Page 76 of Curious
My chest constricts. “I think I have to.”
“What do you mean?”
“Cam and I have an arrangement. We agreed to get married for a few months, until he healed and got health insurance and I found a new place to stay. And we’ve done that.”
“I’m confused. That’s why you got married?”
I nod, miserable.
“You guys seemed really close up on the mountain. And at Jules’s house. It didn’t seem like an… arrangement.”
“Oh, I’m completely in love with him,” I admit. There’s no point in pretending otherwise.
“But you think he doesn’t share your feelings?”
I think about what Cam has told me. The way he holds me. The way he fixes me dinner and gives me rides places, even when I could drive myself. The way he smiles when I tell him things. The way we make crafts together. The way I help him with his projects and make him laugh. The way he feels inside me.
The way we have private jokes about too much sweet-and-sour sauce on egg rolls and advice-slash-affirmation cookies and galactic OSHA IIPPs and Venn diagrams. I swallow.
Sam nods. “Uh-huh. That’s what I thought. You’re scared to ask.”
“Sure. Because what if the answer is ‘No, I don’t love you back’? I’ve had enough people tell me that in my life. I don’t need one more.”
“Oh, Shelby.” Sam stands up, comes over, and rubs my shoulder, and while the sympathy is nice, it doesn’t feel as good as Cam’s touch would.
I sigh.
“I think you know the right answer here,” he says. “You should talk with him.”
“What if things go all to hell?”
“Divorcing a man you’re in love with isn’t exactly ideal.”
“Yeah. I guess I just wish I could stick my head in the sand. Why do things always go bad, even when they start out so good?”
Sam grins and shakes his head. “They don’t. Things can just keep getting better and better.”
I snort. “That sounds like Pollyanna. Or Alden Meyer.”
“I didn’t take you for a cynic, Shelbs. I think as a society, we have a tendency to plan for the worst rather than hope for the best. To worry that things will go wrong. But many times, there’s an equal probability that they won’t, and we’ve worried for nothing.”
“Yeah, that’s exactly what Alden says. And I wish I could believe you both.”
“Maybe you could try. And maybe it will work out. Don’t self-sabotage.” Sam gives me a sad smile. “But if at the end of the day you need divorce papers, I’ll help. I’ll be here for you, whatever you need.” He clicks a few times on the computer. “I’ll send you a link to the self-help website where you can fill out the forms.”
* * *
I get home before Cam does, and I lie on the couch, staring at the ceiling and watching the fan go around and around.
I don’t know what I was thinking, falling in love with Cam. Clearly, Iwasn’tthinking. I was letting my foolish heart take charge, and that is not the way to happiness, judging by how it’s never worked for me in the past.
Camden walks in from work, his backward baseball cap holding in his curls, his jeans dirty from the job.
“Hey, babe,” he says, coming over and kissing me. “I need to shower and then—” He stops, catching the look on my face. He sits down on the coffee table and starts taking off his boots. “Hey,” he says quietly. “What’s wrong?”
I sit up and hand him a manila envelope.
He takes it but doesn’t go to open it. “What’s this?”
