Chasing Love's Wings (6 page)

“Look,” she says and points to the TV. I look, but all I can see is Bobby on the screen.
And then it registers what she’s pointing at. Down in the bottom right-hand corner
is the running time of the video, along with a date and time stamp.

Sat. 06/02/2012 16:36

“Holy SHIT!” I shout and stand up. The image on the screen begins to move.
 

“I know telling you I’m sorry has come too late, and over a video, but if you’d give
me the chance, I’d like to apologize in person.” Nothing more is said, but I watch
as Bobby holds up a picture in front of the camera.
 

It’s a picture of a very beautiful ranch house — two stories, a rustic brown color
with a wraparound porch. Behind the house there is fencing, and a horse can be seen
beyond the fence. Beyond the house and the land around it are snow-covered mountains.
 

“I hope you remember where this is.” The image on the screen goes black and then turns
blue.

I’m stunned into complete and utter silence, immobilized by what I’ve just witnessed.

FIVE

******

Cami

******

“Cami,” Beau shouts from down the stairs.

“Shit!” Tristan exclaims. “Does she know about this?” His voice is angry, as it should
be. If I hadn’t broken my glass when he scared the hell out of me, I’d have thrown
it against the wall. Again.
 

I can’t answer him, so all I do is shake my head.
 

“Jesus Christ, Cameron.” I hear Beau from behind me. “What the hell is going on?”
She comes around the side of the couch but she stops when she steps on a piece of
glass and it crunches under her foot.
 

I don’t look at her. “I need another glass.”
 

“Like hell you do. How long have you been on this couch?” Beau exclaims. My eyes move
to hers, and she can tell immediately that I’m hammered. And I could care less.
 

“Fine, I’ll get it myself.” I slide to the end of the couch and put my feet down.
 

“No, don’t!” His words come too late and I hear the crunch, but the pain doesn’t follow.
“Shit, Cams,” Tristan says as he picks my feet up off of the floor. I can see bright
red blood dripping from my foot.
 

A flurry of things happen all at once, but I’m too drunk to follow them. Before too
long, I have a towel wrapped around my foot and Tristan is bending down to pick me
up off of the couch.
 

“Dammit! Stop, put me down.”
 

“Forget it. You’re going to the hospital.”

“Fuck that,” I say, and I try to squirm out of his arms.
 

“Stop it. Right now, Cameron.”
 

I look at him, blood-red rage swarming my vision. “Don’t you EVER call me Cameron,
EVER AGAIN!” I shout at him. But he ignores me.
 

“Mick, get over here, right now. Cami’s cut her foot and she needs to go to the hospital.”
I turn to look behind Tristan and Beau is on her cell phone.
 

“I’ll drive myself.”

“Like hell you will,” she yells at me. “Tristan is here. Judging from the fact that
I nearly tripped on his bag, I’m assuming he came home and found her like this. She’s
drunk.” She stops talking to listen to whoever she’s talking to. I forgot and I don’t
give a shit. Tristan is taking me around the corner to the elevator.

“Come on, Beau, I need you to show me how to get to the hospital.”
 

“Coming.”

“No fucking hospital.” I squirm again in Tristan’s arms.
 

“You don’t have a choice.” He’s angry with me.
 

“What the fuck did I do?” Though the words sound fine in my head, the look of confusion
on his beautiful face tells me otherwise.
 

******

Tristan

******

I start pacing the reception area of the emergency room, waiting for the doctor or
Cami to come out. She had several shards of glass in the bottom of her foot. They
weren’t as deep as the amount of blood had originally suggested, but the pieces of
glass needed to come out. She’s angry as hell and she kicked both Beau and me out
of her room.

“Did you know about this?” I ask Beau.
 

