastain Castle with Cassie and Julian, I was so angry that remembering it now almost feels silly. I couldn’t believe he’d go to such lengths just to see me, to rub in my face what he’d done.
And now? Now his dedication sings sweetly to something inside of me. From the very beginning, Cameron has been so dedicated to what we had that he was willing to break laws, make a fool of himself, and risk my wrath just to try and recover it. Recover us.
All for naught. The moment I touched that cursed book, I doomed us both; I just didn’t know it yet. And now, it sits so heavily against my heart that I can barely breathe.
So I run faster, just so I can feel a different kind of pain.
Last night I couldn’t fall asleep. All I could think about was his going home, most likely to cry into his pillows. And when I did manage to slip away, I dreamt of him once more, sobbing into my arms as I touched him so softly.
My dreams have gotten more and more vivid, and they’re always of Cameron, as if even subconsciously I can’t live without him. How will either of us move on?
When a love is this epic, do you ever heal from the cataclysmic fallout of it?
My phone buzzes in my pocket, and I rip it out in a flash, convinced of the sender.
But it’s not a message or a call but a notification from the app that connects to the new camera in my room. I stop running, Chastain Castle in sight, as I open it.
My old sneakers were muddy again this morning, and I’m determined to find out who’s doing it.
It’s a nice distraction from how I’m falling apart.
The feed appears. It tracks movement, so two five-minute videos are all it gives me. At first, I’m just sleeping. I don’t toss or turn, so it must grab a bit of time before the movement, too.
But as I fast forward a minute or two, I spot the motion, and I let it play at normal speed.
I watch myself as I toss once, then pull my earplugs out, laying them gently on the mattress beside me. My eyes are open, that much I can see, and I get out of bed carefully and head to my closet, which is just off camera.
A minute later, I reappear as if I never left, but this time…in my old sneakers.
And then I walk out the door.
I stand amongst the trees, frozen on the spot as I stare down at the screen. Have I started sleepwalking?!
Flipping to the next video, it’s similar in setup. My empty room appears on the recording, and I fast-forward until I see movement.
I walk back into the frame, slipping off my sneakers and setting them gently in the corner. Then, I crawl back into bed and drift back to sleep.
