Page 158 of Fault Lines
“You should get a restraining order.” His voice was careful, but the words dropped like an anvil. “I called the lawyer; he said he’d need a meeting.”
I shook my head. “That’s not necessary.”
He raised an eyebrow, the way he used to in work meetings when someone was being willfully stupid. “He nearly killed you.”
“He’s not going to come back,” I said, but my voice lacked conviction.
Jackson cleared his throat. “If you want, I can walk you through the process. It’s not as complicated as you’d think.”
I almost laughed at that, but there was no humor in it. “What if he gets help? What if he… I don’t know, sobers up?”
Cam didn’t answer. He just sipped his coffee and stared at the backsplash, as if trying to memorize the pattern in case he never saw it again.
Jackson leaned in, more earnest than I’d ever seen him. “It’s just a precaution. Doesn’t mean you have to use it.”
I looked at Cam, then Jackson, then down at the Band-Aid on my wrist. The bruise underneath was fading, but it would be a week before the pain went away.
“Let me think about it,” I said.
Jackson nodded, accepting the maybe for now.
Rachel returned with a pile of clothes and dumped them on the end of the couch. “You have three choices: yoga pants, jeans that will probably suffocate you, or this cute black dress I found at the bottom of your closet. Your move.”
I reached for the yoga pants, and she nodded approvingly. “Excellent choice. We’ll start small.”
We spent the rest of the morning in the living room. Rachel turned on a daytime talk show and mocked it ruthlessly, Jackson worked from his laptop, and Cam oscillated between the kitchen and wherever he went to make angry phone calls. I felt like a guest in my own life, but it was better than the alternative.
At some point, Rachel forced me to brush my hair and put on lip balm. “Self-care, bitch,” she said, grinning. It hurt to laugh, but I let her fuss over me, grateful for the distraction.
It wasn’t until after lunch that Cam cornered me in the kitchen.
“Do you want me to drive you somewhere?” he asked. “I can take you to the library, or Rachel’s, or wherever.”
I shook my head. “I’m fine here. Really.”
He looked unconvinced, but didn’t press.
I hesitated, then said, “You don’t have to babysit me, Cam. You can go to work, or… do whatever you need to.”
He looked at me, and there was a flicker of the old sadness in his eyes. “This is what I need to do.”
I nodded, not trusting myself to say more.
He reached for the divorce packet, glanced at the signature line, then slid it away. “I’m in no rush,” he said.
“I know,” I replied, but my heart twisted all the same.
By evening, the house had settled into a kind of uneasy truce. Rachel and Jackson stayed for dinner—pizza, because that’s what the day called for—and we sat around the table, making dumb jokes and pretending everything was almost normal.
As the sun faded, Rachel packed up her things, gave me a hug that lasted just a second too long, and promised to text every hour. Jackson shook my hand like we were closing a deal, then left his number on the fridge in case I “needed legal advice or just a pizza recommendation.”
When they were gone, Cam and I stood in the kitchen, the silence stretching thin.
“Thank you,” I said, though I didn’t know which of a thousand things I was thanking him for.
He nodded. “You’re welcome.”
I went to bed early. Cam didn’t follow, but I could hear him downstairs, cleaning up, making calls, probably checking every lock in the house twice.
