Two updates in a week?! I'll admit, I'm pretty proud of myself. As always, excuse any errors I might have made whilst typing this up.

Thanks to everyone who replied to my question in the reviews for the last chapter. I really appreciate the feedback on my writing.

This chapter is Zach heavy. Be prepared. :)

Chapter NINETEEN

"I feel so foolish."

"Hush."

"Seriously, I haven't been this babied since I was a baby."

It had been three days since Josh's emergency surgery, and he had just arrived back in Roseville late last night. I had been surprised at first when I heard the hospital in Orlando was releasing him so soon after surgery but my mother assured me that while his recovery was far from over, the hardest part of the ordeal was.

So there I was, in his room. I sat in his familiar desk chair next to his bed, holding one of his hands. He was propped up against the pillows and looking incredibly helpless.

"You're sick."

"No, I was sick. Now I'm just...in limbo." He shrugged but it obviously caused him pain because he winced a little.

He smiled at me. "You must think very little of my masculinity right now."

I grinned. "Oh, yes. I don't think Josh is a suitable name for you anymore. Jocelyn would be better."

"See, now, you're going to make me laugh which would be very bad because I could tear my stitches."

He said it jokingly but I immediately looked down at his stomach which was covered by the sheet, concern washing over my face.

He sighed, obviously regretting the words he had intended to be funny. "I wish they'd done it laparoscopically. I'm gonna have a scar now."

"Some girls find scars attractive." I said the words quietly, still staring at his stomach, part of me almost expecting to see the sheets beginning to seep with blood. It was a horrific image but one I couldn't shake.

"Do you?"

The wary tone in his voice made me look up at his face. When I did, he looked different than he had since returning - different, in fact, than I could remember him looking in a long time. It was like he was nervous to be in my presence in a way that was similar to when we had first started going out and were getting to know each other not only as Cammie and Josh, the people, but as Cammie and Josh, the couple.

I couldn't for the life of me fathom why he would be nervous.

His hand curled tighter around mine, and smiled softly. "I missed you."

I felt a pang in my heart when he said those words. I had desired to hear them so much and feel like he meant them a few weeks ago, and now, when I could hear the full meaning behind the words, hear the kindness and truth and love behind them, I felt...nothing.

No, not nothing. I felt guilty.

"I missed you, too."

It wasn't a lie, I told myself. I had missed Josh. Just not in the way a loving girlfriend should have.

I remembered what Bex had said when I told her I wasn't going to break up with Josh while he was recovering - how I would be lulling him into a feeling of a false security and it would only bring us both pain. For the first time, I could see where her logic was coming from.

Josh needed to rest so I left his house not long after that, promising to stop by again the next day. His mother studiously ignored me as I exited the house. She had tried to prevent me visiting this morning but Josh had heard me at the door from his room and insisted on seeing me.

When I got home a few minutes later, I noticed Zach sitting in his car. Curiosity got the better of me when I realized the car wasn't running and walked up to the passenger side window. He didn't see me as I approached the car. Instead, his gaze was focused on his phone which he held in his hand. From the angle that he held it, I could see that someone was calling him, but he wasn't answering it.

Ashamed at myself for snooping on him, I decided to alert him to my presence. He started when I knocked on the window but quickly gathered himself. I opened the door and stepped into the car.

"Hey."

"Uh, hey." He was flustered. That much was obvious. Maybe I should've just walked away.

"I hope you don't mind. I saw you over here, and I thought I'd stop by."

He leaned his head against the headrest, staring out the windshield. "Yeah, no, it's fine."

"You okay?"

"How's Josh?"

We both spoke at the same time and smiled at each other, acknowledging the awkwardness of the moment. "Josh is fine. I just got back from seeing him. His mother has him on bed rest which frustrates him, but he's a bit of a mama's boy so..."

I trailed off, not knowing how to finish describing my morning with Josh. It occurred to me how odd it should feel to talk about my boyfriend with the guy I actually liked, and yet, I felt completely comfortable with Zach. A little nervous, but it seemed to me that there was very little that I couldn't share with him that he wouldn't accept or understand.

I wondered if he felt the same way about me.

I decided to find out, fully aware that I was taking a wild gamble.

"I saw you with your phone." I said. He stiffened up immediately, but I pressed on. "I saw you ignore it. Do you want to talk about it?"

He sighed. "Not really."

A thought crossed my mind and I had to voice it. "Does it have anything to do with that phone call on the fourth of July?"

He gave me a long look and it was as if he could see past my face and my expression into my very core. Like he was dissecting me. It wasn't an entirely unpleasant feeling.

"Yeah," he said finally, "it was."

