Page 59 of Good Days Bad Days

Charlie

Present Day

When I close my eyes, the red and white lights of the ambulance flash against the back of my eyelids.

It’s been nearly two hours since the paramedics pulled up to Ike’s, sirens blaring.

Betty was crying on the floor, head on Olivia’s lap when they arrived.

I knew I should be the one petting her hair, saying calming words, but the dripping wet towel around my burned hand and my guilt kept me at a cautious distance.

Once the medics took over, Olivia found her way to my side.

“She’s gonna be fine,” she said, as if she knew I felt responsible and wanted to reassure me.

She drove me to the hospital, where they dressed my second-degree burns and stitched up the cut on my arm.

After being administered a dose of pain medication, I told Olivia I’d be fine on my own and asked her to check on Betty.

As soon as she was gone, I looked at my phone.

Plenty of texts and calls from pretty much everyone in my life, but there was only one I decided to respond to—Cam.

Within fifteen minutes of my text, Cam bursts into my treatment room, pulling me out of my regret-filled thoughts.

“You didn’t have to come,” I say. I didn’t ask him to come. I just filled him in on the intense breakdown at Ike’s, and when he asked where I was now, I told him the truth. I should’ve known he’d rush in to help if given the chance. Maybe somewhere deep inside I did.

“You came all the way to Janesville—the least I could do is stop by for a visit,” he says, attempting a joke that falls a bit flat before growing serious. “I canceled the rest of my day.”

“Cam, you’re the best,” I say with a slight slur from the medication.

“I don’t know if you noticed, but I’ve been trying to get in touch with you,” he says, politely reminding me of how I’ve basically ghosted him as he sits in the chair next to the hospital bed.

“Oh, Cam, I’m sorry. It’s been a shitty few days.”

“I get that, but . . .” He takes out a photocopy of a record of some sort. “I have some information that might help. I don’t know about the rest of the story, but that waitress was right. You do have a sister.”

“What?” I pick up the paper and lean in to examine the faded lettering, finding it difficult to read in the dimmed light, especially after a dose of pain medication.

“She was born in 1973. Her name was Laura.”

The revelation hits my body like a cannonball in the gut. That’s the name my mother has called me from the first day I walked into her room at Shore Path.

“So it’s true? The murder thing—it’s true?” I drop the incriminating document, unsettled by the loss of a sister I never knew.

“I don’t know. This was as far as I got. I’m sure we can look for more information . . .”

My mom’s cries and Olivia begging me to stop pestering Betty with my questions play in the back of my mind. “I should’ve let sleeping dogs lay—or lie, or sleep, or whatever.”

“I see the painkillers are working,” he jokes, this one funnier than the last, probably because of the morphine.

“But seriously, Charlie, I don’t agree. ‘What’s past is prologue’ is also a saying, a better one than the stuff about dogs, I think.

I could pull every tooth that had decay, you know, but then you’d end up with no teeth. ”

“It’s not my decay,” I rationalize. “It’s my parents’, my mom’s.”

“I’m dropping the tooth metaphor, but whatever this rot is—whether it’s the house, the trauma, or the past—it’s also a part of you. It shaped you. Take my parents, for example.”

“Sue and John? I love them.”

“I know. Everyone does. They seemed so happy forever, perfectly matched. But what no one knows is that they’re moving to Florida because my dad got caught in another affair.”

“What?” My mouth drops open. I thought his parents were perfect. “What do you mean ‘another’?”

“Another. As in he’s been having affairs for their whole marriage.

I found out about it like a year after you left.

My mom considered leaving him and moving in with her parents in Milwaukee.

She said she stayed for us, to keep the family together.

I always felt guilty about that—her choice to stay with a philanderer ’cause of her kids.

But even when Sammy and I moved out, he kept cheating and she stayed. ”

“I had no idea,” I say, reaching out clumsily for Cam with my unbandaged hand. He secures it with his, covering both of our hands with the scratchy hospital bedding.

“Yeah, no one did. All families have the rot, Charlie. You know, it’s OK to want to understand some of it, keep what’s healthy and dump the rest.”

Emotion tickles at my tear ducts, my vision blurring.

“Hey, come here,” I say, tugging at his arm until he’s close enough for me to see his eye freckles again.

I caress his cheek, realizing it’s smooth, his light beard shaven.

Amid the haze of painkillers, I grapple with the ache of everything that’s transpired today.

