Chapter 30

[vibe track: trampoline stripped - shaed]

Cameron tried to keep the solitary tear she felt welling up in her eye from falling. The best she could do was make sure it fell to the floor instead of the sheets, leaning forward just enough.

After it darkened the carpet, her eyes flicked instinctively up to that stupid fucking mirror.

I’m turning that fucking thing around in the morning.

Nothing in particular stared back at her. Just an idiot trying to figure out how to get past her latest colossal bit of self-sabotage.

Does it count as a new fuckup if I’m just finding out about it now, but I already did it a while ago?

She wasn’t sure whether that tear on the carpet was from self-pity or self-loathing. She kept oscillating between the two, spreading the stench around her brain like the shitty fan back in her shitty apartment.

Both were inevitably replaced by shame, because none of this was really about her — yet, here she was, making it all about her again.

Cameron knew it must’ve taken a lot for Henry to tell her what he told her.

If I ever see that bitch again, I’m gonna—

What? Beat the shit out of her? Kill her? Yeah, that’d make you feel better, wouldn’t it. Making it all about you again.

A lot about Henry had come together for her after he’d said what Mallory put him through. She couldn’t understand why he’d stayed with her so long ... but she did understand loyalty. Still, there was a line.

Cameron closed her eyes, trying again to fall asleep, but the same images were there waiting for her, as if on pause. They played again, Mal dancing across the crowded floor, carrying herself as effortlessly and elegantly as she was dressed.

She’s fucking everywhere. At the fucking club, in his fucking wallet, in his fucking drawers, on his fucking Netflix account — in my goddamn fucking head. Everywhere I go, there’s fucking Mal.

She couldn’t help comparing herself to his ex—no, she reminded herself again, his wife. How could she not?

Does Henry? How could he not?

Another tear dropped.

Does he smile at her the same way he smiles at me?

She knew the thought was absurd. Of course he did. She’d even seen that in the photo in his wallet. Her brain tried to tell her that was just the way he smiled. It wasn’t any more for Mal or Cameron than it was for anybody else. But...

Did he ... did he fuck her on my side of the bed? Did they laugh together about the sad, pathetic girl who finally gave him a blowjob before running away from her bowl of Cheerios?

Cameron sighed again. She didn’t know how long she’d been letting her thoughts race in circles round and round in her head. Hours, probably.

It was all a distraction, she knew. None of that shit was what really bothered her.

All night, since he’d told her when he’d hooked up with Mal, there was one thought she’d tried not to complete. Instead, she’d let every other little thing bubble up to the surface in its place, no matter how ridiculous.

But she couldn’t avoid it any longer.

I didn’t text you back ... and if I had, you never would have had to go through that shit again. But I was too fucking scared, too fucking selfish, too fucking up my own ass. And so Mal showed up at your door, and you got another night that didn’t happen. Thanks to me.

She felt a shiver shake through her body, trying to turn into a sob, and she squashed it, wiping another errant tear from her eye.

Sure, it hurt that Henry was fucking another woman while she’d been bottoming out. She couldn’t reproduce the feeling that began that night alone at Moonlight, but the echoes of that pit in her stomach — the utter, unanchored emptiness — reverberated through her at the memory.

And he’d been hanging out with Mal.

Over the next week, Cameron had continued her descent that eventually landed her in the hospital.

And he’d been fucking Mal.

Of course that hurt her. But she knew it was her own fault. Henry had said it, and she’d felt the same way at the time — how was he even supposed to know he was going to see her again? She certainly hadn’t intended to. They were no one to each other then. Just a couple of ships in the night who hated what they saw in the mirror and needed some nonjudgmental company.

So ... maybe ... maybe it all worked out for the best? Because ... I mean ... I ended up here, right?

She scoffed inside, knowing that was a stretch, even for 4 a.m. coping.