Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 128307 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 642(@200wpm)___ 513(@250wpm)___ 428(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 128307 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 642(@200wpm)___ 513(@250wpm)___ 428(@300wpm)
When Grayson freezes, his shaky hand slowly backing away from the keyboard, I follow the direction of his massively dilated gaze. A woman is darting past the Lamaze class entry door. Her speed is so fast her face is a blur.
I struggle to breathe when a familiar rumble booms from the speakers of the laptop two seconds later. “Cameron?”
I stop staring at Grayson with my mouth ajar when his pursuit of the fleeing brunette captures her almost knocking me over as she exits the building at the same speed I entered it. She darts to an awaiting car, not bothering to apologize for her part in our near collision.
“Bring up Macy’s camera.” Grayson’s voice is eerily calm considering how raging the veins in his neck are. They look seconds away from popping.
Brandon jumps to his command, his brain clearly more capable of functioning under severe emotional distress than mine. He brings up the footage of my return to the building faster than I can snap my fingers.
“Stop.”
With two clicks, Grayson rewinds the footage to our near collision before he zooms in on the mysterious woman’s face.
“Her hair is dark now, not the strawberry-blonde I remember, but there’s no mistaking that face.” I can’t miss the conflict in his eyes as he murmurs, “It’s Cameron.” His voice is flat, almost unrecognizable. “She’s alive.”
An array of emotions he’s struggling to process filters over his face while my mood fluctuates as erratically as my hormones. I am ecstatic for him, pleased that years of hard work have finally paid off, but I’m also worried.
He’s been driven by the need to find Cameron for so long. That’s been his motivation and what’s kept him going. What will happen now that he’s finally found her? Will his determination and drive to find the other women remain the same? Or will they be forgotten, like I feel now when Grayson’s thumb traces the outline of Cameron’s beautiful face?
23
GRAYSON
Ican’t fucking believe it. Cameron is alive.
As the footage of her first appearance in seventeen years plays for the umpteenth time, I take in all her features. The recording is grainy but unmistakable. Her face. Her eyes. Her top lip that’s slightly bigger than its bottom counterpart. They’re all exactly the same, and they scream the same thing.
Cameron June is alive.
Goose bumps break out across my arms when I zoom in on a frozen frame until the pixels blur into a mosaic of color. Even from this angle, I still know it is her. The curve of her jaw is a dead giveaway, so I won’t mention the way she twirls her dead straight hair before she tucks it behind her ear. I know that gesture well because I witnessed her do it a thousand times when we dated.
My heart slams against my ribs as if it is moments from breaking free.
She’s alive, but she ran.
I called her name. She looked right at me—and then she fled.
Why would she do that? Shouldn’t she be running to me, not away from me?
A heavy feeling settles low in my stomach as I struggle to unjumble everything. Theories crash into me, though none of them stick. She’s meant to be relieved that I finally found her. Grateful.
She didn’t appear to be either of those things.
It is like she’s confused, and something much more perverse.
Fear was the first expression that crossed her face. I don’t believe it was for me. It was something else. Something bigger.
But what would I know? I’ve imagined this moment for years, pictured every possible scenario. This afternoon’s event didn’t come close to the thousands of scenes I’ve played out in my head.
Perhaps I’ve finally crashed from exhaustion? Maybe I fell asleep on the couch again, my body squashed against a stack of old files, and this is just another cruel trick of my subconscious.
When my hand balls, my clipped nails dig into my palm. The pain is real enough, and the scent of the recently brewed pot of coffee and the faint trace of Macy’s perfume in the air are real too. I’m awake. It just feels like I’m in a dream.
My inflated chest sinks as I punish the keyboard with my fingers. I need answers, like where Cameron has been all these years and what she has been through. But most importantly, I need to know why her sudden appearance hasn’t stopped me from constantly licking my lips, seeking a smidge of Macy’s lip gloss on my mouth.
Before guilt can surface, fear takes its place. I jump out of my skin when Brandon’s face fills the screen of my laptop. He’s been trying to get my attention since I returned from the Lamaze class, but I have too much work to do to break it down for him.
Furthermore, I’m clueless as to what the fuck is happening, so how can I explain it to anyone else?