Okay, pay attention to the time stamp here. We are backing up in time three days from the last chapter, to Ashlynn and Cam's "morning after." So in the next chapter we will catch back up to the present...the day Leed and Bodie went surfing, and Leeddecides to dry out and salvage his upcoming performance...
Got it? Good!
Ashlynn, Three Mornings Ago
The ceiling in Cam's trendy apartment has sixty-four oversized tin ceiling tiles. I've counted them at least twenty times since I woke up. It's easier to lie here and ponder their intricate design than decide what to do next.
I want to leave, but I can't bring myself to be that cruel to Cam. So I just keep counting.
Finally, he stirs, making that gently murmuring smiley sound that is probably what melted my panties off at fifteen. He's automatically reaching for me, sliding his hand along my naked left hip, fingers pushing up under the nude "shapewear" corset that I managed to keep on, because Cam thought it was hot and romantic to sex me in pretty lingerie, instead of half dressed in the back of a car.
I automatically push his hand away and I feel his body stiffen slightly at the rejection. I close my eyes and pull his hand in mine. "Your hands are cold," I murmur, chafing his fingers between mine. He relaxes, threading his other arm beneath me and pulling me back against this chest, lacing all of our hands together.
"Sorry," he kisses me behind the ear and I try to relax into it. "How are you feeling this morning?"
"Good. How are you?"
"Good?" he snorts. "Only good?"
He knows last night was the best sex we've ever had together, but he needs the validation. I manage a smile as I turn to him. "I feel great, Dr. Martin. Thoroughly satisfied. You're just getting better with age."
It's true. I guess his brief stint sexing a different girl every night taught him a lot. He made me come in spite of myself. I was nervous and conflicted and distracted at first but he peeled all that away with sensual skills. And I came really hard, too. Almost like my soul was fighting against it, but my body betrayed me and I couldn't help it. So there was a lot of intensity there, which I'm sure Cam mistook for...passion? Maybe even restored love?
He kisses me gently and whispers. "I can't tell you how relieved I am to hear that, baby. I know...I know I used to be kind of a selfish douche in this department. I promise you, that's not how I want it to be this time. I want you to enjoy it as much as I doâit makes for a much happier relationship overall, don't you think?"
My skin prickles, and I bite my lip. There's a lot of information there. So Cam always knew I was faking it, and he didn't care, or was too prideful to bring it up, or whatever. And clearly, he just assumes we are back together now, after one act of technically decent sex.
Technically decent, but the truth is, as soon as it was over, I was thinking of Leed again. In a much different way than I normally think of him, though. I was thinking that I finally understand him and Tam. I know something now that I had never been able to comprehend beforeâhow you can have good sex with and good feelings for someoneâwithout real love.
Because even though I care a lot about Cam and last night I was able to let go and enjoy what was happening, it was no comparison to making love with Leed. The soul sharing I had with Leed for our brief time was so much more powerful the vibe I had with Cam last night.
I swallow heavily. I think I just made Cam my friend with benefits and he has no idea. He thinks we are working our way back into our old love. For me, that love has been eclipsed and can't rise again.
Yeah, I know him well enough to know that even though we haven't talked about anything, Cam thinks a "good girl" like me doesn't have sex for any other reason than giving her heart to a man.
Certainly not revenge sex.
And the idea that I have had sex for drugs, for money, for shelter, for the oblivion of subspaceâthat's not even on his radar.
No, Cam thinks to me, sex means love and the hope of long-lasting commitment.
Maybe I should be thinking like that. Is it wrong to settle for something good, because you can't have something great?
Maybe we should be getting back together. Seeing Leed with Sophie and that keychain let me know he has moved on. He should move on, because I don't think Varrick is going to find Megan and if he doesn't, I can't go back to Leed. Slade will definitely follow through with trying to ruin his career.
And my mom is not wrong. Cam is good marriage material and he and I are generally compatible. We always got along, until my accident. Trace is not wrong...if I want the doctor's-wife-mama's-life, Cam will treat me right. He's the same steady, good guy that will always win at life and share the victory with me.
I should be smart, not weak. I should think with my head, not my heart. That's what kept me going during my drug days.
A lot of people have happy marriages without the delicious, heady, tantric spiritual connection I shared with Leed.
