A Missing Heart(84)

Never having to sit in a waiting room as long as I have this past week, I have stared at one particularly small hole in the wall every day. Right now, though, I feel like I have gained the ability to stare through the hole completely. This hole is the only way to avoid the sickening look on the faces of AJ’s parents and Hunter. Gavin is playing with a book on the seat beside me, and Ever is playing a game on my phone. I can’t help wondering about the worst case scenario. I wasted so much time of AJ’s life not being there, not being together with him like we were always supposed to be. I thought I always knew best, or my parents knew best, and I went with my first thoughts, never second guessing much.

I wanted to set him free after I destroyed his life, taking away his daughter without so much as asking him how he felt. That was my biggest regret, along with not putting his name down as the biological father. It was the worst thing I have done, and I still haven’t apologized for it properly.

Going through the trouble of putting the information together to prove AJ’s biological connection was worth every second of time and effort. It was my only way to apologize for stealing the last thirteen years.

“Stop blaming yourself,” Hunter says, breaking my stare from the wall.

“I—I’m not,” I lie.

“Are you forgetting I’ve known you since you were fifteen?” he asks.

I force a half smile. “I know. Can’t help it.”

He lifts Gavin up and places him down on his lap so he can sit beside me. “I threatened the hell out of him. He’s coming out of this surgery, Cam. He has no choice.”

I feel myself slowly breaking down inside, but I can’t cry in front of every person who loves him as much as I do. Everyone is trying to be strong, and I have to be strong too. It’s just that I have more guilt than they all do.

“Do you know how many times AJ told me he was going to go find you in D.C.?” Hunter says.

“Really?”

“God, it was probably once a month for the first two years after you cut things off. He was convinced if you saw him, you’d change your mind.”

“Did you stop him?” I ask.

Hunter laughs. “Yeah, after his tenth trip to D.C. and coming home empty handed.”

“He came after me?”

Hunter turns his body toward me. “Cameron, AJ has loved you since you two were sixteen. He must have been twenty-five by the time we were able to go a week without hearing your name at least once. Usually it was a story or a memory. I let him air himself out, feeling sorry for him, but at the same time understanding why you did what you did.”

“I don’t even understand why I did what I did,” I tell him, feeling ashamed. “My parents were overbearing and they got into my head more than I should have allowed them to.”

“You were a pretty smart eighteen-year-old. You wanted AJ to go his own way, and you wanted to go your way, preventing any risk of either one of you giving up a future you deserved. You weren’t both going to go in the direction you wanted, only one direction would have been chosen, and that wouldn’t have been fair to one of you.”

What he’s saying makes sense but I’m not sure my train of thought was so in-depth when I was a freshman in college. It was along those lines, but he makes it sound far more thought out than I made it seem at the time. “I don’t know if I was thinking that clearly,” I tell him.

“You know what you proved, though? You did something Ellie and I were too scared to do. I won’t ever say we made a mistake by following each other into circles that kept us in a bubble until she died, but that’s essentially what we did.”

“It didn’t diminish your relationship,” I tell him. “You two could never be separated.”

“Maybe, but you and AJ, though, you went to the schools you wanted to go to, then life brought you back together. Something bigger than yourselves brought you here.”

Here. To a moment in my life where we’re all wondering if AJ is coming out of this surgery. And if he does, will he come out of it without lasting damage?

I shrug. “I can see it your way, but I regret wasting so much time in between. That’s all.”

“Look, I love my brother more than anything, but he would have screwed things up with you if you had gotten together at a younger age. AJ had a rough transition into adulthood. I mean, the guy has been through two failed marriages.” I know Tori wasn’t his fault, but I don’t know much about Alexa—his first wife. I’m guessing there’s a good reason for that too. “He had to learn the hard way. A lot of us have to learn the hard way. But when you learn things through error, you figure out what is important and what you absolutely need in your life, and that has always been you. He won’t screw things up with you, I can promise you that.”

“You don’t have to promise me,” I tell him. He may not have the chance to screw things up with me. “Hunter, I’m scared I won’t get to tell him all the things I should have told him.”

“I already told you, he has no choice. He’s coming—”

His doctor is walking through a set of metal doors, and my heart falls into the pit of my stomach. Hunter and I stand up first, walking toward him, feeling AJ’s parents on our heels. “Is he okay?” I ask, my words hardly understandable.

“He did great,” the doctor said. “I gotta say. That’s one tough guy you got there. To stay awake during that kind of procedure is not an easy thing to do.”