“Oh Cameron,” Delia whispered.
“I mean, if one thing was proven by tonight it’s that…” He looked over at Max. Please, he thought, please give me this. At least give me this. “I need to grow up a little away from this place. Away from all of you. Away from Josie.”
He one hundred percent didn’t mean any of this bullshit. But he had to get out of there.
“I’m twenty-two. An adult,” he said. “And maybe it’s time I acted like it.” Or felt like it.
And then, suddenly, Max nodded.
Alice sighed.
And the whole vibe in the room changed and…well, it was happening.
Holy shit. I’m leaving.
“Okay,” Alice said. “Tomorrow come back here. Gabe and I have saved some money for you over the years. For college or travel. Whatever. It’s yours. I can send some letters of recommendation to some colleagues. You could go work for Andreas or Jerome in France.”
There. Now Alice was on board.
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll come back tomorrow and we can figure it out.”
He even smiled as he headed for the door. His car. And whatever came next.
“You have to talk to Josie,” Delia said. “You can’t leave things like this. She’ll be devastated.”
“Of course,” he said. And say what? he wondered. I love you and I ruined everything? I love you and your family wants me to leave? What good was that going to do? Go be amazing, that’s what he would say to her. Go be the writer you dream of being and I’ll be all right.
“Okay,” Alice said. It killed him to lie to her. But there wasn’t any other way. “Sorry about the nachos,” she said.
Tears burned in his eyes and in his throat, and he nodded and waved goodbye and got the fuck out of there. He was halfway to his car before he realized Max had followed him.
“Cameron,” he said.
No. Nope. No way. “I’m leaving Max…I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“We both know that’s a lie. I know what leaving looks like.”
Cameron stopped. “Don’t try to stop me. I know you don’t mean it.”
“I’m not here to stop you.”
The bitter laugh clawed its way out of his throat and broke like a sob.
“Here,” Max said. “Take this.”
Cameron turned to see Max holding out a wad of money. “I’m not taking that.”
“Yeah you are,” Max said and just shoved it into Cameron’s backpack. “You’re gonna need it.”
He stared up at the moon, refusing to cry and refusing to look at Max. “You would have stopped,” Max said. “I can’t let you leave here thinking that you might not have. You are a good man.”
“That’s not what you were saying before.”
“Sometimes it’s hard to forget what I’ve seen,” Max said, and it only made Cameron more angry. “She was drunk. About to throw up—”
“And I was on top of her. I get it. I was there.”
“Josie—”
Yeah. He wasn’t going to stand there and talk about Josie with Max. How she was better off away from him and this place, when all he’d ever wanted was this place and her. He turned and started walking to his car.
“What should I tell her?” Max asked. ‘Tomorrow when she wakes up and feels like garbage. What should I tell her?”
I love her. I’ve always loved her. I will always love her. She deserves the world and everything in it, and if anyone ever dares to hurt her I will personally come and destroy their life.
But one look at Max’s face and Cameron understood she already had a person for that. And Cameron was on the other side of it. The other side of everything. He’d let down the family and now he was on the outside in every way.
“Tell her this is for the best.”
2
2019
Hey Josie!
Congrats on the new season. Jonah said you got a promotion… Head Writer and Executive Producer? (Insert Jonah’s joke here about writers on a reality tv show. Insert my groan.) That’s so amazing. I always knew you were going to be a big deal. I was sorry I missed you last month. Our trip got all turned around and Evan and I had to stay in Albany an extra week. Organic Farming Government Lobbying—who knew it was so dramatic? Anyway, I know your schedule is just crammed during the holidays so I want to get this request in early. Well… not a request. Christmas wish? Christmas demand? Yeah.
Demand.
You need to come home to the Riverview for Christmas.
Here are the reasons:
It’s Christmas and you haven’t been home for Christmas in FIVE YEARS. Even typing that makes me shake my head. I know your job is important, but so is drinking hot cocoa by the fire with ME.
Everyone misses you. Especially me.
The wi-fi out there is SOLID so you can still work. Jonah got the whole mountain’s internet improved so he could work. So, work is 100% not an excuse.
I’m pregnant.
Okay, before you freak out. I’m five months. It was touch and go for the first three and we didn’t tell anyone. I wanted to tell you last month in person but work got in the way. And… Josie. I just want to see you. And it’s Christmas. And I’m pregnant. Please come home.
Helen
JOSIE
The Riverview Inn at Christmas was a total show-off. All the white twinkle lights in the snow-dusted pine trees. The windows filled with the warm glow of fireplaces. The gigantic red and gold wreath on the front door. Even nature was contributing to the scene; snow was coming down in big, fat Hollywood flakes, like the whole world was in a snow globe that had just been twirled upside down.
It looked, actually, like every Christmas set Josie had ever tried to create but somehow failed to. It didn’t matter how much money they put into set design or props, it was just never quite right.
It’s the smell, she thought. You just can’t recreate the smell of snow and pine trees. It was so powerful it was practically a taste on the tip of her tongue.
The Uber drove off behind her. Leaving Josie and her bags standing at the entrance of the inn. Feeling an excruciating combination of dread and excitement.
Smile. Keep smiling. Don’t stop smiling.
As coping mechanisms went it was fairly lame, but it was all she had and so she was committed. Besides, there was usually enough mayhem in her family that she could blend in and escape too much notice.
Though the five years she’d been gone were going to be a thing.
Christmas was a few days away and everyone was home for the holiday. Mom and Dad. Gabe and Alice. Jonah and Daphne, Josie’s half-brother Dom and all the cousins. This place was absolutely filled with Mitchells. She could practically hear them arguing about table setting and laughing over Dom’s hair.
Why am I scared?
She knew that she shouldn’t be. It didn’t make sense.
But her heart was pounding in her neck. And her hands were slick in her gloves.
The inn looked somehow bigger and smaller than she remembered. But that was the way of memory, wasn’t it? It played tricks like that all the time. Like the emotion attached to things changed the scale of places or the color of walls. Her heart changed the size and shape of the front door and planted trees where there weren’t any. It was familiar and completely strange all at the same time.