Pieces of Camden (Hole-Hearted #1) (21 page)

“It is.” Her eyes bore into me, making me squirm with the truth. “You screwed up bad.” Her bottom lip trembles. “You leaving isn’t gonna make it right though.”

“My staying is only going to make it worse. I’m an addict, Yan. I’m always going to be an addict. Every night I go to bed, it follows me. It stays with me and waits for me every morning. It doesn’t stray or give me five minutes of peace. It’s just there, all the damn time. I can’t control that.”

“You’re a coward,” she counters. “You run, pretending you’re doing it for everyone but yourself. But that’s not true. You’re doing it for you.” She shoves a finger into my chest. “You’re doing it, so
you
won’t get hurt, not us. Stop thinking with your pain, and follow your heart. Let us help you.” Her eyes plead with me, her lips forming a tight line, as she waits for my response.

When I stay quiet, she narrows her eyes, her simmering anger boiling, stopping the flow of her tears.

“Let us help you before I finally listen to you and turn away from you for good, which is what I should be doing! I’m tired of giving you chances because all you do is screw them up.”

“Look at me, Yan!” I step away from her and let her look at my bruised face, torn shirt, and bare feet. “I’m a mess. And all I’ll bring to your life is more messes. I’ve never been the white knight you—”

“Forget about the white knights in shining armor,” she interrupts, stepping closer to me so that I can feel the heat from her skin on my own. “That’s nothing more than a load of crap. You’re a warrior, Cam. You fight, you lose, and you keep going. So, get off your ass and fight. You fight for us, and don’t you dare give up.”

Her fists slam into me, tearing through my chest and exposing every broken piece of who I am. My heart skitters, reminding me that the blood coursing through me is made up of nothing but my mistakes.

Yanelys moves even closer, leaving a tiny gap between us, and places a gentle hand on my cheek. I lean into her, placing my hand over hers. As angry as she is with me, as much as she wants to hate me, I know she’s not ready to give up on me.

She’s my hope, the light in my darkened life. And every day, I love her more.

I should’ve chosen her. It was always supposed to be her.

“Don’t leave.”

Her eyes, swollen and red, spill over with tears, and I lose my footing at her words.

“Fight for me.”

I open my mouth, gasping for air, but drown in her accusatory tears.

I don’t bother explaining. None of the words I have for her will undo the damage I’ve already done.

She closes her eyes to me and the future we could never have. Her head turns away, and she hugs her arms around herself, misery casting shadows over her features. Her despair grips my chest, crushing us both with its iron fist. The quiet between us is so loud that I can hear her every thought damning me for giving up on us.

Her face crumples when she turns away from me. The ill-fated tragedy of our relationship mocks me.

“Yan.” I reach for her, but the words stop there.

I can’t think. I shake my head, defeated once again by the world and its sharp edges.

TWENTY-SEVEN

YANELYS

Pain is a surreal thing. You think you’ve felt the worst of it until, one day, real pain hits you, and you find yourself gripping on to the bathroom sink as tears pool down your cheeks, begging your reflection in the mirror to be strong. To hold on a little while longer.

My breath hitches, and I turn my face away from my reflection, not wanting to meet my puffy red eyes.

Crawling into my bed after a cold shower, I can’t keep the image of Camden giving up out of my mind. His sad eyes no longer a luminescent blue, the deepened creases surrounding his grim mouth, his slumped shoulders, the weight of the world rolling down his spine.

With my heart scarred, I curl into myself when I feel the side of my bed give.

“He was right to leave,” my dad says, his voice gruff and seemingly louder in the quiet of my room. “He’s not the same boy we knew. The Camden we knew would never…he’d never…”

“He’d never what?” I whisper into my tear-soaked pillow.

“Fall so hard. He’s unreachable.”

Callous hands stroke my back and shoulders as I sob into my bed, praying Camden feels each tear so that maybe he’ll fight. If not for himself, then for me. I hope his heart won’t scab over before I have time to reason with him and force him to see what I’ve always seen.

