Page 89 of My Sweetest Obsession
But as snow starts to fall and she steps back with bare feet to let me into the home she once shared with him, I can feel the shift in the air that has nothing to do with the flakes hitting my skin.
I don’t know what she’s thinking after the meeting, after hearing me say all those words. She seemed confused enough about even being there, but now that I’ve confessed all those things out loud to her, it feels like we’ve reached some sort of breaking point.
Or at the very least, a tipping one.
She retreats as I move in and push the door closed behind me, arms wrapped around herself in an ivory oversized sweater that falls off one shoulder in a way that makes me very glad she kept her coat on at the meeting.
Her soulful eyes watch me carefully, and she bites her bottom lip, shifting nervously as she rubs at her belly and moves back another step, like she wants or needs to put some physical distance between us.
And that’s probably a good idea, given what has happened far more times than it should have between us within these walls.
Even now, that crackling energy that always seems to surge when we’re alone together permeates the air between us. Electrifying my skin, making my fingers itch to touch her.
She didn’t tell me to come over, didn’t say a word after I spoke. She just held my hand for the rest of the meeting and slipped out when it was done, but I couldn’t go home like I probably should have.
I couldn’t walk away after she showed up like that, when it feels like there are so many things that still need to be said that we’ve been dancing around for months.
“Why did you come tonight, Ivy?”
The answer she offered me at the meeting was enough for that moment, but now, here, I need more.
So much more.
I can’t keep pretending that it doesn’t break my fucking heart and shatter my soul every time I come over here and touch her and then have to pretend it didn’t happen and walk away. I can’t keep living day in and day out acting like this can go on indefinitely when we both know it can’t.
And the way she’s looking at me tells me she knows that as well.
She releases her lip and shakes her head. “I honestly don’t know, Cam. It just…” Her eyes drift closed, and she draws in a long breath and releases it slowly, almost like her answer is something she needs to prepare herself for. When her lids flutter open again, there’s a steely resolve in her gaze. “It just felt like where I needed to be.”
Such simple words that hold so much meaning.
The only time this woman has willingly been in a room with me since she learned the truth has been when she needed something physical from me. When she was seeking something familiar and comforting that only I could give her. And even then, she let me know that nothing about her feelings had changed, no matter what her body might have wanted.
“Why, Ivy? You’ve told me over and over again how much you hate me. How much I hurt you. And even when you didn’t say those words, I still know they’re true. So, why would you want to be there for that? For me?”
That flicker of light I saw, that hint of hope I felt when she entwined her hand with mine, hovers in the distance now, waiting to be fully lit or snuffed out completely.
Tears well in her eyes, and her bottom lip trembles. “That’s what I’ve been asking myself. I’ve been trying to find an answer. And then, after last week?—”
“Last week?”
She glances down the hallway and gives me a soft smile. “The nursery. I was…confused.”
“Why?”
Ivy has to know I’d do anything for her by now, that every breath I take is to ensure she and her baby are taken care of the way they deserve to be. So, why would me wanting to do something like that for her be so confusing?
“Because I don’t understand how someone who could do something like that for me could also have done so many horrible things to Drew.”
Her words cut through me like a knife, flaying me open and leaving me bleeding out on her floor.
I try to take a step toward her, to clutch her to me to try to stem the flow and keep myself together, but I stop myself because I’m terrified of doing or saying the wrong thing.
Ivy motions toward Gladys sitting on the end table next to the photo of her with Drew on the beach. “It’s hard for me to reconcile those two people, Cam. Who I know you are, who you’ve shown me you are, over and over again, and that person.”
It’s a dichotomy that has torn me apart for far longer than Ivy has been in my life. My ability to shut other things and people out to hyper-fixate on a canvas or idea in my head, juxtaposed against my soul-deep love for those people who do mean something in my life and my desire to ensure they have everything they ever need.
She became that focus. To the detriment of everything and everyone around me. To the detriment of myself. It pulled me away from that other part that was so damn happy for Drew when he met her…before I saw her and everything changed.
