Page 41 of Pomegranate Kiss

“Yeah,” she said, pulling her hands out of Nazir’s grip. She stared past him to meet the gazes of her parents. Heat flushed through her, flames scourging every last doubt and making things clearer than they had been in years. “I was hoping to talk about this in private, but I guess I don’t have the option.”

She sucked in a deep breath and balled her hands into fists. “I can’t marry you, Nazir, because I’m in love with a woman, and I’m tired of pretending to be someone I’m not.”

Her nails bit her palms as she squeezed her fists tighter. Cam’s words dropped into the air like active missiles, leaving silence in their wake. Nazir’s brows drew together, and he cast a questioning glance to her parents, who both looked like they’d been spat out by a monsoon. The joy abandoned her mother’s eyes, and her father’s smile vanished.

Her gut clenched at the shift in their features, and the world spun, but she remained planted on the ground. The truth spilled out, and there wasn’t anything she could do now. A helpless laugh bubbled in her throat at the hysteria churning inside her, and it slipped out.

“What exactly is funny about this, Camilla?” Her father asked, his voice colder than she’d ever heard. Even when she’d done normal kid things to test their patience, he’d never spoken to her like that. “You’re embarrassing your fiancé with this ludicrous lie. Don’t you think we’d know if we’d housed a sinner all these years?”

His comment smacked her in the face, yet the tide of adrenaline kept her moving forward.

“Apparently you had no idea because I’m a lesbian, and I always have been. No amount of disappointment is going to change this,” Cam challenged. Nazir already stepped away from her as if she was poisoned, as if being gay was a disease he could catch. The disappointment reflected in his eyes, and disgust shone in her parents’ gazes. These people had raised her, loved her, and taken care of her throughout the years.

And now they looked at her like she’d committed first-degree murder.

Bile rose in her throat, and the room swayed again. She’d always known, deep down, her parents would react this way if she came out. They would never accept her like this. And the Arctic wasteland in their eyes proved every fear right.

“Get. Out,” her mother intoned, a dark fury in her voice that didn’t just hurt, it destroyed her.

Cam backed away to the door, clutching tight to the pie she’d brought. Out of all the ways she’d thought tonight would end, this was the scenario she’d feared. By some miracle, she managed to shut the door and make it to her car even though herarms and legs had already numbed. When she crashed into the driver’s seat, she lifted her phone with trembling hands.

The phone rang a few times.

“Hello?” Danny sounded on the other end.

The first sob slipped from her throat at the familiar voice. “Danny, are you around tonight?” Her voice was raspy, shaking, but she forced the words out. She didn’t know what she’d do if her friend said no.

“Tell me the time and I’m there.”

***

Cam’s drive home had been through blurred eyes, and she’d pulled over a few times when the sobs wracked through her too hard. Once she reached her apartment, the tears had subsided, drying like a plastic film across her cheeks. Good. Maybe she wouldn’t be an absolute wreck when Danny came over. The guilt throbbed in her gut at taking Danny away from her first Christmas Eve with the Dukas family, but her best friend had sworn sideways Christmas Day was when the real celebrations took place.

She moved around her apartment like a zombie, her bones aching and her eyes pulsing with phantom tears. Her mother had ordered her out like a stranger from the home she’d grown up in. Where she’d been living the past few months. From the place she’d always believed she’d be able to return to. Fuck, she didn’t even know what she would do about school. Maybe she could take out a loan to swing rent for her last couple of months to complete her degree.

A knock sounded at the door, and Cam’s heart sped on instinct. She didn’t think she’d ever forget how Lex dropped by her door late at night to spring that kiss on her when things had begun unfolding between them. However, she’d fucked upthat relationship too, just like she’d screwed up the one with her parents. Cam wiped at her eyes as she headed for the door.

Danny stood on her porch, concern glowing in those green eyes. “Hey, Cam, what’s going on?”

Cam opened her mouth, but fear gripped her tight by the throat. Danny didn’t blink an eye at having a gay sister-in-law, and she suspected Danny already knew or at least figured something was going on between her and Lex. Yet all she could see was the aching, brittle coldness that had blasted from her parents after she delivered the news. Fuck it. She was Novocain-numbed from the pain.

“I came out to my parents tonight,” she murmured, the words she couldn’t steal back. A cool calm descended over her in the wake of all the tears, courtesy of the numbness that followed the adrenaline crash. “They called me a sinner and then told me to get out.”

Danny closed the space between them and threw her arms around her. “Oh, honey,” she said, a hoarse scrape to her words. “I am so, so sorry.” When Danny squeezed her tight, some of the warmth managed to penetrate through the chill devouring insides.

Heat welled in Cam’s eyes again, and she sank against her best friend. She buried her face in Danny’s shoulder, gripping her back so tight she might leave marks. “They accepted a marriage proposal from that rich douchebag without even asking me,” Cam mumbled, her shoulders beginning to shake as the tears streamed down her cheeks anew. “I know they were worried about me, that they wanted to be happy, but I couldn’t marry him. I couldn’t marry aguy. I wanted to tell them for a while now, but it slipped out.”

Danny stroked her hair, and Cam cried even harder, unable to hold back this pain tonight.

“That’s fucked up,” Danny said, keeping an arm around her shoulder as she began to walk them both toward her kitchen. “Let’s get some tea made, and we’ll talk. But for what it’s worth? I think you were really brave today, Cam. And you’re my best friend no matter what way you swing.”

Cam’s throat squeezed tight. That acceptance was what she’d craved from her parents, what she’d hoped for in a secret part of her even though the cynic knew they never would. She leaned against her kitchen counter, the tears slithering down her cheeks. Danny bustled about to set her electric kettle on, grab them mugs, and place the bags of earl grey lavender they both loved in them.

“You already know, don’t you,” Cam said, “about me and Lex?”

Danny nodded before she let out a reluctant sigh. “And I love you both, whether you end up together or not. Lex was a tough nut to crack, but ever since you left, she looked so damn miserable that me and her brothers pretty much corralled her into talking. Like, drinking herself into oblivion and turning down hookups in a very un-Lex-like fashion.”

“We both avoided talking about our situation while we were together, and when our six month arrangement ended, I was so scared to tell the Anti-Commitment Queen I wanted something more that I never told her about going back to school,” Cam muttered, scrubbing her face with her hands.

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