27. Gabrielle
Gabrielle
The room is quiet, the kind of quiet that only comes after everything else has been stripped away, after every last barrier, and every last wall is torn down.
I can still feel him lingering on my skin, the warmth of his body pressed against mine. I just want to stay in moments like these forever, save them in my memories for the hard days.
Lying here against his bare chest, my head resting where I can feel the steady rise and fall of his breathing, listening to the slow rhythm of his heart, I take it all in. His fingers move through my hair slowly, sending goosebumps down my spine every time he drags his fingertips along my scalp.
I wish I could capture this feeling and lock it away forever. Somewhere, the world can never taint.
I can’t help but slip back into all the good memories we’ve made together and how they all laid the foundation for us to end up right here.
“You’re thinking too hard again,” Cam murmurs, his voice still laced with hints of exhaustion, of contentment.
I smile against his skin. “Am I that obvious?”
He chuckles, pressing a kiss to the top of my head. “To me? Always.”
I exhale, letting my body melt deeper into his. “Just…reminiscing on things…feeling a lot of things.”
His hand stills for a second before he resumes threading his fingers through my hair. “Good memories or bad ones?”
I hesitate. “Both maybe? Mostly the good ones, though.”
I can feel his nod against the pillow like he understands without me having to explain.
“Do you ever think about it all?” I ask quietly.
He exhales, his chest rising and falling beneath me. “All the time.”
I let my fingers trace along his ribs as I look up at him. “What’s your favorite memory from back then?”
He’s quiet for a second, like he has to sift through everything. The good, the bad, the unbearable…the after. Those are the hardest memories for me, not the ones with him, but the ones without him.
“I think it’ll probably always be all the nights we snuck out onto the roof,” he says.
“The ones where we could be alone, away from it all. When it was just us. No nurses, no treatments, no reminders of how sick we were. Just the stars we pretended we could see and our stupid conversations about what we wanted to do when we got out of there.”
I smile. “We had some big dreams, didn’t we?”
“We did.” He looks down at me, smirking. “Or…the night on the beach, during the bonfire.”
The smile on my face hurts, and I can feel myself blushing. “Of course you’d add that one.”
He lets out a soft laugh, pressing a kiss to the top of my head. “What about you? What’s yours?”
I bite my lip, thinking. There are so many moments, so many memories of us just trying to make the best of what we had.
But one stands out the most.
“The night before your last round of chemo before leaving,” I say softly. “When you were so sick that you could barely keep your eyes open, and I stayed in your room all night, cuddled up next to you while the nurses covered for us.”
His fingers continue to stroke my hair. “I remember that,” he murmurs. “I remember waking up, and you were still there. You stayed the whole night in my bed.”
I nod against his chest. “I couldn’t leave you.”
He tilts my chin up gently, forcing me to look at him. There’s something raw behind his eyes, this unspoken gratitude that we had each other. “I wouldn’t have made it through any of it without you,” he says quietly. “I think a part of me knew that even then.”
My throat tightens. “We both fought hard,” I whisper. “There were so many days I didn’t think I’d make it.”
His hand moves to cup my cheek, his thumb stroking gently along my skin. “But you did.”
I nod, leaning into his touch. “We did.”
For a moment, neither of us speaks. There’s nothing to say, not really. We both know what we went through. We both know what it took to get here.
After a beat, I ask, “What really made you want to become a doctor? It was so hard for me after it was all finally over. I never wanted to step back into another hospital ever again. I don’t know if I could handle reliving those memories every time I talked to a patient like you have to.”
Cam leans back, his eyes flicking up to the ceiling.
“It was really just all of the doctors, the nurses; the people who made me feel like I was more than just a patient. The ones who didn’t just treat the illness but actually saw the person underneath it.
I wanted to be that for someone else. I wanted to make sure no kid ever felt like just another diagnosis on a chart. ”
My heart wants to explode at how sweet and caring this man is.
“Now you’re doing exactly that, and you’re really damn good at it, Cam. I wish I had half the people skills you have.”
He shakes his head. “Yeah, some days, it doesn’t feel like enough, doesn’t feel like I’m able to do enough.”
I pull back slightly, searching his face. “What do you mean?”
He sighs, rubbing a hand down his face. “I had a patient a few days ago. A little girl I’ve been treating since I’ve been here. She’s been fighting for years. She’s…being transferred to hospice.”
My stomach drops hearing that, knowing it’s so many people’s reality.
“I sat with her parents, tried to find the right words to make it easier, but there’s nothing.
Nothing I can say to make it better. Nothing I can do to change the outcome they’re about to face.
