Secondhand Heart (24 page)

A nurse brought us to the NICU ward, pastel and peaceful, so we could meet JR. He wasn’t alone, his room was full of tiny covered cribs. I felt better knowing he had company. Other babies whose lives started before they should have filled the room, and they seemed just fine.

“If he was a little older, we’d encourage you to put your finger in the little openings so you could touch him. But, we’ve just given him a steroid injection to help his lungs develop, and we’re concerned about infection.” The nurse looked down at JR sadly. Because of the infection risk, we could only go in small groups, and had to wear medical masks, gowns, and paper slippers. I’d gone in with Roger. Since Cam wasn’t immediate family, he had to stay behind. The nurse forced a smile. “Hopefully, you’ll be able to touch him soon.”

He couldn’t even be touched. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. He should have spent his birthday swaddled and cuddling with his parents, not trapped underneath some plastic egg covered in tape that held tubes and wires to him. Not assaulted in a parking lot and feeling his mother’s body die around his.

“He’s so beautiful,” Roger whispered, before dissolving into tears. I held him while he cried on my shoulder. It just didn’t matter what I had thought of him, today we were one family that had a hole blasted through it.

Roger was right, JR was beautiful. He was probably no bigger than my hand, a tiny little doll with see-through skin. He was the only piece of Ev we had left.

I
don’t remember much else about the rest of the night, just little snippets that flashed and froze in time like the bright lights from the news cameras that assaulted us when we left the hospital. Even though this night should have belonged to just us, the media insisted on stealing it away. Exposing it. Cam and Ashley belonged to everyone, and now, my family did, too.

“She didn’t tell you she was coming down because she wanted to surprise you.” Cam didn’t have all the answers to my questions, but he at least knew what the hell Ev was doing outside of her regular, weekday world that afternoon. He looked haunted, sitting on the couch once we got back to the condo. “I thought it would be cool if I brought her back here when we were done working, and you guys could spend some time together.”

The plan had been for them to talk about publicity, and the uphill battle to keep things positive. The restaurant was getting amazing reviews for both food and entertainment, but nasty things about Cam’s music career kept leaking out. I wonder where that could have possibly been coming from.

He sucked in a deep breath, trembling at the very top of it. “I didn’t know Ashley would be there. I didn’t know she was actually,” he swallowed the rising emotion, “capable of doing something like that.”

“You think she did this on purpose?” I rose from his lap and walked over to the window. The ocean shrouded itself in pitch black for the night, but I could still smell it. The salt air brought me down a few notches, I’d never relax tonight, but it kept me from exploding.

“I don’t know what she’s capable of anymore.” He came up behind me, and tentatively put his hand on my waist. I shied away from him. Everything about being with Cam felt like two magnets facing the wrong way right now. We were supposed to make each other stronger, but everything about Ashley tore us apart. “I never, in my wildest dreams, thought anyone could do
that
.”

I turned back towards him, pulling him close to me by two giant handfuls of T-shirt. “Then why do you insist on placating that crazy bitch? You are such a fucking enabler! The minute she set foot in that restaurant, you should have had her ass thrown out of there. But no, you had to hear her out, and fucking roll out the welcome mat for her. Do you know how that makes me feel?”

“You certainly had no problem letting her hear you out.” Cam shook his head, but his he never lost his cool, just like with that nutcase, his tone was even. It made me even madder. “Telling her what we’d been doing.”

“You fucking wanted her to catch us!” I slammed my fists against his chest, but he didn’t move. “
It’s so exciting
. Bullshit, you coward. You wanted her to catch us. You wanted to make me the bad guy so you didn’t have to be!”

“That’s not true, Daisy.” Again he tried to touch me, this time my face, but I moved before he made contact. Through the blur of my tears, I could see the complete, utter defeat written all over him. His eyes, his frown, his drooping shoulders. I knew damn well I was kicking him while he was down right now, but I couldn’t stop. Maybe one of the jabs would be the one that finally broke through to him.

“Everyone thinks I’m not good enough for you.” The words hurt as they passed my lips. “Ashley, my mother, all the nobody girls who come in the bar because they want to fuck a famous guy and they don’t even care which one it is. Sometimes, I believe them. But now I don’t think I want to be good enough for you, if that’s who you think is worth standing up for. My fucking sister is dead because you couldn’t stand up to your ex. No, your current wife. My nephew doesn’t have a mother. Is she still worth standing up for, Cam?”

