Chapter Sixteen West #2
If I hadn’t left them back in my room, I would pop one of my anxiety pills right now, the ones I take when I feel my panic worsening before it gets to full-on attack phase.
The same thing that would have helped that first time Cam and I went to Naples, if I wasn’t always forgetting to keep them on me.
Okay, I tell myself, you don’t have to let things go there. You’re not the same guy you were three years ago. You can do better this time around. And where does that start? Communication!
“All right, I give up,” Cammie says, abruptly reclaiming my focus as she jumps off the bottom step down into the Villa di Bronzo entrance and spins to face me. I follow cautiously, my chest tightening. Was I too busy worrying about losing her to notice that I already have?
“What do you mean?” My voice shakes and she must hear it, because her determined gaze softens as she studies my face.
“On waiting for you to tell me what’s wrong instead of me having to ask. I was trying not to pry, but I forgot nosiness is kind of a core feature of my personality. As is impatience. So what’s going on?”
I open my mouth to answer, planning for half a second to deflect or claim all is peachy. But my better instincts prevail, along with my inner voice yelling, We JUST talked about this, dumbass—take the opening!
On a sigh, I let out the words, “I think we should talk about our fight again.”
“Oof,” is Cammie’s answer as she rocks back on her heels and scrunches her nose. “That’s one way to follow the most romantic night of my life.”
“Same.” I take a step closer and reach out my hand.
Thankfully, she accepts and laces our fingers together.
“I mean, it was for me, too, which is why I’m so in my head today.
Because that’s the kind of high I felt last time, only to absolutely wreck it the next day.
I know we worked through why we stopped talking, but I don’t think I’ve totally explained what led to our fight in the first place.
And maybe doing that can help me—help us—avoid repeating history. ”
Cam’s blue eyes are wide and wary, but she doesn’t break their contact with mine and gives my hand a squeeze. “Okay, then, let’s dig into it. Walk and talk?”
We’re stopped in a high-traffic spot, a group from the field school approaching to take the stairs up, so I nod and let Cammie lead the way.
“I won’t take you to the penis fresco room,” she says over her shoulder as we start on a dirt path around the perimeter of the villa. “But remind me to tell you about Mom not giving me that same courtesy.”
That earns a bigger laugh than I’ve had all day. “I don’t know if I want to know.”
“That’s probably not the label they use for it on the villa map. Here, I think if we go this way…”
We enter the building through a well-preserved doorway, designed in a style I’m sure most of the people in the vicinity could identify, but I am not one of them.
After a couple more turns, we’re at one end of an elegant, black-and-white-tiled walkway that runs the length of a long, open courtyard.
At least a few dozen columns divide the formerly indoor space from the outdoors, and while I imagine they were once identical, they’re now a range of different heights and states of disrepair.
“This is one of my favorite spots, I think,” Cam says, voice soft with reverence as her eyes scan the space. “I like to imagine philosophers, or other important people in togas and leather sandals, taking a stroll around the courtyard, discussing…I don’t know, the meaning of life?”
I can’t help but grin, watching her light up from this place that inspires her. I play along: “Or maybe, ‘Hey, should we be concerned about the smoke coming out of that big mountain?’ ”
She tries to shoot me an admonishing look, but I see the laugh she’s holding in.
“You always have to take it to the darkest place, huh?” She shakes her head and starts walking again, still holding my hand.
All we’re missing are the togas. “All right, you have the floor. Let’s unbury this hatchet so we can get to the reburying and, more importantly, more kissing. ”
Unable to resist, I brush a quick kiss to her temple before I straighten my spine and, with a deep breath, begin.
“You might remember a little of how I’d been struggling back then.
My anxiety was getting worse. I was having panic attacks—I tried to keep it all contained, but I’m sure you weren’t totally in the dark.
I’d come to hate all the upheaval, moving around to temporary homes for Dad’s work and constantly having to adapt to new environments.
I was desperate for some calm and stability, especially as we got into high school.
