COMPLETED. A university student. A professional hockey player. They've proved they can be friends. Can they be more?
Although they're both in their early twenties and living in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, their lives couldn't be more different. Cami...
Dec. 19, 2021: An alternative chapter to how Taylor tells Camille he loves her.
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If a place could look like a person, the O'Rourkes' basement apartment would be Camille's identical twin.
I guess that makes sense, though, considering she has been living in Nancy and John's underground space for the past two years, after she decided she needed more space than what she had sharing an apartment with Angela and Lawson. It was farther away from the downtown core that contained the university, which meant a longer commute but a quieter living pace. Something that for Camille was a worthy trade. She needed her down time and that's, ironically, hard to get in downtown Toronto.
The fact that this is where Camille calls home is so evident in the way she's decorated the compact and homey space. Soft, powdery blue walls. Candles with names like Reviving Green Tea and Romantic Rose on her wood dressers. A twin bed that's made up but crumply because Camille's almost always sprawled out across it.
And two girls who almost knock into me with their excitement and acrobatics.
Even though Lisa and Marissa O'Rourke aren't a permanent fixture in the apartment, they may as well be for how often they visit their grandparents—and Camille.
"Lisa, watch! You almost kicked Taylor in the shoulder!"
"I've told you before! Stop bossing me around just because you're older! I so did not almost kick him. Besides, he's so big I doubt I'd actually hurt him."
She had a point there. Carefully maneuvering my large frame around the arguing nine and ten-year old, I make my way to Camille's soft bed, which I plot down onto.
"Okay, girls, let's take a breather. It was my fault, because I should have been more careful when I came in through the door." I glance between the two faces, which are growing calmer by the moment. "I'm guessing you two have a competition coming up?"
Nancy was always going on about how well her girls were doing in competitive gymnastics. Camille and I joined her for afternoon tea sometimes, and that was all she talked about when she wasn't asking me if she could poke my ass.
"We do," Marissa sang as she performed some wizardry that launched her body upside down.
I couldn't help but wince. There wasn't enough room down here for these tricks and it was only a matter of time, I thought, before someone got their teeth knocked in.
"Where's Camille?" I asked Lisa, who was throwing her hands in the air and making power poses in front of my friend's mirror.
"Bathroom," she answered.
"She's been in there a while," Marissa added. "She was crying when we came down here and as soon as she saw us she told us she had to use the washroom."
What? Camille was crying?
"Hey, she said not to tell Taylor!" Lisa admonished.
I open my mouth to say something, to console the young girl, but the worry that coursed through my body over the thought that Camille was upset made me slow.
