Page 156 of Fault Lines
I set the glass down and tried to shift upright. Pain flared behind my temple, but I gritted through it. Cam hovered, hands out but careful not to touch unless invited. It was new, this caution. I wondered if it came from therapy, or just the realization that he didn’t own my pain anymore.
We made it to the kitchen without incident. Cam had set up a little recovery station at the island: Gatorade, bananas, a rotation of protein bars. There were flowers in a thrift store vase and a stack of magazines, most of them car or tech related, but also a vintage issue of Vogue, a nod to the part of me he remembered best.
I tried to read his face, see what he was really feeling. Guilt, yes—he wore it like a second skin—but also something else, a steadiness that hadn’t been there before. He made coffee, the good kind, the way I liked it. When he handed me the mug, he kept his fingers loose around the handle, like he knew I might not take it.
“Thank you,” I said.
He poured himself a cup and joined me at the island. For a while, we didn’t say anything. The quiet felt like an old blanket, scratchy but comforting.
Cam broke first. “I want you to know that I’ve been working on things. Myself, I mean.” He sipped, took a breath. “I go twice a week. Sometimes three, if the nightmares get bad.”
I nodded, unsure what to do with the information. “Is it helping?”
He looked down at his hands, considered. “I think so. I mean, I haven’t fixed everything, but… I can see it, now. How I let things get so fucked up.”
I wanted to tell him it wasn’t just his fault, but I didn’t have the energy.
He glanced at me, then at the window over the sink. “You don’t have to stay. I mean—if you want to leave, I can call Rachel, or Jackson. Or I can book you a hotel. Whatever you need.”
I looked at him, really looked, and saw the truth of it: he didn’t want me to go, but he wasn’t going to stop me, either.
“I’ll stay,” I said. “Just for a couple days. Until my head stops spinning.”
He smiled, just barely, and the relief was obvious. “Of course. I’ll… I’ll try to stay out of your way.”
We spent the morning in separate orbits. Cam made phone calls in the study, his voice muffled but calm. I found my way to the den, curled up in the corner of the couch, and watched the street outside as the world continued without me. It was snowing again, fine and dry, the kind of snow that covered all the ugly things without hiding them.
Around noon, Cam came in and set a bowl of soup on the coffee table. He’d remembered to cut the carrots small, the way I liked. He didn’t hover; just left it there and went back to his business. I ate, one slow bite at a time, and let myself feel cared for, even if it was just muscle memory on his part.
I tried to stand later, to clear the bowl myself, but the room lurched. Cam caught me at the elbow, steadying me without squeezing. He kept his hand there a beat too long, then let go. Isaw him notice the bruise on my wrist—Nate’s last gift—and his jaw tightened, but he didn’t comment.
We spent the afternoon watching TV, neither of us really watching. The old rhythms reasserted themselves: Cam handling the remote, me wrapped in the blue fleece blanket, feet tucked under me for warmth. Every now and then, he’d glance over, as if to confirm that I was still there.
I dozed off at some point, waking to find him reading the divorce packet at the kitchen table. The envelope was open, the signature line still blank. He had a pen out, but it sat untouched, a threat and a promise all at once.
I watched him from the hall, unseen. He read every page, careful and deliberate. When he reached the end, he ran a hand through his hair and closed the folder, setting it gently to the side. He didn’t sign. He didn’t even pick up the pen. Just left it there, visible and unresolved.
It should have bothered me, the way he left our ending open. But instead, it felt like the most honest thing either of us had done in years.
Later, when he found me awake, he tried to act casual. “Do you need anything else? More Tylenol?”
I shook my head. “I’m good.”
He nodded, hovering in the doorway. “Livi?”
“Yeah?”
He hesitated, a long moment. “I meant what I said. About protecting you. But if you need space… I get that, too.”
I looked at him, really looked, and realized that he was waiting for me to tell him what to do. For the first time, the choice was actually mine.
“I just want to sleep,” I said. “Maybe tomorrow, we can talk.”
He smiled, a real one this time. “Deal.”
I lay awake for a while, staring at the ceiling, listening to the sounds of the house: the click of the baseboard heat, the softthud of Cam’s footsteps, the distant murmur of the TV. It should have felt like a prison, but it didn’t. Not anymore.
I drifted off thinking about the unsigned papers on the kitchen table, about all the things that had changed and all the things that hadn’t. It wasn’t a happy ending. It wasn’t even an ending.
