“Tell me what I said about Cam first.” He bites down on the corner of his lip.
“You told me that Cam saved you. That he put you back together and that you didn’t realise it at the time, but you know now that you loved him.” My chest and my throat instantly tighten and tears sting my eyes. I try, unsuccessfully, to blink them away. “You asked me if it was possible to love two people at once. You asked me if it were possible to be totally in love with one person, but still fuck another behind their back.” My eyes instantly fly up and meet his.
“Nooo,” I say on a sob. “Nooo, why did I say that? Why would I say that?” My dad’s old joke about de Nile pops into my head, and Princess Georgia is back; she’s stamping her feet and doesn’t want to talk anymore. It’s what I do. If things don’t go my way, I stamp my feet, fold my arms across my chest and refuse to talk about it.
“Did you fuck Cam while you were married to Sean, Georgia? Did you cheat on your husband?” I fly at him. My anger is really with myself but it’s Roman who I launch at.
“Fuck you. Fuck you! You shagged my cousin and never told me, so don’t you dare talk about my husband. I loved him. I still love him. How dare you question that?” He holds onto my arms and pins me down on the bed, his tall body covering mine. I shout and I scream and kick until I have nothing left in me, and then I cry and sob and try to unload some of the fucking awful guilt I’ve carried around with me, quite possibly since the night I fell back into Sean’s arms. I thought the guilt I’m feeling was a recent thing, something that had only been weighing me down since I did what I did with Cam in his office. It’s only just now dawning on me that, in fact, I’ve felt a certain level of guilt for the past twelve years. It’s my feelings for Cam and how I left things that’s caused it. All the while, I contemplate and process all of this, Roman remains silent and just holds me while I cry.
*
I must fall asleep because the next thing I know, I’m at a river. There’s a grassy bank and the river is rushing by; the bank that leads down to it is steep. Sean and Cam are both in the river and calling my name, but I have four children with me. Two dark-haired boys are holding on around my legs and watching what’s happening in the water. Their faces are tear-stained but they’re not crying. I also have two dark-haired little girls, one on each hip, and I know if I put them down, they will crawl to the bank and be swept away. Sean and Cam are both shouting at me to get away, to save the children and get away from the river, but I desperately want to help them. I feel so torn; the pain I feel at being helpless is physical, and I wake myself up shouting and calling out that I’m sorry.
Roman is holding me, stroking my hair and my back, trying to calm me down. I’m shaking so badly that I can’t control my jaw. Brooke must be in the room because I can hear her whispering to Roman that she’s going to make me some tea. I open my eyes and look up at him.
“You okay? That sounded bad.” I take in gulps of air before I answer him.
“It was horrible. I dreamt of Sean, my dreams of Sean are usually beautiful. I normally look forward to them, but this one was horrible.” My face stings with the salt from all my tears, and I wipe them away on my vest.
“You wanna tell me about it?” I shake my head.
“No, no, I don’t. Why are you being nice to me? I was a complete bitch earlier.” I feel his breath on my hair as he breathes out.
“You were. You behaved like a total bitch.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” I am sorry. The guilt I’ve carried with me for so long is what made me lash out: guilt at leaving Cam for Sean; guilt for the way I treated Cam; guilt for always knowing, deep down, that I loved Cam; and guilt for fucking Cam. Guilt. Everything I do, every way I turn, everything I’ve ever done with my life, something’s always made me feel guilty. I’m so sick of it. I even feel guilty that I’m alive and Sean, Beau and Baby M aren’t. “Years of guilt eating away at you, well, it eventually turns you into a bitch. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have lashed out at you.” He’s quiet for a while, and I think he’s debating whether to ask me to tell him what I feel guilty about. In the end, though, he doesn’t ask and I don’t offer.
“You gonna tell me what happened when I dropped you off Sunday morning?” I tilt my head and stare up at the ceiling.
“I took a couple of Valium to try and stop my heart from racing. I made a few phone calls to my family and drank a couple of glasses of wine while I was doing it.”
“Georgia, what the fuck were you thinking?” he interrupts.
“Well, obviously, I wasn’t thinking, was I? Somebody fed me drugs and then left me here on my own, still off my face and alone.”
I shouldn’t pass the blame onto Roman. I’m a grown woman, for fuck’s sake, and responsible for my own choices.
“No wonder Jackson wanted to punch my lights out.”