Secondhand Heart (27 page)

Cam slammed his fist against the wall, and then leaned his head against it. I didn’t go to him, sometimes I knew you just needed to feel pain to numb what was going inside. If the tables were turned, I’d push him away if he approached me. I watched his shoulders heave up and down, and thought about what a shitty world he lived in if that’s what he just expected. Nothing but lawyers and money, people not giving a shit about other people.

“Is this what you really want?” I asked after thinking about it.

He looked over at me, surprised. He might have forgotten I was even in the room. “What do you mean?”

“To be famous. If that guy doesn’t want to record your album, fuck him. Seriously. You said all you wanted to do was sing. You don’t need all of these people pulling your strings like a marionette to do that. You can sing in the shower if you want to. You can sing here. People will come to see you. I’ve never been here once when this place is empty.”

“I guess.” Cam didn’t seem convinced.

“Has being famous been anything like what you imagined?”

Cam looked lost for a minute, I knew he was really thinking about my question. “Not at all.”

“Has it made you happy?”

“No.” That answer came quickly.

“Then don’t do it, Cam.” I finally got up to approach him.

“But it’s who I am now.” He said more to convince himself than me.

“No, it’s not. It’s nothing about who you are. There’s no shame in walking away from something that doesn’t make you happy.” I couldn’t believe I was saying this. “You said being here made you feel alive.”

“You make me feel alive.”

“Nothing we do has anything to do with that world.” I squeezed his hands. “Think about it.”

All I could do was think about it for the rest of the day. How Cam’s whole universe was so foreign to me. How things that shouldn’t have seemed normal to him at all gradually had nudged their way into his life, making him shrug when I wanted to scream. How he couldn’t see that this blind desire for success was turning everything around him to rubble.

We actually did go through paperwork for the rest of the time we were at the restaurant. It felt strangely good, because it was so fucking normal. But I was distracted. I kept looking at Cam, really looking at him in a way I never had before. The almost invisible hairs that curled off of his tan arms. The way he squinted at the computer, but not to see, almost as if it helped him think through things. The way he sang softly while he worked, making up songs about menus and accounting that made me giggle. Every once in a while he’d catch me watching him, and he’d either wink at me, or return my smile with an intensity that made me almost want to go over the desk to him.

The office door was locked, Ashley was locked up, and Cam didn’t make a move. Instead he went back to his computer screen, tapping the end of the pencil against it. My heart sank, and I didn’t quite know why. I liked this better, in theory. This was the stuff that made a relationship work, made it normal. And it should have been making me deliriously happy, but it wasn’t.

I wasn’t being fair to anyone. I couldn’t concentrate on my part of the work.

“Why don’t you do the filing,” Cam gave me a quick kiss when he dropped the daily envelopes in front of me. “I’ll take this over.”

“You’ll have it all fixed in a minute, right?” He’d been doing it all afternoon. I’d swear, and he’d get up and hit a button or two, and it was like nothing ever happened.

I could feel the heat of his body while he leaned over me, one arm on either side of me. “Probably.”

We’d worked enough for one day, and tension poured into the room. Neither of us wanted to face those reporters.

What had they come up with while we hid in this little bubble? How much more was there? Every time I thought I knew everything about Cam, and Ashley, and this whole situation, there was just a little bit more. And Cam didn’t seem to understand how much of a big fucking deal it was.

We made it back to his truck unscathed. We heard nothing new in the cacophony of people shouting questions and their undying love to Cam.

But everything about this part of Cam’s life made me feel smaller and smaller, and I was beginning to worry that I could actually disappear. I had to make that feeling go away before it destroyed me.

I forced the words out. “Can you drop me off at my parents’ house?”

Cam was caught off guard, as I expected. “Sure. Why?”

“I just want to go home.” I didn’t expect him to understand, and I didn’t think I had the energy to make him. “I need to think for a while.”

“Daisy, come on. We can talk about this.” Still, he drove towards my parents’ house.

“I don’t want to talk right now.” It sounded so bitchy, but I needed to digest everything that had happened without any outside influences. What I really felt like doing was running away from home. “I just need some space.”

“This has always gone so well for me in the past,” he grumbled. “Fine.”

I was pretty sure that’s what Ashley had told him when she wanted to separate. “Not like that.” At least I didn’t think so, anyway. “I don’t know what I want to do next, to be honest.”

“No one does. And it doesn’t matter if you did, because there are a million things that are acting on whatever it is you think you’re going to do from the outside. You can’t have any pure plan, it’s always affected in some way by the rest of the world, whether you’re ready for it or not.”

“I know.” I looked over at Cam once he pulled into my neighborhood. Until then, I’d been staring out the window as I talked. He looked crushed. “But that doesn’t mean I should never think again, either.”

“I guess.” Cam didn’t know what to do with his hands once he stopped in front of my parent’s house, and he rubbed them along his thighs. “When are you coming back?”

Shit. “I don’t know.”

