Page 41 of Chandelier Enthralled
“Willa, something’s come up. We’re about to have guests. Let’s have lunch together. We’ll talk more then.”
“There’s nothing to talk about.”
“You need to process your break-up. I can help you find a way to heal.”
“Actually, I don’t like to think about it.”
“You need to talk with someone. If not me, perhaps Mom?”
I scoffed. “As if.”
“Aunt Rose, then. You know she adores you.”
“She’s on a cruise, Cameron.”
“I’ll fly you out.”
“I just got a job!”
He cringed. “Put in a call to her.”
“I’m not ruining her vacation.”
“Aunt Rose is on permanent vacation.”
“You went through something similar with Mackenzie,” I said. “The woman you were engaged to.”
“I wasn’t doing well,” he admitted. “Henry was in the Middle East, and I was vulnerable. I was doing everything I could to free him.”
In the end, Cameron had flown out there, been part of the medivac.
I wanted to comfort him. “And then you and Mia fell in love.”
He gave me a look that reflected it was a happy memory. “Alchemize the pain. That’s the only way.”
“How?”
“Through art, or music, or a job you love. Find a person who deserves you. Someone who gets you and wants the best for you. Someone to get in the foxhole with, who will protect you.”
“Don’t need protecting.”
“One day you will. And it’s your person who will place themselves in a position to stop the harm from reaching you.”
“So romantic,” I said.
“Romance isn’t in the grand gestures—it’s in the quiet moments when someone chooses you, over and over.”
“Maybe it was partly my fault.”
He shook his head vehemently. “You have this remarkable gift of putting others first, often to the point where you lose sight of your own needs. That tendency, while admirable, can make you susceptible to narcissists. They gravitate toward echoists. You may be unwittingly creating a space for that dynamic.”
I stared at him. “What the fuck, Cam?”
“We’ll explore this further.”
“No, we won’t.”
“I only met Hugo once, and I did have some concerns.”
