He swallows heavily, and my stomach, empty save for a few glasses of fizzy lemonade, roils in anticipation. “In turn, I caused hurt to others, the extent of which I am ashamed to say I did not begin to confront until this summer.”
“What did you do?” Dr. Alex asks through gritted teeth. She is barely tamping down her rising fury. A couple feet from her side, Goedhart looks similarly close to exploding, one fist clenched in front of his mouth, the other tucked against his side as his hard stare remains fixed on Gianmarco.
“I came across a letter that was meant for Dr. Goedhart. Dr. Lovett and he had been involved for a while, which was especially challenging for me, as both worked on the villa team, and therefore I had to see them together daily.”
“John Mark, I cannot tell you how much of a fuck I don’t give about how hard my dating life was onyou!” Dr. Alexshouts. “If you don’t fess up in the next thirty seconds, I swear, I know where a lot of sharp objects are located nearby, and—”
“The letter was informing Dr. Goedhart that you were carrying his child,” Gianmarco blurts out in one breath, promptly stealing the rest of ours.
Beside me, Cammie trembles. Her knees buckle, and I instinctively bring my arm around her to keep her upright.
“I found the letter, and in my heartache and wounded pride, I made an impulsive and selfish decision.”
“No,” Dr. Alex whispers, and it reverberates around us like she spoke into a megaphone. Her voice shakes, her hand doing the same as she brings it up to cover her mouth, before lifting it a couple inches to say, words thick with tears, “You…you told me he left, that it was because he didn’t want…didn’t want us.”
Luca paces a slow circle, his eyes wide and unseeing as he tries to reckon with the information. When he speaks, it’s like he doesn’t even remember the rest of us are here.
“He asked me to meet with him when I got to the villa one morning, then told me,” he says, voice gruff and even deeper than usual, “that you and he were expecting a child together. That…that you didn’t want to break my heart, so he’d offered to deliver the news for you. Like he was some kind of hero, for you and your—his—family you were starting.”
“And you believed him?” Dr. Alex cries, turning her anger on Luca.
He shouts back, “You believed I didn’t want you, or my own child! That I read your letter and just left without a word. Whatgives you the right to…I…I can’t fathom how—” He shoves both hands into his hair. “I was so in love with you, so sure I wanted to spend our lives together. I would have…We could have—”
The sobs that rack both of them fill the night air, and all at once, I feel like an intruder on this highly personal situation unfolding for the Lovetts and Luca. I look down at Cammie, now noticing that she, too, is shaking in my grasp, but her face is stoic. No tears, not even a wobble of her chin. I think she must be in actual shock, and justifiably so.
I feel helpless to do anything for her. The longer I stand here, in a space so heavy with the weight of secrets and lies, pain and heartache, my own shock has time to set in, mingled with the familiar creeping sensation of an anxious episode coming at me full force. But I can’t fall apart right now. Not when I need to be here for the girl I love on probably the hardest night of her life.
I don’t know when her shaking subsided and mine began, but both happened somehow, mine noticeable enough that while Dr. Alex, Russo, and Luca are still in an emotional maelstrom of shouting and furious tears, Cammie has the presence of mind and thoughtfulness to ask ifI’mokay.
She doesn’t deserve this. I don’t think I’ve ever hated my own anxiety more, nor felt less capable of handling it, handling anything. I mumble something about just being stunned, tell her I’m more concerned that she’s okay, because it is the truth, or part of it.
Because for the first time since we reconnected, I’m onceagain keeping the full extent of my emotions under wraps. Not because my feelings for Cammie have changed, or I don’t want to be with her anymore, but because I’m suddenly unable to turn off the voice in my head telling me that what I want and what she needs might not align so well after all.
Dad was the one to eventually suggest that we all give the Lovetts and Luca some space and time to talk, or whatever it is that people needed upon being newly reunited after a twenty-year separation that was due entirely to a supervillain’s meddling. It isn’t exactly a situation any of us are familiar with.
He and stand-in bouncers Paolo and Tony escorted a miserable Johnny Russo back up to his family villa, which we now know he received along with a massive inferiority complex, like a free gift with inheritance. The guy is a bigger piece of work than I ever would have thought possible.
Exhausted from the emotions and stress the evening brought on, it’s all I can do to return to my room and get ready for bed in a fog. I don’t anticipate hearing from Cammie again tonight, after she gave me the go-ahead to leave her with her mom and Luca. But I send a text to let her know I love her, and I’m in my room if she needs anything. I only hope, with a little rest, I’ll feel more capable of whatever she needs.
A very little rest, as it turns out. Some time later, I wake to a knock at my door. The sky is still as dark as it gets out my window, and I’m groggy enough that it couldn’t be anywherenear morning yet. I stumble across my dark room to see who it is.
I’m more than a little surprised to find Cammie on the other side, giving me a small, watery smile. Her eyes are bloodshot, her face cleaned of makeup, her hair transformed from its fancy updo to a simple braid, the pretty dress traded for pajamas. She’s still so beautiful, my chest aches from it.
“Hi,” she whispers. “I don’t need to talk it out or cry on you or whatever. I just…I don’t want to be alone right now. I mean, not just that, I want to be with you. Sleep next to you. Can I…?”
Realizing I’ve just been staring at her, in some sleepy state between dumbfounded and lovestruck, I step back to welcome her in. “Of course. That sounds perfect.”
And for the rest of the night, it is. I fall back into a deep, dreamless sleep with Cammie tucked up against me, my arms wrapped around her, breathing in the scent of her apple shampoo for blissful hours.
If only I hadn’t set an alarm.
“I’ll get it,” I hear Cammie murmur, still half asleep myself. A few seconds later, the irritating jingle goes silent.
A few seconds after that, enough that I’ve begun falling back into a deeper sleep, Cammie’s voice comes out louder and more alert. “West?”
“Hmm,” I sleep-speak.
The mattress depresses beside me and Cammie repeats, not as a question this time, “West.”
