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I hesitate because I know inside is full of memories. I’m sure Cora found a box of photos and put them together in a lovely story of some portion of our lives, most likely chronicling how we grew to love each other.
I lift my face to look at Camden, and he smiles with encouragement and understanding. “Go on. Unless you don’t want me looking, then—”
“No, I don’t mind. There’s nothing to hide and nothing that’s private.”
“Then go on.” He moves to my side and leans forward, crossing his forearms on the counter.
“Okay,” I say with a grin and open the book.
The first photo is of Mitch facing the camera and holding up a homemade card. I recognize it instantly and still have it. I was seven and he was nine. It was for my birthday—my parents were having a neighborhood party for me. His mom insisted he make the card as she was trying to get him to explore his artistic side—which did not exist—and not focus so much on hockey. There’s another picture on the same page of me and Mitch at my birthday party. He had gotten me a book as I often had my nose stuck in one.
“Mitch looks like you were going to give him cooties,” Camden remarks as he takes in my arm over his shoulder, cheesing for the camera, and Mitch leaning away. We were buddies but sometimes I could be annoying, given our age difference.
I laugh because that’s exactly what it looks like.
The next photo is of a tree house Mitch’s dad built into a huge oak tree in their backyard. We’re both hanging out the window, looking down at the camera. I think his mom took that photo. We were ten and twelve.
I point to a trapeze bar that hung from a low branch. “I was swinging upside down on this and fell. My pinky finger caught a root and broke. I was crying and Mitch was telling me to suck it up. Said he got hurt in hockey all the time. I was so mad at him that I didn’t talk to him for two weeks.”
Camden chuckles. “I don’t think boys are all that adept at understanding of those types of things.”
“He was pretty dense,” I say fondly.
I flip through a few more pages… cute shots of us playing in the tree house, riding our scooters in the neighborhood, splashing around in the above-ground pool at my house.
I turn the page and my breath catches. It’s a photo of us in our teens. I’m sixteen and Mitch had just turned eighteen. He was taking me to the senior prom, and I had stars in my eyes over that man. He was going to play professional hockey and everyone knew it. His prior girlfriend, Jenny Witten, hated me because I had his attention, and she and a bunch of her girls surrounded me that night when Mitch went off to get us drinks. They were bullying me, throwing nasty insults that truly didn’t touch me. I had Mitch and she didn’t.
He approached and heard the things she said and I’d never seen him so angry. He announced right then and there to everyone who could hear that he was in love with me and anyone who said an unkind word would pay for it.
That’s how I found out he loved me… an announcement to everyone at prom.
“Pretty dress,” Camden comments. Mitch is slipping a corsage of gardenias on my wrist. He knew they were my favorite flowers.
“Yes,” I murmur, smiling inside with fondness because Mitch hated the smell. Through the years, he bore it, though, because of my love for them.
Camden watches over my shoulder as we study the photos. The last page holds a picture that marks the beginning of our adult relationship. My high school graduation. Mitch had been playing in the league for two years and I was the envy of all the girls. He came to my grad, bringing me a huge bouquet of gardenias, which I’m convinced he stole from someone’s yard because they don’t usually sell them in flower shops that I’ve ever seen. He scooped me up in his arms and swung me around. My cap had fallen off my head, but I held tight with one arm around his neck and the other clutching those flowers. Our future started for real that fall when I enrolled at Pitt and the rest is history.
As I close the scrapbook, I realize I’m weighed down by a tiny bit of sadness. Each photo holds a happy memory, but looking at them in succession only highlights all I’ve lost.
“Are you okay?” Camden asks as I move away from him to the sink. I wash my hands to take a moment to process my feelings.
“Yeah.” My voice is thick with emotion, though. “Just a little blue is all.”
I rinse my hands, dry them off with a paper towel and when I’m tossing it in the garbage, I realize that he didn’t reply.
Turning to face him, I find him leaning against the counter, hands tucked into his pockets. His expression is uneasy. “I don’t know what to say to you. I don’t know if it’s my place to say anything. I worry you’re not over losing Mitch and I don’t want to be insensitive.”
I settle against the opposite counter, my arms folded across my stomach. The space between us seems overly expansive. “You don’t need to say anything, Camden. Sometimes I get a little sad. I don’t mean to do it. I can’t control it. It comes and then it goes. You need to be okay with it.”
“I am okay with it,” he says gently. “I never want you to dampen your emotions regarding Mitch. But I’m an outsider here and I think I always will be. You two had so much history together, it’s daunting. Every time you’re sad about Mitch, there’s a part of me that wonders if it’s because I’ll never be enough.”
I scrub my hands over my face and let out a harsh, pent-up breath. Holding out my arms, I shake my head with no good answers. “I hate that you feel that way. I can only promise you that’s not what I’m thinking. Yes, I miss Mitch sometimes, but you know what? I miss you too when we’re apart.”
That seems to settle him because his chest deflates as if he was holding his breath. My heart hurts for his uncertainty and the best way for me to soothe that right now is first with touch, then with words. I move across my kitchen and into his arms. I’m relieved he embraces me, allowing me to rest my head on his chest.
“When Mitch died, I was drowning in grief. My tears were as common as breathing.” Camden’s arms jerk slightly, then tighten. A measure of support. “But eventually, the tears dried and happiness returned in small doses. Then it came in big flushes. Travis was usually at the center of any joy those first few months, but I knew I had to give him a normal life. I kept my tears for when I went to bed so he wouldn’t share in my burden. With time, things changed. I found myself in bed at night, not crying over Mitch but smiling over something Travis said or did. If he had an amazing moment at school, it’s what I was thinking about when I closed my eyes. It got better and better. Every day that passed another stitch closed up the hole in my heart. And one day, I felt complete again. The tears were gone and I was happy.”
I push back against Camden’s hold and tip my head to look at him. “But it doesn’t mean I don’t still have moments where my grief rears up. I can’t control that and I don’t want to. I embrace those emotions because it’s part of who I am. I need you to embrace that about me… that I’m a woman with deep feelings.”
