The thing was, I had been in love with him once. I’d been more than in love with him – it bordered on something between love and obsession, between Romeo and Juliet teenage dramatics and something real. But, it never was real. Over the years, I had convinced myself of that. I had to. It was the only way I could make sense of what he had done and what I needed to do to get over it. What Javier and I shared was a deadly cocktail of intense hormones and lies. True love doesn’t have a sick desperation to it, an undercurrent of doom. People who burn that brightly still get burnt in the end and I’m sure if it hadn’t been for him cheating on me, it would have ended some other way. The whole relationship had been based on deceit and it was only a matter of time before it would have caught up with me.
Now, of course, Javier knew the lie. I hoped it ripped his heart out just a little bit when he found out that all that time Eden White wasn’t who he thought she was. Probably not, though. He was different now, bolder and more exaggerated, all of his flaws magnified and his good side gone. He wouldn’t know the meaning of sentiment, though I had a feeling that it at least ate at his sense of pride, something he had too much of anyway.
I knew I shouldn’t have been lying there thinking about him and the past and the ways things had changed. Giving him all that thought was giving him too much credit. It was a hard thing not to do when you were stuck in his house, the house you shared together. It gave a sense of comfort and familiarity that was all an illusion. If this was six years ago, I could figure out what to do next and how to get out of it. I could escape once again and go find Camden. I would find a way to keep him safe, even if it meant having to watch him start a new life with his family.
The very thought of him and Sophia brought a heavy knot into my stomach. That was another thing I was trying to keep on the back burner, the fact that he was with his family. It shouldn’t have made me feel so … desolate … but it did. And it was partially my fault. I mean, I know I did the right thing, maybe the first right thing I ever did in my life. And yet, it didn’t feel right or good. It only made me feel a bit resigned that we’d even gotten in that position in the first place. If I could go back in time and change things, I would have split with Camden as soon as we left Vegas. I would have sent him up to Gualala on his own and gotten out of there before I fell in love with him. And, since we’re talking about a fictional time machine here, I would have saved Uncle Jim in the process.
The knot in my gut started to twist and bleed, a whole new, less-selfish set of feelings cutting through. Uncle Jim, whose face I still saw in my sleep, the man who’d been so much to me yet was willing to sell me out for a bit of cash. I still didn’t know how to deal with his death, feeling so much anger for what he tried to do to and so much f**king shame that he died on account of me.
And that’s what made things that much more confusing and hard to figure out, like puzzle pieces that never belonged together. The Javier of six years ago would have never killed my dear uncle, no matter how badly he hurt me. That Javier wouldn’t have kidnapped a mother and her child and smacked her around (or even hired his thugs to do it). That Javier, for all his smooth intensity and seemingly blind devotion (seemingly, being the key word), wouldn’t bribe me to help him kill someone. That Javier was the one I knew and the only one I could try and figure out. This Javier was a stranger and a dangerous one at that. I had no sense of affection in his eyes, no hint of remorse or respect in his movements. As much as I pretended I wasn’t, I was afraid of this Javier in a way I couldn’t quite put my finger on.
I’d fallen asleep with my clothes on, Javier, Camden and Uncle Jim on my mind, so when I finally woke up with my buggered ankle, I decided I’d had enough of submitting to my thoughts. I carefully got out of bed and decided a shower would be a good idea after being dusty and dirty for the last three days. Soap and water had a way of clearing my head unlike anything else (except maybe some well-done sex). When I was finished, I searched under the sink for an Ace bandage and found one, making sure my ankle was wrapped well. It probably wasn’t even as bad as a sprain, but I had to make sure that I wasn’t going to make it worse.
After the shower I contemplated putting back on my jeans and stained t-shirt when a morbid thought crossed my mind. I wrapped the towel around tightly lest Javier suddenly burst inside the bedroom and went to the closet I used to use. When I left Javier that one morning, I barely took anything of mine.
I opened up the door and sucked in my breath. All my clothes were still there. Jeans, palazzo pants, tissue thin tank tops, maxi dresses and skirts that reached the floor. A year’s worth of wardrobe belonging to a scar-shy twenty year old. I couldn’t believe they were still there, that he’d saved my clothes all this time. I thought he would have burned them in a beach bonfire the moment he discovered I’d left him without a trace (and stolen his favorite car and a bunch of his money). Maybe he was more sentimental than I gave him credit for.
Or maybe, dangerously obsessed. I couldn’t rule out that one either, considering where I was and how I got there.
I took in a deep breath through my nose and shook out the edginess. It didn’t matter what the answer was because there was no use in figuring him out. For whatever reason, my old clothes were here and they were clean and that’s exactly what I needed to feel even remotely human.
I quickly pulled out a pair of jeans, super soft from years of wear, and tried to shimmy them on. Well, as clean and comfortable as they were, they barely fit over my thighs. I was a thin girl but my legs and ass were always on the gratuitous side and I guess my twenty-year-old body had been a lot more waif-like than I had thought. I was sure it would have bothered any other girl to know she’d gained weight, but since meeting Camden, I’d refused to feel bad about my body anymore. He had loved it, my curves, my scars, the way I was now and that wasn’t something to toss away, especially when his safety wasn’t as concrete as I had originally thought.
I mulled that over, wondering how it was that Javier could get to Camden at any moment – was he being bugged, monitored? Did he have a person on the inside? Was it Sophia? I remembered the way she eyed the briefcase like it held every wish she ever had. Then I pushed those thoughts out of the way, deciding I’d soon get it out of Javier instead, and selected a pair of wide-legged pants, a tight spaghetti strap top and a cropped cardigan with three-quarter-length sleeves. Just long enough to hide the tattoo on my arm, the tattoo that Javier had kept staring at like it still meant something.