AMELIA

A ringing in my head jolts me awake, and in disarray, my eyes squeeze shut as my hand fumbles for my phone. The side of the bed is empty.

Worried, I open my eyes fully. I am alone in the room.

Where's Jake?

Yawning, I glance at the table clock by my nightstand, but instead, I find a breakfast tray with a romantic setup-honey, cheese, tomatoes, and not only freshly made fruit juice but also freshly picked flowers.

My smile is huge. This glamour is only something I hear people talk about; it never happens to me until now. I take a small note and read: "If you're reading this, it means you're awake. So, good morning, my love. I know we don't get much time during the week, but let me show you how our days will be any chance we get to be free. Eat; I made your favorite with my hands."

Swallowing the bile in my throat at the possibility of cheating on him for letting Cam do those things to me in the laundry room, tears spring in my eyes. I screw my eyes shut and wipe the tears away.

I find my phone, deciding to return Mom's missed calls later. I snap a picture of my tray, sending it to Carl. In the next few minutes, he sends me a suspicious face emoji and a picture of himself on the football field. Giggling, I start on my breakfast and finish most of the food before heading to get a shower and brush my teeth.

It doesn't take much time to spruce up in a white summer knee-length dress, do my hair, and apply light makeup. Excited to meet Jake, I grab my phone and head downstairs.

I don't come across any of the boys, which is partly a good thing because I don't want to see Cam ever again. I don't want anything to do with him. I plan on being alone with Jake today; maybe we can go somewhere and return late at night.

"Do not dilute. Let's have it strong," a disembodied female voice says, and immediately my head begins swirling even before I take the corner to the kitchen.

"Omg, this is the latest G wagon I want to get next year. Let me send the photo to Cameron, he kept saying they didn't make this year's edition." another girl said.

Cameron!

With a mocking remark on my tongue, I barge into the kitchen, and there's perfect Bree, Rose, and of course, Harper-all in bikinis and sunglasses sitting crookedly on their noses.

Okay, this is getting out of hand.

My vision becomes a brew of shock and barely contained vexation.

"What are you doing here?" bitterness creeps into my mouth, bringing sharpness to my tongue as my head throbs dangerously.

Harper shoots a look over her long eyelashes at me and returns to pressing her phone.

"We are making frozen blue Moscato margaritas. We picked some fresh blueberries in the backyard," Rose informs. She pours the drinks into cups, and Bree garnishes them with berries.

"Why not? Make yourself at home!" I sarcastically remark and Harper peeks up at me over the top of her tinted glass with heard-a-little-and-cared-less slate-blue eyes, ruffling her hair to the side in a studio wind-blown mess.

"You want some?" Her cherry lips curl viciously.

She seems so overly free in someone's space.

"No!" My eyes roll, and I scoff at the three girls impeccably for thinking they own the place. They should wait until Cam throws them out naked himself, and we'll see if they have any dignity to talk like that.

Leaving them there, I follow the open double glass door to the backyard.

It's a sunny September, almost noon this Sunday, but it's quite breezy out here, probably because of the lake down there.

Obviously, the house is hosting a small party, which depletes the spirit I started the day with and now overshadows it with depression.

"Baby?" Jake calls me, and I'm forced to act placate and put on a fake smile.

The outdoor lounging area he's resting around is occupied by all the boys, including Layton and Garrett, but they're not my problem. It is Cam and his silent, intimidating, and somewhat condescending glare that I have to divert my eyes and mind from.

He's sprawling there in only shorts and sunglasses over his forehead. His body is a sculpture; no word has yet been created to explain it. It's the kind of devil you can't resist that pushes you to sin.

"Come here." Jake's hands extend for me, and I crawl onto him, into his side. Our legs tangle, and he kisses my hair, wrapping both hands around me.

Smiling, I wave at Layton and Garrett, who are playing Nintendo Switch but pause and beam at me.

"You have no idea how many times Jake sits around and talks about you," Layton tells me, and I blush, peering up at Jake's face.

He's smiling.

"All the time. He talks about you, he brags about you," Layton adds.