I’m comforted by the familiar face of Cam, someone who knows about my rot because he was there when it started.

“I think you’re one of the things I want to keep. ”

Cam, the boy with the spotted eyes who made me feel loved when I felt like another piece of junk in my mom’s house, brushes my hair back from my forehead and places a soft, lingering kiss there. He takes a long look at me and shakes his head as he speaks.

“Here’s the thing, Lottie. I read your book, the one about you and Ian.” I groan and start to protest, but Cam continues his thought. “Are you two over? Like, for good?” he asks.

I want to explain everything—the messages, the fight at the Grand Geneva, the demands from Alex McNamara—but that’s not what he’s asking. He wants to know if we’re getting divorced, and I don’t have an answer for that yet. I shake my head.

“I didn’t think so.” He lets out a heavy sigh. “I like you, Lottie. I like you a lot, but I don’t want to mess you guys up.”

“You’re not the problem—” I begin to say, but he hushes me.

“I’m not the solution either. I can’t get in the middle of your marriage.

I know how divorce works. Even if you break up, that’s a major life change.

I think . . . I think right now you could use a friend.

” Even with my woozy head, I know he’s right.

I can’t run away from Ian and jump into Cam’s arms, expecting all my problems to disappear.

“You should be a dentist and a therapist—a dental therapist,” I suggest, and he laughs softly, though the moment is anything but lighthearted.

“That one was definitely from the drugs,” he jokes to lighten the mood. He gently releases my hand and folds his arms across his chest as if he fears he might change his mind.

We don’t dig any deeper into “what might have been.” Instead, we watch funny videos on his phone until my eyes grow too heavy to keep focused.

Eventually, the nurse brings in the final paperwork, and I’m released shortly after. Cam escorts me into the waiting room, where Olivia is sitting in a corner with her laptop open on her thighs. We’re instructed to wait here for news about Betty.

Still drowsy from the medication, I doze off with my head resting on Cam’s platonic shoulder.

It seems like only a few minutes have passed when a familiar voice jolts me from a dreamless sleep filled with red and white flashing lights.

I raise my head and see Ian’s face looming over me, a stormy hue contrasting with his naturally bright complexion.

“Ian,” I say, bolting upright. My head is clearer now, although the pain in my hand and forearm is becoming more nagging. The clock on the wall reads 4:37—four hours since the accident.

It’s strange to see Ian standing in front of me instead of being the one sitting beside me, his arm around me, eager to help and trying to ease my pain.

He’s the one who drove me to the ER after our miscarriage, the one who stood up to a particularly aggressive paparazzo camped outside our house in LA.

He’s the man who showed up to fix my parents’ house, even though we might be getting a divorce.

And here I am, sleeping—quite literally—with another man.

“What the hell happened?” he asks, directing his question at both me and Cam, his tone dripping with blame.

“It’s fine. There was an accident with my mom.”

“You don’t look fine,” Ian says, glaring at Cam as though he’s the reason for my bandages.

“Just some spilled soup and a little cut. It’s silly really,” I try to explain, but Ian doesn’t find anything silly about the moment.

Cam senses the awkwardness of the situation. He leaps out of the seat and pats his scrubs pocket.

“It’s second-degree burns and a laceration to the right antebrachium, uh, forearm. They said the burns aren’t serious, but she needs to change the dressing every day or so. Here are her prescriptions.” He hands Ian a folded stack of papers, which he doesn’t take.

Ian looks between me and Cam in the same way he did on the porch when he inadvertently interrupted our first kiss—our first kiss that never happened. Then he storms away, swerving to the right to join a tall, hunched figure at the nurses’ station. My dad.

“I don’t know if you sensed that, but I think he might be mad,” Cam says, making an exaggerated grimace that I’d normally find funny. “I should probably go.”

And though I don’t want to lose my one ally in this situation, I agree.

I haven’t seen Ian for three days, and he looks worse than when he first arrived in Lake Geneva, if that’s even possible.

He’s deeply upset, and my dad—well, that’s not gonna be any easier.

It wouldn’t be fair to ask Cam to stay and buffer the fallout.

“I’ll call you later,” I say as he helps me up from the uncomfortable upholstered chair.

“I live ten minutes away if you need me.”

“Thanks,” I say as we embrace. I rest my head against his shoulder one more time, a touch of homesickness washing over me when he lets go.