Honey scoffed. “You were photographed with Nini Verona yesterday!”
I nodded. “That’s right. I was out, drinking with the band, and Nini showed up. We’re not together. In fact, she hooked up with Yorke last night. Not me. I got drunk and bored everyone all night, talking about how much I was in love with Blaire.”
“That doesn’t make what you did okay.”
“No, nothing can change the past.” I was saying these words to Honey, but they were meant for Blaire. Her hand had gone to her heart. “If I were the same man I was eight years ago, I never would have come back. But I’m not, and I want to deserve Blaire again. I want to make her mine.”
“You’ll never be good enough,” Honey said.
But then the front door cracked open again, and a pair of cops shouldered inside. “Police!”
Honey broke down at the word. The butcher knife slipped from her grip and embedded into the floor in front of her. She dropped to her knees and began to sob, clutching her bleeding arm.
“I just wanted her to love me,” Honey said as a mantra the entire time. She said it as paramedics came in and bandaged her arm. As she was herded out of the house and promised proper medical care. And as she was taken outside and into an ambulance.
“What is going to happen to her?” Blaire asked with a shaky voice to one of the cops.
The cop gave her a sympathetic look. “She’ll be evaluated at the hospital and kept on a suicide watch for seventy-two hours. After that, it’s up to her and the doctor to determine whether or not she needs to go into psychiatric care or if she’s well enough to be out on her own.”
Blaire nodded. “Good. She needs help.”
The cop nodded gravely. Blaire and I gave him a statement, and then they were gone. As if none of it had happened. And yet all of it had happened.
I pulled her into my arms and pressed kiss after kiss into her dark hair. I held her as she cried, promising her the world and more. I wished that I could make it all go away, but that wasn’t possible.
Finally, the tears ran their course. She pulled back to wipe them from her cheeks. I wanted to reach for her. To explain why I was here, but she took my hand and drew me in for another kiss.
“Did you mean everything you said?”
I nodded. “Every word of it.”
“Stay,” she breathed.
“I’m here,” I told her. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Good,” she said. “I can’t believe that you traveled all the way here.”
“Well, I didn’t think that I’d be saving you from your assistant, if I’m being honest.”
She laughed softly and dragged me in for another hug. “Thank God you were here.”
“Blaire,” I said, suddenly serious. I drew her back, so I could look down at her. “I am so sorry about everything. I never wanted things to go down the way they did in LA. I can’t believe that Honey did that, but just as bad was what I did. I wasn’t here for you. I wasn’t the person you deserved.”
“That’s in the past,” she told me. “I’ve been a mess the last couple days. But the reason I fled isn’t because of who you are right now. The old Campbell was the one who left me. That isn’t who you are anymore. It was wrong of me to hold on to that when you proved you were different time and time again.”
“No, I deserved it. I did. I was out of line with the miscarriage. I should have called. I should have been there for you.”
She nodded. “It was a hard time in my life. I held it against you for long enough. Maybe now that it’s all finally out in the open, we can heal. Together.”
“I’d like that. I want to be with you. I only want you, Blaire. I’m so madly in love with you.”
“So in love that you bore all your friends with it?”
I laughed. “Yeah. I can’t stop talking about you. I can’t stop thinking about you. Blaire, you’re the only one I’ve ever wanted.”
“I love you, too.” She reached on her tiptoes and kissed me.
“I lived eight years without you, and after the last four days, I’ve realized I can’t do it again. I just can’t do it.”
“I know. I know,” she said, her hands coming to my face. “I feel the same way. I thought I needed space, but I don’t need space, Campbell. I want us to be together.”
I swallowed hard. The nerves that had rattled around inside of me all day came back fresh. But they were new ones. I was doing the right thing—the best thing—and still, somehow, it was the hardest thing I’d done in my life as I sank onto one knee and withdrew a black box from my pocket.