Chapter Forty-Two
The morning was so clear it was almost offensive, sun scraping the city raw and shadows melting off every inch of concrete.
I put on my best attempt at business casual, layered on some foundation to cover the purple-and-black bruise that surrounded the cut above my ear, and walked the ten blocks to the police station.
The station was tucked between a laundromat that doubled as a day care and a bail bonds office with a sandwich board out front advertising “Jail, Divorce, or Both? We’ve Got Your Back.
” A pair of uniformed officers stood near the entrance, talking about last night’s game, their laughter bouncing off the glass doors.
I hovered at the entrance for a full minute, pressing my palms to the rough seam of my jeans, before stepping inside and following the blue tape arrows up the stairs to “Interviews & Intake.”
It smelled like old coffee and bleach, a combination I’d come to associate with hospitals and losing.
The lady at the desk barely looked up when I said, “Detective Morales? Nine-thirty?” She waved me toward a row of plastic chairs, and I sat, staring at the same corner of the tiled floor for what felt like an hour.
Eventually, Morales appeared. Mid-forties, neat bun, skin the color of caramel ice cream, an expression stuck somewhere between “I’ve seen worse” and “you’re wasting my time.
” She offered a nod and motioned for me to follow her.
Down a short hallway, through a locked door, into a tiny, windowless room painted a shade of gray that made my teeth ache.
Morales gestured to the chair on my side of the battered metal table.
She set a manila folder in front of her, tapped it once for emphasis, and started with: “You’re Olivia James.”
“Still am, last I checked.”
Morales’s lips quirked, barely. She flipped open the file. “You know why you’re here?”
“I have a few ideas.”
She waited, and the silence begged for something more, so I added: “Is Cam all right?”
“He’s fine. In holding, until we sort things out.”
That stung, though I wasn’t sure why. I pictured him in a plastic chair, arms folded, rehearsing every possible version of events until he landed on the one most likely to earn sympathy from a judge. I wondered if he’d even mentioned me at all.
Morales said, “Walk me through what happened last night.”
I shifted in my seat, stared at the file, and let the details line up.
“Nate’s been calling. A lot. Most of it angry, some of it just sad.
He left some… threatening messages.” I didn’t mention the ones I’d saved, or how many times I’d listened to them on repeat, trying to hear a version of Nate that still loved me.
“Cam heard the last call, got pissed, and left. I assumed he was going to talk to Nate, maybe try to scare him. I didn’t think—” I stopped.
“Didn’t think what?”
“That it would get physical. Cam isn’t…” I hesitated, searching for the right word. “He’s not the type.”
Morales nodded, made a note. “And you?”
“What about me?”
She looked up, and her eyes were softer than I expected. “You were the one who got hurt last time. According to the ER report, he did some damage recently.”
I felt myself shrink, and hated that I did. “Nate never hit me. Not before that night.”
Morales said nothing, just flipped a page and pointed to a paragraph. “Says here he grabbed your arm hard enough to bruise it, three weeks prior. That he’d been drinking more often. That he got ‘aggressive’ during arguments. Cameron offered some details, but I need you to confirm it.”
“That was… different. He was upset, but he’d never—” I stopped again, the lie catching in my throat. “I don’t want to press charges. Not on Nate.”
Morales waited another beat, then reached into the folder and slid out a copy of the police report from the other…
incident. The nurses had told Cam I’d have a hard time remembering that night because of my head injury.
Flashes of talking to a cop and signing something came in waves.
She pushed it across the table, and I scanned the text, recognizing my own words in black and white, how flat and hopeless they looked when separated from the heat of the moment.
“We’re not necessarily here to press charges against Mr. James or against Mr. Porter,” Morales said, voice low and deliberate.
“Nathaniel has a record that goes way back and your husband’s is quite clean.
I believe him when he says he was just protecting you.
He should have called the police about the threats but…
men.” She rolled her eyes as she shrugged.
“But I need to know if you feel threatened. By either of them.”
I tried to laugh, but it came out thin. “I feel threatened by pretty much everyone right now.”
Morales closed the folder, folded her hands. “If you need a restraining order, we can expedite it. If you want to file a statement, we can do that today.”
I shook my head. “No. Cam was just—he was trying to protect me. From Nate. I’m not scared of him.”
