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“Eli… can you help me get up, please?” she asks, most likely hearing our voices.
He closes his eyes, letting out a heavy breath through his nose. “Yeah… give me a second.”
I kiss each of them on the head.
“Text me later this week and we can FaceTime,” I whisper to Eli, and that’s when I notice his good luck chain I gave him years ago hanging around his neck.
Out of habit, I lift it off his chest and run my finger over it, stopping when I see a new addition…
A queen of hearts playing card.
“I wanted something to signify my actual good luck charm...”
Overwhelmed with emotions, he has so much of me here with him in this very room. A huge part of me wants to throw caution to the wind, but the other part of me hears her call his name for the third time and knows it's time to bow out.
I kiss him on the head once again and leave before I lose it right here on the hospital floor.
His whispered, “I love you, Queenie” as I walk away will haunt me until I cry myself to sleep tonight, dreaming of him and what could have been.
Sixteen
Faint whimpers from one of the twins drift through the monitor on my bedside table. It hasn’t been more than an hour since one of the girls was up. Both are teething badly, which means no one gets a good night's sleep.
The clock on my phone tells me it's past one in the morning, and if I’m taking a guess by the lack of motion detected in the girl's room, Cami is not home yet. Something that has been occurring more and more lately.
I have to be up in a few hours for a pitching clinic.Where is she?
Pressing her name, I wait for her to answer.
“Heyyy, Eli,” she yells, the background noise too loud to hear over.
“Cami, where are you?”
“What's that? Wait a minute, let me move so I can hear you.” I can hear the DJ getting farther and farther away.
“There, that’s better... what’s up?” she asks nonchalantly.
“Why aren’t you home like you said you were going to be?”
“What do you mean… I figured since you were around, it didn’t matter what time I came home.”
“Cami, you know I have to be up and out of the house in just a few hours… Who’s going to watch the girls?”
“Ugh, can’t your mom watch them or something? I was going to stay at your penthouse again tonight.”
“No, my mom is there to help occasionally. Not every fucking weekend, as of recently. You are supposed to be home, and no you’re not staying inmypenthouse.”
I'm trying my hardest to not lose my shit, but she agreed to be home. We discussed it. And besides, I'm starting to feel guilty about how often I'm relying on my mom to watch the girls. Witnessing Cami slowly pull away from Sophie and Addison is extremely frustrating. She’s barely around, and when she is, she’s not paying any attention to them.
Her actions shouldn’t surprise me. She’s made her intentions very clear mid-way through her pregnancy. She wanted someone to support her financially and bagging an athlete was her MO. If it wasn’t me, someone else would be in my shoes, eventually. She flat out told me that during one of our many arguments. Cami and I would never, nor will we ever, work in a relationship. She’s too selfish, uncaring, and needy… the complete opposite of the one woman I can’t ever stop thinking about.
It was hard to determine the best living situation for all of us. Since Cami and I are not together, cohabitating was not going to be it. Thank God, I was wise enough to build us a two-family house. That way, the girls are always within my reach, and it gives Cami her own separate living space, away from me.
“Okayyy, so then what would you like me to do?” she asks, as if she has no clue what I need her to do. What I’ve been asking of her for months now.
“I would like for you to grow the fuck up and take some responsibility for our children.” I snap, no longer able to control my frustration.
“How dare you say that! I’m their mother.”
