Reclaim (Release, #2)

by Aly Martinez

Choices. Everyone makes them. From mundane and monotonous to life-changing and unimaginable. But regardless what that choice may be, life is lived in the consequences.

My chest vibrated as a barrage of emotions ricocheted inside me, none of them able to escape. All of them slicing me to the core of my soul.

I’d spent two years living in fear—nightmares, sobbing until I physically passed out, hiding behind a smile for fear people could see the filth behind it.

She was bratty—albeit cute—and had gotten me all flustered asking questions and I hadn’t known what else to do.

I didn’t know it then, but with three words, the universe kicked the first domino that would ultimately form the sprawling path of my future.

“Freaking Camden Cole,”

“Freaking Camden Cole, with his pretty blue eyes. I mean who actually has eyes that blue? What are they, night vision goggles or something?”

And just like that, Freaking Camden Cole didn’t sting as bad.

She was a complete stranger, yet my draw to her was like the moon pulling in the tides.

“You just had a seizure and almost drowned because of a freaking beetle?”

“I don’t like bugs, okay? They’re gross and they have these tiny eyes, and I don’t even know where their nose is. Plus, they have extra legs and stuff. I mean seriously, who needs that many legs? Can you even imagine the sound of that thing in your ear?”

Freaking Camden Cole was a genius, and I didn’t know why but it seriously annoyed me.

“I might know you better than you think, Nora.”

“They didn’t make me get up. I just thought if you were here, I wanted to be here too.”

In that second, at the creek, laughing with a kid who had shown up at the crack of dawn just to hang out with me, there was absolutely nothing wrong for the first time in quite possibly my entire life and it made the lump in my throat swell to the size of a watermelon. The sweetest concern colored his face as he took a step toward me.

Oh, God, he’d brought me bug spray.

I’d never even thought to buy myself bug spray. But Camden had.

But learning how to truly laugh again might have been my greatest accomplishment that summer.

P.S.S.S.S. I’d rather be there with you.

But Nora didn’t want me to be anyone. She just liked that I was there.

For Camden, I could always wait.

I smiled more that first week than I had in years. All of them fake. All of them painful. And all of them to mask how I was secretly withering away.

I was so good at playing the part that not even Ramsey and Thea realized I was only one breath away from suffocating.

I wasn’t always strong. A girl could only pretend that her heart wasn’t breaking for so long.

“Catch anything good?”

Holy shit, Nora Stewart was gorgeous.

“There was a lot of stuff I wanted, Nora. Almost all of them involved being here with you though. That ten was as close as I could get.

You get the point. I got here as quick as I could.”

Trust. That wasn’t my strong suit. But if it meant being able to keep Camden, I’d risk it all to try.

If I can’t get my own mom to come back, if I wasn‘t good enough to make her stay, what reason do I have to expect that you would, either?” “Because I will,” he promised. “It might not be right away and you might have to wait for a while, but I’ll always come back.”

Friends—true friends—always come back.”

“No what-ifs. You don’t have to trust me now. I’ll prove it to you. As long as you can tolerate me, I’ll always be around.”

You might have hated me while I was gone, but you were always my best friend.”

“Nora. Please. Just let me take care of you. I know you don’t want to talk about it, and I’ll respect that, but there is no possible way my legs are going to be able to carry me away from you today. So, please. Let me do this.”

“It’s gonna be okay. It probably doesn’t feel like it right now, and I’m not even going to pretend to know how you feel. But I promise I’ll make it okay.”

I was gutted—nothing but a corpse standing in front of her. Hollow and empty without the first way to fix it.

But I loved her, even if I didn’t understand it yet. So I stood there, ready to fight an impossible battle.

It would kill me to walk away, but that was my pain. Not hers. I was only thirteen and already sure I would bear that cross for Nora Stewart every day if I had to.

I wanted to disappear, and to be honest, I thought about it more times than I would ever admit. At night, when I wasn’t pretending to be with Camden at the creek again, I’d imagine the blissful hollowness of death.

Throwing the car into drive, I slammed on the accelerator and ended Josh Caskey’s reign of abuse once and for all.

She hated me when I got back, but she had no idea how I’d spent the whole year loving her.”

“I don’t feel bad about it, Camden.” She lifted her hand to cover her heart. “I can barely breathe knowing that Ramsey’s in prison, but that is the only regret I have. So, yeah. That’s me. Still love me now?” It required exactly no thought for me to answer. “Yeah. I do.”

“I love you too, Cam. I love you enough to know you should love somebody better than me.”

One breath at a time, I kept going.

Camden knew all my truths. He became the safe drawer in my head where I could go to feel free of the secrets and lies.

And there he was, like a fever dream: Camden Cole sitting in a chair with his elbows on his knees, his fingers steepled in front of his mouth, his piercing, blue eyes locked on mine with a burning intensity that seared me to the core.

“Wh-what are you doing here?” I stammered. “Currently?” he asked from behind his hands. “Losing my Goddamn mind with worry.”

“Nora, I just spent eighteen hours jumping from standby flight to standby flight all the way from New York, terrified you might die. I don’t care if we have to share a postage stamp. I need you to scoot over so I can lie down with you.”

Sliding an arm around his back, I curled in close, shifting to tangle my legs with his. “I’m tired, Cam.” “I know,” he whispered, hugging me tight.

“Do you remember our first summer together when a grasshopper got into the container where we held the extra worms? You screamed so loud when you opened that thing and it came flying out like a bat out of hell. It got on your shirt and then hung on for dear life. With all the racket you were making, the damn thing had to have been terrified, but he never jumped off. I had to peel it off your shirt, one leg at a time.”