Reclaim - Aly Martinez Page 0,59

when, deep down, I needed him the most.

As the years passed, I wasn’t delusional enough to imagine he was thinking about me. In a way, it made me smile, the idea that he’d moved on and hopefully found a girlfriend who could be who he deserved. After all, we were kids when he’d told me he loved me. Even if I still held on to that moment at the creek like a life raft when I was too exhausted to swim.

Every chance I got, I went to visit Ramsey in prison. He was withering away in that place, and it didn’t help that he’d decided the only way to keep Thea from wasting her life on him was to let her go too. It was insane. She loved him. He loved her. And they couldn’t be together.

It felt like the Stewart curse.

Growing up was hard no matter the circumstances.

But for a girl like me, who had lived through hell and still carried the flames scorching me with every breath I took, the idea of a future bearing the never-ending agony was infinitely harder.

Not long after I graduated high school, the weight of my guilt became more than I could handle.

It took four years of self-loathing, but I finally convinced myself the world would be a better place without me.

Joe would no longer have to spend his time and money on a kid who never should have been his responsibility to begin with.

If I were dead, maybe Ramsey could tell the truth and have his sentence overturned.

Thea could get her soul mate back and start the life they were always meant to have before I’d stolen it from them.

And Camden, well… If there were even the tiniest part of him that still cared about me, I could free him too.

Honestly, swallowing that bottle of pills was an act of mercy.

Choices. Everyone makes them.

Luckily for me, they weren’t always black and white.

Truth or lie.

Live or die.

Consequences come in all colors.

And this one came in a life-altering shade of Camden Cole blue.

The bright lights nearly blinded me as my lids fluttered open. Disoriented, I struggled to pinpoint where I was and why it felt like I’d been hit by a train.

“Hey, hey, relax. I’m right here,” Joe whispered, his hand slipping into mine.

Everything came back in a rush of snapshots. Joe busting down the bathroom door. The paramedics showing up. Doctors and nurses surrounding me and barking out orders. Boulder after boulder landed on my shoulders and crushed me into the bed.

“Oh, God,” I croaked, rolling to the side.

I’d survived. How? I had no idea. Thea was traveling—her favorite distraction—and Joe had been at work.

But the all-too-familiar agony in my chest didn’t lie.

Joe leaned over my hospital bed and hugged me, his voice husky and filled with emotion as he rumbled, “Jesus, Nora, you scared the hell out of me.”

Another boulder I wasn’t strong enough to carry crashed down on top of me. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize.” He brought our joined hands to his mouth. “Just promise me you’ll never do that again.”

I couldn’t make that promise, but I was already standing on a mountain of lies. One more couldn’t hurt. “I promise.”

He never let go of my hand as I stared up at the ceiling, trying to harness the power to disappear, while nurses came into the room to poke and prod me, no doubt passing judgment too.

I was Nora Stewart. Judgment was nothing new.

When the room got quiet again, Joe gave my hand a squeeze and offered me a weak smile. “I’m going to run and grab a coffee and let you two talk for a while.”

My brows furrowed. “You two?”

He jerked his chin to the foot of my bed, and I sat up a fraction to follow his gaze.

And there he was, like a fever dream: Camden Cole sitting in a chair with his elbows on his knees, his fingers steepled in front of his mouth, his piercing, blue eyes locked on mine with a burning intensity that seared me to the core.

However, it was the red rim of his eyes that shattered what little was left of me.

“Wh-what are you doing here?” I stammered.

“Currently?” he asked from behind his hands. “Losing my Goddamn mind with worry.”

“You good?” Joe asked me.

I never tore my eyes off Camden as I nodded.

The door quietly clicked behind him as he left us alone.

Camden used his hands to scrub his chin, and if I’d been capable of it, I would have laughed because that scrawny