Page 51 of Their Arrangement
The thought tightened my throat.
I crouched down, wiped the droplets from her name.
Camille Rose Lawlor.
Beloved daughter. Fierce friend. Bright light.
Twenty-six years old.
I sat in the wet grass and let the cold soak through me. I didn’t care anymore. My knees were already ruined. The stockings shredded from the walk. My palms scraped raw from the fall that brought me back here in the first place.
I reached into my bag and pulled out the photo again. The one I couldn’t stop folding and unfolding like it held the answer I couldn’t speak aloud. I smoothed it open with trembling fingers and laid it down on the marble beside her name.
It looked small there.
Fragile.
Just like us.
“I tried, Cam.”
My voice cracked. Broke.
“I really did. I tried to stay away. Tried to be strong. Tried to live like you told me to—like I had a place in the world without you.”
The rain fell harder.
Thicker now. Like it had finally given up pretending it wouldpass.
“But I don’t.”
A tear fell. I let it. Didn’t bother wiping it away. My cheeks were soaked anyway.
“I’m in the building you built. Sitting in a chair that doesn’t belong to me. Wearing a shirt I can’t afford. Pretending not to hear your brothers call me a whore with their eyes.”
I paused. Swallowed hard.
“They hate me. You know that, right?”
A gust of wind lifted the edge of the photo. I pressed it flat again.
“They think I left you. And maybe I did. Maybe I should’ve gone out that night. Maybe it should’ve been me.”
A shiver ran through me. Deep. Violent.
“But I’m here now,” I whispered. “And I don’t know if it’s to make things right or to make them worse. I don’t even know if I want to be saved.”
My eyes closed.
“I just… miss you.”
I pressed my hand to the headstone. Rain sliding down my arm, soaking into the sleeve that had already clung to my skin for hours.
“I miss you so fucking much.”
The silence wrapped around me like a cloak. Heavy. Sacred.
Until—
