Page 35 of Salvation
Ivy’s eyes fill with tears, leaking over her lashes and down her cheek.
“Can I—can I ask you something before we go?”
Jackie nods, her own tears slipping from her eyes. “Anything.”
“Do you love her?”
This time, Jackie’s smile isn’t just polite. It lights up her whole face, saying more than her words ever could. “With everything I have.”
Ivy swallows, turning her head to stare outside. “Then that’s enough for me. Thank you.”
Chapter 18
Campbell
“We can get a lawyer.” My voice pierces the silence in the cab of my truck like a needle to a balloon, popping the bubble we find ourselves in.
Ivy sits facing away from me in the passenger seat of the truck, her body tense. She doesn’t turn to look at me when I speak, but she snorts.
“Oh, yeah? And why would we do that, Campbell? You didn’t even speak up in there? You sat there and said nothing while I made a fool of myself, begging. So, no. We aren’t calling a lawyer. Maybe it’s for the best. It was selfish of us to even think about disrupting her life. She has a good family. She’s happy. Loved. Our daughter doesn’t need us to come into her life and wreck it all—because let’s be honest, that’s what we are good at, aren’t we? Just look at us. We were two sixteen-year-olds, pretending to know what love was back then.”
If words could kill, the ones coming from Ivy’s mouth would be my end. “I know what love is, sunshine. I’ve known since I was nine years old.”
She keeps looking out the window, but I see her throat work as she fights back tears.
“That wasn’t love, Campbell. That was ruin.”
I don’t argue with her. I can’t because I’ve been ruined since the day she left.
We sit in silence for the rest of the drive to her house. When we get there, I shut off the engine and hop out, jogging around the front of the truck to open Ivy’s door. She sits and waits, but doesn’t look at me as she slides out of the truck.
I should let her go—let her walk into that house and go back to the life she is building—but I can’t. Not yet. Ruinous or not, I’ve always been pulled to her.
Reaching forward, I tuck a stray curl behind her ear. She looks up at me, and the world dims again from the sadness in her eyes.
“I’m sorry I let you down, sunshine.”
She looks away, and I try not to cry. “It’s okay, Campbell. I’ve gotten used to it. It doesn’t hurt so much anymore.”
The final stab is fatal. My hand drops to my side, and she steps around me, walking into the house and closing the door behind her.
______________________
When I was young, whenever something bad happened in my world, my mom was always the first person I sought out. I’d climb up in her lap, and she would hold me while she ran her hand through my hair. Eventually, I stopped running to her. Mostly because I grew up, but partly because my brother and sister always seemed to need her more. I learned to handle my bad days on my own—or I at least learned to bury them. But as I walk from Ivy’s house to my parents’ home, all I can think about is the feeling of climbing into my mom’s lap and having her run her hand through my hair. I’m a grown man now—twice her size— but I miss the comfort of being little.
Digging my nails into the palm of my hands, I chase the pain, needing to feel something besides this gaping hole inside of my chest as I walk from Ivy’s house to my mom and dad’s.
I don’t know what I’m doing, only that I’m scared to go home—to sit in the silence by myself and to feel the ache of that silencerattle through my bones. So I burst through their front door like a crazy man, falling into a heap of pain, guilt, and shame.
From somewhere in the distance, I hear my mother call my name, but I don’t look up to see where she is. I can’t. The final bit of energy has seeped from my bones, and I have no more left to hold up my head.
All I feel is pain, and I want it to stop. I just want it all to stop.
“Campbell, baby,” she says, her hands gently lifting my head for me to look into her eyes. I’ve never seen my mom scared before, but as she looks back at me, it’s not just fear in her eyes. It’s sheer terror. “Talk to me, baby. What is it? What’s wrong?”
She’s sitting on the floor with my head in her lap now, and I sob like a baby as her hands run through my hair.
“I need you, Mom.”
