He blows out a breath and drops his head into his hands. And Dawn can see how Cam’s lost weight and how skinny he looks and how his whole body shakes when he cries. And she knows he feels guilty, too.

After a few awkward minutes of Cam pretending he isn’t crying and Wendy dabbing her eyes and Dawn alternately feeling embarrassed and trying not to cry herself, Cam wipes his eyes with the back of his hand. He looks around the coffee shop and pushes back his chair. “I’m sorry,” he says again.

“I’ll let you two talk things out,” he says.

“I’ll just—I’ll wait outside.”

Chapter 138

CAM STANDS.

He puts his hand on Wendy’s shoulder and rests it there for a moment, and then he squeezes, and Wendy kind of leans into his hand, without looking at him, and it’s a tiny gesture, but Dawn can see how it comforts her mother.

She can see how her mother needs to be comforted.

And then Cam stands up straighter, and he smiles once at Dawn before he turns toward the door, but it’s a sad smile, kind of forced, like it actually really hurts him to have to walk away.

To have to leave Wendy when she’s in such a state.

And, maybe, to have to leave Dawn.

Dawn thinks about what Brielle said, up on the ridge, about how Dawn didn’t wind up in Out of the Wild because her dad died, or because Wendy met Cam. She thinks about how stupid she felt when she told Brielle her reasons and Brielle shot them down.

You’re here because you don’t know how to cope, Brielle said.

Because you chose drugs and some asshole named Julian instead of dealing with your feelings like an adult.

Dawn misses her dad. But that’s not Cam’s fault.

It’s not Wendy’s fault she found someone new.

Dawn knows this now, and maybe she always did. Maybe she’s just finally sick of pretending she doesn’t.

And Dawn tells herself this doesn’t mean anything, not yet. It doesn’t mean she has to listen to him, or that he’s replacing her father.

It doesn’t mean she has to go home to Sacramento.

(It doesn’t even mean she has to like Cam yet.)

She isn’t sure where they all go from here, and she’s not dumb enough to think all her problems are solved.

(They’re not.)

She’s not even sure she’ll be okay, not yet.

But Wendy sets down her Kleenex and reaches across the table and takes Dawn’s hand in her own, and it’s warm and familiar and good and comforting.

And Dawn doesn’t feel so alone, for once, and maybe that’s enough for now.