“It’s a girl?” he asked, and he suddenly smiled. “Congratulations, Camdyn. I’ve been putting the money you send me into an account, and now we can make that savings for her. I don’t need you to pay me back. No matter what, I’m glad that I took care of your schooling and everything else.”
“I didn’t want you to think that you had made things ok by doing that,” I told him. “I wanted you to know that you couldn’t buy me off. And I don’t want to owe you.”
“You don’t. What happened between your mother and me doesn’t affect you.”
I stared at him. “Are you serious? Do you really think that? Jesus and Mary, I’m really lucky that César isn’t like you, that he didn’t decide to screw me and then run off, hurt me and then refuse to…oh, my God.” I stopped, and put my hand over my mouth. “You know what? I’ve been afraid this whole time that I’m like my mother, but actually, I’ve been acting like you.” The Earth tipped again and I held out my arms for balance. “Soleil wasn’t having fun, she wasn’t refusing to settle for someone. She was chasing after love and affection. But you—you nailed any woman within reach and didn’t think twice about it. I’ve done the same thing, in my own way. I’ve been using guys, taking from them and not giving. Sometimes they didn’t care, but some of them I really hurt, like Lincoln. That was what Davis Blake was afraid of about me.”
I stopped, horrified. Was that how I been behaving with César, too? “No,” I said aloud as acceptance swept over me. “No, that’s not how I would treat him, because I love him so much.” I sure did, and everything tilted again and I almost threw up. He was it—the person I wanted and needed, the person who I had to be with forever, or I probably wasn’t ever going to be happy again. I wasn’t going to settle for him, but I was going to settle down, if he would have me.
“You’re in love with Davis Blake?” My father wiped his hand down his face. “Camdyn, that’s no good.”
“Davis? No, I’m not, and you’re not one to give romantic advice!”
Warren shook his head, confused. “I want to make amends to you,” he said. “Perhaps I haven’t treated you well, but Soleil had schemed—”
“Isn’t part of your therapy to honestly admit what you’ve done wrong?” I asked, cutting him off this time. “There’s no ‘perhaps.’ There’s no, ‘It was Soleil’s fault’ that you lied to me.”
He looked at me, that old blue-eyed glare that he’d used to stare down teammates, coaches, and mostly the guys who lined up opposite to him at the line of scrimmage. But it didn’t scare me. I gave it right back.
“You’ll have to admit that you did something terrible by pretending that I wasn’t your daughter for twenty-two years. You’ll have to admit that it did take two to tango, and you knocking up Soleil wasn’t something that just happened to you because she tricked you, and that you guys lying to me about who my father was came down to both of you. She’s not here to tell her side, to defend herself, and I’m not taking on that role anymore. When you can accept and believe all that, then you can come talk to me.” I took a deep breath but it didn’t help—the dizziness only got worse.
Warren Wilde nodded slowly. “I will make this up to you,” he said, as if our problems could be evened out and made square. “I’m sorry, Camdyn.”
That was a good start, but at the moment, I felt too wretched to try to talk to him any more about it. I was dizzy and sick, and I wanted César. Somewhere behind me I heard the sounds of the Woodsmen players leaving the building, but everything around me was strange and far-off, like I was separate from it. “I have to go,” I said. “I have to go find César.” I really, really needed him. I took a step but I didn’t get very far after that. I felt a sharp pain in my knees as I hit the sidewalk, and that was the last thing I knew.
∞
“I’m glad you’re ok,” Katie told me. She brushed back my hair. After I had fainted, Davis had called for an ambulance, and then he had called his girlfriend for back-up. He and the rest of the Woodsmen players had also come to the hospital, but only Katie was in the room with me.
“I want to leave,” I said. “I hate being in medical places. They remind me of my mom being sick.”
“I know what you mean,” she said. “They just want to monitor you both for a little while longer.” She let out a breath. “We’re all so relieved. You should have heard everyone when I went out to the lobby and told them that you and the baby were both fine. Your dad—”
“My what?” I asked her.
“Your dad. Warren Wilde,” she clarified. “He was so thankful, I thought he was going to faint, too. He’s out there talking about being a grandfather. Davis and I didn’t even know that he was your father. We thought he was your uncle,” she said, her forehead crinkled in confusion.
“Most people do. But I guess he’s admitting his mistake to everyone. I was the mistake,” I explained.
“Oh, I was a mistake, too!” Katie told me. “I’m pretty glad that my mom messed up like that.”
“Yeah, some mistakes turn out well, after all.” I laughed a little which suddenly turned into more tears. Waking up on the sidewalk, the ride in the ambulance, the doctors…it had all been the scariest thing that had ever happened to me, and I wasn’t anywhere close to being ok with it. “They would tell me if something was wrong with the baby, right? No one’s