Gripping the pillow with a tight fist, I peer up at my dad and blink back the tears. “He isn’t unreachable.” I sit up and look past him. “I can get to him. He’ll listen to me.”

Together, we’ll face his pain and dark memories and let them go. We’ll face his demons so that he can stop running, stop hiding. Even if it takes a lifetime because I can no longer fathom a single day without him.

“Yan.” My dad takes in a long, slow breath.

I look back at him in time to see him shaking his head.

“The boy you knew doesn’t exist. He died the day he sold his soul to his addiction.” He grips my shoulders with tense fingers and squeezes. “Don’t romanticize this with thoughts of saving him. He’s gone.”

Although my head hurts and my body aches from the stress of the day, I shoot up from the bed and turn away from my dad. “He’s not gone.” With my arms crossed, I slowly turn around and face my dad.

“He gave up, Yan! The boy I love as my own son chose to give up and gave in to his parents’ destruction.” My dad’s eyes reflect the same agonizing emotions churning inside of me.

“Dad”—I move to him and put my arms around his waist as I rest my head on his wide chest—“he’s still there. I saw him. He’s so much more than all the bad in his past. He just has to see it.” Pulling back, I wipe away a stray tear falling down my dad’s cheek. “Tomorrow, I’m going to find him, and I’m going to show him how his family will never give up on him.”

My dad’s eyes leave my face, and he rubs his hands over his face. “It’s too late, Yan.” He sighs, his eyes closing in resignation. “I already told him to leave you and Livvy. He agreed, Yan. I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry?” I whisper, my heart thundering in my ears, cracking with each deafening beat.

“The pills he kept hidden from all of us could have killed Olivia!” His voice booms inside my small room.

He walks to my nightstand and every one of his angry steps reverberates in my chest.

“And now, you’ve probably killed
him
,” I accuse, my voice sounding stronger than I feel.

Rage connects us like a strained thread, and I feel it snap when my dad reaches for the picture of Camden that I keep by my bed.

“Dad!” I shout, advancing on him seconds before the frame slams against the wall, the glass shattering to pieces and landing on the floor.

TWENTY-EIGHT

CAMDEN

Tears fell long after the morning sun had kissed my bruised skin, and I continued to cry until I felt hollow inside.

Brushing the dirt from my knees, I walk to Pastor Floyd’s church.

When he opens the door and sees me, he murmurs, “Son,” draping me in a tight embrace.

Stepping out of his hold, I walk inside his office building and let myself fall onto the couch. Rather than waiting for him to ask me what happened, I tell him. Words pour out of me in violent desperation.

“Why’d you leave her?” Pastor Floyd asks when I finish.

“Because I’d ruin her. I couldn’t give our relationship a chance to breathe or grow because, eventually, it’d fall apart. I’d destroy her and Livvy. I can’t live with that.”

We sit in silence, and it isn’t until Pastor Floyd’s eyebrows draw together that I know he’s about to throw some spiritual crap at me.

“Yeah, I get it,” I cut off his words before he has a chance to form them. “God only gives his hardest battles to his strongest soldiers. The devil’s only fighting me because he knows I’m going to win.” Sarcasm drips off each word.

My heart teeters, anxiety fogging my mind, but Pastor Floyd watches me with an amused grin on his face.

“I’m tired of hearing that shit. It doesn’t mean anything to me. You’ve wasted years on me, and still, I’m nothing. My journey in life doesn’t mean a damn thing.”

“Your journey was never about becoming something, but unbecoming everything that isn’t you. These insecurities and self-hatred you hold on to so tightly are destroying you. You can’t be who you’re meant to be until you let them go.”

“I can’t.”

“You can!” Pastor Floyd shouts, startling me. “You’re not your past. You’re not the sins of your father or the scars on your skin. You’re not the heartbreak or abuse you lived through.”

Taking a deep breath, he sits on the couch, and I watch him with the same intensity he watches me.

“You’re Camden Riley. And it’s time we found out who he really is.”

We’re silent for a long time, and I feel his agitation with me vibrate in the air. I run my hands over my face and tug on my hair that fell into my left eye.

