Page 54 of A Matter of Time
“I tried my best to move on, and by most measures, I’ve been pretty successful. I’ve got my job and my friends and a good life here, but it never felt completely right. I never felt whole because a part of me was still with you. Over these last two weeks, I’ve felt just about every emotion under the sun, good and bad, but the point is that Ifeltthem. I felt them with mywholeheart, because you were there with me. And that’s what I want, Tonia.”
She listened to me intently, her hands going to her chest in a mirror image of my own posture. “What do you want?” she whispered, which was a fair enough question. I hadn’t spelled it out plainly yet, but I intended to do it now.
“This,” I explained, gesturing between the two of us. “I want this. I want the way that I feel when I’m with you. I want to feel whole again, all the time, even if you’re raging at me and even if we’re screwing things up. Because when it comes right down to it, I’d rather screw up with you than be safe and settled with anyone else. That probably means I’m crazy, and sometimes it sure feels like it, but right or wrong, that’s how I feel. I went and thought about it, like you said, and that’s my decision.”
As I fell silent, my words lingered in the open air between us. Each of us stood there, our hands still on our hearts, mine racing so hard I could feel it on my palm as I put the question to her.
“All you gotta decide now, Sugar, is if you want the same thing too.”
~Tonia~
Cam’s words were such an unconscious echo of everything that had been spinning around my head all day, I could hardly believe it. He had no illusions about what our relationship was going to be like.I’d rather screw up with you than be safe and settled with anyone else, he said, and wasn’t that the very point I’d been debating with myself?
Things might be easier with someone else, but they would never be as real, as vibrant, as intense.
Did I want the same thing?The better question would be if I had ever stopped wanting it.
Part of me had never completely let him go, and as I looked up into those deep brown eyes of his, I could see not only our past, but a future too, almost within reach.
But as I opened my mouth to reply, the gallery door swung open at the same time.
“We’re here!” Dex called out, walking in with Shawna beside him and my parents close behind.
Of all the rotten timing in the world, my brother’s must be the worst. My mouth snapped shut, my lips pressing together as frustration rushed through me, the same frustration I could see in Cam’s eyes. As always, though, he put others’ needs before his own, forcing his face into a smile.
“Congratulations, Dex.”
The sight of Cam obviously took everyone by surprise, but Dex quickly offered him a smile and came over to shake his hand while looking between us curiously. “I didn’t know you were coming. I hope we’re not interrupting anything?”
They absolutely were, but there was no way to tell them that without explaining what they were interrupting, and the end result was still far too much up in the air to make public.
“It’s your party,” Cam replied, not quite answering the question. “And this place looks great.”
Dex grinned as they looked around. “Thanks, although it looks a lot better now than it did the last time I saw it. I suspect Tonia might have something to do with that.”
My brother stepped over to give me a hug, smelling slightly of clay like he often did when he’d been working on his sculptures.
“I feel like I’ve missed something,” he whispered in my ear before pulling back, but I could only give him a tight smile.
“Cam’s staying for the party, if that’s okay.”
I hadn’t invited him to stay, so there was a chance he might not want to, but I didn’t think that was likely. We still had to finish our conversation, and so when I said he was staying, he simply nodded in agreement.
“Of course that’s okay,” Shawna replied on behalf of everyone. “Everything looks amazing. Thanks, Tonia.”
She looked better than she had in the hospital the last time I saw her, but as I hugged her too, I could feel once again how small she’d gotten.
Billie and Laura showed up shortly afterwards and my mom insisted we all eat before the food got cold, so we grabbed some plates and sat down in the chairs I’d arranged, with wooden crates forming a makeshift table. Cam popped open the champagne he’d brought and made a toast to Dex’s success.
“To going after what you want,” he announced, raising his glass into the air. “Even when it seems out of reach.”
To everyone else, it might sound like he was talking about the gallery, but as his eyes came to rest on me, I knew exactly what he really meant.
As we all drank and wished Dex the best of luck with his new business, my mom called everyone’s attention over to her.
“The last thing I want to do is ruin such a happy occasion with bad news, but sometimes that’s life. You’ve got to take the good with the bad.”
I already knew what she meant, of course, but my siblings all exchanged confused glances. “What’s going on?” Laura asked warily.
