Nate by C. M. Marin

Author:C. M. Marin [Marin, C. M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: UNKNOWN
Published: 2018-06-30T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 19

Camryn

The glazed paper melts away slowly. A year of laughter, of discussions, of kisses, of traveling… A year of life, really, is being consumed by the searing flames right in front of my eyes. A picture taken during our weekend in Seattle, one taken in the small, cozy apartment we made a home for ourselves in, and the picture immortalizing the day we got engaged on that beach we used to go lie at night to watch the starry sky are already gone. All burned.

“Camryn?”

I didn’t hear the door opening, but I’m too numb to be jumpy, I guess. Because after what went down twenty minutes ago, I should be slightly jumpy, at the very least. Maybe I’m not because I expected Nate to come back check on me soon enough considering how visibly reluctant he was to give me some space in the first place.

“Yes?” I say, not pulling my eyes off Colin’s smile as he sits on the porch of that cabin we rented for what I didn’t know would be our only Christmas together.

A fake smile. A smile that any talented actor could have flashed at the camera. Colin was just that. A talented actor.

“What you doing?”

I’m wishing that this lighter could burn away Colin as easily as it does those pictures.

When Nate comes to sit beside me on the floor, the waste paper basket in front of us, I ask instead of answering, “How is it I didn’t see a thing?”

“Camryn―” he starts softly.

“No, seriously, I really wonder,” I stop him. “I keep thinking back to that time, searching for something, anything…a small damn hint I must have missed at some point. But there’s nothing. I can’t think of anything. Maybe I need to call Colleen and ask her. Maybe she can help me with that, because there’s nothing I can think of, Nate. I swear… I’m not completely stupid. I swear there was not a freaking damn sign. I… This…guy,” I refer to Colin as I wave a hand toward the window. “I’ve never, ever met him. I don’t know who that is, and… God, I even met some of his colleagues a few times, for God’s sake.”

“Probably Spiders.”

My head shakes with a growing shame. “I’m so stupid, it’s laughable.”

“Don’t do this. How could you have guessed that? You weren’t even really aware of the MC world.”

“How?” I repeat, the word having a sardonic sound despite myself. “That’s simple. I should have known that something this perfect couldn’t be real. As simple as that. Love. That’s just bullshit, and I fell for it so easily. I was so sad and alone, still grieving the loss of my parents, that I stupidly fell for it.”

I wanted Colin and me to be as in love as my parents had been. I saw them love each other dearly my whole life, and ever since I was a teenager, that’s what I wanted to find for myself someday. I thought Colin and I were just that.

Angrily, I wipe

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