Secret Lucidity(89)

So, this is it.

This is how our love story ends.




Cam,

I have so much to say but not a clue where to start, so I guess I’ll start with this: I’ve never been scared of freedom. I only became terrified of it once it meant living without you.

God, Cam, I have no idea how the hell I’m supposed to get over you.

I knew I had no right to you, but I was selfish and took you as if it were my eternal right. You amazed me from the very beginning, but I never imagined how hard I would wind up falling in love with you. You touched my soul. You touched it and left your prints all over it. Never have I let anyone get that close to me, but it’s not like you gave me a choice. It was never a question whether I wanted to open myself up as much as I did with you, it just happened. Somehow, you burrowed your way into my heart, and I haven’t been the same since.

I will never forgive myself for what loving me has done to you. I’m a constant wreck, wondering how badly you must be hurting and if you’re scared. I worry about you, because if I’m not the one taking care of you, then who is?

All I can do is hope that you’re coping and finding a way to heal from all of this. I just wish I could be there for you.

But there’s something else I need to say. I need you to make me some promises.

I know you’re hurting right now, and I’ll forever be sorry that our love got turned against us and now only causes pain.

I don’t want what has happened to destroy you any more than it already has.

I love you. There is no denying that. I love you so much that I don’t want to be the reason you hold yourself back from living. I need you to be happy and to move on from this.

With that said, go to UNC. Don’t do it for us, do it for you. Open yourself up to making friends. Go to parties and let loose, but be safe. Take this time to make mistakes and have fun. Keep swimming, because you’re amazing at it. But most importantly, I don’t ever want you to be afraid of falling in love again, because you do it beautifully.

One more thing, years from now, when you’re happy and settled, if I should ever cross your mind, I want you to remember all the times you made me smile. Because I will always remember you as the vibrant girl, hanging out of the sunroof of my car with that crazy beautiful smile on her face. They’ve stolen enough from us, don’t let them take away what we both know was real. Always remember what we were before they turned our love into something ugly.

You are the best thing that ever happened to me, so don’t ever doubt that my love for you was one of the realist things I’ve ever felt in my life. I will never forget you.

I miss you more than you will ever know.

I love you. I always will.

David





May

(4 years later)



(David)



I ONCE WROTE CAM A letter. It was total bullshit though. I couldn’t tell her what I really wanted because that girl has the most tender heart of anyone I’ve ever known. She’s sensitive and delicate even though she does her best to hide it.

It took time for her to trust me enough to let me in, but when she did, she showed me just how soft she actually was, which is why I couldn’t tell her in that letter that I meant it when I said I would never abandon her, and that I would come for her the second I could. You see, if I were to have told her that, she would have dug herself a hole to live in while she waited for me. I couldn’t let her do that. She needed to live and experience life.

It tore my fucking heart out to write that letter, to tell her to go out and fall in love again, because her heart is mine to take care of and nobody else’s. She gave it so wholly and freely to me, and the thought of someone else having what I wanted to be only mine killed me. I was that girl’s everything, and she was mine. She still is. After all this time, I still love her.

And now here I stand outside a coffee shop at UNC.

I hopped on a plane right after the judge signed the judgment of dismissal, ending my four years of court supervision and finally closing the case. I have no clue what I’m going to say to her, but I have to see her. If for nothing other than to make sure she’s okay. There’s no plan in place aside from showing up at her apartment, which I was able to find the address to. I would have called her, but her old cell number now belongs to someone else.

But no plan is needed when loud laughter from a group of girls coming out of the coffee shop catches my attention.

I have to do a double take when I see her with a huge smile on her face, a face that has matured, but one that is undeniably hers. My heart nearly gives out at the sight of her after so many years of only having the memory of her. But to see her now, so full of life, laughing and smiling, she looks so unbelievably happy.

She’s just as beautiful as she was four years ago as she stands on the sidewalk looking more grown up than the seventeen-year-old that has remained in my head. She wears her hair shorter now, her body has more curves, and her skin glows with more color that it ever did before. I could stand here for forever and look at what I have been dying to see for way too long. Never has anyone been able to make me feel the way she does, and I’m in disbelief that after everything that has happened, here she is, right in front of me.

When I overhear her say goodbye to her friends, and she stays behind as the others cross the street, I take a nervous step toward her at the same time she turns her head in my direction. The moment our eyes catch, she freezes, and her face startles in complete shock.