Page 176 of Fault Lines
I shook my head. Cam shook his, too.
She stood, and we followed. She didn’t offer a hug, but she did shake both our hands at the door.
As we walked back to the car, Cam said nothing, and neither did I. It wasn’t awkward, just heavy with the weight of everything unspoken.
He drove us home in silence, one hand on the wheel, the other resting on his knee. I watched the city slide by and wondered whether I’d ever really know him, or if all relationships were just elaborate guesses.
When we got home, he offered me the journal—a slim, navy-blue leather with the corners already curling up from use.
“I’ll leave it in the bedroom,” he said, not looking at me. “Whenever you’re ready.”
I watched him go, wondering whether to be angry or grateful or just scared.
I decided on all three.
∞∞∞
Three days passed before Cam brought up the journal again. I thought he might have forgotten—part of me hoped he had—but on a gray Thursday morning, as I sat at the kitchen table pouring over invoices for the bookstore, he set a mug of coffee next to me and said, “You should read it. When you’re ready, I mean. I want you to.”
I could have said I’d already looked at it. Could have lied, or laughed it off, or played it cool. Instead, I stared at the cup, at the swirl of cream I always told him was too much, and said, “Okay.”
That evening, after Cam went for a run and the house settled into its new, careful silence, I picked up the leather-bound book. It was heavier than it looked, as if the sum total of Cam’s guiltand hope had increased the gravitational pull of the thing. I set it on the bed, turned on the reading lamp, and curled against the headboard, my knees drawn up as if I were hiding from the words inside.
I hesitated, fingers tracing the ridges of the cover, then flipped to the first page. His handwriting was small and precise, nothing like the rush of his emails or the scrawl of grocery lists. Each entry was dated. Some had underlined titles, as if he wanted to warn himself what was coming.
I started with the first, because there was nowhere else to start.
**JULY 1**
Dr. Stiles says I need to write what I’m afraid to say out loud. So here it is. I’m afraid of being alone. Always have been. Not just alone in the sense of empty rooms, but alone in the way of no one really seeing you, ever. My parents were present, but never close. My mother cried a lot, even when she was happy. My father never hugged me after I turned nine. I never figured out what I did wrong.
I kept reading, line after line, entry after entry.
**JULY 14**
I met Olivia at an ice cream shop in college. She was wearing yellow and looked like she was holding herself together with nothing but willpower. I liked her immediately, because she didn’t pretend to be okay. I don’t think I ever stopped loving her after that first night. She called me out for being a showoff on our first date, but laughed when she said it. That was everything.
The entries telescoped forward: their first months together, Cam’s proposal, the easy optimism that characterized their early marriage.
**AUGUST 11**
She wanted a family. I did too. I do. I wanted to be a better father than mine ever was, to fill all the empty spaces inside me with her happiness. I imagined her face lighting up when we found out, how complete she would look holding our child. Maybe then the hollow feeling I'd carried since childhood would finally disappear. Maybe then I'd be enough—for her, for myself. I'd never wanted to prove anything so desperately as my ability to make her whole in the way she deserved. But now I’m learning that we could have been whole without children. That the void can be filled with our love for each other. Or it could have. Before I wrecked it all.
**DECEMBER 3**
Our first miscarriage. I don’t have words for the look in her eyes. I tried to comfort her, but she just cried in the shower with the water running. I kept waiting for her to come out so I could fix it, but that’s not how it works. I couldn’t fix it. I could only wait for the pain to get less.
I paused, blinking back the first tears. I’d thought I’d done a good job of hiding the worst parts from him, but he had seen it all.
**JANUARY 21**
When the test was negative again, she said, “maybe it’s not meant to be,” and I told her to stop being melodramatic, but the truth is I thought the same thing. I can’t help but feel like itwas my fault. Maybe I’m just as broken as my parents, and it’s contagious.
The entries shifted, the handwriting getting sloppier, the entries shorter, as if writing became painful. The tone grew darker.
**MARCH 8**
I started sleeping at the office more. I didn’t want to go home and see her like that. It wasn’t her fault. It was mine. I just couldn’t face her while I knew I was failing her. I thought if I looked her in the eyes, she’d she how broken I really was. How I was failing her by pulling away but I just couldn’t stop myself.
