Chapter Nineteen Cammie
Chapter Nineteen
Cammie
Mysteries are much more fun when they don’t have anything to do with your real life.
That’s the conclusion I’ve come to after our short and not especially sweet meeting with Luca Goedhart.
After a few moments of standing there, taking in the what-the-fuck of it all, West deferred to me for the decision of what to do next.
A large part of me wanted to curl into a ball right then and there, on the bumpy streets of this ancient city as modern tourists surround us, to let out some pent-up stress tears that I think I’ve needed to release for a while.
But my dignity prevailed, the more sensible part of me deciding, hey, we don’t have to let this guy ruin what was previously a really cool day of exploring the world’s largest archaeological site.
There was still more I wanted to see of Pompeii, and I didn’t think I should let anything keep me from taking full advantage while I’m here.
So we continued on to the outer reaches of the park to the Villa dei Misteri, a name that I now think might be a little too on the nose for my current circumstances.
Where’s the Villa dei Very Clear-Cut Answers and Truths when I need it? It’s probably insensitive to make the major tragedy that took place here two thousand years ago about me and my problems. But that’s why these are inside thoughts, no matter how hard West tries to get them out of me.
He’s doing his best to give me space, I can tell, doesn’t want to force me to talk about my confusion and disappointment over what went down with Luca.
But I can read Weston Jacobs’s face like a book, and those troubled eyes stay pinned on me the rest of the afternoon, wide and worried and desperately wanting to pry into my thoughts.
I choose to focus on my new best friend, the audio guide to the park.
She tells me all about the mysterious frescoes that give this villa its name, and all the theories about what they depict—cults and Dionysian rituals and various gods and goddesses.
I try to imagine what it would have been like to be the first archaeologist to come across one of these paintings, to begin to realize what a massive treasure you were unearthing, so incredibly preserved for millennia.
My stomach flips. It’s how I’ve always felt when I’ve thought about Mom first discovering Villa di Bronzo, first putting together the pieces of what a gold mine she’d stumbled upon.
Until recently, I thought the fact that I was technically there with her, even as a tiny life-form that barely had a heartbeat, meant we’d shared the experience in a small way.
That it was embedded into the very makeup of who I am and no one could take that from me, just as they’re unable to take away my mom’s greatest professional achievement.
So why did I let that happen in the end—let my confidence, my certainty that I knew what I was meant for, be shaken by a little rejection? I guess the better question now would be, do I think I could get that back?
I allow myself to put off answering, instead enjoying the rest of my self-guided walk through the Villa dei Misteri, back down into the center of the park and around a few more of the fascinating structures that make up this sprawling city.
I also determinedly ignore West’s sympathetic eyes, sharing the best fun facts I learn from the audio with him, taking pictures of the two of us together as we cross back through the forum with the view of Vesuvius and the crumbling temple columns behind us.
I keep all the other stuff contained until we’ve left the park and started our unhurried journey back to Villa Russo, which includes a stop at a gelateria near the train station.
Normally on a hot day, something fruity sounds most refreshing to me, thirst-quenching while also sweetly delicious.
But today is a double-chocolate day, stracciatella and bacio—a chocolate hazelnut mix—one scoop of each stacked in a sweet, crispy cone.
West notices the change when we sit across from each other at a bistro table outside, the sun beginning to set over the bay in the distance.
“This is a departure for you,” he says, tone quizzical. He has, of course, opted for pistachio. I lick around the edges of the cone, where my gelato is just beginning to get drippy.
“Chocolate is for eating your feelings,” I say by way of explanation.
West hums as his tongue darts out to lick his own melting scoop. “So we’re acknowledging that we are having feelings now.”
I give him an affronted look. “You might recall that I have acknowledged my own feelings many times in recent history, West Jacobs, or did my pouring my heart out to you mean nothing?”
His lips flatten into an unimpressed line, a single, dark eyebrow raising as if to say, Yeah, yeah, now cut the shit.
“Okay,” I concede. “Yes, of course I’m having feelings.
But you better be sure you’re ready, because once I start letting them out, there’s no stopping the flow.
She and I are alike that way.” I gesture over my shoulder to the hulking presence of Mount Vesuvius in the distance, then at West’s grimace, tip my head and mimic his follow-up question to his own dark quips. “What, too soon?”
He takes a couple more licks before responding. “I’m trying to figure out if I’m supposed to push you to keep talking, or if it’s one of those occasions where laughing at your jokes is actually the best way to be here for you.”
I pause at his observation—such a thorough read of me, the kind no one else has ever been able to do. It really shouldn’t be the thing that finally makes me crack, tears filling my eyes to a blurry sheen before I even feel them coming on.
