Page 61 of Lucky Star

Chapter Twenty-Three

Sarah

On the drive into town to pick up breakfast, coffee, and other provisions, I couldn’t stop smiling. Since touching down in Eagle Harbour, I’d stopped waiting for the other shoe to drop and for the world to pull the rug out from under my feet. These past few days together had reminded me how much I needed him in my life—not just as my lover, but also as my closest friend and confidante.

“Have I mentioned how much I’ve missed this?” Cameron reached across the cab and grasped my hand. Our palms pressed flesh to flesh, he squeezed. “I feel like I never see you anymore.”

“You’re kidding, right?” He’d had plenty of opportunities to see me; he just hadn’t availed himself of them.

“I know what you’re thinking,” he said, his eyes locked on the road ahead.

“Cameron …” I breathed his name as an elongated sigh, a note of warning in my tone. “You stayed away. Can you please try to understand how insulting it is for you to sit there now and say that you missed me?” My voice grew louder with each word, but I didn’t care. “You could have seen me anytime you wanted to. You chose not to.”

Cameron gripped the steering wheel tightly, turning his knuckles white. “I know, okay. I fucked up. Is that what you want me to say?” Angrily, his eyes flashed to me and then he tugged on the steering wheel, kicking up gravel as we came to a stop on the side of the road. Killing the engine, he turned to face me, pressing his back against the door. “You want to have a go at me?” Fine. Have at it.”

We’d been good at pretending everything was great between us these past few days, but I’d known we’d have to have this discussion sometime. I just didn’t anticipate it taking place on the side of the road. Still, some things needed to be said and apparently there was no time like the present.

“You abandoned me.”

“You’re right, I did. Because you betrayed me.”

“Everything I did was for you. Do you think I enjoyed putting my wants and needs aside so that you could finally be successful?”

“You made that decision without even consulting me.” He laughed and shook his head. “Such a martyr.”

“Me? What about you? You got everything while I got nothing!”

“The only thing I’d ever wanted was you. When you pulled the rug out from under me after I’d just gotten a taste of what it could be like, do you know how that made me feel? What it made me think?”

“No, because you never told me. You just ran away. Again. Because that’s what you do best.” I sighed wearily, and we both fell silent. After several tense seconds, I asked, “Is that how it’s always going to be? Something scares you, and you pull away? Because if that’s the case, I don’t know that I can handle it.”

“What are you saying?” he asked, his voice cold.

“Nothing. I’m not saying anything.” I dropped my head against the window and swallowed the lump in my throat.

Cameron raised a good point. What was I saying? What did I want to say? As I weighed these questions, I admitted to myself that I’d placed unrealistic expectations on our relationship. I’d wanted Cameron for so long—had fantasized about what it would be like to call him mine—that when it finally happened, I let the fantasy overrule reality. Life could be messy. I knew that, but I’d forgotten it, and that made everything harder than it needed to be.

I wasn’t proud of it, but as soon as I’d felt Cameron slipping away, I’d resented his success because I thought I’d sacrificed more for it than he had, and that his achievement was built on the back of what I’d given up. I hadn’t wanted to admit that he’d made sacrifices as well, since while I sat home alone crying into my proverbial cornflakes, he was out with Jillian.

The truth was, I’d felt sorry for myself. And in my darkest moments, I’d wondered if it was all worth it.

But as I sat here now with my chest rising and falling with suppressed rage, I realized another grim truth. We’d each sacrificed the same thing: each other.

No wonder our relationship had withered until neither of us recognized the love we once shared.

And while Cameron had indeed abandoned me, what was worse was that I’d turned my back on myself. I was angry that I’d let my anxiety cloud my judgment and overwhelm my sense of self-worth. Frustrated that I had let myself suffer because people I didn’t give two shits about believed that I wasn’t good enough.

I was good enough, but I’d lost sight of that.

The fact was, I’d lost sight of so, so much.

“I think it’s safe to say we each feel abandoned by the other,” I observed after several moments of silent contemplation. “And that neither of us wants to go there again in the future.”

“True,” he conceded.

“Do you think we’ll ever be able to forgive each other and move past this?” A small kernel of worry sprouted in my belly. I couldn’t make this relationship work if he wasn’t just as committed to it as I was.

“The worst part about all of this was not being able to talk with you about it,” he whispered, staring down at his lap. “Whenever I have a problem, you’re the first person I turn to. When you’re the problem—” he cleared his throat “—I mean, when my problem is about you, I don’t know what to do. My compass goes out of whack, and I get lost.”

---