Everyone thinks he is fine that he has no problems; they're sure he misses his child but he put his head down and went to work so it can't be all that bad. Everyone is wrong.
He opens his eyes and stares up at the nondescript ceiling and just for a moment he forgets where is and everything feels normal. Then something feels off the more awake he becomes the more reality bleeds in. Oh, Luca, its Luca he's gone and that weight lands on his chest again.
"Please don't be real…." He mutters to himself as he turns over his hotel bed. He knows it's real he isn't stupid; he just wishes sometimes in weak moments that it is some dark dream. The first few mornings he even pinched himself, the sharp twist of pain a cruel truth.
Now though he just gets up and showers, he has the strap and it's all on him as he has taken over being the company flagship.
His phone trills when he's shampooing his hair. He lets it go to voice mail.
When he gets out he wraps a towel around his waist and plays the voicemail. "Hey joe, I'm not even sure you realize what today is but Happy Anniversary. We've made it an even dozen! Love you… I'm going into work today; send me good vibes so I make it through the day. Our spawns say h!"
They played phone tag every day for pretty much their entire relationship and this isn't the first milestone spent miles apart nor will it be the last.
He calls her and her cheery voiced assistant answers. "Campbell Anoa'I unit production supervisor for WWE productions, Harper speaking how may I direct your call?"
"Hey Harper its Joe is Cam around."
"She's in the editing bay for Total Divas and asked not to be disturbed; the flowers you sent were lovely. Can I take a message?" Harper replied in a clipped yet happy tone.
"Huh? No, Harp can you make a reservation at Prime on Wednesday for me? Around 8?" He asked.
"Sure no problem." She agreed
Joe looks at his account at no point had there been a flower charge, Nikki must of done it for him.
-/-/-
As Campbell watches the footage at first she passes the conversations between Joe and Nikki off as friendly or just being civil but as the footage rolls on their connection deepens before her eyes. It's not sexual at least not from what she can see but the fact that he has spoken more to John's ex in a month than he has to her in three hurts like hell.
She knows how much pain Joe's in she's not daft but to see how willing he is to lay it out to Nikki on private plane rides and in quiet dinners makes her angry. It feels like a betrayal, or an affair.
For the first time in months when she leaves hiding tears behind her Jackie O's it has nothing to do with Luca.
-/-/-
They had to meet up for dinner because his schedule is so full and at first he thinks that's what has her panties in a twist but as she sits across from him in sleek black dress, her strawberry blonde hair suddenly platinum. Giving him a dark blue eyed death stare he knows it's something deeper.
"Why'd you change your hair?" he asked trying to be conversational.
"Felt like it, but you like fake women I'm just trying to compete." She quips all fire and ice and he's somewhat confused by her comments.
"Is that a wig or just boxed dye? I know you Cammie and you're not a wild hair type." He smirked reaching forward to touch it but she backs out of his grasp.
She re-crossed her legs and eyed him. "Then I guess we don't know each other that well because I paid hundreds for it, do you not like it?"
He sipped his water. "Not particularly seeing as you did it just to get to me."
She speared a tomato in her salad and ate it before giving a delicate shrug and replying. "Huh, John liked it two outta three ain't bad." She has the nerve to smile at him and it sends his anger skyrocketing.
"You seem to be spending a lot of time with him. Should I worry?" he hedged, She would never cheat he knows that or so he tells himself. He's just trying to garner a reaction.
"Should I?" She counters with a lifted eye brow before continuing on. "He brought me Luca's car, he finished it for him. He saw it then." She offered as explanation.
He tries to get them back on track. "Hmm, okay. Can we just spend time together I haven't seen just you in weeks,"
"Sure, I have been transferred from movies to over seeing some of the channel content production wise. That match with Randy, you sold it but that one hit looked like it hurt." She said by way of conversation.
"Iced my shoulder its fine now,"
She nods sympathetically "I saw that, Nikki helped you, don't worry it hit the cutting room floor, John won't come after you. Your dinner and heartfelt conversation did however make the cut. Good luck explaining that to me."
Ah there's Cam's issue. She's jealous. "There's nothing to explain, we're friends and we have common ground."
"You always let your friend's eye fuck you or do you just her?"
He stares at her for a minute. "Damn it Cammie! I have never cheated not once and you know it!"
"Yeah really? Excuse me for wondering. Surely it has nothing to do with not touching me with a ten foot pole for the past six months." What she said is true they haven't been intimate in months but her calling it out in public embarrasses him.
