Without You

Zach doesn’t want to answer his front door, but the knocker is persistently determined and has been knocking continuously for the past ten minutes. With Cam already headed to school by this time, and Cadey no doubt at work, he is mystified at whom it could be, and curiosity eventually gets the better of him.
Ready to send the person away, he keeps his gloves on, and makes his way to the door.
When he sees his mother on the other side of it, he can’t decide whether he feels happy about the fact that it’s her, or angry.
“Zach,” she smiles. “Good to see you finally heard me knocking. I just came to talk to you about-”
“Now isn’t really a good time Mom,” he interrupts her, wiping sweat from his brow with the back of his arm, emphasising the fact that he is in the middle of something.
“Oh right, training. Staying in condition. You know sometimes during off season I forget that you have to keep working. Well, this is kind of important so how about you continue and I’ll just run it past you as you…do your thing.”
Zach can’t think of much worse than trying to box and having his mother talking to him about something, breaking his focus, but he can’t really kick her out. He walks back through to the gym room and she follows, taking a spot on the bench press seat to be out of the way.
Zach goes back to work, throwing his fists at the bag, pounding it as he had been doing before, imagining Jackson’s face on the bag as he landed each blow. When he had woken this morning he had still felt the awkward anger that engulfed him last night after his introduction to Jackson. The boxing work out wasn’t for hockey, not for conditioning, it was an outlet for his frustration. Jackson seemed nice, and got along well with Cam, but it still made Zach’s skin crawl. In all of the time since Cameron had been born, Cadey had not had a boyfriend, or at least not one that Zach had met. Though it had crossed his mind plenty of times in those years that she could have somebody, Zach had never known for sure, not like last night, and so this was his first encounter with this jealously and possessiveness in regards to her. He wants her to be happy, but not with Jackson.
As his fists slam the bag his mother watches with interest, but doesn’t forget why she has made the visit. “So, there is this group coming into town next-”
“Why didn’t you tell me about Jackson?” Zach cuts in sharply.
“Pardon?”
He heaves his fist one more time and then stands back, his chest rising and falling quickly with the effort. “Cadey’s boyfriend,” he elaborates. “Why didn’t you tell me about him?”
Donna looks shocked, and then ashamed. “I’m sorry Zach, I just…..I didn’t think it was important. You never asked so it just never came up.”
“So because I never asked you just didn’t think it was important? That it doesn’t matter that the mother of my child has boyfriend? You know he seems to spend a lot of time with Cam and I know nothing about him.” Zach drops his gaze bitterly, fiddling with the Velcro on his gloves. “He could be a serial killer or anything.”
“Zachary,” his mother both scolds and softens him with one tone. “I’m sorry that I never mentioned it, but that is no way to speak about him. He’s a very nice man. I understand that it’s an awkward situation, but you know Cadey would never bring someone in to Cam’s life that isn’t worthy or that is a bad role model.”
“How do you know anything about him?”
Donna bows her head guilty and Zach feels his blood pressure rise again. “Oh, this should be great,” he scoffs.
“Cadey introduced us at one of Cameron’s soccer games. You know that she has always included us in all things to do with Cam, so she wanted us to meet him to make sure we knew who Cam was spending time with. He is a very good man Zach.”
Donna makes her way to him, trying a different approach, knowing she has hurt his feelings with the inadvertent secrecy. “I know that it’s hard to see Cadey with someone else, especially with Cam involved. She is ‘the one that got away’, I get it. But honey, you have to accept that this is how things are now. It’s been years Zach; did you really think she just wouldn’t ever date anyone else?”
Zach bit hard on his lip. Did he really think she wouldn’t ever date anyone else? No. Did he hope? Yes.
In all the summers that he had come back to visit Cam, things between he and Cadey had been civil and friendly, no confusion over the fact they were not together. There had been no dating or kissing or anything romantic like that since the end of ‘their summer’. While Zach found it hard to walk that line with her and not fall back in to all their feelings, he knew that things between the two of them hadn’t worked out for a reason. He always wanted to give things with Cadey another shot, but he was constantly stopped by reality. If she would never move to New Jersey, how would they ever work?
And that was presuming she felt the same way, which, after meeting Jackson, was evidently not the case.
Zach knows his mother is right. It’s already so rude of him to burden Cadey with the full responsibility of a child, who does he think he is to tell her who she can or can’t date or expect her to wait for him?
His body burns with even more anger, this flush more directed at himself.
“You don’t have to like him, no one is asking for that, but he is a fixture in Cam’s life and the way that you relate to him will impact on Cam. Seeing him and Cadey together is just something you will have to deal with,” Donna adds, her heart in a caring place.
