What Happens Now(77)

We were silent for a moment while I worked out what that meant.

“Oh,” I said. “She won’t want you to see me anymore.”

Camden sighed. “It would be like, me choosing between you and my family, if that makes sense.”

My throat closed up. I was going to ask the question before I chickened out.

“Are you still in love with Eliza?”

“What? No! God, no.” He looked straight at me now, caught his breath. What if he said I love YOU?

Then again, what if it didn’t matter whether he said it or not? I’d already done one brave thing. I was on a roll.

“Good,” I said. “Because I’m in love with you.”

He continued to stare at me while I continued to not breathe. Then he reached out and yanked me onto his lap, where the pressure of our bodies together took on a new shape and sensation.

I laughed nervously, until he kissed me hard. I kissed hard back, for a long time, and during that time it was easy to believe everything I’d ever wanted from him, his strength and confidence and devotion, was not misguided.

Somewhere in there, along that line between pleasure and pain, I began to cry. The sobs started deep within me, muffled by the kisses, but then they began to escape. It took Camden a few moments before he noticed and pulled away, putting both hands on my face.

“What? What is it?”

“What you said about the life you wanted. I wanted that, too. You gave me those things, too. And now it’s all turned to crap. In addition to the other stuff that was already crap.”

I sobbed again. Camden reached out and tentatively stroked my hair.

“I’m sorry about Eliza,” I said with a sniffle. “I’m sorry that’s a side of me, and I’m sorry it showed itself. I’m sorry I’ve never found a way to deal with it except to, you know, cut myself open.”

Camden watched me for a few moments, like we’d just peeled another layer from between us and he was seeing things raw again. “Ari, you’re making it hard for me to be angry with you.”

“Go ahead, be angry with me. Please. But forgive me a little, too, okay?”

He bit his lip and nodded quickly, then kissed me. I pulled him down onto the couch. Or he pushed me. Maybe both at the same time. Now we were lying next to each other with the blanket of night above us.

Camden turned onto his side. He propped his head up with his elbow and began to trace the skin of my collarbone along the top of my T-shirt, back and forth in delicate, devastating U’s. Then he ran his finger down the middle of my chest like he was marking an equator. The border between the half of me who wanted to believe we never had to leave this place, and the half of me who knew the world beyond it was not going to make being together easy.

His hand was under my shirt now, pressing a sweaty palm on my stomach. He took a deep breath and pushed it farther up, touching the center of my bra. I slapped my hand over his and met his eyes. Then I moved that hand to one of my breasts.

“We can do this, right?” I whispered.

Camden bit his lip and nodded, his focus intense. I let go of his hand so it could move on its own.

“Tell me when you want to stop,” I said.

He didn’t answer. He only touched me, and I felt like I could get swallowed whole in the quicksand of it. After a few moments he whispered, “What if I don’t want to stop? . . . And you don’t want me to stop?”

I wasn’t sure what he was asking. I didn’t care. All I knew was that it meant we could keep touching each other, existing only in the moment of what happens now.

I answered by kissing him lightly, holding his bottom lip between my teeth. It must have tickled because he laughed. Maybe this was how people did it. With every moment of skin plus skin, you were pressing the reset button on your past experiences. You could close your eyes and pretend you were coming to this person with your hope for love still arranged in clean, unbroken lines.

I reached up with my left hand and started to slide it under the waistband of his shorts, then dared to check his expression. It was something halfway between wonder and fear, which was excellent because that was exactly what I felt, too.

It was impossible not to think about Lukas but it was okay, like the memory of him was there to help me understand myself. Lukas had guided my hand that night of his party. Grabbed it, desperately, and placed it where he wanted it. It was not where I wanted it but I couldn’t make my hand do anything differently. But here, with Camden, I was in charge of my own actions.

Camden sighed so hard he started coughing. Then we both cracked up.

“To hell with all of it,” he muttered, pressing his body into mine.

I wasn’t sure what it was but yeah, send it to hell. Let it stay there a good long time.

Because I understood, now, why this might be worth risking everything. I knew I had another person all to myself. That there was only one thing in the world we both wanted at that moment, and we were giving it to ourselves and each other.

We were kissing and moving to a kind of rhythm now. The beat of it got faster, more urgent. All it would take now was a few pieces of clothing not being where they were. Camden had his eyes closed, biting down hard on his bottom lip.

“Camden,” I whispered, wanting to make sure he was with me, that we were making this decision together.

He didn’t open his eyes. He just kept kissing me, gripping me tighter.