“Dean,” I said quietly as I knocked on his door. “It’s Camilla.”

I could hear his TV on, but no other signs of life.

Perhaps he’s asleep, I thought to myself as I lifted my hand to knock again. Before I could, Dean opened the door. The expression on his face was blank, it was devoid of his usual playful and soft expression.

“What’s up?” He peered down at me, his voice lacking emotion.

I won’t lie, it hurt hearing his words so sharp and cutting.

“I- Ummm… I-” I had forgotten what I was going to say. My rehearsal on the way up worked way better when I wasn’t standing in front of him.

“What, Camilla?” He snapped at me, growing impatient with my silence.

“Sorry, I brought you some dinner. As a peace offering,” I said quietly, handing him the plate. “And I also wanted to apologize for my comment earlier. I didn’t mean for it to come out the way it did, Dean. I was just angry, angry at myself.” He looked down at the plate and gently took it from my hand, placing it on the table next to the door.

“Thank you, I was about to come and get some.” His expression softened. “And you were right, Camilla. I hide behind the jokes because I can’t bear to feel the pain, it’s easier that way.” Dean steps back and gestures for me to come in. “I’m sorry, darlin. I shouldn’t have stormed off like that.”

“I shouldn’t have said what I said, so I guess we’re even.”

“I guess we are,” he says over his shoulder, walking over to his bed.

Dean had invited me in and yet I am still standing at his door.

Why? There isn’t an invisible barrier, so just do it. My inner voice urges.

I can’t, I physically can’t make myself cross the threshold. What would it mean if I was in his room, alone? Nothing. So why am I scared to get close to Dean? Why can’t I make friends? Hell, Jonathan is probably lying-in bed next to Shitenna right now, I think to myself.

“Come, sit, let’s eat together.” He waves me over.

“I-“ I pause, chewing nervously on the end of my thumb.

“What is it darlin, are you ok?” Dean looks at me with concern.

“I think, maybe, I should go to my room.” I stare down at my feet, unable to look at Dean.

“Oh, ok, if that’s what you want to do. I just thought-” his voice trails off.

I mean, you could invite him to your room, my inner voice suggests.

I guess, I think to myself.

“Would you, I dunno, maybe want to eat in my room instead?”

“Would you be comfortable with that?” He asks as he gets up, slowly approaching me and scanning my face for any sign of uncertainty in my expression.

“I am, but you don’t have to,” I reply nonchalantly.

I wouldn’t be upset if he said no, right? I thought to myself.

“I would love to, darlin.” Dean grins from ear to ear.

“Ok, cool,” I reply quietly.

Dean grabs his plate and closes his door. Turning to me he says, “Let me take that for you,” as he gently takes my plate out of my hand and carries it as we walk to my room.

My room isn’t different from his. All the rooms at Maplewood are identical but for some reason having him in my room seemed, safe. I know that sounds ridiculous and it probably is but him being in here, in a space I controlled made it easier for me to relax and not feel as if I was doing anything wrong. Because I wanted these moments, I wanted to feel normal. But I needed to do them on my terms and right now that was being in the safety of my room.

As we approached my door, Pickle came up and plonked her butt in front of my door patiently waiting for me to open it. Before Dean or I could step inside, Pickle brushed past us, trotted in, jumped up on my bed and sprawled out all ready for a night of Netflix and titbits from my dinner.

I heard Dean chuckle next to me as he walked past and placed our food down on the end of the bed.

As I walked past the bed to grab the remote, I narrowed my eyes at the audacity of Pickle.

This cat owns me, and she knows it, I thought to myself.

Plonking myself down on the bed next to her and I began the channel surfing for something mindless to watch while we ate. Dean passed my plate over to me as he sat on the opposite side of the bed and watched as I flicked from one channel to another before deciding there was nothing of interest on poor mans and flicked to Netflix.

“Do you like Arrested Development?” I ask, pushing my food around on my plate trying to make it look like I was eating it.

“Of course, are you kidding?” He replied sarcastically.

“Good, ‘cos if you didn’t, I don’t think we could be friends anymore.”

“We’re friends, darlin?” He titled his head to the side, looking at me curiously.

“I mean…” I pause as the feeling of embarrassment rushes over me.

Did I misjudge this? Are we not friends? I think to myself.

“Yes, we’re friends, darlin,” he chuckles. “I was just messin with you.”

“Don’t do that again, I was panicking there for a minute.” I lean over and punch his arm.

“Hey, hey, no need to get violent, geez!” He rolls his eyes at me as a cheeky smirk pulls at the corner of his lips.