I crumpled into a tight little ball on the floor. On top of everything else in this nightmare of a day, this argument left a bad taste in my mouth that nothing could rinse away.

How was I going to go on without Ev? I still didn’t believe it was real.

I felt Cam sink down next to me, but he knew better than to try to touch me. He was close enough I could feel the heat from his body, and sense when he fidgeted. But I didn’t acknowledge him.

“Why do I placate that crazy bitch?” he asked himself out loud, almost in a sing-song tone. I didn’t unfurl, but I was listening. “I placate that crazy bitch because I’m not sure I actually won The Spotlight.”

“What are you talking about?” I couldn’t take these riddles right now. I picked my head up just enough to see him, his head was resting back against the wall, his eyes blankly fixed on the ceiling. His forearms rested on his bent knees, and he rubbed his thumb and forefingers together like he wanted to start a fire.

“I didn’t really know what was going on when it was happening. I was just so high being able to perform at that level, to have such experienced and successful mentors and coaches, and to just have the opportunity to be there. All I ever wanted to do was sing,” he paused, finally looking over at me. “People were saying stuff, but I thought they were just jealous because I was getting the good time slots, extra attention, and because I was seeing Ashley. Her dad’s one of the big producers, I’m not sure if you know that or not. And he’s somehow made her famous for doing not much of anything, and that’s why she’s got her own TV show. Anyway, the other contestants insisted it was rigged, that I should have gone home, but I was too naïve and egotistical to want to believe them.”

“So what happened?” I asked. “Don’t people vote for the winner on that show?”

“They vote, but we never know what the results actually are. And why would I have ever questioned it? It was all in my favor. So I ignored the all the shit people were saying. I was getting a career in country music, and as far as I was concerned, I earned it.”

“But?” The way he was phrasing things, I knew there was one.

“Things got serious with Ashley fast.” He ignored my look of disgust. “And after I married her, she told me what she did to make sure I won. She made sure I got the either the opening or the closing spot each night, and that everything said I got the most votes, even though I didn’t. She thought she was helping me, but too many people had questions. So when things didn’t go smoothly once we stepped out of the bubble of The Spotlight, she blamed me, like I wasn’t holding up my end of the bargain. But I was doing the same thing I was always doing, because I thought it had been successful.”

“So she manipulated you right from the start. I ask you again, why do you keep playing right into her hands?”

“Anytime Ashley doesn’t get what she wants, she threatens to blow the lid off the entire scam. Not only would she ruin what’s left of my career, but she’d destroy the show. It’s been on for fourteen seasons. Was I the only fix? Imagine all those careers she’d ruin, the lawsuits, everything. As long as Ashley is sort of happy, everyone else might get to be happy. So I handle her with kid gloves.”

“But instead of taking the fall and dealing with the consequences, you lied for her.” I knew deep down in his heart, he thought he was doing what was best for everyone. But the problem with lies was that you had to tell bigger lies to cover the original ones. There comes a point where you don’t remember the truth anymore. “And because of that, those lies killed my sister.”

Cam looked like a hollow replica of the man I knew. A ghost. “I know.” He could barely speak. “And I would do anything to trade places with Evey right now. Anything.”

“I
don’t even know if I should be there.” Cam buttoned his dress shirt and tucked it in to his black pants. His white shirt made him look paler than he’d been since the accident. He wasn’t doing well at all. He’d been trapped in the condo, sitting with his guitar in his lap but not playing it, while news trucks waited on the street outside for us to leave. “I don’t want to upset anyone.”

My feelings towards Cam were all over the place the last few days. Every time I looked at him, I felt equal parts filled with rage and heartbreak. He’d meant well, really, he did. He saw the best in someone who didn’t deserve the benefit of the doubt. And now he was paying dearly for it. I knew blaming him for it was really fucking harsh, but a little piece of me wished he’d been smarter than Ashley. Even still, I needed something from him that I couldn’t vocalize and he wasn’t ready to give me. Cam had barely touched me since that horrible night. I don’t know if he was punishing me for blaming him, or just punishing himself.

I looked out the window, the satellites rising far above the trucks that waited for us to make our exit. Just seeing them made me feel dirty, and touched in places I didn’t want to be. “You need to do what you think is best.” I slipped my feet into the only dressy pair of sandals I had. They pinched my feet, but I didn’t want to be comfortable that day. “But I really think that Ev would be really pissed if you didn’t come.”