“My parents were struggling in their marriage, and that was hard on me, too. Between my issues and Pops kind of laying down an ultimatum, Dad felt like he had to compromise and let our family be together in one place for a while. So much was changing already, and I felt like I was spiraling out of control. Then there were these big feelings for my best friend.”
I chance a look at Cammie to find her eyes already on my face, mixed emotions swirling in their blue depths. She gives me a small, encouraging smile.
“You were the brightest part of an otherwise dark time for me, and my escape from everything stressful, and when it finally slipped out that you were feeling the same for me, it felt necessary to kiss you. I’ll never regret that—best first kiss ever, bar none.
” I let out a soft laugh, knowing even that much is an understatement.
“Then reality came crashing in—we were about to move, I’d be far away from you, my parents would still be fighting all the time, I’d still feel an elephant-sized pile of worry and fear weighing me down, and why did I ever think that at a time like this, I could handle the monumental privilege of becoming Cammie Lovett’s boyfriend? ”
“Oh, West,” Cammie says, voice soothing and sympathetic. “I wish I could give past you a hug. And that past me hadn’t gone raging bitch on him instead.”
I shake my head quickly. At the end of the courtyard, there’s a stone ledge that may or may not be a real bench, but I decide it’ll suffice and pull Cammie to sit alongside me there.
“That’s the thing—you couldn’t have known.
Because when I tried to explain my feelings without the heavier stuff, what came out was some nonsensical garbage about how I’d only kissed you as a friend, and couldn’t do a relationship, and other shit that ensured I sounded like an emotionless asshole instead of a dumb kid hanging on by a thread. ”
Cam lays her head on my shoulder. While I feel a wave of relief at off-loading those years-old burdens, I know they’re landing on her for the first time. She might need a moment to process.
“It all makes a lot more sense now,” she says after a lingering silence, both of us lost in these shared memories that looked so different until we each let the other see our version.
“Of course a part of me wishes you’d told me everything back then.
But I don’t know how much help I would’ve been.
I wasn’t exactly a beacon of maturity. So, while we both probably could’ve done without years of hurt and hostility toward each other”—she laughs, but her smile fades as she lifts her head to meet my gaze—“maybe everything happened as it was meant to, for us to end up here, together.”
I nod, struggling to swallow the lump of emotion in my throat.
Once I’m able to, I say, “It feels good, being able to tell you everything. I want to keep being this honest with each other, and I just—I’m in a much better place than I was three years ago, in so many ways.
But there’s still a lot of stuff in flux, a lot I’m figuring out in my life, and even though I manage it pretty well, anxiety comes out to bite me sometimes.
I want to be with you more than anything.
And I also feel this fear creeping in, that real life will get to be too much, and I’ll handle it terribly once again, and ruin what we have for good. ”
I’m holding my breath by the time I get all the words out. This is the exact kind of feeling I was trying to express last time, and I did it so badly that we stopped talking for three years.
But maybe this really is the time we get it right. Instead of putting distance between us, Cammie pulls me closer, both her hands cupping my face as she looks directly into my eyes.
“I want to be with you, too. And not because I think you’re the perfect guy with your entire life figured out, who will never have a bad day or get upset. Actually, I wouldn’t want to be with that guy, because I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I can be somewhat of a shitshow.”
Laughter bubbles up out of me and doesn’t subside until a couple tears are trailing down my cheeks. “You’re not a shitshow.”
“Somewhat,” she insists with a chuckle of her own. “But I love that you’re imperfect, and a work in progress, because I am, too. And I think you don’t want me to be all polished and perfect, either.”
I give her an exaggerated grimace. “Oh, uh, now that you mention it…”
“Uh-uh.” She sits back and wiggles a finger side to side in my face. “You missed your chance to be with someone perfect when you kissed me. No take-backsies.”
I bring my finger up and hook it around hers in midair, drawing her hand in to press my lips to her knuckles.
“Good,” I declare, brushing the word against her palm like a promise, then closing her fist to keep it safe.
Cammie leans in again and I meet her halfway in another perfect kiss with my imperfect girl. I wouldn’t take it back for anything.
After some time practicing our nonverbal communication skills, we come up for air—and remember why we came down to Villa di Bronzo in the first place.