“Well, don’t do it again and I won’t have to hurt you,” I scowl.

“Ok, ok, woman. Bloody hell.” He puts his hands up in defence. “Are all women from Australia this violent?”

“No, just me. And wait up, how did you know I was from Australia?” I look at him suspiciously.

“I didn’t, it was a guess. And a bloody good one by the look on your face.” He laughs.

“You got lucky, Dean,” I reply, giving Pickle a bit of butter chicken.

“I’ll take whatever I can get, darlin.” He smiles triumphally.

The rest of the night we watched Arrested Development, chatted about general things with neither of us wanting to talk about why we were here and just hung out. For a brief moment, I allowed myself to just be in the moment. I wasn’t the forgotten woman; I was Camilla, and it was nice. I knew, however, that this moment would be fleeting and that tomorrow the full force of my guilt would come crashing down. But for now, I would close my eyes with a smile on my face for the first time in over a month.

 

One month later.

 

The weeks passed and I began settling in. Group turned out to not be my thing. Sitting in front of strangers talking about my feelings put too much of my pain on show. I decided one on one with Kristen was best and so far, it’s been working ok. My questionnaire came back that it was indeed depression I was suffering from and I felt a sense of relief and anxiety. I excepted it, but then I didn’t if that makes sense. I sampled all the activities at Maplewood and found that yoga was my thing. It quietened my mind and gave me a sense of peace. Dean tried tirelessly to get me to go riding with him but the idea of being on top of an animal that, really, isn’t meant to be ridden and probably doesn’t want to be made me feel bad, but I did go with him to get Millie ready. He was right, I think she was a tad jealous of me, but I’ll win her over.

Every morning I wake to another one of Dean’s cheesy dad jokes, and some did elicit a laugh from me, but I would never tell him that. Laila, Kay and Emir checked in on me regularly and caught me up on what they were doing. Emir made sure to give me every detail about the wedding planning. I was excited for Emir and Saph, they are such a beautiful couple and for the first time in a while, I didn’t feel jealous of that.

Progress, maybe?

Emir never mentioned Jonathan and I never asked, I was beginning to get a little bit of myself back and I didn’t want to risk falling back into that dark space. What I didn’t know is that dark place would be back, faster than I anticipated.

After finishing up yoga, I decided to grab something quick to eat and then head up for a shower. Passing by the games room, I stopped to chat with Dean who was yelling at Halo because he couldn’t get past the level he was on.

“Oh, for the love of God, Dean. It’s just a game and you’re a grown arse man,” I scold him.

“It’s not just a game, it hates me. I know it!” He seethes through gritted teeth.

“Yeah, because it woke up this morning and thought, ‘Hmmm what can I do to piss Dean off today? I know, I won’t let him get past a level and keep killing him,” I reply sarcastically, rolling my eyes.

“Oh, it did. It’s evil!” He threw the controller down, huffing in frustration.

“Just watch some TV and calm the fuck down,” I said reaching for the remote and changing it off the game channel.

I should have let Dean keep playing, I shouldn’t have changed the channel, but I can’t go back now and I can’t unhear what I’d hear next.

“We have some exciting news for all you Sienna Cole fans out there. In a press conference today, Sienna announced that she is pregnant and expecting a baby middle of next year. We have yet to hear who the lucky man is, but we have our suspicions it’s her very sexy ex. We’ll keep you all updated as we get new information, but Celebrity Today would like to Congratulate Sienna and her partner on the fantastic news.”

I froze, the remote falling from my hand onto the floor. The entire room went quiet with only the words, ‘Sienna is pregnant’ swirling around in my head. Bile rose in the back of my throat, and I ran back outside, hurling my guts up in the bush. I felt someone behind me, holding my hair back and rubbing my back. I battered them away as I staggered backwards down the path.

“DON’T TOUCH ME!” I screamed putting my hand in front of me as a warning to stay back.

“Camilla, talk to me. Don’t shut down,” Dean begged, taking cautious steps towards me.

“NO! STAY AWAY DEAN!” I yelled as I whipped the vomit off the side of my mouth.

Everything was spinning, spinning out of control and I felt suffocated. I couldn’t pull air into my lungs.

“Oh my God!” I cried out, bending over and gripping my stomach. “She’s pregnant! He got her pregnant!” Tears were now streaming down my face and the pain in my heart was unbearable.

“Breath, darlin. You’re going to pass ou-“

I didn’t hear the rest of Deans words. Everything went black and my body fell to the ground.