In fact, I'm not sure I could ever find that again with anyone. There is only one love of your life, and when he hollows you out and takes your soul with him, there's just not that much left to give.
But maybe I have enough for Cam. He doesn't need that much connection. He'll probably be happy being in love with himself and his career and having a trophy wife.
Still I'm not the same girl he used to know. If we were to try to make this work, I don't want it to be based on dishonesty. He has a lot to learn about the new me. I guess, if I'm really going through with this, it's time to show him the ugly truth.
"Cam, we need to talkâ"
"Hmmm," he cuts me off with a kiss, "Can we fuck again first?" This time I'm not quick enough to block the hand that creeps beneath my corset. "Take this off, I want to see this gorgeous new body you work so hardâ"
His hand stalls as it rakes across the upright of the "E" and moves into the curves of the "R". I grab his wrist. He looks at me with tender concern.
"What is that? Scars from your car accident? I didn't realize you took thoracic injuries..."
"We need to talk," I repeat, disentangling myself and sitting up. He leans up on a elbow, still not reading my seriousness. He takes my left hand and kisses it. "It's okay, baby." He rubs my hand over the old football injuriesâa couple of lacerations on his forearm, a patch of smooth scarred skin on his leg, and finally his new surgical scar. "You don't have to be shy. I have scars too, and I've seen much worse than either of us have..."
"You've never seen one like this," I mutter but now Cam is playing with my ring finger.
He puts it in his mouth, biting down at the base where a ring would fit. "Where's your promise ring? Will you put it back on for now? I think that would be nice, don't you?"
He says it so casually, but the idea makes my body flood with endorphins and I want to grab my clothes and run...
Home.
Images of home flash in my brain. Leed below me, his face in concentration as we do acroyoga. Leed above me with the starry sky beyond him, blessing our love. Leed, telling me to leap on top of the waterfall and catching me belowâ
Cam bites on my finger again. "Earth to Ashlynn. Where's your ring, baby?" He kisses my knuckle his expression searching. "Did you lose it? If you did, it's okay..."
I swallow. He needs to know. If he still wants me after he knows everything, then...maybe it's somewhere to start, between us.
"No, Cam. I didn't lose it. I pawned it for drug money."
Hurt flinches across his face, but then it hardens into something a little less readable. "Wow. Really? You couldn't have gotten that much for it at a pawn shop. How much oxy could you have bought on the street with a hundred bucks?"
I shrug. "An addict isn't very sentimental. It bought enough to get high and that's all I cared about in the moment. I'm sorry."
He sighs and sits up beside me, putting a hand on my shoulder. "It's no big deal. Actually, you know what? I wasn't even thinking. No way could you wear that now. People might think it was an engagement ring, and I would look a complete asshole. That thing is not a doctor's wife's ring." He holds my hand out. "Since we're speaking of size...what's your number, Laney? I think two and half carats looks good. Classy but not like I'm trying to show off too much. Of course, a little bigger is okay too, you're probably used to seeing lots bigger in LA..."
I laugh suddenly, slapping a hand over my mouth, thinking of Mac and her insistence that Adam repeatedly made the world's worst proposals. Thinking of Leed and his impassioned plea to marry him for a year so that I would be safe from Von. Neither one of those adorable men could rival Cam's blunt assumption that I'm going to marry him and his need to get to the "important" partâthe appearance sake, the size of the ring. The perfect ring for his perfect trophy wife to symbolize the perfect life we will have.
He reads my laugh correctly. He hangs his head and laughs to. "God, I'm such an asshole sometimes, Ashlynn." He kisses my knee. "I'm being very presumptuous and moving way too fast and skipping over all the sweetness of rediscovering each other." He kisses up my thigh, sliding a hand to the inside, and I fight my instinct to push him away as he strokes between my legs. "Let me apologize properly..." he pulls my knee to the side.
Wow, Cam has really changed. Beyond a few awkward initial explorations, Cam was never interested in giving me head when we were together.
I scoot away, wrapping the covers around my naked lower half. "You're not listening to me, Cam. I need to tell you about my scars."
He sighs and smiles, cocking his head to the side. "Some things never change. You always made me wait for it until you got whatever you wanted."
