May 14th, 2016
As we pulled into the driveway of my childhood home, an instant wave of tranquility washed over me.
Weeks of avoidance and battles had culminated last night, and Levi had finally taken the reins.
Reaching out to my mom and dad himself, he’d set the plans for today in motion, and against my wishes, had given me the exact thing I’d needed.
Stubborn me, I just hadn’t realized it.
The comfort of my mom’s sweet voice and the solace of my dad’s bear hugs always made me feel better, no matter the hurt. They were the root of everything me and Camilla, and they were the reason I was the way I was. If anyone could tap into the antidote to my plague-like sadness, they were the ones.
Running from Camilla, her belongings, and our memories had seemed like the only answer to the pain. But I’d been trying that for a month and a half, and the days seemed to get slower and harder with each one that passed. Maybe the answer was in the opposite. In getting as close to her spirit as possible—in holding on tight to every part of her I still could.
I wanted to sit inside my childhood bedroom, and I wanted to lie down in Camilla’s old twin-sized bed and just remember her.
Levi pulled the Range Rover to a stop and shut off the engine.
For as eager as I was to test the theory, I didn’t hop right out. I stayed put in the passenger seat and let the emotions flow over me while I peered out through the windshield at my parent’s midcentury modern home.
It was all clean, sleek lines and open, airy windows, and the entrance welcomed anyone who stood in front of it.
Home, I thought.
“You ready to go inside?” Levi asked, but I shook my head.
“I just need another minute.” And I did. A moment to process, a moment to dread, a moment to accept that Cami wouldn’t ever meet us at the door.
Patient with my ever-rocky emotions, he filled the silence by reaching out and clasping my fingers within his, resting our joined hands on the top of his thigh.
I felt so many things and all at once. It was damn near overwhelming, and I had to take a deep, shaky breath just to deal with it all.
Relief. Melancholy. Deep, soul-crushing sadness. And adrift.
So painfully lost.
I was about to walk into my parents’ home, something I’d done a thousand times, but this time, I knew it wouldn’t feel the same. It wouldn’t give me an instant sense of comfort or relief.
I’d have to walk through the front door and face the memories of Camilla and me racing each other from the school bus to the house.
I’d have to see the long entry where my mom had lovingly placed various family photos of us throughout the years. Camilla’s pigtails in kindergarten and her toothless grin in first grade. A picture of the four of us in San Francisco, the Golden Gate Bridge behind us. The two of us in our prom dresses and graduation caps and gowns.
So many memories and not a single one was devoid of my beloved sister.
“It’s a little hard,” I whispered to Levi, but my gaze remained locked on the house. “There’s so much past inside there, so many memories of Camilla, and God, Levi, it just makes me miss her so much.”
He grasped my fingers tighter and lifted them to his mouth for a soft kiss.
I swallowed hard against the thick emotion clogging my throat and blinked away the tears that threatened to spill from my lids.
I didn’t want to be a mess in front of my parents. I wanted to be strong for them.
I wasn’t the only one who had lost someone important.
They’d lost their daughter. Their child. Their baby girl.
I could only imagine the grief and sadness they’d had to process over the past month and a half. Especially since I hadn’t done my part in giving them glimpses of the daughter they still had left.
“It’s okay to be sad, Ivy,” he said, his voice soft and soothing. “It’s okay to cry and grieve. I know you’re probably sitting here trying to be strong, but you know what I think you should do?”
“What?” I asked and turned my head to meet his warm eyes.
“I think you should just let yourself feel whatever your feeling,” he responded, reaching out with his free hand to brush a loose strand of hair behind my ear. “This is your home and those are your parents and, if anything, you being completely real with them will only give all three of you the freedom to process and grieve and just be.”
Such wise words from a man who used to live his life with avoidance in mind.
I marveled at how far Levi had come since I’d first met him.
I’d thought about how he’d lived with all those secrets and sadness and endless guilt buried deep within his soul and how it had been those very things that were keeping him from really living.
