Chapter Eight West #2
She doesn’t sound much more self-assured when she finally continues.
“I’ve wanted to talk to you about something, which I guess begins with saying I…
I want us to talk again in general. Like, to be on speaking terms, because I get the sense there’s some stuff we need to talk about at some point.
And I know I’ve given you mixed messages about what I want from you, or for us, but I’ve decided—final answer—I’m…
open. To friendship, or trying it, at least. If you’re not opposed. ”
Did she do this on purpose? Lure me in here with the ol’ fear-of-showers ploy, then challenge me to not make a Thing out of the objectively weird activity of simultaneous bathing, then wait until I’m as trapped as possible—shampoo-covered head and all—to force a conversation about our friendship?
More likely she’s flying by the seat of her pants right now. The pants dangling over the shower curtain a few yards from where I stand.
I finish rinsing the suds from my head before answering. She can afford to sweat just a little.
“I should be opposed, given the circumstances under which you’ve decided to have this chat—”
“Don’t you go making it weird, Weston—”
“I think if we surveyed a hundred people, Family Feud–style, ninety-nine would agree that you are the one responsible for the present weirdness. And the hundredth just misunderstood the question.”
“Okay, fine, but are you opposed or not?” Cammie asks, sounding awfully impatient for someone who plans to be showering for at least another ten minutes. “Because there was a part two to what I wanted to discuss. Pending part one going well.”
The snap of a bottle cap punctuates her sentence. I turn my water off, cutting the background noise in half, and wrap my towel around my waist before replying at a less shout-y volume. “I don’t know if I’d say it’s gone well, but—”
“West!”
A smile curves my lips, part amused at myself but a bigger part happy just to be here, smelling Cammie’s apple shampoo as it permeates the increasingly steamy air, feeling a semblance of the comfortable dynamic I’ve missed so much.
“I would love to try friendship again, Cam. Please proceed to Item Two on your shower confrontation agenda.”
“I—Okay, great, yes. That’s good to hear.” I’m certain her face is bright red right now, and it only makes my smile grow while I continue to dry off and get dressed in my dinner clothes. Cammie’s next words come out in a rush, like she’s exhaling the confession in one go.
“I’ve been working on something behind my mom’s back. Something more than a few surprise party guests.”
I pause in the middle of opening my shower curtain. She can’t see the flat look I aim in her direction, but I’m sure she hears it in my voice.
“Yeah, no shit.” Despite the surface-level sass, I feel a knot of worry somewhere deep in my gut. I wonder if I’m about to wish this revelation had come before I opted in to potential friendship. Still, I soften my tone when I press, “What is it, Cammie?”
I could have been given a hundred guesses, and I seriously doubt I would have gotten to the truth, which she offers with barely a space for a single breath.
“I’m trying to find my dad.”
This time, my shampoo bottle does escape my grasp. I scramble to catch it, the clatter of hollow plastic across tile absurdly loud, and toss it into my shower caddy with its better-behaved friends. Then I stand in astonished silence, wishing there was a simple response to what Cammie just dropped.
“You’re…What do you mean by ‘trying’?” is the best I come up with.
Amid intermittent splatters of water, bottles opening and closing, and a whole fruit salad’s worth of soapy aromas wafting out from her stall, she proceeds to tell me about Dr. Alex’s journal from her first year in Italy, with all the friendships, flings, relationships, dramas, adventures, and pictures contained within.
How she found it, and her list of all the initials of its characters, which she’s cross-referencing with the help of Dr. Constantini’s list and some other names she’s combed from her bootleg version of his files.
I have to lean against the tile wall by the doorway, overwhelmed by the whole tale.
“I know it’s possible he’s not still in this area—I mean, there are a lot of variables here that could be totally off.
But I have more to work with now than I ever have, and in a way, I feel like I need to know more than I ever have.
So…” She pauses, letting what sounds like a bucket full of water crash to the tile floor, and it’s an effort not to let myself consider what on earth she’s doing in there.
In the subsequent quiet, her soft voice concludes, “I have to give it a shot.”
I’m gritting my teeth against the impulse to declare the whole thing a terrible idea—to encourage her to have an honest conversation with her mother, grown-up to grown-up, and get the answers.