"I did not." Indignation prickles through me. "But you always wanted our dates to consist of sex first, then a party with all your friends and more sex on the way home. Sue me for wanting to spend a little time talking over dinner at Maggiano's with my boyfriend."
He holds up his hands. "Fine. You're right. I was an asshole and I'm not anymore, Ashlynn. I took you for granted and I never want to do that again." He sits up. "I'm listening."
Except he can't listen, because he runs a hand through his dark shiny locks and comes away with handful of hair. "Shit," he whispers, holding out the handful of hair to me. I run my hand through his hair and come away with another handful.
"Fuck," he pulls his pillow toward us. Clumps of matted hair dot blue Egyptian cotton.
He bows his head. "Well, I knew it was coming." His shoulders slump in defeat.
I hate to see him that way, because it's the least natural position in the world for him to lose. "Hey, it's okay. Let's just shave it. You look really good in a beanie anyway."
"It's summer," he moans.
Half an hour later, I'm dressed in Cam's baggy sweats and his bathroom floor is littered with his hair. He's staring in the mirror, his face ashen.
"You look good," I encourage. "Like Jason Statham. Maybe grow a little stubble..."
"Can't," he says automatically. "Clean shaven policy in the OR."
"Right. Still, you look... hot. Very intense and sexy."
Not so much, but I'm trying to be positive. He had great hair and the difference on him is a little shocking. It doesn't look like a statement on him. He looks sick, and it reminds me that he is sick. In the midst of my personal turmoil, and because of the way he's rebounded, I had nearly forgotten.
I put my arms around him, and he arms go around me with a weak smile.
"Ashlynn, it's okay. I'm not the best-looking bald guy. It doesn't matter. Appearances aren't everything."
I squint at him. Maybe this a good segway into showing him my scars. "You really feel that way?"
He looks offended. "You think I'm that shallow?"
"No, of course not," I soothe. "It's just...I have a huge insecurity that I struggle with, and it's very painful and I do understand how...exposed...you feel, losing your hair."
He turns away from the mirror, leans on the vanity. "Your scars, you mean."
I nod.
He reaches out the the hem of myâhisâsweatshirt. "That's why you kept that lingerie on last night."
I nod again.
"Will you show me?"
I take a deep breath and scoot the baggy sweatshirt up, holding it against my bare breasts, not looking at my reflection in the mirror...watching his face.
Maybe it's not fair to compare it to Leed's reaction because he got the portrait preview, but Leed has never once looked at me with the horror and disgust I see on Cam's face. He averts his eyes, rubs a hand over his jaw and then he reaches out, guiding my hands down, pulling the sweatshirt back down to hide my scars.
Every cell in my body becomes a center for shame, shocking and stinging me. Pink rushes to the surface of my painful being, like my own blood is trying to flee me.
Cam slides around me and begins to pace in the bedroom.
I follow him. He still doesn't look at me. He's just walking around, like I've seen him do on a football field after someone on his team dropped the ball. Like he's walking off his anger and disappointment at them, and trying to regroup and be the team leader.
"Okay," he says finally, looking at me. "Okay. I...god, baby I'm sorry that happened to you. Tell me what happened."
I sit on the edge of the bed, his pillow in my lap, combing off his hair into my hand as I avoid his gaze. I give him the briefest overview possible of my experience as a sub, my Dom's crazed refusal to let me end my contract, my yearlong flight from him that drove me to being a high paid whore, and my final experience with him where he attacked me. I don't tell him anything about the Von brothers, or Megan. It's just too much all at once.
Cam never says anything while I talk. He just paces and paces. Finally, he goes into the bathroom and vomits.
Something in me shifts as I listen to him emptying his disgust. I smile darkly to myself. If only it were so easy for me. It takes a little bit more than a good puke to purge my shame. It takes a few lines of crushed oxy.
I can see him in the mirror as he rinses his mouth and stares at his own reflection for a while in the mirror, psyching himself up to face me. Poor Cam. This is so tough on him.
Finally, he stands in front of me, his arms tucked up under his armpits in a defensive position.
"You're sure this man is...no threat to you anymore?"