 

Dean’s POV

 

Seeing Camilla’s body fall to the ground in front of my eyes was like something out of a fucking nightmare. I ran to her, grabbing her before she hit the ground. Her body was completely limp, and my entire body stiffened in fear. I shifted my weight so I could scoop her up properly and get her to Dr. Miller’s office as fast as my feet would carry me. It’s times like these I’m appreciative of the many hours spent training for moments just like this.

“DR. MILLER!” I yelled kicking the door with my foot as hard as I could.

I lean to the side, looking through the large window next to the door. My patience is at an all-time low right now.

“Hurry up,” I growl under my breath at Dr. Miller.

Just as I was about to kick the door down, I hear Dr. Miller’s hurried footsteps getting closer to the door. Not wasting a single moment she swings the door open and steps to the side, allowing me to carry Camilla in and to the closest patient room.

“What happened?” She asked, moving around the side of the table as I placed Camilla gently down.

“She was having some kind of panic attack and then she just collapsed.” I stepped back, interlacing my hands behind my head, pressing my palms hard into the back of my skull trying to suppress my panic from overcoming me.

In situations like this I never panicked, you can’t in my line of work, but this wasn’t a random person in a burning building. It’s Camilla, my Camilla and she was lying almost lifeless in front of me, and I didn’t know what to do. I began pacing as Dr. Miller went about checking Camilla over.

“Dean!” Dr. Miller shouts at me. “Dean! Did she hit her head?”

“What?” I spin around looking between Dr. Miller and Camilla.

“Did she hit her head?” She repeats.

“No, No. I caught her before she hit the ground.”

“Ok, good. How long ago did this happen?”

“Ummm, like, maybe, five minutes ago or less…” My voice comes out shaky as the adrenaline continues to pump through my body.

“So, not long, that’s good. Tell me what happened leading up to her passing out?” She asked as she raised Camilla’s legs and placed the cuff of the blood pressure machine on her arm. “And you,” she turns around narrowing her eyes at me. “Get a drink! I don’t need you passing out as well,” she says, pointing to the stink.

I grab a drink and begin telling her everything that happened up until this point. I told her that she was at yoga, she scolded me for yelling at the TV, that everything was ok until she saw something on the TV, she then ran, vomited, was crying uncontrollably, began hyperventilating and then passed out.

A mouthful, right? I didn’t want to leave anything out. 

“Her blood pressure is low. Does she suffer from blood pressure issues?” Dr. Miller looked at me like I should know the answer to that question.

“I- I don’t have a clue, she’s never mentioned anything to me.” I shook my head, confused and worried I’d fucked up.

“I’m going to call Kristen, stay here with her until I get back, ok?” She looked at me sternly.

“Of course,” I nodded, walking over to Camilla and taking her hand in mine.

Her body was tacky and showed all the signs of shock.

“What happened, Camilla?” I ask quietly, looking down at her, brushing the hair off her face.

I dragged a chair to the side of the bed and sat down next to her, taking her hand in mine again, gently rubbing it. My mind was racing with questions and what-ifs. What happened? What did she see? What if I was there? I’m broken out of my thoughts when I feel her hand leave mine and move to her face, rubbing her eyes.

“What-“ her voice raspy. “What happened? Where am I?”

“You passed out but you’re ok. You’re in Dr. Miller’s office.” I stand and lean over, cupping her face in my hands. “What happened, Camilla? What did you see?”

Tears begin falling down her cheeks as her breath gets caught in the back of her throat. I wipe them away with my thumb gently. Seeing her like this breaks me, and knowing there is nothing I can do to stop it, is torture.

Camilla reaches up and pulls me down by my shirt burying her face in my chest and crying hard into my chest. I can feel her cry vibrating through my chest threatening to knock my heartbeat out of rhythm. I wrap my arms around her tiny frame, trying my best to ground her.

I wasn’t prepared for the next words she would say.

“Sienna is pregnant with Jonathan’s baby. The man that broke me, the reason I’m here,” she replies through sobs.

My heart falls into my shoes. I pull her tighter into me as she breaks completely. Her tiny body trembles under the weight of her words. We had never discussed why either of us were here and now that I know, I wish didn’t. The anger I feel towards this man and what he has done to Camilla is unmeasurable. I want to rip him apart but I can’t right now. I need to be here for her, nothing else matters. Kissing the top of Camilla’s head softly, I let out a controlled sigh hoping it would not only settle the building rage I was feeling but calm Camilla as well.