"I'm not doing this with you! I'm not justifying myself to you!" he got up and walked out Leaving her in the fancy restaurant before the entrée was even served. She gets up and leaves. She takes a cab home. She'd taken a car service from work and had planned to go home with Joe.
-/-/-
When she got out of the cab she saw her sister sitting on the stoop. She dissolved into tears as she went up the path. "What's happening to us? He left me in a restraint on our anniversary. He didn't even send those flowers; he knows I'm allergic to gardenias. I'm not that insecure woman who tears into her man for every little thing. We're coming apart at the seams. He used to love me, even if it meant it was hard. He loved me, now I'm not sure." Plops down on the stoop next to Maclaren.
"Come inside. I'll make some coffee. And I'll tell you what I think you should do."
"My kids are inside."
"He's not though and the kids are upstairs watching Finding Nemo." Mac stood and pulled Campbell to her feet.
"Okay."
-/-/-
Cam drank from a mug Tessa had made for her in kindergarten. Mess is mine by Vance Joy plays lowly on the radio above the sink. "This plan to save us all, what is it? Because, I gotta say I'm tapped emotionally." Cam said tiredly.
"No you aren't. Just thinking about it being over has you in tears you ain't done. You just need someone to help you fight." Maclaren leaned on the island.
Cam looked to the woman across from her. "What? Like, grief counseling?"
"Exactly. Couples therapy."
Cam shook her head and looked at the marble of the island. "He'll never go for it. Samoan men just don't do things like that."
"Then he needs to be convinced. The two of you never grieved together. You need that. Therapy will help."
"Mackie…" she laughed tiredly. "You can't grieve with someone, you just you can't but you can be there and hold someone up but he's not even present when he's here…I try, I do. He doesn't grieve at all. He works. I'm broken and he's solid as oak and it pisses me off."
"Try it Hermana, you got nothing to lose." Her sister said softly.
"We've already lost everything." Cam sniffed back a fresh wave of tears.
"No, you lost someone. Not everything, you still have me, and Tess and Jonah."
Cam shook her head. "I didn't mean it like that."
"No, but it feels that way. You need to remember feelings are things not the truth."
-/-/=
When he stumbles in half drunk she's sitting in the chair at the end of the bed that she sits in to take off her shoes.
"Do you love me? Please be honest, it's important." He startles at her voice the room is dark he doesn't see her there.
He sighed. "That's a stupid question Kealoha."
"Answer anyway." She retorted tiredly.
He said , I do." He was afraid of what he'd find in her eyes as he snapped on a lamplight.
"Then will you help me try to save whatever is left of us and go talk to someone?"
"And if I say I don't want to talk to anyone?" He asked pulling off his dress shirt.
"Then I say you risk losing me." She countered dead seriously.
Their room was filled with silence. Joe had no need to weigh the option, he'd lost her already on some level and he wanted her back. His o'hana was broken and he needed that back. "Alright." His reply was barely that of a whisper.
"Thank you."
He sat on the end of the bed with a defeated thunk. "Don't thank me for fighting for you. It makes me feel dirty.
She got to her feet and gathered a night shirt. "Okay. I'm going to sleep with Tessa. She's been sleep walking."
"Alright." Joe knew he was too drunk to argue. "Cammie she's really sleep walking?"
She nods pulling her white blonde hair into a ponytail. "Yeah, she was to the front door last week. Set off the alarm, it's a sign of emotional distress."
"Damn. Okay come get me if you need me take a shift."
"I need to be a better mom, I got it." She moved to the door.
"Goodnight, I love you."
"Back at ya Joey." She walked away.
=/-/-
She sighed and looked at her husband from across the therapist couch. "I don't understand you Joe, you think that just because you love me, wait excuse me loved me. That it was this great unbreakable thing, that because my love for you was as close to zealous hero worship as a woman can get that you could simply command me to be well I was just going dry up my tears and dust off my knees that were broken by the weight of my tears like it was nothing. Just another day right Joe? "
"I just-"
She snarled at him. "It is not your turn to speak. That is not how this works Joe! You can't dry up the rivers of grief left behind by having a dead child, and don't say that, that isn't what you want. Because it's cleaner and not so goddamned hard right? I fell apart because this is hard, and it fucking hurts, I fell apart because I know what his heartbeat felt like by holding him to my own heart. I broke because I memorized the way his eyelashes fell the last time he closed his eyes. I lost my shit because my twenty one year old child was a faithful man. He had a tan line when I took off his wedding band to give it Sage." She wiped away hot angry tears tracking down her too pale and world weary face.