"An old girlfriend?" Selfishly, I was worried that all of the cues I'd seen and that my friends had pointed out to me were misinterpreted, and that there was some mystery girl that Zach's thoughts were wrapped up in. As much as I tried to stifle it, a sudden surge of jealousy rose up in me like some sort of grotesque monster.

And then as quickly as it rose, it was stomped down with Zach's next words. "God, no." He glanced over at me again. "It's nothing like that. It's just...complicated."

"Believe me," I said, "I know complicated."

He smirked at me, but it was half-hearted. "I don't doubt you on that."

We passed a few moments in silence, and I began to think that was the end of the conversation when he spoke again.

"The person on the phone was my mom."

He said it quietly as if he almost wished I wouldn't hear him, but I did. I watched his profile for some idea of what he was thinking, but his face was like stone; it carried no expression at all.

And then I realized I'd never thought about where Zach's parents were before. It was just him and his sister, Abby, and the two of them worked so well as a team that the idea of anyone else being in the picture seemed almost wrong. I guess part of me had assumed that his parents were gone - not like my dad was, but gone gone, in the kind of way that there was no return from.

"I'm guessing from your silence that you thought my parents were dead." His voice was blunt but not unkind.

"Well, yeah. Kind of."

He turned his face to me. It was still guarded, but his eyes sparked with amusement. "Kind of? How can you 'kind of' think someone is dead?"

I shrugged. "I hadn't really given your parents much thought. It feels stupid now that I didn't, but you and Abby just click. It seems natural for it to just be the two of you."

"It is natural," he said, "but only because it's just been the two of us for a while."

Something about the way he said the words made me take another, longer look at him. His tone was light but strained, like he'd had to force himself to not sink into a dark mood when he said the words. And his eyes...they were like mine.

And that's when I realized that the connection I had with Zach wasn't coincidental or based on some superficial, physical attraction. It was because he had the same look in his eyes that I saw in the mirror every day. It was the look of someone who knew what it meant to feel abandoned, to feel alone, to feel lost. It was the look of someone who had had the entire world ripped out from under them and had put the pieces of that life back together bit by bit.

Now, like a light had been turned on in a pitch dark room, I could see the recognition in his eyes. He felt our connection too and knew what it meant, perhaps had always known.

Like me, Zach had been left behind by a parent.

He spoke now without any prodding from me. Now that he had begun his confession, it was like he couldn't stop.

"She isn't the most stable person. It's gotten worse over the years but the past few months have been particularly bad. I'm eighteen now so Abby isn't technically my guardian anymore so Catherine - my mom - has been trying to meet with me. It's part of the reason we moved here - to try and get away from her but somehow she got my number.

"I'm just worried she'll show up in town."

"Would it be bad if she did?" The worried look in his eyes was the only answer necessary for that question. Yes, it would be very bad.

Part of me didn't understand why Zach wouldn't want a relationship with his mother. Despite all of my denials, I knew that if my dad came back into my life wanting to get to know me, I would latch onto the opportunity and not let go. I'd let go of whatever anger I still bore him just for a chance to be loved by him again.

"My mother is difficult to explain."

I gave him an encouraging smile. "Take your time."

For the next hour, Zach went on to tell me all about his childhood, neither of us paying attention to the summer heat that filled the car. He told me how his mother had been a stewardess for a private jet company and had met his dad while he was flying for a business trip. How she'd fallen madly in love with him and had gotten pregnant shortly after their relationship began. How his dad had settled the two of them in Ohio. How his dad would visit every couple of weekends because work kept him traveling most of the year. How when he was seven his mother had decided to surprise his father in Chicago.

And how his mother and Zach had been the ones surprised when they walked into his father's work gala and met his wife and sixteen-year-old daughter.

"She'd been with the man for eight years and knew nothing about his double life." Zach said. "After that, things deteriorated pretty quickly."

Catherine demanded his father, Edward, divorce his wife and choose her instead. Edward refused. Catherine then demanded Edward take responsibility for his son. Edward refused. He didn't want custody. He already had a family and was respected in his community. Taking in his bastard son would have ruined his reputation and damaged his career.

"What did his wife do?"

Zach shrugged. "Stayed with him. Their relationship isn't based on love so much as convenience."

"What about Abby? How did you end up with her if - if your dad.."

"Didn't want me?" He said bluntly, and I nodded. "She got in touch with me just after my parents cut all ties." He said, like he was reliving a fond memory. "She's always been a bit of a rebel."

Apparently, Abby refused to follow her and Zach's father's example of shunning his kin. She sought out Zach and kept in touch with letters and the occasional visit.

When she went to college she chose to go to Ohio State to be closer to Zach which was when she became aware of how bad Zach's home life had gotten.