"He hasn't contacted me. Not since he attacked me. And he let me go, even then. I think...I think he knows he's sick and he does try to stay in control of his...problems. Tries to vent them by being a Dom. He doesn't like to lose control. I don't think he would try to physically hurt me again. That would be him failingâbeing out of control."
All that I actually do believe. But I think his obsession with hurting me transferred to Leed. I think he realized the way to hurt me was to hurt Leed. Another reason for me to never give him the opportunity to try again.
"Okay," Cam repeats. "Okay."
He's shell-shocked, unable to process this, just like I thought he would be.
He walks into the living area of his apartment and his sits down on the sofa, staring out the floor to ceiling windows. He sits there for a long time, thinking. I clean up the hair from his bathroom floor, because I don't know what else to do.
Just when I start to think about leaving, giving him some space, he returns and takes me by the hands. He touches my face, pulls me to him in a tender hug, and I feel guilty for my anger about the way he reacted. It is a lot to take in and he's...well...he's not Leed.
Not many people have Leed's exceptional balance.
Cam is holding my head again, looking me in the eyes. "Okay, here's what we are going to do. The scar is easily fixed by a good plastics guy, I'm not even worried about that. But we're gonna get you some help. I know an excellent psychiatrist, and we're gonna revisit your brain injury from that angle, ok? We're going to deal with this...decision making problem you have, okay? Deal with it together." He kneels down and puts his hands on my shoulders. "I can fix this, okay? You just have to trust me."
I don't even know what to say. "You can fix me?"
He nods. "Of course, baby. Something's still not right in your head, you see? All those things you didâthat's not you. You're doing great managing your epilepsy and headaches, but the sexual behaviorsâthe sub thing, the promiscuity...this is way way beyond seizure after-effects. You need a full neurological and psychological workup."
"You think I'm crazy?"
"No, I think your brain trauma caused way more than headaches. I think it caused deep personality changes. It finally makes sense to me now. Maybe you have like...a dissociative brain disorderâa dark side that became an addict and did all that insane stuff. This is something we can deal with. There's been great advances in managing dissociative disorders with medication. We can figure this out, I promise you."
Outrage wars with my need to laugh. Laughter wins. "You think I have a split personality and you want to drug me to deal with my dark side?"
"Baby there's no shame in that, okay? You had brain trauma and it caused a neurological disorder. That's all. We can handle this, make sure you never...go there again."
"Ah...I see now," I slip from his grasp. "There's no shame in what I did if I have a mental illness. But you can't accept that I am a drug addict. That I let my addiction control me for three years. That I let addiction lead me into being a sexual submissive, and then an outright whoreâ" I raise my shirt to display my scar.
"Ashlynn, Jesus Christ!" he yells at me, throwing a hand up as if to shield his eyes and turning from my scar.
"Look!At!My!Scar!" I yell at him.
"No," he growls. "That is not you, okay? I forgive you for all of it, because it's not the real you. I still love the real you and we're going to get through it this time, not like before..."
"It is me!" I tell him. "It's everything I've been through and now it's a part of me and you know what? I'm over being ashamed of it. I'm not mentally ill, Cameron. I don't have a split personality. I had an accident that put me into addiction and I let my addiction drive me to all those choices, but I am not a victim that needs to be taken care of. I'm not a thing for you to fix. You can drag me to every goddamn psychiatrist in the country, and they can make all the diagnosis they want but I'm never taking drugs again, okay? I don't have a mental illness and I don't need you to forgive me for anything I've done. I need to forgive myself. Leed taught me that, and I'm still working on it, but he's right. You are..."
"Not Leed?" he spits. "I'm sorry if this is so much easier for him to take, but he didn't know you like I do. I've known you since you were thirteen years old, Ashlynn. Cared about you since you were a girl. And now it's like there's this part of you I don't even know."
"If you can't love the good and the bad in me, Camâthat's not love. That's just...the idea of love."
He sits down on the bed and rubs his bare head in defeat. Suddenly I feel extremely sad. I've hurt him yet again. And for what? Revenge sex? Just to see if I could possibly love him again?
I stand between his knees and he puts his arms around my waist, pressing his head against my stomach.
"Ashlynn...I'm trying...okay? This is a fucking lot. You seem like you, and I want you, but these things you are saying now...I can't just ignore how serious they are. This is scary stuff to hear about the woman I'm thinking about a future with."
