Page 80 of Staying for You

She’s right, really.

It just sucks in the biggest way possible that she is.

She was taking a break from life, came up here for inspiration, and we were never meant for anything more. She doesn’t need me laying some sort of guilt trip on her and making her feel like she can’t go back to her life. It would do us no good to spend one last night in each other’s arms because it will only make tomorrow that much harder.

I don’t watch her walk away. I go into the lodge and busy myself with anything I can think of just like I did so many weeks ago when I was trying to convince myself that she and I didn’t belong together.

I’ll go back to my life, she’ll go back to hers. It might take a while, but we’ll both move on. The way it was always supposed to be.

Hours go by before I hear something outside that has my stomach sinking even farther than it already was. I rush down the steps from my apartment to the lodge and look around, hoping that maybe I just heard her driving here. But all I notice is an envelope on the counter with my name on it and the walkie talkie we used almost every day since I gave it to her.

Tires crunch on the gravel and I’m through the door in no time but it’s too late. All I see are Cami’s taillights and dust kicking up behind her tires as she speeds away.

Stomach twisting, I can’t let her leave like this. Without a goodbye or at least me explaining myself. Again.

“Fuck!” I shout and race back into the lodge for my phone.

I search high and low throughout the apartment, throwing pillows off the couch and looking through the kitchen. It’s nowhere to be found so I look through my bed, ripping the covers off. Digging my hands in my coat pocket that I wasn’t even wearing today.

“What the hell did I do with my phone?” Then I realize it’s in my pocket. More proof that I’m a freaking dumbass.

I grip my phone in my hand to call her and growl because I don’t have her damn number programmed in my phone. I had been using those stupid damn walkie talkies to get in touch with her. Frustrated with myself, I chuck it onto my bed and watch it bounce. My mind isn’t functioning right at all; my thoughts completely jumbled and all over the place.

I take the stairs two at a time to get back down to the lodge where I know her cell phone is in the paperwork I filed the day she arrived. Luckily, I have a good filing system so I’m able to find her stuff quickly. Then dig my hand in my pocket to call her.

“Fuck!” I shout again when I realize I’d thrown the phone down in my room. Back up the stairs, I rush into my room and angrily punch her number into my phone from the paper I was (finally) smart enough to bring with me.

It rings three times before going direct to voice mail.

Not a chance, sweetheart.

I dial again and this time it goes automatically to voice mail.

“Shit!” I wait for the message and after the beep I take a deep breath and sit here. I have no idea what to say other than, “Cami.” I blow out a breath. “I’m sorry,” I say just barely above a whisper. “I’m so sorry.”

I go down to the lodge again and snatch the envelope off the counter, rip it open and slide out the single piece of paper that is neatly folded inside.

With shaky hands, I unfold it and begin reading where I stand. And what I read, makes my heart sink, my stomach hurt, and my legs to tremble with such force that I have to sit down on the floor of the lodge.

Owen,

You’re an idiot.But I get it. Kind of. I know you’re protecting yourself even though I really don’t understand what you’re truly protecting yourself from. You said your sister’s friend, Lily, didn’t belong here. That she’s happy and you’re happy she is. You said that looking back, everything happened the way it did because that’s how it was meant to be.

So why, Owen, do you still feel this need to stop yourself from feeling or better yet… from falling? From experiencing greatness? Lily didn’t hurt you. You hurt yourself. I’m sorry, but you’re acting like an immature asshole. There’s no other way to put it. You overheard one side of a conversation. Yes, it was my side but you have no idea that I’d just found out that not only was my ex-husband squatting in my home, he had invited his stripper-girlfriend who’s six months pregnant with his child. Which means he got her pregnant while we were still married.

Go ahead and let that settle in a little bit. Go on. I’ll wait.

I was pissedwhen I said what I did. And I take responsibility for that. It was wrong, I know. None of what you overheard was true. I never once saw you as just sex or anyone who would be temporary. The truth is,Iwas protecting myself. Which, not to be a smart ass, but I deserve to do that. I earned it. Being married for eight years to a moron cheater allows me the right to be a little protective over my heart. So yeah, I said things. Things I didn’t mean. But if you’d asked, I’d have explained it. I’d have told you that I was scared out of my mind because I’d fallen in love with you. Hard and fast. In the forever kind where I can’t see a life without you. The kind of love that I would have moved to a new state that I’d only spent five weeks of my life in just to have the chance at seeing where this could go between us.

That yes, I came here for inspiration and I found it. In you. You inspired me every day. Not just in writing, but in the way I live.

And yes, my best friend told me to get some — to find an in-between guy. And I didn’t find that. I found a guy, but in no way did I picture you as in between anyone. We were bigger than that and I know you know that.

I would have told you that you helped me see that I’m worthy of so much more than I’d ever received from anyone before you.

I would have said that you were the first person totrulyunderstand me.

I would have told you that the love my parents shared, the one that I witnessed as a young girl and wanted for myself one day, that’s what I felt when I was with you.

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