“Oh, Cam,” West says, and his hand takes mine across the table, holding it tightly. I hear the scrape of his chair legs across concrete as he moves in closer. “What did I say? I…I’m a dumbass. Don’t listen to me. Please, just don’t cry. Or do…whatever works for you right now.”
“I think…” I say in gasping breaths between sobs, the words disjointed and hiccup-y, “what I need…to do…is cry.”
“Okay,” West soothes, “okay, that’s good. That’s healthy, I think, not that I’d know, but I support it. Do you want me to get you a tissue, or napkins? I don’t know if there’s a farmacia open, but—”
“Just sit with me,” I warble, so he does, pushing his chair closer until it’s right beside mine.
I can’t even summon any embarrassment about being one of those couples who sit on the same side of the table, because I want his nearness.
Want his arm that comes around me, strong and warm and the perfect fit over my shoulders as he pulls me in to his side.
I want the soothing comfort of his lips as they press a kiss to the top of my head, then just stay there, every so often murmuring words of love and reassurance.
When my tears finally subside enough that I can form a sentence without sounding like I’m in respiratory distress, I turn my face up to look at West.
“I’m just feeling…lost, I think,” I admit in a small voice. “It isn’t only the huge fail that was that interaction with Luca, though it was kind of wild and does raise at least a dozen more questions that I don’t know I’ll get the answers to. But it’s…it’s everything.”
I finish off the last bit of cone that I’ve been sadly holding on to while I’ve cried, like it’s my emotional support gelato vessel, before I continue.
“I’ve been so head-down, full-speed-ahead, basically since the moment I stopped crying over my field school rejection. Which only happened when Mom invited me to come with her this summer, and I got this wild idea to find my dad. But from the start, it’s…it’s just been a distraction.
“I’ve used it to distract me from all the things that rejection made me feel, made me question about my worth, my purpose, my future.
I’ve treated it like this great mystery from someone else’s story, like it isn’t tangled up in a lifetime’s worth of my very personal, very messy feelings about the parent who didn’t want me.
But I was never going to be able to outrun all of that forever, was I? ”
West’s smile is sad, the extra tight squeeze he gives me his only answer to the question.
“I just want…” I begin, pausing for a sniffle and another beat to think through the end of that sentence. “I want to feel like I’m enough. Like I’m good and capable and…and someone worth keeping.”
“Cam, you are,” West murmurs, rubbing soothing circles on my back with one hand while the other grips me tight, like he’s worried I’ll slip away.
Like he very much intends to keep me. “You’re all of that and more.
I’ll tell you as much as you need to hear it, and help you figure out how to believe it for yourself.
But I promise it’s not tied to whether some snobby summer program makes a big, huge mistake not accepting you”—that gets a watery snort-laugh out of me—“or if you can track down some guy who might’ve contributed half your DNA twenty years ago, but hasn’t done a thing to deserve you in his sad, Cammie-less life. ”
I try to let the words sink in, to let them soothe the wounded parts of me, some of which have been here since the very beginning of my life but still feel fresh and painful.
After a few minutes of silence, holding each other while dusk descends and my tears dry up, West offers carefully, “And you know…you can still get your dad question answered, if that would help you find some peace.”
I give him a small, conciliatory smile as I begin to uncurl from shrimp posture and ready myself to face the world beyond West’s chest. “Yeah, I know,” I admit. “One of these days, I’ll work up the courage to ask her.”
He nods slowly. “There’s no rush, though. You’re allowed to do this on your own timeline. And whatever your parental situation, it doesn’t change the fact that you’re a complete—and completely wonderful—person.”
Emotion bubbles back up in my throat and I have to look away while I blink back the returning mistiness in my eyes.
“I mean, look at my life,” West continues. “I have two dads, no mom, and wouldn’t you say I’m just as whole and complete and also plenty fucked up as someone with two happily married heteros who raised them and their one-point-five siblings?”
I laugh, loud and surprising to us both, causing a couple straggler tears to slip out and roll down my cheeks. West reaches over and wipes them away with a gentle touch, an equally soft look in his eyes.
“You make a good point, Jacobs,” I say. When I meet his gaze, I hope he sees the same depth of affection and love reflected back at him, because I think maybe no one’s ever deserved it more. “You’re as completely wonderful as it gets.”
Slowly, giving me plenty of time to pull back if I’m not here for it, West brings his lips down to mine in a kiss that is sweet, lingering, and absolutely, ridiculously full of love. One that leaves me feeling like I’ve already found everything I needed this summer.