The Weight of Love

Chapter 9

That evening, after meeting Emily at the library in the afternoon for an hour and after excusing herself from dinner leaving her food half-eaten, Lila went up to her room and lay down. Two baskets of laundry stood in the middle of the floor waiting to be folded, but she couldn't muster the strength. Inside, her heart rattled around her chest. She hadn't heard from Cameron all day, not since his single text in the morning.

She closed her eyes and tried to breathe easy, remembering what the school psychologist had told her once when she'd gone for a visit following a slew of unexplained panic attacks. She had demons, she'd explained, because that was the way her mother liked her to say it. To which the psychologist had all but laughed and put ordinary names on her conditions, most of which she didn't remember.

Her head ached. Her arms ached from ferrying soup back and forth for half the morning. But her heart ached more, because the man whose position in her life had soared in the course of a day was leaving her hanging.

She fought stubbornly against tears. He had kissed her, that was all. It wasn't as if they were dating. She shouldn't care so much. He wasn't even that far away.

Her mind wandered back to the day her father had died, twelve years and some few days ago. He hadn't been far away that day, either. In fact, he had been very close to home.

Panic rose in her throat, and for a moment she thought she might choke on it and die there, alone and terrified in the twilight. Then her phone's ringtone began to peal out, filling the silence, and she snatched at it desperately and took the call.

"Hello?" she said, her voice tremulous.

"Lila?"

It was Cameron's voice. She had picked up so quickly that she hadn't even read the caller ID. Now relief flooded through her, sweet, glorious relief. She flew to the highest heights of joy, where before she had sunk to low depths of despair.

"Cameron," she said, steadying herself against the headboard of her bed. "You called."

On the other end of the line, he laughed, a wonderful sound, but it did little to melt the chill that had fallen over her in the aftermath of her joy.

"Of course I called. Is everything all right?"

"Y- yes," she squeaked out. He had caught her off-guard. "It's just that... I thought you might not call."

"I promised I would try, didn't I?" He sounded impatient, but perhaps for a good reason. "I have good news, actually. At least I think you'll think it's good. My client's deal is set to go through on Monday, much earlier than expected. As long as everything goes to plan, I'll fly home on Tuesday evening."

"Why not Tuesday morning?" Lila demanded immediately, unable to stop herself.

She could hear him smiling on the other end of the line.

"I have some personal business here, too," he said. "I promised that I'd pay an old friend a visit. Believe me, princess, I'd come back sooner if I could."

She was about to snap at him to reschedule when it dawned on her how clingy she was probably sounding, and she shut her mouth and said nothing.

"You still there, baby girl?" he asked after a moment of silence.

She swallowed.

"Yeah, I'm here. I'm sorry. I'm a little... overwrought."

"Overwrought." He laughed. "That's a big word for a little person. What did you do all day? Surely you weren't thinking of me more than half the time..."

She blushed fiercely, much more fiercely than she had earlier when Robert had forced her to exchange numbers with Jonas.

"Well, Robert was mad about the door," she said softly. "He actually -- " She bit her lip where it had been swollen earlier and decided against telling Cameron the whole story. "It doesn't matter, he understood when I explained it to him. We went to volunteer at the soup kitchen."