mindfuck

Marilyn was quiet for a long minute. She was trying to understand Cameron’s thought process. He had a beautiful mind – he could heal and save and outthink anyone. But trying to figure out what had brought him to her window tonight was suddenly difficult for her to figure out. They had barely spoken – she understood that something had been happening with his family to keep him busy, but the details escaped her. It felt out of the blue, and honestly, she was shocked to her core by what he was saying. Sure, there was a part of her that knew he had loved her, up until the end. That was part of what had make leaving him so difficult. But at some point, it had seemed that he hadn’t cared about loving her. Marilyn could weather many emotions, but apathy was not one of them. “I didn’t come back to reunite with you, Cameron,” she said – she didn’t mean to hurt him, didn’t mean for it to be cruel, but it was the truth. If he had been expecting her to wiggle out of her window and dance with him, just like that - she didn’t know what else to tell him. She could be Mrs. Marilyn Ambrose right now, and if she wouldn’t be happy, exactly, then she would be something close to it. She wouldn’t be having this conversation with Cam, certainly. Marilyn had barely thought about him when she’d been throwing her bags together to come here – her typically bright and organized mind had been a mess in those days, when she was reeling from what had happened, and how big or how little of a role she’d played in it.

“We both made mistakes.” She wasn’t just being humble, or diplomatic, or trying to make Cam feel better. She was just pointing out the facts – maybe things wouldn’t have fallen apart as quickly if Cam hadn’t drank, hadn’t done a lot of things. But she was supposed to be girlfriend: she was supposed to understand and be patient with him. Maybe it would have been easier if they’d been together, instead up split apart by miles and all the things that they couldn’t say to each other – the stories Cameron couldn’t or wouldn’t tell her, the career that Marilyn wouldn’t sacrifice. She sighed, pressing her forehead to the window pane again. No. Marilyn didn’t want to talk. What was there to say? She loved him – she had never stopped loving him. But now wasn’t the time. She would be struck by lightning and sent straight to hell for reuniting with her ex after her fiancé had just killed himself. “Tomorrow. Tomorrow sounds good,” Marilyn said, nodding, though there was no reason she shouldn’t or couldn’t have gone now – the report was mostly finished, and she could complete it over breakfast in the morning, and there would be absolutely no getting to sleep after this. “I have a break in sessions at ten – think you can get away from saving lives around then?” she asked, one half of her mouth quirking upward in a smile.

Cam knew he must have seemed crazy. This shouldn’t have seemed as ordinary to him as it did in that moment—it probably came from too many John Hughes movies and a misinterpretation of The Graduate—but he still hadn’t regretted a single thing that he had said until then. He did love Mari and he did fuck things up between them. They had been so good before he left, they had been living in an amazing city, they had a great group of friends, steady jobs, both wildly smart, wildly funny, great at parties, but suddenly, Cam felt the need to change things. He never realized how fragile the quiet, balanced world they had built was until the moment that he stepped back on American soil when he was first furloughed. He had gotten off the plane and saw Mari coming towards him through the crowd, and by the time they met each other’s embrace, something had felt different. It felt unfamiliar, like he was hugging the ghost of someone he had long-forgotten. He had brushed the feeling off, however, the brewing storm on the horizon pushed to the back of his mind.

“Just. Please. Tomorrow.” He nodded. “Meet me at a Brewed Interest?” he asked, his tone hopeful as he stood there and let the rain pound down on his shoulders.