The Watcher Girl(54)

I take a drink, then another.

Sleep calls to me.

And I’m ready to go home—to Portland. The sooner this is over, the sooner I can make that happen.

“It’s easy to build people up in your mind when you don’t know them,” I say.

“I don’t know, Grace. I think I probably took it a step past that.” She chuffs at herself, taking a long sip.

“You don’t strike me as the obsessed type.”

Her demeanor fades, and lamplight shadows paint her expression. “You don’t seem like the kind of person who cares about other people. Guess we’re both full of surprises.”

I bury my face in my wine, taking another swallow. Maybe she’s had too much to drink? Maybe she’s taking this “sister” thing a step too far and trying to test our bond? Not that we’re bonded. I’ve been down this road before, and I’m going to need more proof than her dead father’s word of mouth.

“I care more than most people realize,” I say.

It’s why I place distance between myself and anyone who remotely tries to care about me. It’s the ones who care about us who can hurt us the most—and it goes both ways. It’s why I stay away.

“You didn’t just break Sutton’s heart, you know.” She peers out the open window. “You annihilated it.”

“I know.”

“I had a lot of pieces to pick up,” she says with a huff. “Took a lot of work to get him to a good place.”

“And I feel terrible for that.” I swallow the lump in my throat, tasting the linger of sweet wine along with the cheap, metallic aftertaste of a screw-top lid. “That’s why I came back . . . to apologize.”

Campbell slides off the bed, her glass empty, and she disappears to the kitchen, returning with a fresh top-off.

“Sutton was a shell of a man when I met him,” she says when she sits down again, diving back into her oration—one that feels strangely practiced.

“We’re still talking about him?” I half laugh. She’s growing more inebriated by the minute, and I’ve had friends like this before—the ones who go on never-ending man-hating tangents after one too many tequila shots.

“I showed him he was worthy,” she continues. I brace myself for a rant, something to do with all the years she sacrificed for him, their beautiful life together that he ruined, the betrayal of being physically and emotionally damaged by the person who promised to love you forever. “I taught him how to love, how to be loved again. When you stopped loving him, he—”

“He was always loved.” I finish the last of my drink and place the glass on the nightstand. “I made that clear to him when I left. I would always love him, but I could never be the wife he wanted. I couldn’t give him the family he always dreamed of.”

“And yet deep down, he never gave up hope that you were going to change your mind and come back.” Her words snip through the dark, flavored with more resentment than sweet wine.

“How could you know that, though?”

“I found a box.”

“Sutton had a lot of boxes of a lot of things,” I say. “He’s sentimental. Was always keeping things.”

“This box went beyond,” she says. “Imagine four years’ worth of relationship junk, all piled into a clear plastic waterproof container, hidden inside another clear plastic waterproof container, then shoved into a cardboard box labeled summer clothes, and hidden on the top shelf of the guest room closet?”

I have no words for Sutton’s extreme measures, for the lengths he took to keep Campbell from finding that box.

“We’d been together two years when I found that,” she says. “Two years. We’d just moved in together. We were talking about getting engaged, making plans for the future. And he was holding on to that . . . stuff ”—Campbell wrinkles her nose—“behind my back that whole time.”

“Maybe he didn’t want to hurt you?” I shouldn’t defend him after everything he’s done to Campbell, but she’s working herself up.

“He promised he’d get rid of it after that,” she continues. “But guess what? A year later, I found it again.”

I wince.

“I’d never felt so stupid,” she says, gaze skimming the ceiling. “For years, I stayed beside him, loyal as a dog, only to find out he was still waiting for you to come back. That he was hanging on to that ridiculous shrine—which I made him burn, by the way.”

The idea of Sutton dumping his box of me into the fire makes me feel for the both of them. How demeaning it must have been as a couple to share a moment like that.

“He cried, Grace.” She lifts a hand in the air, grabbing a fist of nothing. “The man wept. Like a baby. On his knees.”

My chest squeezes so tight it hurts.

I don’t want to know these things . . .

I don’t need to know these things . . .

I place a gentle palm on her shoulder. “Maybe we should get you to bed now? It’s been a long day. And I’m sure Gigi will be up—”

She pushes my gesture away. “Don’t.”

“Campbell.”

My eyelids are heavy. I don’t have the energy to sit here and listen to her drunk ramblings that grow more pointed with every breath.