She raised an eyebrow. “You sure?”
I was sure of nothing, but I nodded. “He was there when I needed him. That’s all.”
For the first time, Morales leaned back in her chair.
She drummed her fingers once on the table, then said, “Nathaniel is in the hospital but he’ll be discharged this afternoon.
He’s got a broken nose, two cracked ribs, and a concussion.
He doesn’t want to press charges against Cameron, and in his statement he said, ‘I had it coming.’ He also said he intends to check into rehab as soon as he’s out. ”
Something inside me twisted, the relief and the guilt colliding, leaving a cold, heavy residue at the base of my skull. “He said that?”
Morales nodded. “He also said he’s sorry for everything. For what it’s worth. I think what Cameron did was a wake up call for him.”
I sat there, hands folded so tight the tips of my fingers went white. The silence ticked on, but I didn’t know what to fill it with. Eventually, Morales stood, gathering the file and a pen. “We’ll release Mr. James once you pay the fine for disturbing the peace. You can do that at the counter.”
“That’s it?” I asked.
“That’s it.”
She opened the door, and I followed her back down the hall, each step echoing in the empty corridor.
At the desk, the clerk took my debit card, ran it through a battered reader, and printed out a receipt that looked like it had been cut from a roll of toilet paper.
“Holding is downstairs, last door on the left,” the clerk said, without bothering to look up.
The stairwell was painted an even uglier shade of gray than the interview room. At the bottom, another officer buzzed me through a heavy metal door and pointed down a short hall. I found Cam sitting on a bench, hands folded in his lap, one shoe tapping out a nervous rhythm on the tile.
He looked up when he saw me. His face was blank for a second, then flooded with something softer—a relief so overwhelming I almost turned away.
“You paid?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “You’re free to go.”
He stood, stretched, and walked toward me. He looked tired, the stubble on his chin gone feral, but there were no fresh bruises, no bandages. He stopped an arm’s length away, like he was waiting for permission.
I didn’t give it to him, not directly, but I turned and started for the exit. He followed, our footsteps in sync, the sound bouncing between the cement walls like a heartbeat.
Outside, the air was still cold, but the sun made it tolerable. Cam squinted, blinking at the sudden light, and then turned to face me.
“Thanks,” he said, voice rough.
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. I looked at the street, the cars, the strangers passing by, and tried to imagine what it would be like to have a life where you didn’t end up here every few months, mopping up the mess of your own worst decisions.
Cam said, “You okay?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Are you?”
He smiled, the edges cracked but real. “I think I will be.”
We walked the rest of the way home in silence, shoulders almost touching but never quite meeting.
∞∞∞
When we got home, the inside looked smaller than I remembered—like all the air had been siphoned out while we were gone, leaving just enough for the essentials. Cam dropped his keys in the bowl by the door and hovered near the entryway, as if stepping farther in would trigger some silent alarm.
I shut the door, set my bag on the counter, and watched him with the detached interest of someone studying a stranger in a museum—familiar, but already history.
For a while, neither of us moved. Then, with a momentum I didn’t know I had, I closed the distance and wrapped my arms around his shoulders. He didn’t tense up the way I expected. Instead, he let his head rest against mine, both of us breathing in sync, heartbeats out of phase.
“Thank you,” I said. “For—everything.”
He shifted, barely, and his breath was warm on my cheek. “You don’t have to thank me, Livi. It’s not like I had a choice.”
I pulled back, hands on his biceps, and looked him dead in the eye. “You had a hundred choices. You didn’t have to go to Nate’s. You didn’t have to put yourself at risk.”
He shrugged, but the motion was brittle. “He threatened you. That’s all I needed to know.”
I wanted to be grateful, but the anger, long dormant, surfaced anyway. “You could have ended up in jail, Cam. Or worse.”
He let out a sound—half laugh, half groan. “Yeah, but I didn’t.” He turned away, rubbing his jaw where a day’s stubble had turned to sandpaper. “Honestly, it was worth it. I’d do it again.”
I shook my head, pacing to the other side of the room. “You’re impossible.”
He followed, but kept a safe distance. “Am I? Or am I just the only one who gives a damn about you?”
That hurt. More than it should have. “Other people care, Cam. Rachel cares. Jackson cares.”