"Even though I don't really date, Jake makes it sound like a book of chocolate recipes," Garrett says, and I laugh. "I am actually glad you two are finally reunited, so he can shut up and not convince me to try the commitment thing."

"With all due respect, do that if you want no future for yourself," Cam throws at Garrett, sounding all triggered.

My gaze on him is baffled.

"Excuse me!" I shake my head at him, and his eyes come to me. Although the usual sprightliness that lives in there seems dim, he smiles.

"I said with due respect," he dryly asserts. "It's not like Romeo and Juliet didn't both die. All the time these kinds of things are a tragedy."

Unbelievable. My jaw drops. I feel stricken to the soul, knowing what he meant.

"Seriously, bro?" Jake tells him.

"Perhaps your commitment will sail to the shore. I really hope you do," he sighs, hinting at his tinier expectancy about Jake and me and wearing his eyeglasses, seemingly disrespectfully.

"Oh, it will." I beam with certainty at his threat, or is it a bad luck wish? "Some of us grew up with love and want to love and be loved for the rest of our lives. I mean, who wants to die alone in a big house and rot on the bed until the cops find their body?" I append innocently with exuberant happiness, but inwardly, I protest with my words, and my heart is pounding in my throat because this isn't me, either. I am not this hostile.

I can't discern his expression because his eyes are behind tinted glasses, but his lips are parted, yet he can't say anything. He seems at a loss for words, and silence falls.

Layton and Garrett slip out of the heated conversation and proceed to gaming.

Drawing in a deep breath, I snuggle even more, laying my head on Jake's chest. "Why do you say that?" he whispers in my ear, probably feeling awkward at my outburst.

"I am just motivating him to modify his concept about love," I tell Jake and kiss his bare chest. He lifts my chin and takes my lips, kissing me passionately, my fingers following the lines of his stomach and his chest.

"I love you," he whispers in my mouth, and I force a smile back. Suddenly, I feel Cam's eyes boring into my pores, scaring me with the thought that he might blurt something out about me in revenge.

"I love you."

It is the smallest hope that reassures me Cam wouldn't sell himself that easily. But what if he doesn't give a damn about his friendship with Jake as I thought? What if it's that easy for him, as long as he could expose me?

Perhaps I should learn to ignore him instead of inciting him. Who knows how he would react if he exploded?

Laying here with Jake, I close my eyes shut, sleep trying to doze me off.

Cam has become discreetly silent, and when I reopen my eyes after some minutes of rest, I catch him gazing over at Jake and me intently under his glasses. Then he looks away momentarily, returning his eyes when I don't stop watching him. I am curious about what's running in his mind.

"The drinks are here." The girls come in sometime during the silence, and I avert my eyes away from Cam. The girls' voices wake Jake from his short nap.

"We make extra cups," Bree says, her eyes rolling sassily and darting in my direction. I nod my brows knowingly and sit up, letting Jake take a cup of the blue thing.

He holds it out to me, but I shake my head. His brow furrows, but he doesn't ask why. He just takes a sip and leans back with me in his arms.

Cam, on the other hand, sits up, takes a cup, pulls out the fancy stick of blueberries and drinks, sets the berries inside the empty cup, and grabs another.

"Easy!" Harper chuckles, settling on the arm of his bench, her hand resting on his shoulders, and she begins exploring the rest of his skin.

He looks up at her with a smile, and she leans in to kiss his forehead.

Oh, for heaven's sake. Won't anyone tell her he doesn't date? Or did she agree to lose all her dignity for him?

He grabs another cup, takes the bottle of tequila in the center, and adds it to his margarita, stirring it with his finger. As he pulls it out, Rose, who's on the other side of him, takes his finger into her mouth. At the unexpected move, his eyes widen. I scoff in shock at the lack of grace of the girls, but Cam catches my reaction, and his lip quirks up. He takes a sip of his drink and lets her keep the hand to her mouth, swallowing his fingers as if he were food and she would eat him whole.

I watched in horror at the explicit scene.