What the hell have I done? Cam wants a future with a girl that doesn't exist anymore, and all I can see is Leed's face framed by the limitless Universe. It's crazy how, now that I slept with Cam, I don't care at all if Leed slept with Sophie. I just don't want to do thisâbecome something mean and awful and calculating and unfeeling and separate from him. I want to be the girl I am with him-the girl that feels. The girl that loves. The girl that gives. The girl that is comfortable with her striped soul because he thinks it's beautiful.
"I'm so sorry Cam. You're right. I do have a dark side. But I'm not mentally ill, I'm just not the girl you used to know. I'm a woman that's made a lot of mistakes and is trying to make them right. But I think I just made another bad one, with you."
He looks up at me, his face full of confusion and shock and the shadow of illness. "Don't say that. Don't...decide anything right now, okay? Let's just..." he looks away from me. "Let's just...think things over, okay? I'll think about the things you said, if you'll think about the things I said, okay? We can still work this out."
We can still work this out.
What a bright future that sounds like.
Poor Cam. He has so much trouble letting go, even in the moment when he really wants to. I decide to let him off the hook. "Okay. We'll...think about things. We should take some space to do that. I'm gonna go now, okay?"
He doesn't ask me to stay, but rises at once. "I'll drive you home."
I refuse, insisting I'll get an Uber. We have a gentle argument about it, but my Uber is already here before either one of us gives in.
When he kisses me good-bye, I'm suddenly filled with more feeling for him than I've had since my accident. Tears stream as I pull him in and hold onto the kiss. Suddenly we are both crying.
Cam is not Leed, but he's smart and intuitive, too. I wonder if he's thinking what I'm thinking...that this is the last time our lips will ever meet?
I try to pull away, but he only holds me tighter.
"Please, baby, don't do anything crazy right now," he whispers. "This hurts and I worry if you're hurting like I'm hurting..."
"I'll be okay," I rub his bald head and nod as we slowly work away from the heartbreaking kiss.
I am hurting like he's hurting, but I have been for five weeks and it doesn't have anything to do with Cam. Worse, it's not ever going away if I stay here. I can't let Cam settle for second best any more that I can. He deserves a woman that loves him like I love Leed. And I can't be with a man that is always going to see me as damaged.
"Call me as soon as you get home," he says.
"Okay," I lie.
"I love you," he whispers in my hair. "No matter whatâI will always love you."
I want to tell him the same, but the words freeze in my throat. Why is it so fucking hard to walk away from the boy that showed me what love is and then what love isn't?
Somehow he lets me go and I make my feet carry me away from his safety into a future that now has no direction at all. I feel like I'm jumping off the waterfall all over again, but this time instead of rappelling, I'm running over the edge into endless free fall.
When I get in the Uber, I give him a vague direction. It's hard to give an exact address to find drugs.
I can't take this anymore...dying from lack of Leed, hating myself for hurting Cam, holding my breath while Varrick turns up nothing on Megan and suffocates all my hope for happiness by inches.
Leed, Cam, VarrickâI gave them all the chance to save me from my fate. It's not their job. I can't be saved.
For five weeks, I've been thinking long and hard over what I'm about to do. Sometimes you just have to give in to your destiny. Sometimes you have to spend a little time with your dark side to find your balance.
Confession: I cried writing this chapter. I've always felt Cam and Ashlynn didn't have their closure, and now I think they both know...a first love is not always the right love. I think even though Cam is still leaving it open, in his heart he knows he and Ashlynn don't fit. She's outgrown him. I hope we see Cam again in a future medical series...I think he's a very interesting "flawed" character and I think he has a lot of room for growth if he found the right motivation.
But, enough about Dr. Too-Entitled. My girl Ashlynn seems like she's in a very reckless frame of mind since breaking with Leed.
Even though technically she went first, the audience now knows she and Leed have evened their "score" through misunderstandings caused by that pesky press and their natural needs for "revenge." Are they going to be able to swallow their mutual lapse or will it be too much to overcome, if they ever find themselves moving toward one another again?
And what about Ashlynn looking to score drugs...do you think she's going to go through with it? This is turning into a bigger mess by the minute? Are we losing hope or hoping for a miracle?