Chapter Forty-One
I woke in a fog, stitched together by hospital-grade painkillers and something warmer, thicker—Cam’s hand wrapped around mine, gentle and immovable, as if to remind me that I was still alive and that he was determined to keep it that way.
The light in the bedroom was softer than I remembered, the edges of everything blurred, like the house was refusing to show its teeth.
My head throbbed, dull and insistent, but the bleeding had stopped.
Someone—Cam, probably—had cleaned the dried blood from behind my ear, combed the tangles from my hair, and found a way to tuck the bandage so it didn’t make me look like a head-trauma patient in a made-for-TV movie.
The first thing I registered was the smell: not antiseptic, but the faint, citrusy ghost of Cam’s aftershave and the lemon-vanilla detergent he used on the sheets after I’d left. I inhaled, surprised at how much of me wanted to recoil, and how much wanted to sink into the smell until I drowned.
Cam was asleep in the armchair that he’d pulled up close, a paperback crumpled in his lap, the cover bent back and flecked with crumbs from the sleeve of cookies on the side table.
His mouth was open slightly, and there was a crease on his cheek where he’d been using his hand as a pillow.
He looked younger this way, almost vulnerable, nothing like the man who had presided over this house with boardroom authority and a god complex about never being wrong.
I squeezed his hand. He jolted awake instantly, a twitch I recognized from a hundred mornings-after.
“Hey,” he said, voice rough with sleep but edged with alertness. “You need anything? Water? More Tylenol?”
I shook my head, regretted it. The room tilted, then steadied. “How long?”
He glanced at the clock, then back at me. “Two days. They wanted to keep you overnight, but you wouldn’t stay. You threatened to walk home, blood loss be damned.”
A laugh snuck out before I could stop it. “Sounds like me.”
He grinned, sheepish, and then his face fell serious. “They said you probably wouldn’t remember much about the hospital stay. How do you feel?”
I closed my eyes, did a slow inventory. Head pounding, jaw sore, ribs tight like I’d run a marathon with bricks for lungs. But the ache behind my eyes was the worst: a raw, tender spot that felt equal parts hangover and heartbreak.
“I’ve been better,” I said.
Cam nodded. He waited, patient as ever, for me to add more.
I took the glass of water he offered and sipped, letting the coolness pool under my tongue.
My gaze wandered the room: the walls were still that indecisive gray we’d argued about, but the bedspread was new, navy and clean, without the faded spots that marked our shared life.
The dresser was reorganized but the wedding photo still lingered on the shelf above the vanity. I looked at it a little too long.
Cam followed my eyes. “I meant to take that down,” he said, not quite apologizing.
“You don’t have to,” I said, and I meant it. If there was anything left between us, it was built on not pretending.
He let the silence fill in for a while, the way he always did. When he spoke, it was quiet, almost deferential. “Rachel brought you a bag. Clothes, books, your phone charger.”
“My phone’s dead,” I said, remembering the crunch of it under Nate’s heel.
He hesitated. “I’ll get you a new one. In the meantime, you’re under my protection, okay?”
I raised an eyebrow. “Like witness protection?”
“Exactly.” He managed a smile, but I could see the steel underneath. “No one’s going to hurt you, Livi. Not ever again.”
For a second, the promise was so real I wanted to believe it. But I knew better. There was no such thing as safe; there was only the next best thing.
I set the glass down and tried to shift upright. Pain flared behind my temple, but I gritted through it. Cam hovered, hands out but careful not to touch unless invited. It was new, this caution. I wondered if it came from therapy, or just the realization that he didn’t own my pain anymore.
We made it to the kitchen without incident.
Cam had set up a little recovery station at the island: Gatorade, bananas, a rotation of protein bars.
There were flowers in a thrift store vase and a stack of magazines, most of them car or tech related, but also a vintage issue of Vogue, a nod to the part of me he remembered best.
I tried to read his face, see what he was really feeling.
Guilt, yes—he wore it like a second skin—but also something else, a steadiness that hadn’t been there before.
He made coffee, the good kind, the way I liked it.
When he handed me the mug, he kept his fingers loose around the handle, like he knew I might not take it.
“Thank you,” I said.
He poured himself a cup and joined me at the island. For a while, we didn’t say anything. The quiet felt like an old blanket, scratchy but comforting.
