Magnus had been making a real game out of finding places to put my things. Every time he found a keepsake, like a photo frame or a snow globe, he'd hunt around until he found the perfect spot for the item. I was so used to seeing the apartment as being Magnus' that it was fairly surreal having pictures of my family dotted around the place.
When Camille walked in unannounced Magnus was mid-way through inspecting my seldom-used DVD's and I was just about to move a box of clothes into the bedroom. Both of us stopped what we were doing. I would have to get used to her just randomly turning up, it seemed.
She looked far too distraught for me to complain about it being weird, though.
"Magnus, it's awful!" She announced, practically throwing herself onto the floor where my boyfriend was knelt so that they could see eye to eye. Actually, she was below his eye level now, but whatever.
"Cammie?" Magnus asked, still registering that she'd appeared out of the blue, although he was clearly worried about her. "What's the matter?"
"He..." Cam began. The words seemed to get stuck in her throat before she spoke again. "He left her!"
"Who left who?" I asked, completely bewildered. I put the box I was holding down and went to close the door our friend had so helpfully left wide open.
You just couldn't underestimate the importance of privacy. Cam certainly didn't whatever had her feathers ruffled to get leaked so carelessly to passers-by. I was sure that I'd never seen her with such a lack of composure before. She kept frantically brushing her hair out of her face.
"He left her." Camille repeated, looking at me properly for the first time when I made my way back inside. "Ralf Scott broke off his engagement. And now he's coming to find me."
With everything going on I'd just about forgotten about Camille's situation with the Scott brother. Now it all came flashing back in a haze of lingering glances, hushed tones and fireworks.
"You're sure?" Magnus checked. He took hold of his ex-wife's hand and held onto it, rubbing his thumb in slow circles as Camille trembled. "That he's looking for you, I mean."
"Woolsey assures me." She stated, and stretched her back a little straighter. Trying to get it together before collapsing against Magnus' shoulder with a sob. "This is awful!"
I made eye contact with Magnus, thoroughly surprised by Cam's outburst. I'd seen her act anguished in movies, but this was real life. Whatever she was feeling was raw and real. I hadn't even realised that Camille had such an emotional range of her own – I mean, if I thought about it she must have, but I'd never seen it.
Usually she didn't seem to care much about anything, even whilst doing caring things.
I watched as Magnus stroked Camille's hair. It was bizarre; like being a fly on the wall. Eventually we heard Camille inhale deeply. Then she pulled back from Magnus and stood on her own.
"He's going to come to me." Camille said with a morbid kind of resignation. "He'll expect commitment and faithfulness. And all manner of things he knows I can't give him."
"Now, Cammie, you know that's not true." Magnus sighed. I expected him to follow her when he stood up, but he came to sit by me instead. He was a lot more collected than his ex-wife. "You're more than capable."
I didn't know to what extent that was actually true, but I held my tongue. It wasn't going to help if I voiced my doubts about Camille's ability to hold down a devoted relationship. Besides that, Cam had a way of proving people's perceptions of her to be false. So if Magnus thought she could do it, chances were I had it wrong anyway.
Camille wondered the apartment quietly for a moment or two before she came to stand by a shelf. I realised that was where Magnus had placed a photograph of Izzy, Max and I. It had been taken near the lake my family used to make trips to. Camille picked it up, smiled fleetingly and looked over at Magnus and me on the couch.
"Look at me, here interrupting you two." She shook her head and cast her eyes back to the picture as she replaced it.
"It's alright." I told her, before Magnus had to. She'd helped before. She'd been doing her part to help my sister too. So she had to know she had my support as well as Magnus'. "How can we help?"
"You two make it seem so easy." Camille observed. "Which is saying a lot. For a boy with no experience and a man conditioned to... freedom."
"Careful, Cammie." Magnus warned. Her tone was verging on the edge of insulting.
"Oh, Magnus, it's not like that." Sighed Camille. "I just don't understand how the two of you don't crave more."
"You don't crave anything when you have everything you want." Said Magnus, giving my hand a squeeze for emphasis.
Camille tilted her head to the side like the Chairman when presented with a new object in the house. As if our hands linked together represented some kind of huge conundrum. I was a little thrown too, but for a different reason. I mean, not long ago I'd had to tell him off for flirting with other people and suddenly he was claiming to have 'everything' he wanted?
It would be wonderful if he did feel that way, but I had to wonder how much truth was in his statement.
"Was our life lacking, before?" Asked Camille, with her eyes locked on Magnus'.
I feared that this was one of those questions women ask where there was no good way to respond. Magnus had the ultra-neutral face of a person determined not to give his mind away. Although I noticed he was the first of them to break eye contact.
"You know the answer to that, Cammie." Said Magnus.
Suddenly I felt exiled from the conversation again, in spite of Magnus' efforts to keep me an involved party. I wanted to get up out of the ex-couple's way and allow them to talk it out. Instead Magnus was holding onto me and Camille was blanking me like she did the day we met.
"You don't know it won't work if you never try it." I reminded the others of the matter at hand. "Mr Scott seemed like a nice guy."
Actually, he seemed like the kind of guy who bit his brother's head off when he thought nobody was listening. But, hey, who was I to judge? I wasn't supposed to hear it, after all. And Woolsey had been doing a lot to grate on his brother's nerves at the time.
"He's hopelessly nice." Camille sighed, flopping gracelessly into an armchair. "He should have a picket fence and a wife at home raising his two-point-five children."
"I remember being terrified that you and Magnus might have had kids together." I told them both, remembering the panicked thoughts I'd had when Camille had caught the two of us together.
Magnus and Camille exchanged a blank look before the two of them burst into uncontrollable laughter. Apparently I was hilarious now? Well, on the bright side Cam wasn't crying anymore. So I could live with it.
"That's the most absurd thing I've ever heard." Cam giggled. "Can you imagine?"
"The poor thing wouldn't stand a chance at being normal." Magnus agreed.
"We'd need paternity tests, goodness..." It had been a joke, but still. After Camille said it the laughter died out on both their lips as quickly as it had started. I felt the seriousness creeping back into the room like the awkwardly late kid in assembly.
"You could be a good Mum, though, Cammie." Magnus said encouragingly.
I didn't mean to widen my eyes at him, I really didn't. It just sort of happened. I looked over at Camille to see if she'd noticed my shock and was dismayed to see she had been watching. One side of her mouth quirked into a smile as if she saw a funny side to it, though.
"Don't lie to me." She muttered. "What nonsense."
"Well, you won't have kids for a while, anyway." Magnus considered. He sounded a little miffed that the two of us didn't agree with his prediction that Camille would discover latent maternal urges someday. He even folded his arms, before he smiled again. "I mean, you need to give Ralf Scott a chance, first."
Update up. Hey everybody! Big, huge thank you to those who reviewed the last chapter. I shall be doing my best to answer what I can before the story wraps up. That said, I hope that you guys liked this one and look forward to posting the next.