But on the other hand, I’m not Cammie. She and I have always operated differently, and I can’t know what it’s like to be in her position.
I grew up with double the father figures, after all.
Dad and Pops had me a few months before Dr. Alex had Cammie, and I was very much planned for.
Even though they’re separated now and that’s all complicated, I’ve always known I have two parents who wanted me, who love me and are there for me.
I can’t imagine how it would feel to know one half of the duo who made me fled the scene before my life had even begun.
Still…how does this end in any way except with Cammie’s heart getting broken?
“I don’t know about this one, Cam,” I hedge, once again recognizing the strangeness of discussing this while only one of us has clothes on.
I try to block that thought out and refocus on the issue at hand.
“It sounds like it could be really hard on you, whether you find him or not. And what happens when your mom finds out? Surely you couldn’t keep it from her forever, or even if you tried, he might reach out to her. And then—”
“Yeah, I’m not dumb,” she shoots back. “I know it could be hard and he still might not want anything to do with me. But I feel like that’s not completely his choice anymore.
” Her words slow, like she’s piecing together her thoughts as she vocalizes them over the ongoing flow of water.
“Like, I’m an adult now, and just because he doesn’t want to know anything about me doesn’t mean I don’t get to know anything about him, right?
How is that fair? Relationships should be a two-way street.
And I guess so far, the street hasn’t existed at all.
But I don’t want it to stay this big empty spot in my history and my biology and everything forever.
Maybe I’ll find out who he is, and it’ll be someone I want nothing to do with, but at least I’ll know.
I’ll understand this whole half of my background that has always been a question mark.
I feel like that understanding will be worth it. ”
Something about her words starts an itch in the back of my brain.
The Cammie I knew before was not someone who felt incomplete.
She always seemed to know herself better than anyone I’ve met, never let on that she felt anything amiss in her life or family makeup.
She was confident, self-assured, and, from my perspective, a complete and completely wonderful person.
The prospect that something has shaken that sense of self makes me almost sadder than her absence from my life the last few years.
But I suspect she’s nearing her vulnerability limit for one talk.
Hell, I should be grateful she’s even shared this much.
I should take this chance for what it is and support her how I can, even if the possible outcomes make me feel the need to double up on virtual therapy this week.
That’s precisely why I should support her, so she’s not alone if or when it all blows up.
Still, the words stay trapped in my throat, anxiety choking them out.
Especially when she adds, “So anyway, I could use your help. Mom clearly isn’t cool with me gallivanting across Italy by myself, and having you along on my Dad Quest could get her off my back.”
“You sure know how to make a guy feel wanted,” I mutter.
Finally, the spray of the shower cuts off, and I know for certain I’m keeping Dad waiting.
Time to wrap this up, one way or another.
On the other side of the curtain, a huffy breath precedes a series of splatters, several more of those small buckets of water spilling onto the floor.
Have alternative energy scholars studied the hydroelectric potential of hair like Cammie’s, post-wash?
Annoyance colors Cam’s voice when she replies, “Well, it’s not like you seemed to enjoy yourself last time we went somewhere. You couldn’t run away from me fast enough, the first chance you got.”
Maybe if I had a few more minutes, I’d tell her what really made me leave her in Naples—open the window to my mental health situation a little wider, in the interest of this renewed friendship thing we’re trying. But my feet are restless in these rubber flip-flops, itching to be on the move.
Already backing toward the door, I say, “I think we should keep talking about this later, but my dad is waiting for me downstairs. So…”
I hear the tinny sound of the shower curtain being jerked open, but I’m already around the corner, opening the door to the hall.
“So you’re running away again?” Cammie calls, and the ratio of real to fake irritation in her voice is unclear.
“Not running away,” I say back with purposeful lightness. “Running toward a pizza with my name on it. Later, neighbor.”
Italian pizza is, without a doubt, some of the best food I’ve had anywhere in the world. So it’s beyond a shame that I’m barely able to eat half of my margherita pie at dinner, my stomach too unsettled by Cammie Lovett and all the chaos that comes with her to handle any more.
This girl will not ruin pizza for me.