“Yeah, but not what was on it. We were at the condo Tuesday when she got back from
taking you to the airport. Mick and I both thought that whatever was in that package
was better delivered while you weren’t around. I guess we were wrong.” She gives me
an apologetic look. “We stayed quite a while Tuesday night. She kind of went through
a chronological list of events that happened in her life, and they were not pretty.
She got pretty drunk watching the videos and then at one point she kicked us out and
said she was going to bed.” She takes a deep breath. “Neither one of us wanted to
leave her, but she insisted she was fine. Yesterday when I talked to her, she was
fine, said she was working on a couple of things and that she’d be busy most of the
day, so I didn’t question her. I tried calling her more than thirty times between
trying to reach her and driving to the condo. I noticed, though, that her cell phone
was one of the many shattered things in the living room.”

“I talked to her this afternoon around twelve thirty, told her that I would be back
in the morning. I wanted to surprise her and come home early. I found her on the couch,
drunk. I scared her and she dropped her wine glass, which is where all the glass at
her feet came from. I was trying to clean it up when she played a video of Bobby.”
I pause, remembering the date on the video and finding out that, after more than a
year, Bobby is alive.
 

“What was on the video?” I don’t want to answer that question. I’m not sure if Cami
really wants Beau to know, but my expression betrays me and she presses harder. “Damn
it, Tristan.... She’s done this before.”
 

“At first I thought it was just Bobby apologizing to her for all the wrongs he’d done
to her. But she paused the video before I could see more. When I pressed her to talk
to me about it, she pointed at the TV, and when I look again I realize, Beau, that
that video is date- and time-stamped.” The image is forever burned into my mind.
 

“So what did it say?”
 

“Saturday, June second, two thousand twelve. Four thirty-six p.m.”
 

I don’t say any more — I don’t have to — as I watch her expression begin to change
as she is doing the math in her head. The moment she realizes what I’ve just said,
her hand comes to her mouth and her eyes widen in fear. I nod, acknowledging what’s
just registered, but her hand comes away from her mouth. “It could be an error.” She’s
trying to rationalize it, but it won’t work.

“Of course it could, but it is a very specific time, Bobby looks a little older than
I remember, and...” I trail off.
 

“What?”

“She finally played the video again, and he continues apologizing, then says flat-out
that if she wants a real-life apology that she should go to some house. Where that
is, I have no idea, and I’m not sure if Cami does either.”

“It’s in Montana, northwest of Billings.”
 

Beau and I both turn toward the voice. Mick is standing near the doorway to the emergency
room.
 

“You knew about this?” Beau asks. Her voice is angry and sharp with Mick.
 

“Not until a few minutes ago. I went to the condo before I came here. I noticed that
she’d been watching something so I played it.”

“So you didn’t know he was alive?” I ask him.

“No, I had no idea, but I’m pretty sure who, besides Bobby, knows.”
 

“Who?” Beau and I both say in unison.
 

“Vincent.”

“I knew it! I knew there was a reason he dragged me to California for shit that could
have been done over the phone and via email. This is all my fault, I wish you would’ve
waited until I was around.” I watch as both of them cringe a little. “What?”
 

They both look at each other before Beau finally speaks. “Tristan, this isn’t your
fault, and to be honest, if you’d been here, she would’ve either tossed the package
aside and waited until you weren’t around, or things could’ve been a lot worse between
the two of you. Cami has a tendency to be a bit destructive when she’s angry, and
not just with wine glasses.” She looks at me, but there is pain, or maybe it’s pity.
 

“Was she like this after Bobby died? Or supposedly died?” Beau doesn’t truly answer
the question; she just nods.
 

After everything Cami has been through with Bobby in her lifetime, he should have
just stayed away. “Why did he have to come back? Why now? Why like this?” I mumble.
 

“Those are the million-dollar questions, Tristan, we may never know the answers to,”
Mick says.

Beau left a few minutes ago with Mick; they were headed back to the condo to clean
up the mess so that there won’t be any reminder for her in the morning.
 

“Mr. Enders?”
 

Wha? Huh? Oh, that’s right; I told them I was her husband. I turn around to find an
aging man dressed in green scrubs and a lab coat. “Yes.”

