19. Camilla

19

CAMILLA

I chew on the inside of my lip, deciding whether I'd like a bag of Skittles or a Snickers from the vending machine. Different vibes entirely. If I'm here long enough, I could have one of both. A comforting thought.

I type in the code and wait for the Skittles to drop into the well of the vending machine. From behind me comes the loud metallic clang of a door opening. I glance over my shoulder.

Jack has emerged from Sonia's hospital room, his head ducked and hands shoved in his pockets. He walks at top speed toward me.

"Hey," I say. "Everything all right?'

He says nothing. Keeps walking.

I furrow my brow. "Jack!"

Jack blows past me, intent on leaving me behind.

Fat chance.

I bound after him, snatching his arm in my grip. "Jack!"

He spins around in my grip. And the look he gives me cuts right to my core. Distress rankles at the corners of his eyes, his forehead taut with wrinkles, and his lips pursed in a line like a dam trying to keep everything he's feeling at bay.

"Jack…what's wrong?"

"I just need to get out of here." His words are so strained I imagine it hurts to even speak.

"What happened?"

"Camilla, I need to go, I need to–" A tear escapes his eye. He tries to blink others back, wincing as though they're made of acid.

I grab him by both arms now, massaging my fingers into him. I try to smile. "It's understandable you'd be emotional, it's an emotional situation. But happy, right?"

Jack licks his lower lip. Says nothing.

Something is going on. More than the overwhelm of new life and the lateness of the night.

I draw myself closer to him. "Tell me what's going on."

"I can't, I –" His voice catches in his throat. More tears roll.

"Hey, hey, it's okay," I coo. I swipe his tears away. "Let it out."

I don't care that we're in public, that passing nurses and patients might see us. He needs me. I won't let him pull away.

Jack dips his head down and hiccups out a sob.

"Come. Sit down. Let's sit."

I pull Jack over to a set of chairs against the wall. He has his face hidden in his jacket, reeking of embarrassment. It's not enough that he's a man needing to cry but I'm guessing he thinks he's also supposed to be the one steady and in charge, according to the way we are around each other. I know no amount of me telling him it's okay will actually make him feel it's okay.

I don't mind him crying. It draws me to him more. He's in touch with that part of him.

I will get to the bottom of what's hurting him, though.

As quick as I can, I return to the vending machines. I grab him a water and retrieve my bag of Skittles before returning to him, squatting on the floor in front of him.

"Here, have some of this." I hold out the bottle of water.

He takes it, revealing his face to me. Poor man. So ashamed. "You didn't have to do this."

I say nothing, but rub his knee, give him some tenderness he needs.

Jack drinks about half the bottle before he's able to get back on an even keel. He glances down the hallway and sighs. "Fucking embarrassing."

I lean my elbow on his knee and look up at him. "What happened?"

Jack takes in the image of me. I might be doing some of the emotional holding, but I'm still his baby girl. Smaller than him, sweeter, more na?ve. He sees it and smiles as well as he can. "It's hard to see how wanted they are."

I frown. "The babies?"

"See, it sounds so fucking stupid when I say it out loud? I'm not a grown man jealous of hours-old–" Jack scrubs a hand down the lower part of his face, his morning clean shaven interrupted by bristles of hair. "I can't shake the feeling I wasn't wanted like that. I've felt it my whole life, and I thought the grief would go away with time, but it's just gotten harder, the older I've gotten."

"Your parents love you, Jack. I know your relationships are complicated, but they love you."

"Because they've been forced to. Because the alternative is, what?"

Getting rid of you, I think. Which isn't fair to my birth mom or to him. There are so many elements to having a child, and while I can recognize I was afforded so much more opportunity and privilege growing up with my white parents in Nebraska, I know that unwanted feeling too, a popcorn kernel in my chest that heats from time to time, threatening to burst. "Look, I know what it's like to have been an accident."

The corner of his lip pricks up. He leans back in his seat, spreading his legs enough for me to nestle in. It's a hospital. People in desperate times do weird things to comfort others. I'm sure hospital staff has seen weirder.

I take Jack's hand. "Talk to me. Tell me what you're thinking. Or else I'll bribe you with Skittles."

Jack chuckles. "Give me a few of those and then I'll see how I feel."

