Page 44 of What Should Have Been Ours

The words hang between us, and they feel so fragile I almost want to take them back and protect them from breaking whatever is happening between us.

Cam goes still beside me, his head turning slightly like he’s waiting to make sure he heard me right.

My grip on the wall’s edge tightens. “I mean—I missed this. I missed us. I missed…” I let out a breath, shaking my head. “I don’t know. Just…you, I guess.”

The silence stretches, but again, silence with him never feels uncomfortable. It’s just full of a bunch of unspoken feelings.

“Gabrielle…” His voice is low and cautious, like he’s afraid of saying the wrong thing. He shifts closer, his arm brushing mine, the warmth seeping into my skin. “I hope you know I never stopped thinking about you. You made the darkest part of my life, the most beautiful because you were simply around, shining your light on it all.”

I force myself to look at him, to meet his gaze and not turn away.

His eyes are softer now, none of the teasing, none of the smirks—just raw honesty. And it’s overwhelming.

“I never wanted to leave,” he murmurs. “Not like that, not after everything we shared.”

I nod, my throat tight. “I know that, but it still hurt Cam. It hurt when you had to leave, and it hurt even more when you went silent on me, and I never heard from you again. I felt abandoned, I felt disposable, I felt like you might have even been glad to get away…it just piled onto the insecurities and trust issues I already had, and really messed me up for a while.”

His fingers twitch at his side, like he wants to reach for me but stops himself.

“Not even the worst chemo or radiation pain could have touched the ache in my heart the longer I was away from you. For a while after we moved away, things got a lot worse. I didn’t even think I would make it. Nobody did. I saw it, I felt it, and at that time, I truly knew in my heart that the cancer would always be what killed me. So even when I started to get better, and I would have been able to find you again and reach out…I told myself not to. That, as many remissions and relapses I’d had at that point, it would never actually go away. I felt like I was stuck in this cruel cycle of hope and devastation, and I didn’t want you stuck there with me. I thought with the forced distance between us that you could move on from me, and it wouldn’t hurt as badly when the cancer finally took me for good.”

My heart physically hurts hearing him talk like this, hearing how bad things got for him, knowing he had to do it all alone, knowing that he truly thought he wouldn’t make it. And even worse…if he didn’t, I wouldn’t have been there to even say goodbye because he pushed me away.

Even thinking about a world without Cam somewhere in it feels like a knife to my heart.

“I hate that you went through that alone, Cam. I wish you weren’t always trying to spare my feelings and protect me…I wish you had been selfish for a change and let me be there.”

“I’m sorry, Gab. Knowing what I know now, I wish I had too. You don’t understand. Being back here with you…it feels like I can finally breathe again. It feels like a second chance being handed to me.”

Something inside my heart tips towards him at that.

I blink up at him, my heart pounding against my ribs. “So…what now?” I ask softly.

Cam exhales, running a hand through his hair before giving me a small, almost nervous smile. “That’s up to you.”

I stare at him, trying to figure out what that means. What I want it to mean. What I’m ready for it to mean.

But I don’t think I have to figure that out right now.

I think it’s enough to just be here with him, soaking in this moment.

Instead of saying anything else, I lean my chest against the wall, watching the city in front of us. Watching everyone else’s life go by while mine spirals from all these feelings.

Cam watches me for a long moment. Then, he exhales, tilting his head slightly as he studies me. There’s something almost resigned in the way his lips curve up—not quite a smile, not quite a frown.

“Like I said, I don’t want to scare you away, Gabrielle. If being friends is all you can give me,” he says, voice remarkably steady while being filled with so many emotions. “Then I’ll take it.”

He shifts closer, resting his hand on the lower part of my back, the warmth seeping deep into me despite the night’s cool weather. “I’d rather have you in my life as my friend again than not have you around at all.” His voice dips, something more rough now beneath it. “But don’t think for a second that I don’t want more.”

I suck in a breath, my fingers still holding onto the wall like a lifeline, like it’ll keep me from falling for him fully again if I brace onto it tight enough.

Cam huffs out a quiet laugh. “Because I do. And I always have, even when I thought I shouldn’t or didn’t deserve to. You were my best friend and my first love. Those feelings never went away.”

He turns back toward the city, like he’s giving me a moment to breathe and process everything he’s telling me.

Like he’s letting me decide what I want without pushing.

And that’s the dangerous part.