Page 32 of As You Ice It

I should move away, just like I’ve been doing all afternoon. I should do a lot of things. Swaying closer to Camden is not one of those things, yet that is what I’m doing now.

“You didn’t tell me you were moving here,” he says, his voice a rough honey wrapped in accusation.

“I didn’t think you’d want to hear from me.” He seems unsurprised when I echo his words from earlier.

“I used to pull up your old texts and read them,” he confesses. “I would hope for those three little dots to appear.”

I don’t tell him that I used to read our old messages, too. Right now, it feels too risky to tell him something so true.

“I shouldn’t have left.”

“You live here; you had to go.”

“I didn’t have to go then. Or the way I did. I’ve been living with the regret every day since.”

“Me too,” I whisper.

His head snaps up at my words. I’m positive, based on the sudden gleam in Camden’s eyes, that one tiny sentence cracked the door, and he seems ready to walk right through.

Camden shifts closer, looming over me as I lean back against the rail, my hands gripping it behind my back.

This is a kissing moment. Heat and electricity and anticipation doesn’t just hang in the air; it vibrates through it, making my legs shake and the tiny hairs on the back of my neck lift.

If I turn off my brain and its pesky, logical thoughts, I can focus on only what I want. And what I want is nothing more than to let this man, whose gaze is now locked on my mouth, kiss me.

He wants to. I’d have to be stupid not to see it.

Even stupider would be trying to deny that I want it just as badly.

But as impulsive as I may be at my very core, I now come equipped with an emergency brake in the form of needing to do what’s right by my kid. Becoming a mom, having a whole other person who owns a chunk of my heart, shifted something in me. I’m better at self-preservation because it now includes Liam-preservation.

The very last thing Liam needs is to get ideas in his head again about Camden—at least, unless it’s something serious.

Am I ready for something serious? Is Camden? Would we even work long-term? Does he want to be a dad to my kid?

A lot of the same questions and doubts I had last summer obscure my thoughts like a worry blizzard.

Breaking up with Camden remains the single most emotionally grueling thing I’ve done.

Yes, including giving birth.

Which might sound extreme considering the circumstances of how Liam came into the world. I was young—only nineteen—and without a partner since Liam’s dad exited the picture immediately upon finding out I was pregnant. I had the support of my dad and Jake, but neither of them were super helpful during actual labor and delivery.

So yeah, birth was no picnic. But I also discovered the power of my body and my own strength and resilience. And I got Liam at the end of a labor in which I declared to Jake while holding his shirt collar,Never again.

In contrast, there was no prize after my painful breakup with Camden. No silver lining or sense that something better waited ahead. I broke up with him and got … nothing. No snuggly baby at the end of painful labor, making my heart expand with warmth and love.

Instead, I was left with an invisible and insidious grief paired with the nagging and persistent thought that I screwed up. The breakup with Camden hit me squarely in the emotional and psychological feels. A deeper pain, largely invisible to the people around me. It’s surprisingly easy to hide breakup angst, unlike when your water breaks in the middle of Walmart while you’re shopping for beef jerky, your number one pregnancy craving.

I don’t want to go through that again.

I’m not sure I’d survive it.

Clearing my throat, I slip away from Camden, taking slow steps across the catwalk, trailing one hand along the metal support. I wish my backbone were this solid. Or my understanding of what I really want.

“Don’t you have hockey games on Saturdays?”

If Camden is disappointed, I don’t hear it in his voice, which is frustratingly even when he says, “Sometimes. Our schedule is weird. The Saturdays we have games are the ones where we don’t have classes.”

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