He had gone through so much, seen so much, dealt with so much, and yet, here he was, being my biggest and strongest confidant.
I couldn’t have survived the tragic loss of my sister without him.
I knew that much.
He had been the one constant that helped hold me together, that helped pick up the broken pieces when I really lost it.
“Okay,” I whispered and let go of his hand. “Let’s go inside.”
With a big inhale and a deep exhale, I cleansed myself of my worries and fears and got out of the car with one thing in mind—just be in the moment.
It only took two soft knocks at the door for my mother’s smiling face to meet my eyes.
“Ivy,” she said, and her voice sounded relieved and happy and sad all at once. “Oh my gosh, I’ve missed you.” She stepped out onto the porch and wrapped me up in her arms, and I never even considered stopping the tears produced by the comfort of her embrace.
My tears unchecked and unashamed, I let the salty liquid stream down my cheeks and onto her shirt as I buried my face into her neck and hugged her as tightly as I could. “I’ve missed you too, Mom. It’s been so hard. So, so hard.”
She leaned back and placed both of her hands on my cheeks. “I know, sweetie. Your dad and I have been a mess too.”
“Dad?” I questioned through a sob. Dave Stone was the strongest guy I knew and the steel in my spine. He was everything I wanted to be and more, and the thought of him bowing under the pressure of the grief made my head spin.
Still, for some reason, it made me feel better. If someone that strong was struggling, I had all the reason in the world to be struggling too.
My mom nodded, a sad smile curving the line of her peachy, coral-colored lips. “Some days, it feels impossible to get out of bed knowing I have to live inside a world without Camilla, but I know in my heart she would want us to find peace. She would want us to grieve, but she’d also want us to find the strength to move past our sadness.”
I nodded, and more tears slipped from my lids. “I know…it’s just…I miss her so much.”
She swiped the liquid emotion off my skin with her thumbs. “Of course you do, sweetie. She was your identical twin. You two shared a bond like no other.”
“I love you, Mom.” I hugged her tight. “I love you so much.”
She leaned back to look at me, tears stinging in her eyes now. “I love you too, sweetheart,” she whispered. “I think we’ll get through this. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done, and God, I miss her so much, but I think we’ll get through it.”
“I think so too.”
It was the first time I really, truly felt like that was a possibility.
“Where’s Dad?” I asked, and she glanced over her shoulder as we released each other from our embrace.
“He’s out on the deck cooking up some steaks for us. Please tell me you guys are hungry because he hasn’t stopped cooking all day.” She smiled at me and then moved her eyes to Levi. “And, Levi, honey, it is so good to see you,” she said and stepped forward to give him a quick, tight hug. “I’m so happy you’ve been staying in LA with my Ivy. I know she really needs you right now.” A rolling gurgle caught in her throat as she bottled a small cry and said words I knew I wasn’t meant to hear. “Thank you so much for bringing her back to us.”
I dabbed at the corner of my eye to stave off the guilty tingle, and I looked to Levi. His soft eyes and warm smile were on me, and they were annoyingly self-vindicating.
“We wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.”
The know-it-all bastard.
“Let’s go out back. Maybe you can talk some sense into your father. He seems to think we’ve got thirty people coming and needs to prepare a buffet worthy of a king.”
I smiled, and God, it felt good to just smile. Somehow, seeing my mom doing the same made it feel normal.
Levi wrapped his arm around my shoulders, and we followed my mom inside and straight back through the main center hall of the house.
The instant we stepped out onto the deck, I spotted my dad, standing in front of the grill and tapping his toes to the sounds of Bob Seger’s “Night Moves” playing from his phone.
“Dave, we’ve got company,” my mom informed him. Chagrined by information he so very obviously knew—as he’d spent all day grilling to be ready for us—my dad glanced over his shoulder, smiled fleetingly at my mom, and then rolled his eyes to me.
Still, the sight of me must have been a healing balm for sore eyes because knowing we were coming didn’t diminish his excitement at all.