“Are you?”

“I think so.” My voice started to quiver.

I stared at him for what felt like forever before I got out of the car. I wanted to touch him, to kiss him, to tell him it was going to be okay, but that would have been one big fucking lie. I got out before I broke down and walked as quickly as I could into the house.

I didn’t look back.

“W
hat are you doing here, Dee Dee?” My dad’s mouth hung open. He was exactly where I’d expected to find him, in his recliner, with the dog, watching sports shows until baseball started. My dad needed routine. It gave him the safety and security that was taken away from him last week. “Your mother’s at the hospital already.”

“I came to hang out.” The dog had taken up residence in my chair. I wedged myself in between her body and the cushions. “That cool?”

“Of course.” Dad looked at me over his beer, and raised his eyebrow. “Is everything alright?”

I stopped petting Sandy for a second. “I think so.”

“Don’t be too hard on him, Dee.” My dad took a long sip of his beer. “Or yourself.”

I didn’t feel like watching baseball. I went upstairs to my room, put the Ev playlist back on, and stared at the ceiling. I must have fallen asleep, because a knock at my door sent me into midair. My mom peeked around the door, like she wasn’t sure what she’d find. “Did you know Cam was outside?”

“What?” I sat up too fast, sleep still heavy all around me. “What time is it?”

“Ten thirty. I had a party tonight. It was awful. I should have taken more time off. I went straight from the hospital.” My mom took a few timid steps. “Do you mind if I sit?”

“No, come in.” I wasn’t sure what to ask her first. “How’s JR?”

Her face lit up. “Amazing. I was able to get him to wrap his fingers around my pinky. You’d never believe how strong he is.”

“Of course he is.” I put the pillow in my lap. “That’s awesome.”

“It was. He’ll be ready to thumb wrestle you tomorrow.” She wiped tears from her cheeks with her thumb. Happy tears. Finally. “I want to apologize to you, Daisy.”

“You do? For what?”

She sat on the very edge of the bed, the sparkle drained from her face. She took a deep breath. “I’ve been really hard on you since you moved back here. I thought I was helping you, I really did. I thought if I pushed you, you’d be ready to go on with your life. Now that we’re in this same place again, with Evelyn, I understand a lot more now. More than I wish I ever had to. I’ve lost one daughter, I don’t want to push another one away.”

Through the blur of my tears, I watched my mother crumble. I leaned over and put my arms around her, I won’t lie, it felt strange. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d hugged my mom just because, or for a happy reason. She took my hand in hers and squeezed it.

“Thank you.” I knew it took a lot for her to say what she did.

She gestured towards the window once we got ourselves back together. “Why is Cam sitting outside our house, in his truck, in the dark? I tried to get him to come in, but he refused. Very politely, but he wouldn’t come.”

“I thought you didn’t like Cam.” I whacked at her with my pillow. I had to keep it playful because I didn’t want to cry again. Or start a fight. Maybe from now on, everything wouldn’t be a battle between the two of us. What an amazing possibility. “You said he was too good looking to be trusted.”

“I wasn’t crazy about him, until I got to know him. He doesn’t get the best publicity.” My mom shook her head sadly, knowing full well who had been responsible for combatting that. “But he cares about you, Daisy. A lot. And he’s sitting out there in the dark, waiting for you, while you sit up here listening to Evelyn’s music.”

“How do you know its Ev’s music?”

“You hate country music.” She grabbed the pillow and hit me with it. “How long has he been out there?”

“I don’t know. He dropped me off around six. Maybe since then.” I crawled over to the window. There was his truck, where he stopped to let me out, with the interior light on. I couldn’t see what he was doing, if anything. I wondered if he could see me looking out the window.

“He’s lost a lot, Daisy.” Mom waited for me to sit back at the head of the bed. “He’s hurting, too.”

I chewed on my bottom lip. “That’s what Dad said.”

“Believe it or not, we agree on a lot things.” Mom’s face brightened. A week ago, I might not have believed it. “Did the two of you have a fight?”

“No.” I knotted my fingers painfully together.

“Then what’s going on?”

“I just don’t know if it’s going to work. Everything that, to me, is wrong with our relationship, is because he’s famous. Ashley, all the random people who shout stuff at him when he walks down the street, the fucking reporters knowing every intimate detail of his life, that’s the stuff that makes me want to run as far away as possible. But all he wants is to be a successful singer. And successful means famous. I can’t ask him to give up what he’s worked his whole life for, even if it’s imploding.”

“Have you talked to him about this?”

I didn’t even know if I could say it to him. “If we fight, that’s what it’s about. Either that or because I feel like I’m cheating on Jordan when I’m with him.” My mom gasped when I finally said it out loud. Something about those words set me free. “Anyway, in a couple months, he’s going to go to Nashville, if Nashville will still have him, to record an album. He thinks the producer is going to fire him. Oh! And the best thing. He thinks you and Dad are going to sue him.”