Page 61 of Salvation
Ivy
“Can you pass me that green paint?”
Willow and I have been working on the mural for an hour. We’ve mostly worked in silence, but it’s not been awkward like I thought it would be. Instead, we’ve let painting become our way of bonding. For being so young, she’s good. Very good. On the other hand, I feel like I’m a beginner again, questioning each stroke of paint I add onto the building. I’m afraid Lily might have made a mistake hiring me.
Willow passes the paint over, then returns to the section she’d been working on. After another moment of silence, she starts to talk.
“So, who was the guy the other night?”
I fumble my paint brush, catching it just before it hits the ground. “How did you know it was a guy? You were in the dining room.”
I pretend to keep my focus on my brushstrokes, but really, I’m watching her out of the corner of my eye. She seems unfazed about having been caught snooping, continuing to paint as if she didn’t just give herself away.
“I had to use the bathroom. I saw you out the front window as I walked by.”
“Of course you did. You’re very resourceful when you want to know something.”
She shrugs. “What can I say, I’m nosy.”
I snort. “You are your dad’s child.”
As soon as the words are out, I freeze, realizing what I just said. “I mean—Campbell, not your dad. Well, kind of your dad.”
“I get it,” Willow says sharply, cutting me off.
“Right,” I say, wanting to hit my head against the brick in front of me. Heat flames into my cheeks. I take my time, mixing paint, needing something to do to feel like less of an idiot.
“So—” Willow prods, “who was he? Your boyfriend or something?”
I keep my eyes on the paint. “No. He’s my ex-fiancé.”
“Well, I guess that explains the complicated part. Did you love him?”
Putting the paint down, I give myself time to think about the question before I answer. Loving Brecks was expected of me, but even if it hadn’t been, I still think I would have loved him—just not like a woman should love her husband. “Yeah, but not enough to spend the rest of my life with him.”
“What about Campbell? Did you love him that much?” She asks the question innocently, as if she couldn’t care less about the answer, but the set of her shoulders gives her away. They are rigid, pulled up to her ears as she waits, and it makes me sad because I think she might be painting a picture of Campbell and me in her head that isn’t there.
“Once upon a time, I did,” I answer honestly. “But once upon a time was a long time ago.”
Willow stops what she’s doing to look at me, and I look back, memorizing features I would have traced with my finger the day she was born if I had been given the chance. The slope of her nose. The curve of her lips. The dimple that pokes into her chin. I commit it all to memory.
“The guy knows how many seconds he’s been missing you,” Willow says as if love should be an obvious conclusion because of that. “I don’t think it’s as far off as you think.”
I won’t lie and say I haven’t thought about what Campbell said over the last couple of days, especially with Brecks’s last comments still running through my mind, but the truth is, Campbell and I were young when we were in love. A love like that may linger, but it isn’t made to last. We’ve already proven that true once; there’s no need to test fate a second time.
Willow is still looking at me expectantly, but I can’t feed into her delusions—or my own.
“The only thing Campbell and I have in common anymore, Willow, is you.”
She looks as if she wants to say something to that, but when her phone pings, she pinches her lips together and looks away.
My shoulders sag when her attention is no longer on me, afraid I’ve disappointed her, but it would have been worse to lie to her and pretend Campbell and I are something we aren’t.
Except—five hundred thirty-three million—I can’t get that out of my head.
Willow takes out her phone, frowning at it before shoving it back in her pocket and returning to painting.
An uneasy feeling settles in my stomach when she doesn’t say another word—not because of anything I said, but because of the name I see lighting up her screen before she puts her phone away.Cameron.Her boyfriend.