"I was heartbroken because he was so afraid of missing out on life that he married the first girl he loved and he did it well. I should be proud but instead I'm pissed that he didn't have time for mistakes. The devastation I felt when I realized the relief I thought I'd feel over his no longer feeling pain was never going to come for me was crippling."
He remains silent and she screamed in frustration. "You wanted to work it out well here we are! Say something! Explain to me how you can just stone face me when I lay it all out for you to judge! How do you justify turning to Nicole? Not only that but throwing it in my face the way you did! I am your wife and not once in twelve years had I ever felt betrayed, or cheated until that day in the stupid fucking editing room! You can cry, and you sure as fuck can share just not with me right?"
"I'm the man! I'm not supposed to be crushed!" He shouted in response.
"I never once said that!" She shouted back.
"I think everyone just needs to take a moment and breathe. Both of you are dealing with a great loss and emotions." Therapist Dr. Haley Sands cut in.
"Thanks for the update doc; there for half a second we forgot our kid was dead! I wasn't mad at him I was just saying I never said that and I don't understand why he feels that way." Cam snarled.
"Cammie!" Joe admonished.
Dr. Sands interrupted. "No Joe, its okay Cam is entitled to any emotion in this room. It's a safe place for both of you. Cam I'm going to ask you to pause and think about what you heard when he responded. It doesn't have to be exactly what he said just what you heard."
"That I didn't allow him to grieve but-"
The Doctor shook her head as she glanced at her watch. "Ah. No qualifiers just your honest feelings. We're almost out of time but I have an assignment for the two of you to do at home. I want the two of you to disconnect from the world, no phones, no TV, no anything. I want you to go into a room any room in the house but the bedroom and I want you to sit facing each other and just look at each other, focus on your partner and think about them, not in connotation with your children just about each other. You cannot communicate verbally. You may touch, no sex, then after you do this for 15 to 30 minutes you will journal about what you thought of, felt, or observed in your partner. We will follow it up next session. Do not think negatively either."
-/-/-/-
"This feels weird." Cam said as they begin the exercise.
"I think it's supposed to…Shhh." He said suppressing groan.
"Right, gotta be quiet sorry." She shakes herself out then goes still.
As Cam sits Indian style in the living room floor with Sweet Jane by Cowboy Junkies playing in the back ground she does what is asked of her and honestly at first it feels like she's just staring at Joe blankly but then she notices the laugh lines around his eyes she used to love his easy humor and bright smile, the way he made her happy. The gray creeping in on his temples reminds her just how far they've come. There's a bruise splashed on his shoulder she has no idea how he got. She has to bite her tongue to not ask. The way he's sitting sort of stooped in on himself strikes her as off. She must be scowling because he is scowling back. It makes her wonder if she has somehow unknowingly broken him. Tears spring to her eyes. She loves him so much that the pain of hurting him hits like a wave. She hitches in a breath as reaches over to brush her hair out her eyes.
Even sitting Indian style in yoga pants and a tank top Cammie sits ramrods straight but hey that's his girl, she's tough. Organized, honest clear minded. She hasn't been herself for months, there are dark circles under her eyes and he thinks of what it feels like to sleep with her in his arms, even miles away she used to feel close, now they are on different planets. Part of that's on him, he knows what the platinum hair is, a misplaced cry for attention. To be seen. He knows that need stems far beyond their time together, even past Luca, someone with no parents fights to be noticed, loved, understood. He used to be good at it, now though it feels heavy. He still loves her. He'd never stopped. The sight of her tears rips into him. She reached out to intertwine their fingers. He loved her… beyond everything but some part of them died with Luca and if they can't get it back again how do they rebuild what they've lost? Her breath hitches and he brushed her hair back and swept away her tears.
She kissed him because he's crying and she can't ask why. I love you, I love you, I love you, please don't leave me, I don't mean to be so broken she thinks.
He kissed her back because it's good to feel something even if it is lust, totally unchecked. He smirked thinking that the doctor didn't know them all that well they like sex on the floor. Carpet burns be damned.
She kissed him hard pulling at his Henley then stopped. "No, sex it was a rule…" she said a little breathlessly as she carefully gets out of his lap. "Prude." He teased as she walked away.
"Because I love you and chose to not be hurtful to you I have no retort." She said firmly back in control.
"I'll take it."
She turns back and she looks at him stretched in the floor. "I love you. I miss the laughter that used to live here. You taught me how to breathe I miss it."
He winked at her. "I still see you. I love you too."
-/-/-/-
AN: I own nothing but Campbell, Maclaren, Tessa, Jonah, and Sage and of course Luca! If you liked it drop me a line. - MM