“Before I became a pastor, I was a businessman. I was smart, savvy, and ruthless. I had a big house and a beautiful wife who I ignored. Over and over again, she’d ask me to work less hours and spend time with her.” Sighing, he scans the walls of the room before his eyes land back on me. “She wanted to start a family. I wanted a chance at being something great. It wasn’t until she left me and found someone who could give her what she wanted that I realized I’d already had something great when I was with her.” Pastor Floyd stops and stares at me with eyes swimming in apprehension and pain. “If you give up and refuse to find yourself for your daughter and the woman you love, Yanelys will eventually find someone else to raise your child and give them the life you should’ve been giving them.”

Greedy for air, I suck in a deep breath, but with his words swirling in my mind, I find I can’t fill my lungs. My jaw twitches, the muscles in my body tightening, as my poisonous friend summons me, reminding me of the reprieve a couple of pills can give me.

My eyes lock with his—mine hard and unyielding, his brimming over with the same concern I’ve taken advantage of for years.

“Pastor Floyd,” I say, knitting my brows together.

Misery overflows from his eyes, mixing with his love and hope for me.

“Don’t ask me to do this, Camden,” his voice, hoarse and uncertain, pleads with me. “I can’t keep giving you pills.”

Taking him in, I bow my head in shame and stare at my knees.

“It’s okay,” I tell him as I stand up from the couch. “It’s okay.”

His expression tightens when I step around him and toward the door to leave.

His hand grips my arm, trembling, as his emotions play on his face. “Don’t go, Camden.”

I step away from him, from the security he offers me, and with a failing heart, I leave the church and edge toward the desolate friend that pulls my strings.

Realization grips me, making my stomach turn, while the fear and pain of what I’ve thrown away consumes me. Loss spirals through me, fusing with the regret and self-loathing. Each emotion presses into my lungs until I can’t breathe.

I cling to my chest, fisting where my jagged heart once beat, and wonder how it can still hurt when it’s the very part of me that’s missing. It throbs and aches and reminds me that I can never escape the pain of loving and leaving Yanelys.

Without thought, I walk and only stop when I reach the debris of the building Santiago found me in. The desire to have died in that fire overwhelms all common sense, so much so that I don’t even feel the rubbish or ground cutting into my bare feet.

“My boy,” a familiar voice says.

I spin around to see my mom’s worn face. Her lips pull into a scowl as she narrows her eyes at me and turns her head to one side in silent speculation.

Disgust spreads through me, and I turn away from her, not wanting to see myself in her or the future that beckons me every time I take a pill.

“You’ve nowhere else to go,” she calls after me, “or else you’d still be with that silly little girl.”

“Don’t ever speak of Yan.” I turn around and peer into her cold dark eyes.

“She’s finally realized the truth, hasn’t she? I told her you were a junkie, no better than me, but she didn’t believe me.” My mom points a shaky finger at me and smiles, exposing a cracked front tooth. “She knows now, huh?”

Confusion crosses my face before I can disguise it, but still, I go to her and shake her small frame.

“When did you see her?” I ask as her eyes, glazed and unfocused, look past me. “Tell me!” I shout, shaking her again. “When did you see Yan?”

“Yan?” She furrows her eyebrows in question. “The girl you left us for?” She sucks in her bottom lip and bites down. “I could’ve been a better mom to you if you had given me a chance.”

Frustrated, I let her go to run my hands over my face, and she stumbles back a few steps but regains her footing so that she doesn’t fall on the unforgiving hard ground.

“Just tell me when you saw Yan.” Anguish pours from my lips, clearing my mom’s muddled mind and she looks back at me with momentary clarity.

“The day after the fire,” she whispers, her eyes tracing over the ground, as she wrings her hands together. “I didn’t mean it. I mean, I did, but I wasn’t thinking straight. I needed money, and you wouldn’t give me any.” She lifts her face, remorse and fear crossing over her features. “I didn’t have a choice…” Her words trail off, her eyes scanning the fallen building.