” He shakes his head, trying hold back the emotions.
“It’s the worst part of this job. Knowing I can’t save them all. ”
I reach for his hand, lacing my fingers through his. “You do more for them than you realize. Just like you did for me back then.”
He squeezes my hand, pulling my attention up to him. “You know…I’ve had this dumb dream for years now,” he admits, “ever since I started my residency.”
I tilt my head. “What dream?”
His eyes light up a little. It’s so slight, but I see the shift, this flicker of pride in his eyes.
“Some kind of foundation. For the kids in treatment. For their families. Something to help make things even a little bit easier while they’re going through it all.
Especially with such long stays sometimes. ”
A warmth spreads through my chest as he continues.
“I want to bring more outside experiences to the kids; more events. I want to bring to life all of the ways we used to try to make the hospital feel normal when we were there.” His voice is getting more animated now, his hands moving as he talks.
“I would love to set up on-site housing for families, so they don’t have to travel back and forth.
Something that’s actually connected to the hospital.
I want a fund to help with expenses so no parent ever has to choose between affording treatment and paying their bills, like mine did. ”
I watch him in awe, completely mesmerized by the passion in his voice.
“I want to give these kids more than just medicine. I want to give them memories. Hope. A reason to believe they’ll get to the other side of it, just like we did.
We had to make so much happen for ourselves that most kids in the hospital don’t get to experience while they’re stuck here.
I just remember those being the most impactful in keeping my mental battles less of a fight most days. ”
Seeing him like this. Talking like this. Watching him spill his heart out and seeing the passion he has for his job and the kids he helps tugs at my heart in an almost unbearable way.
“I love you and your beautiful heart,” I tell him quietly, looking up into his eyes, admiring every part of him.
Cam stops mid-sentence, his mouth slightly open, his expression frozen.
I blink, suddenly realizing what I just said.
Panic flares in my chest, but before I can take it back, before I can explain, his hand is on my face, tilting me up toward him a little more. His expression is so warm.
“Say it again,” he whispers.
My heart stumbles a little, my voice quieter this time. “I love you.”
He smiles, and then his lips are on mine. It’s not desperate, not rushed. Just tender, like he’s savoring the moment and the words.
When he pulls back, he presses his forehead to mine. “I’ve loved you since we were kids,” he says. “And I never stopped. Not once.”
Tears prick at my eyes, but I smile through them as they get blurry. “Yeah, I don’t think I ever stopped either, Cam.”
Holding me tighter, he hums peacefully, like me saying it out loud makes him feel more content now.
“I’m sorry it took me twelve years to find my way back to you, Gabrielle.
But I promise that not a single day from here on out will go by that you don’t know how much I love you.
That you have to question if you have my heart.
You were stuck with me when we were kids, and you’re stuck with me now.
There’s no breaking this, okay? Never again. ”
My heart feels like it’s melting in my chest.
I snuggle closer into him. “Trust me, as soon as we made the rules for our Sick Kid Club, I knew I was stuck with you.”
“You remember the list we made?” he asks as if he’s surprised by that.
“Yeah…that was the start of our forever. Even if I didn’t realize it back then. I always trace the start of my memories with you back to that day, to meeting that wild little boy my heart never stood a chance against.”
He presses his head on top of mine, and we just lie there in silence, soaking it all in.
My heart plays a love song around the silence, and I just soak in how happy and content my heart feels.
“You always felt like home when I was ripped away from mine. You’re the only thing that has ever felt like home to me. I think—no, that’s a lie,” he laughs quietly. “I know you were what really pulled me back to New York,” he confesses.
“Wait—really?”
“Yeah, I never told anyone, not Wes, not even my parents—who always told me you were the soulmate I lost. No one really knew why I wanted to come back here. Or maybe they did, but didn’t push me to say it.
I always knew that eventually I wanted to come back and work at the Children’s Hospital one day, but the real reason I craved to be back in this city was just to feel like, in some way…
I was closer to you. Closer to the memory of us.
I never thought I’d actually be lucky enough to run into you again in this insanely big city.
So, when I saw you on my first day of work, it felt like the universe was gifting you back to me.
I knew right then that I had made the right choice to come back.
I also knew I would never be able to walk away from you again. ”
“I think my heart might literally explode if you keep talking like this, Cam,” I say in a low, sleepy voice.
“Yeah, well, at least you’re dating a hot doctor who can put it back together for you.”
“Yeah, he’s pretty good at doing that,” I admit.
Pressing another slow kiss to my forehead, we both start to drift off into a peaceful sleep.