The Desired Effect ~ Cameron Liddell

Chapter 29. "Guilty Conscience"

"I thought it came in already?"

"No, just got here." Cam said as he slammed the heavy package onto the granite countertop in the kitchen.

"Ooh la la." I smiled excitedly as he grabbed a short sharp knife from the knife block, and cut the tape on the edges. As he pulled the tap away and opened the box, hundreds of packing peanuts fell away onto the ground. We had ordered so much from an online store. A unicorn pool floaty, a roomba, a framed picture, and a metal sign. Cam pulled them out one by one, setting them on the table. The second last out was the picture of us and the gang on our wedding day, framed with a picture of us holding hands with our rings, and the date signed on both. It was in a decorative red metal frame, and looked amazing. "Awh!" I squealed. "Look how young we are."

"Beautiful." Cameron chuckled. "You're just as beautiful as the day I married you." He kissed me on the top of the head, before hanging the frame on nails we had already put in the wall in anticipation. It looked perfect.

"I love you so much." I smiled brightly. He grinned back and kissed me before pulling the final thing out of the box. A iron wire sign reading "Liddell House" encased in a stylized heart.

"I love you too." Cameron replied. "This is awesome. It's going on the front door."

"I thought on the garage door?" I hopped up on the counter so I was Cameron's height.

"Too beautiful. Everyone has to see it." He took it and ran off. I smiled and sighed. I hopped down and started picking up the packaging and putting it all in the box for the garbage. I took it upon myself to bring the floaty outside and pump it up myself. It was air filled, and I was naked in the pool before Cameron had come outside in search of me. He just crossed his arms and smirked, watching me sunbathe on the new floaty.

"You sure are something."

"And what's that?" I replied, lifting my sunglasses onto my forehead.

"Sexy. And all mine." Cameron threw off his shirt and jumped right in.

—-

I woke up in a cold sweat. I had a horrible vision of Danny: He was the one dying all those years ago. He was the skinny, anemic, pale, and rotting one. It made me sick to my stomach to think about. He looked disgusting. I looked disgusting. Even remembering what we looked like back then made me shiver. I knew sleep would never come again that night, horrified by my dream and still wracking my brain to find one good excuse for Myca to kiss me. She was drunk, but she'd been drunker than that before and never kissed me. I was so drunk doing anything to me would have been a crime. Myca wouldn't do something like that. Everyone and god knows that there is nothing that could come between Cameron and I, so there was no point in trying. It was uncharacteristic. She had never been anything but my friend all these years, so normal at all of our parties and every girl's night. So why?

I was thankful Danny was there to stop her, but there was that, too. Everyone told me he still loved me, he told me he still loved me, but it never felt real. I knew he loved me as someone whose life he saved, as a friend, the way you love someone you've known all of your adult life, but anything more... it didn't make sense to me. I wanted him to love me like that and only like that. I always felt struck like I did the first time he said it to me. I asked if he loves me or hates me, and he said "Can't I do both?" It was like a dull electric shock up my spine. I couldn't believe it because I did not want to - if I started to believe it, I wouldn't be able to be his friend without thinking his only intention was stealing me back again. He had done nothing wrong, absolutely nothing since I got out of the hospital, but it was a nagging feeling in the back of my skull. Guilt, maybe.

I wanted people to love me without hoping things would change one day. I wanted Danny to love what we had right then and there. I wanted Myca to be my friend like she promised she would. I wanted people to stop trying to get in the way of Cameron and I. We got better, and we bought a big house with a pool, and Danny got his hideaway in the hills, and I got everything I was promised. But there always had to be something.