It makes Zach want to scream. Out of all the havoc the situation has been wreaking in his mind since last night, none of it centred on the fact that he would at some stage more than likely bare witness to Jackson touching Cadey and kissing her, more than he had last night, and Zach just doesn’t know if he will be able to handle that.
His favourite time of the year is always the time he gets to spend with both Cam and Cadey, feeling as close to a family as possible, and he doesn’t like the thought of having to deal with Jackson possibly invading that.
Not really one for possessions, Zach has offered every trophy ever earned by him to his parent’s cabinet, his houses and his car the only things he really felt ownership of.
Except Cadey. That summer, he had felt like they were each others, concretely. The time they spent together, the affection they had and that they showed, had caused them to grow to be parts of each other, beneficial attachments. No matter where they had been, be it hanging out with friends, at dinner with their parents or simply by themselves, Zach had spent that summer calling Cadey his, and loving been addressed as ‘hers’. Though they had broken up, that feeling had never faded. But now, now it was clear that she was in fact someone else’s. She was Jackson’s.
And he doesn’t know if he can handle that. Handle seeing Jackson touch her; keep his cool while watching Jackson kiss her.
Just the thought of it now makes him want to vomit violently or punch something again.
It’s clear to him that being in a tight vicinity to both Jackson and Cadey isn’t going to be appropriate for him this summer if he wants to set a good example for Cam.
Donna watches Zach with interest as he thinks everything over. “Do you still love her Zach? Is this really what this is about; are you still in love with her?”
“What does it even matter?”
“It matters Zach, it matters a lot. Cadey loves you too, I know she does. And you know that your father and I have always wished that things would have worked out for the two of you, but you can’t do this to her. If you love her, if you still really love her, then you have to choose Zach. You have to decide whether you’re prepared to give her up for good or to be honest with her and try to make it work.”
Zach had never known his mother to lie to him, and didn’t expect her to start now. Her answer was honest; she had it on her own good perceived authority that Cadey still loved her son. It was clear in her eyes every time Zach’s name was mentioned and obvious in the way of which she spoke of him.
They might have been young when they first fell in love, but it was plain, to at least Donna, that their connection had withered the test of time and separation, even if they weren’t together as a couple. It seemed improbable for Cadey to be able to reopen wounds every single summer to Zach if she didn’t still care for him.
Zach took this on board and got to thinking. He was right, Cadey wasn’t his anymore, but boy did he want her to be. His mother was right too though, it isn’t fair to her -he has to make a choice.

When Cadey comes over that afternoon to pick up Cameron from him after work, Zach takes the opportunity to show her Cam’s drawing, pride of place on his refrigerator.
“He drew it the night we argued before the movies,” Zach explains. “He said that he wants to have a family dinner like his friend Dustin does. Apparently they eat together and say a grace, though Cam did specify that he would like to skip that part, because he gets too hungry before dinner.”
Cadey’s mouth laughed at the comment, but her eyes were miserable.
In all his years of life, Cam dealt with his fathers absence particularly well. Besides the moodiness in the wake of Zach’s departure, there were no angry outbursts or issues with men or hatred and confusion or anything. He had never expressed any desire to have the norm of his friends, and seeing this picture, hearing how he had asked Zach for a special ‘family’ dinner, made her feel wreaked with guilt.
Zach sees a tear slip from her eye. “Cade, what’s wrong?”
“Are we terrible people, Zach? Are we bad parents?”
“What? Cade, no. No way,” he consoles, “Why would you think that?”
She takes a seat on a near by bar stool and points to the picture. “That’s obviously what he wants Zach. He wants his Mom and his Dad and him together in one house, having dinners and being a normal family.”
“Then why don’t we give him that?” Zach proposes. “You guys can come over tomorrow night and I’ll cook and we will have a family dinner.”
“Don’t be silly Zach, you can’t cook.”
Zach laughs, “No, no I can’t. But I can get Mom to come over and help me, though in return we might have to let her tape the event so that she can watch and re-watch it continuously.”
He hands Cadey the box of tissues on his bench counter. “You would do that?”
He nods. “Of course. I’ll do anything for you and Cam and especially anything that centres on the three of us spending some time like that together. You guys are my family Cade.”
Cadey wipes her eyes and thinks about it. “How about I take the first one? Cam’s got practise after school tomorrow, but after that I will cook and you can come over. That way you won’t have to bargain with your Mom and it will just be the three of us.”
“That sounds perfect.”