"That's pretty hot. Maybe we can do these things too," Jake whispers in my ear teasingly.
Furious beneath the surface at the disgust in front of us, I nudge his side.

"You should thank God I am not a whore," I remind him, and he smiles, kissing my livid face as I shoot dark, smoldering eyes at the foolish girls.

"Let's swim!" Harper asks him, and he agrees, taking off his sunglasses, standing, and she looks up at him suppressing excitement. When he takes off, she races after him vigorously, and the other girls too. They run down there, passing the pool and the green field, and jump into the lake in the distance, as though they had drunk the spirit of the entire planet.

Maybe I should suppress the sign of his existence and be happy and enjoy my Sunday with Jake.

"Let's go out," I offer, and Jake's smiling eyes come to me.

"I thought you would propose swimming in the lake."

"I suggest being alone," I sternly remark, and he presses his lips into a hard line. "Let's have a Sunday free of all this loudness, just you and me." I smile at him, kissing his chin, then his cheek, nose, and lips until he smiles.

"Anything for you."

Smiling, he sits up, and hand in hand, we say goodbye to the boys engrossed in the games as we leave the house.

As I want, Jake makes my day wonderfully, my brain banishing all negative feelings and regrets. I see the city very well. Even though I work in a mall, I never get to see it, except walking straight to my job every day. Today, we explore the mall, watch a movie, follow the pedestrians in the flow of the city buzz, cross the track, and snap many photos. We talk more than we ever did physically, and this time it is profound, words for our future. Sometimes I feel guilty, and then I get swept away by the beauty of the moment.

It is five in the evening when his phone rings and the screen reads Erin. We had planned to have dinner in a restaurant across the street by six-thirty, so we relaxed in a cafe, putting up with coffee until then.

"Who's Erin?" I ask when he sighs at the screen.

"The company's new editor and the boss you don't ignore. She probably wants something," he says sadly.

Even on Sunday?

"I am so sorry," I swallow, my gaze lowering to my fingers on my thigh, blinking back the tears. "It is my fault."

"No," he shakes his head.

"If I hadn't acted like a brat and just moved into dorms... I made you lose a better job." And yet, I did things behind his back.

What is wrong with me?

"Please do not say that. You didn't make me lose anything better when you're the best I can ever have. I am happy here. We might not always meet Amy, but no matter how stressful my day is, how this adulthood is, I get to come to bed to you, and all those tensions fade away like they never happened. It is like I am burden-free, and I am safe. That's all I've ever wanted, to be with you fully. And you gave me that. I love you."

I try to smile but I sob instead, my lips quivering, as my insides burn.

"I am so sorry," I mutter, and he circles over, pulling me into what should be a soothing hug, but it pricks a reminder that he's too good for me.

"Do not cry," he whispers in my hair. "After all, now I got a promotion. Let's appreciate that glory and forget the things that aren't meant to be." He strokes my back and hair. "You are my everything."

His words, kindness, and purity reduce me to the backstabber that I've become. I still, mentally trampling on my choking emotions.

His phone rings again.

"I have to take this," he tells me and picks it up.

He is summoned to the office by Erin, the plans burying ours. Maybe it's a good thing since I've now lost all my mood.

"I will go home then," I wipe my tears and tuck back my hair.

"No, we will have dinner as planned. You stay here; I will be back before the time. I will just get her some manuscripts and be back, okay? We will make the best of today." He nods, and I do too in agreement. A smile takes over his features.

He kisses me on my forehead and pays for more cups of coffee and snacks for me before leaving.

Alone, I chew over my mistakes and how to get over them. All the solutions stationed me at the airport, leaving Portland and not seeing Cam ever again, which means leaving school, and getting a transfer, asking Jake to quit his job again, or breaking his heart and leaving him here, which will be selfish when he's just told me I am the reassurance he looks forward to every day.

Although mulling over and drinking coffee by the window, time begins to pass, and I see 6 pm, then 6.15 pm, a minute to 6.30 pm, and then I see 7 pm.

I call; it rings but he doesn't pick up.
I wait and wait, and now it is 9 pm.