Camden
I dream of Kendall. I dream of her with her eyes puffy from sleep, with her nightie bunched up, how she writhes beneath me. I dream of her in that little bikini she wore at the safe house, looking up at me with wide brown eyes.
I remember hitting Marco, beating him so thoroughly that his face was unrecognizable. I remember Angelo’s pale, drawn face as I looked up at him. I don’t remember being hurt. I don’t know where I am when I open my eyes, looking up at the ceiling.
“Camden?”
someone says, some sweet voice that I know deep in my heart, and I look over to see Kendall staring at me with wide brown eyes.
“Oh my god, he’s waking up,” she chokes, and I reach out for her and there’s a stab of pain in my chest that makes my breath hitch in my throat.
“Principessa,” I choke out, but my mouth is so dry that I can’t make more words. I clear my throat, and as if reading my mind, Kendall brings me a glass of water with a straw.
I sip it gratefully. “What happened?” I croak.
“You were shot,” she says, and then she bursts into tears.
I want to take her into my arms but I can’t move and it’s torture to just watch her with her face in her hands.
“Principessa,” I manage. “Look at me. Look into my eyes.”
She does, her brown eyes wet with tears as they stream down her face.
“I’m okay,” I say, although I’m not completely sure I am. “I’m alive.”
“It’s been two days,” she gasps out between sobs. “You had to have open-heart surgery and you’ve been on a ventilator for two days. You started breathing on your own, so they took it out but then you wouldn’t wake up.”
I blink, surprised at everything that had gone down. “I’m awake now,” I tell her. “I’m okay, Kendall.”
“You’re not okay,” she sobs. “Your poor chest. Your poor heart.”
“It’s going to be okay,” I say with a smile. “You’ll take care of it.”
She sniffles. “What are you talking about?”
“I love you,” I burst out. I can’t hold it in any longer, not after what’s just happened. “I’m yours, Kendall. My heart and soul.”
Her brown eyes widen. “You… you don’t mean that. You’re just coming around… it.. it’s the drugs-”
“It’s not the drugs,” I say, although they might be loosening my tongue, they’re not doing much for my pain. My chest feels like it’s been cracked open, and I guess it has.
“Just… save your strength, Camden. I’ll go get the doctor.”
She starts to get up and I grab her hand, wincing at the pain it causes me. She sits, staring at me, wide-eyed.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her. “I’m sorry for everything.”
“You have nothing to be sorry for,” she insists.
“I have plenty to be sorry for,” I say firmly. “I didn’t want to change. I didn’t want to give up my playboy lifestyle, the wiseguy lifestyle, but when I found Marco Barone, I couldn’t stop.”
Kendall shushes me. “Don’t talk about that here,” she whispers.
I swallow, trying to clear my throat. It feels like something’s stuck in it, and I don’t know if it’s from the surgery or just from emotion.
I feel so much, now, when I’ve been pushing it down inside me my whole life. I feel so much that it hurts.
“I didn’t realize how much it was hurting you,” I say. “Not until Dante made me realize.”
“Dante?” she asks, as if she’s too curious for her own good, and I smile.
“Dante asked me what I would feel if you were with someone else,” I tell her. “I told him I wouldn’t care.”
Her face falls and I squeeze her hand.
“But that’s just it, don’t you see? I would care too much, Kendall. I lied to him. I lied to him because I couldn’t face my own feelings for you. I couldn’t face that things were changing within me.”
“You don’t have to say all this, Camden,” she warns.
“I want to,” I say. “I need to. I need to tell you that the only reason that I didn’t kiss you before I left to find Marco is because I thought If I did, I’d never leave you. I never want to leave you, Kendall. Not ever.”
“Camden, please,” she whispers. “I can’t have hope right now. I’m just happy that you’re alive. You don’t have to say all of this.”
I clutch at her hand, feeling myself lose consciousness. My vision keeps blurring.