We crack open the bag and each eat a few Skittles. Despite the circumstances, the silence is comfortable between us. It sneaks up on you, how comfortable you get with people. And given the past couple of months, it only makes sense that Jack and I are comfortable in silences like this. It warms my heart in a profound way.

Jack sighs. "So, my parents were never married, right?"

"Right."

"And they were together a couple years, but then it just wasn't working so they broke up. And then Dad met Abigail's mom and Mom met Geoff. So, I was sort of this after thought already. Then Kelly and Winston were born and living with Mom became totally impossible. It was just…" He holds his hands out. "Babies come first. I get that. But I was definitely forgotten about. She doesn't want to admit that."

"Oh, Jack."

"It's okay."

I shake my head. "It's not. You know it's not."

"Well, it had to be to survive it, right?"

I engulf his hands in my own and squeeze.

Jack takes a few measured breaths, then lifts his chin to continue. "After a couple years, I couldn't take it. I became a teenager and being surrounded by diapers and babies and all the shit that comes with that was driving me nuts. I don't feel that way now, but–"

"You were still a kid. It makes sense."

He sighs. "Yeah. I was. Although it didn't feel like I was a kid."

No wonder he's so mature and so put together. He's had to be.

"I got to a point where I started asking my dad if I could live with him. He was single again and–well, maybe that's why he was hesitant. Didn't want a teen cramping his style."

"I'm sure there was more to it than that."

Jack shrugs. "Maybe. But every time I talked to him or saw him, I'd beg, and he'd say that he'd think about it, or it wasn't a good time. He worked a lot. Up until he met Sonia, he's been a workaholic, so maybe it was that, but–"

I hold up the bag of Skittles and shake it.

He smiles and holds out his hand.

We eat a couple more Skittles. Jack drinks his water. Revitalized, he launches back into the next part of the story. "Things came to a head eventually. How could they not, you know? I was ungovernable at home with my mom, and she was exhausted with two toddlers and a total mess of a teenager. And Geoff couldn't tell me a damn thing. We definitely have always had that ‘you're not my real dad' kind of relationship."

I giggle. "I'm sorry, it's–"

"It's okay, it's funny."

"It's hard to imagine you as the brooding teenager."

"Well, that was me. You should have seen the playlists I made. All the emo music. The pop punk."

I laugh more. "Oh noooo."

Jack smiles down at me. A brief pause for him to trace his fingers down my cheek. I lean into his touch.

The smile fades, and he continues. "So, Mom'd had enough so she called Dad to try and convince him to take me once and for all. And I was so excited. So excited I sat outside her room to hear the conversation. She didn't know I was home. Dad was on speakerphone. And–" His lower lip trembles. "The things they said…"

I take Jack's hand and press a kiss to the heel of his palm.

"I'd always known my life wasn't normal like other kids who had both their parents or even had parents who were divorced. But that was the first time I knew what a mistake I'd been."

"They had choices, Jack. They could have made different choices."

"Yeah, I guess." He leans his head back against the wall and stares straight ahead, his eyes glossy. "'Do you think I wanted this?' That's what she said. She didn't want me, and she didn't want to–"

"She didn't want you to go, Jack. She didn't want to not be the best option for you."

He scoffs, eyes rolling back. "Yeah, right."

"Jack…"

"It wasn't just that. It was Dad saying how it didn't make sense for me to live with him. How he didn't have time for me. And how she said that it wasn't fair for me to be stuck with her. Stuck ." Jack worries his bottom lip with his teeth. "I've been a nuisance since the day I was born, and it's not even my fucking fault."

I don't know what to say.

"Dad finally caved. And I was still so excited. And living with him was better than living with my mom. Although he was more hands off. But I saw more of Nate and Abigail, and we all became close, even if we were all going through our own shit. And…" Jack blinks and a tear roams free. "Fuck, I don't want to cry about this, it's not worth it."

"Of course, it's worth it. It's your life. It's–"

"So, my mom doesn't want to see me even when I'm all the way out in Hawaii and she barely comes to visit and then Dad gets his shit together and meets someone and they do things the right way by getting married and then having kids, an active decision, and Nate, Abigail, and me, we're just supposed to watch and be happy and–" He clutches his chest. So many feelings trying to come out at once. "I don't know why I'm the only one having a hard time like this. I don't know why I'm the only one suffering like this."

"Jack–"

"And then he's asking me to hold one of them like it's not killing me to see him happy and unafraid to be a father. I deserved that, didn't I? I deserved parents who wanted me."