“She’s ready to go home, though she’s rather drunk and I’m inclined to keep her here
overnight. Let her sober up.”
 

I shake my head. She’ll be furious if she wakes up in the hospital tomorrow. “She
won’t be alone tonight. I’ll take her home and take care of her.”
 

“All right.” He hands me a stack of papers. “She has several small lacerations on
her left foot. We were able to get all the glass out without too much problem. Her
foot is wrapped up and should be elevated, and ice can be used for the pain. Do not
get the bandage wet for at least the next twenty-four to thirty-six hours. I will
send home extra bandaging just in case, and it should be changed every twelve hours
or so. After two days, reduce it to just a light covering, but she needs to stay off
of her foot until the stitches come out in about seven days. She’ll need to come back
to have them removed.”
 

“Okay, doctor. Anything else?”
 

“Nope, that’s about it. I’ll have a nurse get her ready to go and bring her to you.”

“Thank you,” I say, and he turns toward the desk.
 

I grab my cell from my pocket and call Beau.
 

“How is she?” she asks as soon as she answers.
 

“I haven’t seen her, but the doctor says she’ll be fine. She can’t walk on it for
at least seven days. They’re going to bring her to me shortly, can you or Mick come
back and pick us up?”

“Sure, I’ll send Mick and then I’ll finish up here.”
 

“Perfect. Can you go up to her room, turn down the sheets and set up two pillows for
her foot? Then grab some ice so I can put ice on it when we get there. She needs to
go to bed as soon as she gets home, and I want all of that shit put away. Not hidden,
but not in plain damn sight. She needs to sober up and clear her head before she starts
again.”
 

“I watched the video. She’s got every right to be angry, drunk and upset.”
 

“I know, Beau, I don’t blame her, but she needs to be ready to face tomorrow before
she can face any of that again.”
 

“Understood. Mick is on his way. Do you want us to stay here tonight?”
 

I shake my head. “No, I’ll be fine with her. I’ll call you if I need anything.”

SIX

******

Cami

******

Ugh! I can’t tell what hurts more, my foot or my head. Wait, why does my foot hurt?

I open my eyes and I’m in bed. How did I get here? I look over toward the bedside
table and it says 3:17, but my bedroom is full of light. “Jesus.” Shit, Tristan should’ve
been home by now, but he’s not here. I go in search of my phone, and I don’t see it
on the table by the clock. I start to feel around the bed and I can’t find it. I flip
the covers back to get up; I have to pee.
 

I swing my legs over the side of the bed and my left foot feels really heavy and hurts
like a bitch. That’s when I notice the crutches leaning against the wall on the other
side of the bedside table. I turn around, hoping to see Tristan, but he’s not here.
Sitting next to the clock are two white-and-red tablets, along with a glass of something
sparkling. I reach over and grab the Tylenol and pick up the glass. It’s still cool.
I take the hint and swallow the pills and return the glass to the nightstand.

“Tristan?” I call out.

“Finally,” I hear him say, and he gets up from the couch in the small sitting area
between my bed and the doorway out of my room. He comes to stand at the end of the
bed. “How are you feeling?”
 

“Like shit. What the hell happened?”
 

I try to remember, but nothing is coming to me. I remember sitting on the couch in
the dark. I’d talked to Tristan earlier, but...

“You don’t remember?”
 

I try again, but all I can remember is dropping him off at the airport, Mick and Beau
being here, and then the package. “Oh, God.” Suddenly the images from the last video
that I watched, over and over and over again, pop into my brain. When I’d talked to
Tristan, I hadn’t gotten there yet. I hadn’t seen the video, the one that— “That motherfucker
is alive.”
 

“That’s a start.... Do you remember anything else?”
 

I look at him. He’s scruffy and unshaven, not a usual Tristan look, and I can tell
he’s exhausted. “You haven’t slept?” I ask.