I didn't think I was out on the porch long, but it was long enough that Cameron came out behind me suddenly, dressed in his boots, hat, and jacket. He walked past me without a word and went down to finish the job splitting wood that I had interrupted the day before with my arrival. I slunk back into the house. I had been cold but hadn't wanted to go back in. I wiped my face, getting rid of the tear streaks.
Good job, Natalie, I thought, walking over to the fire. It warmed my face and hands that had numbed in the cold. Awesome: now he hates you. Now you can go back to the city and never worry about coming up here again. You blew it. Hope you had fun last night because that was the last time you're ever going to be that close to him again.
More tears escaped down my face, and I let them. He wouldn't care, and he didn't have to if he walked in and saw me like that. He owed me nothing now, and it was all my fault. It wasn't even that I'd never have sex with him again. I mean, it was, but that wasn't the worst part. He had trusted me, and I had made him feel like he shouldn't have. He felt tricked, lied to, and I didn't have anything to say to defend myself.
I went up to the loft and got changed, packing. I felt numb. I felt wretched. I should have been honest with him from the beginning. That would have changed everything. I wouldn't have gotten to know him the way that I had, and he probably wouldn't have opened up to me, but then we wouldn't have gotten here. I could have spared him feeling the way he did. And myself too, I guessed, but that was a little different; I deserved this.
I walked out of the cabin towards my car. The snow had been mild, so I wouldn't have any trouble driving back to Provo. I walked down the porch steps and paused, hearing Cameron behind me, splitting firewood. Say something to him, I thought.
Yeah, what? That you're sorry? I don't think he cares at this point.
"Cameron?" He stopped and looked at me. "I'm sorry. I never meant to keep the truth from you. I wish I told you earlier."
"Would have spared you the gas it takes going back and forth," he said darkly. "Anything else you want to tell me?"
There wasn't. All I could say was I was sorry, and if he didn't want to accept that, then he didn't have to. I said goodbye and walked to my car. Driving out onto the road from his property, I had to pull over twice because my vision was too blurred from the tears.
"Fuck," I said, drying my face. The only way that could have gone worse was if... There wasn't any way that could have gone worse. I had completely betrayed his trust. I had been an idiot for thinking he wouldn't have been upset. He was the kind of person that valued honesty, transparency, decency. I had owed it to him to be those things, and I hadn't been, so this was what the fuck I got.
I deserved it, but fuck, it hurt. It had hurt me to see him so disappointed. I couldn't have this epiphany now; I knew it was too late, I could wish as much as I wanted that I had done things differently, but I hadn't, and Cameron had suffered for it.
I didn't bother trying to get back home fast. I wasn't going home, anyway. It didn't make sense to
go home and then come back to the office to talk to Brett. It was over now. He needed to know what Cameron had decided, and I finally had an answer for him. Imagine waiting this long just to hear that he wanted to sell, after all, I thought. Had he thought about it at all? What if he had just said it because he had been mad at me for not being upfront with him?
Yes, Natalie, the man's biggest and most significant career and personal decisions all revolve around you. Like I needed help feeling like garbage after what I had done to him.
It was just after noon when I got to the city, and I shot Brett a text telling him that I was back. I was worn out getting to the office; not the kind of tired that you feel after climbing five flights of stairs but a different kind that was harder to pin down. It had just been that morning when I had been with Cameron, waking up in his cabin after an amazing night together. Now, it felt like a lifetime had passed since then. Like the time when Cameron and I had had something was so far in the past already, it was questionable whether it had even happened.
It was weird being in the office out of my work clothes, but I didn't run into many people between my car and Brett's office on the top floor. He was on the phone when he let me in. I sat quietly on the other side of his desk while he finished it up. He kept framed pictures of his family on his desk. His kids were around my age by now, but the pictures were from years ago when they had been children. Twin sons and a daughter. Grayson Porter had had a picture on his desk of Cameron when he had been a little boy too. I wondered whether it was still there. Had anyone been inside his office since the accident? I was thinking about that when Brett finally got off the phone.
"Sorry for that," he said, looking at me.
"I'm sorry too," I said soberly. He caught my meaning immediately. His face dropped, and he leaned forward on the desk.
"What happened?" he asked. Well, waiting to tell Cameron that I had been sent to get his decision on what would happen at the company instead of being upfront about it had made him hate me, and I lost what could have been a chance with a really great guy who I really liked.
"I told him that you and the stockholders have been paralyzed waiting for his decision on what happens here," I said. "I let him know this morning; I told him everything. He wants to sell."
"He can't." I shrugged.
"He can, and he's going to."
"Did you try to talk him out of it?"
"He wasn't in the most conversational mood when I asked him."
"What? Why's that? What do you mean?" he asked. Did I tell him? I mean, what did I have to lose? Nothing was going to happen between us anymore. I had made sure of that.
"I told him that I had stalled. I had meant to tell him from the beginning, but I had dragged it out instead of just spitting it out."
"You said last week didn't feel like the right time to say anything to him."
"I still lied. I still made him think that I was there for a reason other than the truth."
"Natalie," he said, then paused. "Is there something going on between you and Cameron?"
"No," I said truthfully. There wasn't. Not anymore.