Page 22 of My Sweetest Agony
It’s been five weeks of stunningly empty silence.
Devoid of joy.
Missing anything that could make me smile or feel anything but agonizing despair.
Until today.
I smile at him, the first real smile I think I’ve given anyone since Drew died. “I needed that.”
He grins, and for the first time since I met him, his eyes warm to the same Caribbean blue I was so used to looking into with Drew. “Then you’ll love this.”
He sets the Rising Star Award off to the side on the coffee table, then reaches for a stack of pictures to the right of the box that it appears he’s already gone through. He digs through them and pulls one out of the middle, flipping it over to me.
It takes me a second to process what I’m seeing. “Oh, my God.”
“Yeah. Now…compare to this one.”
Cam hands me another, and the laughter bubbles up out of me again.
“What are these?”
He sighs and taps the first one. “This was our first day of high school.”
“You two went dressed the same? I can’t imagine…”
Not looking at Cam now.
But in this photo, they’re both in the same navy polo shirt and khaki pants, both with their hair slicked back and perfectly in place.
They are identical.
Truly.
The torment that seems to dwell in Cam’s eyes isn’t there in this photo. If it were, I could tell them apart.
The corners of his lips twitch. “Kind of hard to believe I ever looked like that, huh?”
“What? No. That’s not why…”
He pats my arm, a little buzz jolting between us at the contact, and quickly yanks his hand away. “I know. Let’s just say I was trying to appease our mother, but it didn’t last very long. That one is about three months into the same school year.”
I flip the other picture.
It’s the two of them next to each other. Camden’s hair now disheveled and unruly like it is today. Instead of a smile, an annoyed scowl twists his lips while Drew beams from next to him, his arm thrown around his brother. And it’s there, though not as pronounced as it is now. But there, deep in his gaze, a hint of it. That unsettled darkness.
Glancing over at him now, I see it’s firmly back in place. Dampening whatever lightness telling that story about the Rising Star Award may have brought him.
He watches me for a moment, holding my gaze before his dips to the photo, reminding me I have to respond or things will get even more awkward than they already are now.
“Wow.” I tear my gaze from his to stare at the photos side by side. “Quite the change.”
Cam looks at them, too, his focus locked on Drew rather than himself. “I guess you could say I found myself in high school. Or, if you ask my mother, lost myself.”
I cringe on his behalf.
Something changed.
Something that made Camden go down a completely different path than Drew. Maybe one that led to their fractured relationship.
