I waited for him to respond, but he was indifferent. I knew he was hurting. I could see the child inside him, all alone and hurt and scared, calling for his mother, crying for her, wishing for her. I wanted to reach out, hold his hand and tell him that I wasn't going to leave. But he'd already turned his back on me. "Every time you pull away from me, did I make demands? Maybe I should've. Maybe I had forgotten who I am when I'm with you. Maybe I'd given too much of myself and you've given so little. But even with so little, I wanted it all because it's you. I was thankful for every scrap you threw at me." Tears fell on my cheeks and I swiped at them angrily. "I'm tired." His voice was unerringly quiet. I jerked back as if he'd slapped me. "You're tired?" He pushed away from the wall. The way he looked at me was so detached, so different. "Yeah," he said. "So, I guess I'll see you around." Who was this man standing in front of me? He wasn't the same. He wasn't my Cameron. "What the fuck is happening right now? What the fuck are you doing? What the fuck is wrong? You're tired? See you around? What the fuck?" "I know you like details," he said slowly. "But do you really need me to spell it out?" I looked at him, let him see what I was feeling inside. "Cameron, please." "Please what?" "Tell me what the fuck is wrong. Is it your dad again? You're acting the same way you did when your dad was at the hospital. No. This is worse. This is worse because now you're deliberately hurting me." I saw the change in his eyes. And now they were blank again. "My hands are here. Far away from you. They're not going to touch you. They're not going to hurt you." I shook my head. "I don't know how to get to you. Why are you like this?" "I'm always like this. You just refuse to see who I really am." Cameron had always been beautiful to me. And now he was heartbreaking in his loneliness, in his self-hatred. As if he'd wrapped himself in it, surrounded himself with an impenetrable wall and made it his shield. He'd closed himself inside this shield, so closed off he didn't know he was hurting me. "Don't. Please. I know you're hurting. I know who you are. I know you." "You think you do," he said. My eyes stung with tears. I tried to hold them back, but they fell. "I love you," I whispered. I had never said the words to him, and he had never said them to me. And I wondered why we hadn't. But I wanted to tell him now. Desperately. With all my heart and with everything inside me, willing him to stay. There was a flash of torture in his eyes, but it was gone so fast that I wondered if I had imagined it. "I love you, Cameron." A sardonic smile twisted his lips. And it broke my heart. "Don't justify your love for me when you know it's all sorts of wrong," he said. "It's the illusion of me you have in your head that you love, Kara. Nothing else." All I saw was a child huddled in the dark. Then Cameron's face as he wept for Pete in the maze. "Stay," I choked out. "Don't make me beg. Because I'm going to hate myself, then I'm going to hate you." I saw him take a slow breath. His blue eyes were so focused on me. And somehow there was a quiet acceptance in them that terrified me. "Fine," he said coldly. "Beg. Beg me, then." Everything inside me turned hot then terrifyingly cold. I kept my eyes on him as I closed the distance between us. Later, I would keep replaying this over and over in my head. And every time I remembered it, I'd weep, soaked in my own pain and anger, until I couldn't anymore. "No one has ever hurt me like this before. No one," I said. And it amazed me how calm I sounded. I stood in front of him, stared him right in the eye. "Leave. And don't ever come back." His eyes bored into mine, piercing and beautiful and sad. He looked at me for a moment as if memorizing my features one last time. When he turned his back and walked to the door, a tear fell on my cheek. Silently I watched him wrapped his hand around the doorknob, twisted and pulled it open. Everything felt slow and unreal. He stepped on the threshold. "Cameron." He stopped but didn't turn. I walked to the door, curled my hands around the doorknob. "Don't forget to go fuck yourself," I said with finality and slammed it closed. Heart beating madly, I leaned against it. My breaths came so fast, so ragged as if I had just run a mile. The tear that had fallen on my cheek when he walked out had already dried on my skin. Was he really gone? Just like that? Was this all it had gone down to? No, no. It can't be. I ran to the porch. I watched his back as he walked away from me. Waited, waited for him to turn around. He didn't. He kept walking until he disappeared from my sight into the darkness of the street. I didn't feel the tears until I tasted them. Cameron was gone. He was really gone. I rose, picked up my remaining dignity and tattered pride, stepped inside my house. "You fucker," I whispered, my voice breaking. "You fucker..." I broke down and cried. And this time he was no longer waiting on the other side of the door.