Cam broke first. “I want you to know that I’ve been working on things. Myself, I mean.” He sipped, took a breath. “I go twice a week. Sometimes three, if the nightmares get bad.”
I nodded, unsure what to do with the information. “Is it helping?”
He looked down at his hands, considered. “I think so. I mean, I haven’t fixed everything, but… I can see it, now. How I let things get so fucked up.”
I wanted to tell him it wasn’t just his fault, but I didn’t have the energy.
He glanced at me, then at the window over the sink. “You don’t have to stay. I mean—if you want to leave, I can call Rachel, or Jackson. Or I can book you a hotel. Whatever you need.”
I looked at him, really looked, and saw the truth of it: he didn’t want me to go, but he wasn’t going to stop me, either.
“I’ll stay,” I said. “Just for a couple days. Until my head stops spinning.”
He smiled, just barely, and the relief was obvious. “Of course. I’ll… I’ll try to stay out of your way.”
We spent the morning in separate orbits.
Cam made phone calls in the study, his voice muffled but calm.
I found my way to the den, curled up in the corner of the couch, and watched the street outside as the world continued without me.
It was snowing again, fine and dry, the kind of snow that covered all the ugly things without hiding them.
Around noon, Cam came in and set a bowl of soup on the coffee table.
He’d remembered to cut the carrots small, the way I liked.
He didn’t hover; just left it there and went back to his business.
I ate, one slow bite at a time, and let myself feel cared for, even if it was just muscle memory on his part.
I tried to stand later, to clear the bowl myself, but the room lurched. Cam caught me at the elbow, steadying me without squeezing. He kept his hand there a beat too long, then let go. I saw him notice the bruise on my wrist—Nate’s last gift—and his jaw tightened, but he didn’t comment.
We spent the afternoon watching TV, neither of us really watching. The old rhythms reasserted themselves: Cam handling the remote, me wrapped in the blue fleece blanket, feet tucked under me for warmth. Every now and then, he’d glance over, as if to confirm that I was still there.
I dozed off at some point, waking to find him reading the divorce packet at the kitchen table. The envelope was open, the signature line still blank. He had a pen out, but it sat untouched, a threat and a promise all at once.
I watched him from the hall, unseen. He read every page, careful and deliberate. When he reached the end, he ran a hand through his hair and closed the folder, setting it gently to the side. He didn’t sign. He didn’t even pick up the pen. Just left it there, visible and unresolved.
It should have bothered me, the way he left our ending open. But instead, it felt like the most honest thing either of us had done in years.
Later, when he found me awake, he tried to act casual. “Do you need anything else? More Tylenol?”
I shook my head. “I’m good.”
He nodded, hovering in the doorway. “Livi?”
“Yeah?”
He hesitated, a long moment. “I meant what I said. About protecting you. But if you need space… I get that, too.”
I looked at him, really looked, and realized that he was waiting for me to tell him what to do. For the first time, the choice was actually mine.
“I just want to sleep,” I said. “Maybe tomorrow, we can talk.”
He smiled, a real one this time. “Deal.”
I lay awake for a while, staring at the ceiling, listening to the sounds of the house: the click of the baseboard heat, the soft thud of Cam’s footsteps, the distant murmur of the TV. It should have felt like a prison, but it didn’t. Not anymore.
I drifted off thinking about the unsigned papers on the kitchen table, about all the things that had changed and all the things that hadn’t. It wasn’t a happy ending. It wasn’t even an ending.
But it was something new.
∞∞∞
I woke to voices in the kitchen. They were trying to whisper, but the walls in this house were designed to amplify every argument, every joke, every failed attempt at secrecy.
I recognized Rachel’s cadence first—a brisk, caffeinated burr, the way she dropped consonants like they were party favors she could afford to lose.
Jackson’s voice was lower, calm as the bottom of a well, but I could tell from the way he repeated himself that he was nervous.
Cam’s interjections were rare, just a grunt here and there, but I pictured him hunched over the counter, arms folded tight enough to keep himself from doing or saying something regrettable.
I considered feigning sleep. If I was lucky, I’d slip back under before anyone noticed. But my bladder had other ideas, and besides, the smell of bacon was wafting in from the kitchen, demanding a verdict.