09
· · ──── ·𖥸· ──── · ·
My parent's house is silent. Usually, it's full of some sort of life. Even if Dad's away in London, there'll be Mum around doing something and singing as she does, or Luke will be yelling into his headset upstairs, or Lily will be humming while doing whatever she does. It's never this silent. But then, no one is in. They're all on the beach, probably blowing up my phone or on their way here.
Cameron's downstairs, putting two of my bags in his car. This should be a five-second job; grab my bags, put them in the car and go, but I go into the dining room and look at the photo again. It's the photo of all of us with Elliott and Cameron. Before it happened and everyone was happy. My fingers run over Elliott's expression; the happy-go-lucky, excitable boyfriend and best friend I loved more than anything. This is the before when nothing was dark and miserable, when nothing could hurt him. What I wouldn't give to go back to this moment just once more.
"Kenna, we need to get going—" Cameron stops when he walks in and sees the photo in my hands. "Oh."
I turn to look at him, tears threatening to flow down my face. My voice cracks as I speak, "It's the last photo I have of when everyone was happy."
He looks at it over my shoulder. "When you were sixteen? He died three years later."
I shake my head. "It... you wouldn't understand."
Except, he seems to run it through his head and understand something. Maybe he gets that something happened when Elliott was sixteen, but nothing really happened for the rest of us until years later. A volcano can get ready to erupt inside for years, after all, but you'll only know when pyroclastic flows are about to destroy your home and sulphuric gas rains down as acid.
"Kenna, we need to go. Your phone is non-stop out there. It's only a matter of time before someone turns up here. It'll probably be Lily if her reaction is anything to go by."
I nod and put the photo in my backpack before turning. Why don't I care about my phone blowing up? Why do I just want to stand here and take my time looking at this photo? There are plenty of photos of Elliott on my phone's cloud system, but not this one. I don't get it. Maybe because it's all of us together, I don't know. Maybe it's not the photo, but the fact I want them to come for me so I can argue. I want someone to stop me from fleeing for a reason because no one stopped me last time.
Well, Cameron didn't stop me last time.
Cameron picks up the last two of my bags, so I take myself and the backpack into the passenger side of his car. No way I'll be driving in this dress.
When he's in the driver's seat, he sighs before starting the car.
"You're sure about this? This is what you want?" Cameron asks. "You can get out of the car now and face them, sort it out or kick them out, or whatever you want. We don't have to run away if you don't want to."
I nod before turning to glance at the house, now locked as if we'd never been inside. "Positive. This is what I need to do."
If he has an opinion on my choice, he doesn't air it. Instead, he nods and starts driving off, leaving the house and drama behind.
· · ──── ·𖥸· ──── · ·
Cameron comes back to the car from a service station with two cups of coffee and a cheeseburger for us both. Without speaking, he puts on the suit jacket he took off not long ago and lays it over my lap as a big napkin.
"Thanks," I say.
He stays standing outside and eats his burger before saying, "My phone's calmed down a lot now. Don't know if they're getting the message or what."
For the past hour and a half, he's had to keep pressing cancel on the calls from my parents, Luke, and Lily. They've been trying my phone as well, but I've turned it off.
"We've still got an hour and fifteen left on the drive," he adds.
I eat my burger, careful to make sure it doesn't drip on his suit jacket. When I finish the mouthful, I say, "I never thought I'd be sitting in a car, eating a Burger King in a wedding dress in a service station car park. With you."
We both laugh.
"If it helps, you'll be the best-looking person in this place."
I snort. "Overdressed to shit, you might say. I do need the loo. People are going to look at me funny."
"I can walk in the building with you. We can be overdressed together. I did get funny looks when I paid for the food."
"I'm in a wedding dress, though. But I will take you up on the offer." I finish my burger, thanking whatever is out there that I didn't drop grease on my dress or his jacket. I get myself out of the car, adjusting my dress.
Cameron's eyes take me in for a second before he shrugs his jacket back on and locks the car doors. "Coffees will cool down while we go in there, anyway. I need to have mine before I continue driving."
"Do you want me to drive the rest of the way?"
He snorts. "In that dress? I don't think so, Kenna. Thanks for the offer. I'm fine, just need a coffee. Plus, insurance."
"If you get desperate, I can. Offer is there."
We walk into the building, where immediately people look over at us. Well, mainly me, in the wedding dress.
"Congratulations!"
Oh, wow, you have to be kidding me.
"Happy wedding day! Enjoy your life together!"
Oh, hell, they think I'm married to Cameron. I suppose it must look that way with him in a suit, me in the dress and walking around together.
"Thanks," I awkwardly reply before finding the toilet.
"Want anything else before we get going?" Cameron asks.
My eyes look around the place. "A doughnut would be epic." I point out the place.
"On it."
When I'm done in the bathroom, I stare in the mirror at the sink. I look fabulous still, if a little worn out around the edges. The weight of what I'm doing is resting on my shoulders, forcing them to slump a little. I should be married by now, enjoying my reception with my new wife on the beach.
My family should be around me, celebrating with me, and there should be a ring on my finger.
I swipe a stray tear as it falls from my left eye. Not today, not now. Not in this dress. She doesn't deserve my tears, and neither does Lily. What they deserved was me outing them like that, and Courtney deserves to be left with the bill.
I make sure my hair and makeup still look okay and walk out of the bathroom, knowing people keep staring at me as I walk past. Can they see through me and see what's happened?
