The Real(86)

His face twisted unbearably.

“I have to go.”

Max looked between us as Cameron took a step forward, “Abbie, I know you still love me, I know you do—”

My eyes drifted over to Max who stopped him. “Let her go, man.”

Cameron’s eyes turned to ice, his jaw ticking as Max did his best to keep him at bay. “Let her go.”

“Is that what you want?” Cameron said, his voice gravel as Max kept us separated. “You want me to let you go?”

“Get him home?” I asked Max and he nodded.

“Don’t do that,” Cameron snapped, his eyes volleying between us. “Abbie, I’m right fucking here, talk to me.”

“Thanks, Max,” I said grabbing my coat.

“Abbie,” Cameron tried again. I ripped my eyes away and walked out of the bar, splintered.

Outside, Terry opened the door as I glanced in the window of the pub and saw Cameron was still standing where I left him, his eyes penetrating through the glass between us as Max rapidly spoke to him. I saw it then, the break in him and nothing about it satisfied me.

Terry met me at the curb. “Abbie, if you need to stay we can reschedule.” I shook my head and slid into the car as he opened the door. Swallowing several times in attempt not to sob, I apologized on a shaky breath. “I’m so sorry.”

“You couldn’t help that any more than he could,” he said with reassurance. “I have to say, I’m curious about the prison.”

I looked over at him. “He was married. Is married. Separated.”

“Ah,” he said as the cab sped away from the curb, my soul freshly ripped, I spent several minutes inwardly gasping before I turned back to Terry.

“I’m mortified.”

“Again, Abbie, don’t be. I hope you two can work it out.”

“I’ll understand if you want to find someone else to fill the position. I can recommend several others well qualified that may be able to take the contract on short notice.”

“Totally unnecessary. I have no intention of replacing you. This meeting was just a formality since I was out of the office when my assistant hired you. This has no bearing on your employment.”

“Thank you.” It was all I could manage.

A few minutes later I was still at a loss for words, my chest screaming as I finally bled out.

“You know Abbie, when I met my wife, I was in the middle of my own divorce,” he said carefully. “I’d been married eight years to my college sweetheart,” he explained as I looked over at him. “It was different.”

“How was it different?”

He thought about it for a moment. “It was like I was two different men. I’m a bit of a believer we can’t evolve with those we start relationships with when we aren’t full bloom unless you are capable of growing together. It’s too hard to sustain a relationship when you’re changing and embracing it and your partner is intimidated by it. My ex-wife was. It’s what ended us. Sometimes you just have to accept defeat to figure out it’s the only way you can really get anywhere personally.”

Another strangling beat of silence as I pressed my fingers to my forehead, Cameron’s words ripping at my resolve.

Love me anyway.

“What will you do, Abbie?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, I hope it works out. I remember feeling that helpless over a woman once.”

“What did you do?”

“I married her. We celebrate our fifteenth anniversary on Sunday.”





I closed my laptop, relieved to be out of the virtual meeting. I finally understood the meaning of the coffee cup that read I survived another meeting that should have been an email. I walked down the stairs of my three-flat, nervous for the first time in months. I’d shot off a text to Cameron earlier that morning and asked him to meet me. He’d replied instantly letting me know he would be there. I was finally ready for the answers. The ache of missing him, the need to know, was too much. I wasn’t sure if we had a future, but I needed clarity. Some sort of justification for the pain. He’d stopped texting me a week ago due to my refusal to acknowledge him. I couldn’t bring myself to answer any of his calls. I needed, no, I deserved the one on one. It was anger that kept me away. But it was also the anger that kept me lost.

Due to the meeting, I was already running late and did a last-minute change into black slacks and a cuffed purple blouse. In a rush, I grabbed my purse and paused when I opened my front door.

She stood in a long black designer trench coat, perfectly put together and I cringed at the guilt that must have surfaced on my face the minute my eyes met hers.

“Kat.”

I was fumbling for words that would never come. She had bared witness to the beginning of my relationship with her husband and heard about it as it evolved.

It was too fucked up to decipher. It struck me then she’d never once asked his name. She really was a bit narcissistic in that sense, and in all probability, feigning interest while calling Cameron ‘coffee shop guy’.

Even so, I’d given her first-hand accounts no woman should have to endure. I felt responsible and angrier than ever as she looked over to me. It was enough to make me second guess my decision to reach out.

But it wasn’t only Cameron’s deception that irked me. I didn’t know the truth from a lie where Kat was concerned. And though I was blissfully ignorant of the truth on her end of things, I felt a sense of relief seeing her at my house. But no words would come, so I let her take the lead.