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His frustration boils over. “Just because you’re so fucking perfect. You never put a foot wrong. You don’t understand what it’s like for us lesser mortals to have to deal with the shit that life throws at us.”
“I’m not perfect, Cam.”
“You act like you are, and it’s incredibly hard to live with sometimes.”
“I’m not perfect.” I take a deep breath. It’s time. “On the trivia night, when you left… I went back to Henry’s hotel.”
Finally, after coping with days of fallout, the nuclear bomb explodes.
Cam stares at me. “What?”
“I stayed the night with him.”
He’s quiet for a moment. Then he says, “You mean on the sofa?”
“No. We slept together.”
His jaw drops. “You had sex?”
“Yes.”
He turns and walks into the living room, and stands by the sliding doors, staring down at the street.
After a while, I follow him in. I feel better now it’s out in the open. I don’t have to hide it anymore.
“Were you drunk?” he asks eventually.
“Yeah, a little bit. But that wasn’t why I slept with him. I was upset, and angry, and sad, and lonely. And he made me feel better.”
He turns from the window. “Are you paying me back? Is that what this is? Tit for tat?”
“Did I want you to understand how hurt I feel? Maybe. But that was only a small part of it. I like him. He makes me feel good about myself. He wants to be with me.”
“Do you want to be with him?”
I swallow hard. “I think so. Yes.”
He presses his hand on his chest. “Fuck,” he says. “Jesus. I swear, I heard a crack just then. You’ve actually broken my fucking heart.”
I press my fingers to my mouth. It’s an unfair thing to say, because he cheated first. But I know then that he doesn’t see what he did as cheating. He really thought he was trying to get help for himself, and for our relationship.
I’m not sure what I expect him to do. Yell at me, I guess. Scream. Cry. Throw accusations at me. Call me names.
But he doesn’t do any of that. Instead, he sinks into one of the armchairs, puts his face in his hands, and starts crying.
For a moment, I just stand there, shocked. I’ve seen him display a whole range of emotions, from fury to resentment to embarrassment to being curled up with laughter. But he’s never cried in front of me. Not once. Not when his dog died a year after we met. Not when his grandfather died a year later. Not after any of our arguments. Not even when he told me about his abuse.
But now he’s crying for real—not just a tear trickling over his lashes, but full-grown, heart-rending sobs.
“Cam…” I go over to him and put a hand on his head. “Come on, don’t cry…”
He doesn’t stop, though, and eventually I lower down onto my knees and put my arms around him.
“I’m sorry,” he says, his voice hoarse.
“It’s okay.”
“I can’t bear it,” he whispers. “I don’t want to lose you.”