As I walk out, a couple is sitting on the bench opposite, laughing and holding hands. As I stop, they look completely enamoured and like they're the only beings in their own orbits. They steal a couple of kisses.
"Kenna," Cameron calls across the way.
I shake my head and glance away from the couple, somehow wishing I was them. Despite the hurt and anger that stabs every time I think about it, I still wish she'd not done it. That couple could've been me and Courtney. We could've been married now, happy and the only people in each other's world.
Fuck, it could've been me and Elliott once upon a time. I'll never blame him for what happened, but if he'd just held on a little longer, or confided in me, we could've been married by now and raising our family. Maybe. Would he?
That's not a question I want an answer to.
Somehow, maybe I'm just not destined to be in a proper, loving, and long relationship.
I take the doughnut Cameron bought for me – a caramelised biscuit flavour – and munch on it.
"Thank you. Oh my God, this tastes amazing," I say through bites.
"We'll get going now? Well, once I've had my coffee." He munches his chocolate doughnut as we walk out of the service station and across the car park.
Once we reach the car, we've both finished our doughnuts, and he drinks his coffee while pacing outside the car. He shrugs his jacket back off and rolls the sleeves of his white shirt up to his elbows, showing off his muscular arms. I suppose him being a chef would mean he works out a bit... I think. I don't know. They're not overly muscular; maybe he's been spending his sick days in the gym or something. I don't know enough about him anymore, not like I used to, anyway.
"Can I ask you something?" Cameron asks. He's turned the car on now and the radio station plays a ballad while he sips his drink.
"Sure." I turn my phone on, which is probably a massive mistake, but I'm intrigued.
"Do you feel bad? Now it's done and all, do you feel bad for doing it publicly?"
I pause while my phone buzzes. A ton of messages, and even more missed calls. Luke's one is interesting. 'Look, I don't blame you for what you did, but you should've at least told me you're running away – and with my best friend. Kenna, what's going on?' Followed by, 'One of you just let me know you're okay? I don't care about the cheating or the photos or whatever. Please, just... tell me the truth. He's my best friend and you're my sister.'
I ignore it. The point of this is to be away from everyone, at least for now.
Cameron finishes his coffee and does his seatbelt up, getting ready to leave. I follow suit while I think about the answer.
"No, I don't regret it. The hurt it'll be giving my parents and my brother... I don't like that, obviously. But the revenge and hurt it'll be giving them is worth it in my opinion. Why do you ask?"
He shrugs as he starts driving. "Just interested. You've had your head set on this revenge plan no matter what, so I was just wondering if it worked how you wanted it to."
I watch out of the window as we come onto the motorway and it comes into its boring, monotonous life again.
"Like you said before the ceremony, or sort of, anyway: the best people always go through the shit. For once, the good people should rise and tell the world to go fuck itself.'"
He makes an ironic laugh. "Elliott."
I nod. "He told me that so many times when we went through shit, or when he thought the good people were going through the shit, you know? If I could've just told him that the night he died..." My voice trails off. "It probably wouldn't have made a difference."
"I still miss him, you know. He was your best friend and boyfriend, I know, but he was also our best friend, and I just... the age difference was never a thing with us, you know?"
I laugh. "He used to mention it a lot, like how you two should never have liked him, but the three of you were as thick as thieves. I was his best friend, but so were you and Luke. He'd have been honoured you remember his little speech."
"He told me it when he was sixteen. I'd just split up with Clara, at the same time as something had happened to your dad with his work. It was all happening at once," he says. "I thought it was quite profound."
I smile. "That was Elliott all over—always looking deeper into something than anyone else. I think my dad had been beaten for a promotion or something. I'd failed a piece of coursework by one mark and had to redo it because of a fucking grammar error or something. Felt like the world was against us when he said it."
"He was a good guy."
I nod. "That phrase became our thing. I remember telling him about it when shit went down, but it still didn't make a lick of difference. I just wish it had."
Cameron falls silent for a moment. One of my favourite songs comes on the radio, so I turn it up just a little. Hopefully, he doesn't pry; I said too much.
"I'm not going to ask because we both know we need to have this conversation later. What I will say right now, though, is whatever happened to him... it sounds heavy as fuck, and I just wish you didn't have to burden yourself on your own with it."
I sigh. "It wasn't my choice, Cameron."
"After he died, it was your choice."
A tear falls from my eye. "To tell anyone is disrespecting his memory, and I will not do that to him. He died, and he was a shell of who he used to be. He deserves to be remembered for who he was and the random shit he said like that."
We both laugh, but it sounds splintered and a ghost of the one from six years ago.
"I'm sorry I yelled at you over him the other day," Cameron says. "It's not my story to know or tell or demand to know. I should respect that."
I shrug. "It is what it is. I can understand the desperation to know. You don't need to apologise. But for what it's worth, I think we should talk about it. Just not now."
He nods. "That's fair enough. Other than that... are you okay?"
"Sure. I'm okay. In a way relieved because it's over now, but also still really fucking hurt. Glad I found out before I got married."
He nods and quickly puts his hand on my arm. It's a very quick motion, but one that's filled with the comfort he's been giving me since agreeing to help me. There's so much unfinished business, but we both know that deep down, there's the friendship and ties we've had all our lives here. It's everything right now.
"It'll be okay, all right? It's over now."
I sigh. "As much as I want to believe that, I think there's still shit going to go down before the end. The hardest bit is over, though. I think." I hope.
· · ──── ·𖥸· ──── · ·
Bạn đang đọc truyện trên: Truyen247.Pro