I slide my hands up his thighs, up his belly, to his chest. "Of course, you do. And they do want you. They just didn't always do a good job of communicating that."

"You're just being–"

"They're human, Jack. And that doesn't mean you owe them your empathy or anything, but for your own peace you have to remember that they are humans. And from all I know, both of them know they have to do better. They're trying to do better. Right?"

Jack chews on the inside of his cheek. "It doesn't feel like it's enough. To make up for everything."

"Then make them grovel, Jack."

He laughs. A big laugh.

"I'm not kidding! You can love them and also expect more from them. And I guarantee that the love those babies get is the love your father has tried to give you all your life. He was just too scared until now." I'm choking myself up at what I'm saying. "And that's not fucking fair to you. Not at all. But please know how wanted and loved you really are."

Jack looks into his lap. "I just want to be needed by someone. I want someone to not know how to live without me, and my parents are supposed to be those people and I feel like they could just walk away without a second thought."

A surge of passion rolls through me, from my gut into my chest, and sends words spiraling out of my mouth, words I've been holding back, too scared to say. " I need you, Jack."

Jack's dark brown eyes lift to meet mine.

I never thought it would be this way. Me needing someone. I didn't want to need another person ever. At least not until I'd worked out all my shit, but I can't lie to myself. " I need you," I repeat. "And…I love you, Jack."

His mouth parts in shock, eyes widening.

"I'm sorry if that's too soon. And you don't have to say it back. But you need to know because I can't stand–"

I'm cut off by his lips overwhelming mine. A kiss that reaches the tips of my toes.

I swoon into his chest, allow him to cradle me in his arms. I drop the bag of Skittles and they clatter across the floor, but I don't care. I need him closer. I fist the front of his jacket and pull myself to him.

Jack's arms slide around my back, holding me with so much intensity I have no fear he will ever let me go.

His lips split from mine, and we still, eyes locked, breath wanton, yet steady. "I love you too."

My eyebrows jump. "What?! Really?"

He laughs but does not draw away. "Yes, really! Why are you surprised?"

"Because I–because it's all so fast and because–" I stumble through my words. "I don't know."

"Neither do I." Jack moves one hand to cup my jaw. "I just know that if I didn't tell you…" His forehead tips to meet mine. "I'd regret it."

I sigh, letting myself get swept away in him, my eyes fluttering shut.

"I love you, and I need you, Camilla."

Now I want to cry. I feel the pain Jack feels, not only because I have a similar experience but because since we met, we've become extensions of each other. It's crazy and dangerous, and I can't stop.

Jack kisses me again. Soft and delicate. Like I'm fragile.

A woman's voice interrupts us. "I can't believe you brought a date to the hospital."

I draw away from Jack and look up at the freckled redhead towering over us, her arms crossed over her chest, a smirk on her lips as she looks at Jack. She glances at the ground. "Why are there…are those Skittles?"

"Oh. Fantastic. Um, Camilla, this is my sister, Abigail."

"Nice to meet you." I lift my hand.

We shake hands, though I'm still kneeling on the floor and she's towering above me. "Camilla…you're running the coffee company with Jack, right?"

"Abigail," Jack grunts. "Can we not right now?"

"I'm just asking." She holds her hands up in innocence. "Well, it's nice to meet you, Camilla."

"You as well." I get back onto my feet, brushing off the legs of my pants.

Abigail eyes Jack. "Have you been in yet?"

"Yeah, um, I…I was overwhelmed. I needed a breather."

"Didn't look like you were breathing to me," Abigail mutters.

Jack groans. " Abigail ."

"What?! I'm just saying what I observed." She smiles at me with a shrug.

I giggle.

"Are you done with your ‘breathing'?" Abigail asks.

Jack looks at me.

I give him a soft smile. "Go ahead. I'll wait."

Hauling himself up out of his seat, he nods. "Yeah. Let's go. I think I'll be okay."

"He's always been such a sap," Abigail says to me, then winds her arm in Jack's.

The two of them walk on, arm in arm, back down the hall, Abigail talking Jack's ear off. When they reach the hospital room, Jack opens the door for Abigail. She goes in, squealing. And before Jack enters, he looks back at me.

"I love you," I mouth.

He doesn't mouth it back, but it's evident in the way his face shifts. An eye-squinting smile. Then, he goes inside.