“Ivy Lou!” he exclaimed and quickly set his metal spatula on the side of the grill. “God, girl, it’s good to see you,” he said as he walked toward me.
It took mere seconds before I was wrapped up into one of his big bear hugs.
“Hi, Dad,” I said, and he leaned back to meet my eyes. “Missed you.”
“Missed you too, baby girl,” he murmured softly, giving me a teasing gleam of his eye. “Even in this blond, unrecognizable form of the daughter I thought I knew.” He hugged me tightly again and then moved his gaze to Levi.
“Officer Fox,” he said with a teasing grin. “I hope you’re not here to inspect my deck and grill to see if they’re up to our HOA code. Because I can assure you, they are definitely not. Also, it was all Helen’s idea.”
My mom laughed, and Levi grinned.
“I’m off duty, sir,” he said. “Honestly, I might be off duty permanently.”
My dad quirked a brow, and Levi responded by wrapping his arm around my shoulders, tucking me close to his side, and smiling down at me.
“I need to stay close to my girl.”
A little aww left my mom’s lips, and my dad smiled like the damn sun.
“That’s good to hear, son,” my father said. “That’s real good to hear. I’m glad the two of you have found happiness between all of the pain you’ve had to face. Both of you deserve it. You deserve to be happy.”
My dad’s words hit me straight in the chest.
I hadn’t felt like I’d deserved to be happy. I couldn’t even find a passable avenue to the idea of it.
Losing my sister had been the worst and hardest thing I’d ever been through.
But maybe someday, I’d be able to replace the pain with peace, and I wouldn’t feel any guilt or shame in that. My parents seemed to be doing the best they could, and I had to give myself the same grace.
“Did you guys have any trouble on your way in?” my mom asked, and I raised a confused brow.
“Trouble?”
“With the paparazzi trying to follow you here.”
“No.” I shook my head and sighed at the same time. “We did the whole shell game thing and did a quick vehicle switch inside of an empty warehouse after we left the hotel.”
The paparazzi issue was becoming a really hard obstacle for us.
Wherever we went, they followed. And they were ruthless when it came to getting photos of us. Climbing fences, standing on top of parked cars, running into the middle of traffic, there wasn’t anything they wouldn’t do.
It was scary.
And because of that fact, Levi had amped up our security from just Baylor and Hampton to another two-man team when we went anywhere.
I was used to photogs and people wanting to get my picture, but since everything had happened with Camilla and the movie, Levi and I had become a huge target for the media.
They wanted to know and see and witness anything and everything they could.
“Has the press backed off on you and Dad?” I asked, and Mom shrugged.
“It’s gotten a little better. Not nonexistent, of course, but better.”
I sighed. I hated that while my parents were trying to grieve, they had journalists attempting to contact them and ask them a million questions about our lives.
The mere idea of it made me feel itchy and a bit stabby if I was being honest.
The only thing that kept me sane was the fact that they lived inside of a gated community and didn’t have those fucking vultures standing on their lawn.
“I know your mother is quite the beauty, but I’m sure our fifteen minutes of fame will be up soon, Ivy. So, don’t even start worrying your pretty little head about it,” my dad said and then added, “It’s just too bad the sudden fame isn’t revolving around something else, like my grilling skills. In my opinion, those are worthy of a front-page spread. I mean, look at those steaks.” He pointed toward the grill.
“A true masterpiece, sir,” Levi said, amusement in his voice, and I smiled.
“Like the Picasso of meat, Dad. They almost look too good to eat.”
“Don’t put ideas in his head, Ivy!” my mom exclaimed. “Next thing I know, I’ll have a museum of Plexiglass-covered steaks in the basement.”
“Now that would give the press something to talk about, hun,” my dad said with a wink, and my mom couldn’t not laugh.
While my parents teased one another and my dad took the steaks off the grill, I looked up at Levi and smiled. “I’m glad we came.”
“Me too,” he said.
“And thank you.”
“For what?” he asked, and his eyes searched mine.
I pressed a kiss to his lips. “For being you. And for forcing me to do what I needed all along.”