Since the split with Zach's father, Catherine had become increasingly unmanageable and irrational. "After a series of unpleasant events, Abby started legal proceedings to get me out of there."

"Unpleasant events?"

He shook his head. That was something he was definitely not ready to share with me. He continued his story.

"Abby was only nineteen by that point but she had a trust fund from Edward and a clean record. Plus, she was a blood relative and she wanted me." He smiled a little, and almost instinctively, I reached over and grabbed his hand. He laced our fingers together, placing our intertwined hands on the console between us. "The court gave her guardianship over me and it's just been the two of us ever since. There was a short time a couple years back when Edward gave us some grief and threatened to split us up, but it sorted itself out."

"Wow."

"'Wow'? I tell you my life story and all you can say is 'wow'?" I could tell he was joking with me by the smirk on his mouth.

"You weren't lying when you said it was complicated." I responded. "You make my story sound like Green Eggs and Ham in comparison to The Fountainhead or something. I mean what's one negligent dad compared to a negligent dad and a cuckoo mother and custody battles."

I was worried he'd be offended by my unfortunate use of the phrase 'cuckoo mother' but it didn't seem to bother him. "I doubt the contrast between our stories is that extreme."

I waved my hand away. "So, my dad fell in love with another woman and left to be with her. That's pretty much the gist of it."

Zach gave me a hard look, and I sighed. "It was - is - painful. I used to be really close with my dad, and then he got his new job and stopped coming home as much until he was rarely coming home at all." I bit my lip as I felt myself starting to tear up. I would not cry over this. Zach had just confessed his entire sordid childhood to me without shedding a tear.

I didn't want him to think I was weak.

"In hindsight, I probably shouldn't have been surprised when he said he was leaving, but I was. He was my dad." My voice was trembling despite my best efforts and I looked away from Zach's attentive face. Instead, I looked down at our hands, still clasped together on the console.

He brought his free hand up to my cheek. "Hey, Cam," he said. His voice was soft. "It's okay to cry about this you know. I cried a lot, too."

I snorted, disbelieving. "Right."

"I did." He insisted. "I don't anymore because I've come to terms with it all. Abby helped a lot with that. I was kind of her guinea pig when she was perfecting her psych skills."

I flicked my eyes up to meet his again. "Really?"

He nodded. "It's hard, but talking about it helps. It's cathartic. The way I see it, knowledge puts this incredible pressure on us, and sometimes sharing what we know lessens that burden."

It made sense the way he explained it. I had felt like this enormous weight was lifted when I'd had my discussion with Abby just a few days ago and again when I'd reconciled with Macey. I smiled at Zach.

"Well, thank you then, for thinking me worthy to help carry your burden."

"Any time."

My eyes were locked with his. It was like they were magnetized and I couldn't - didn't want to look away. And then I was leaning in and so was he. There were only inches between our faces, and I knew what was happening and the voice in the back of my mind that told me this was wrong - I was technically still with Josh - was but a whisper in the wind. I wanted Zach to kiss me more than I could ever remember wanting Josh to kiss me before.

But in the end, it didn't really matter what I wanted. At the last minute, Zach altered his course and instead of kissing me on the lips like I desired, he placed a kiss on my forehead, letting his mouth linger there.

"Wha -?"

"I'm not going to kiss you now." He said. His voice was resigned but determined. "I'll admit, I want to, but I won't."

I frowned. "Why not?"

He ran his thumb along the back of my hand. "I think we both know the answer to that, Cammie."

And we did. The answer was Josh, my bedridden soon-to-be-ex-boyfriend. But just because I was planning to break up with didn't make it okay to kiss another boy.

Zach laughed a little and pulled away from me, putting as much space between us as the compact car allowed. "Cock-blocked by a technicality. That burns."

He smirked at me, and I bit back a laugh of my own.

"I should probably go, then." I said, placing my hand on the door handle.

He nodded. "Probably. I know how hard it is for you to resist me."

"Don't get cocky, now."

"I'm only speaking facts here. I'm seem to recall several occasions where you swooned at the sight of me."

We'd both exited the car now, and I was backing away across our lawns towards my front door while he headed to his. "No one says 'swoon' anymore. And you knocked me over both times."

"So you admit you fell for me?" He called from across the distance of our lawns. He had a wide grin on his face, the serious atmosphere from our earlier conversation having dissipated.

I smiled back. "Yeah, I guess I did."

Thoughts? Comments? Questions? Feelings?

- And I know, I know. I'm a tease that won't let the lovebirds kiss. I guess I better have a pretty epic kiss planned if I'm gonna hold out on you this long, huh?