SCORNED EX WIFE Queen Of Ashes (Camille and Stefan)

Chapter 177

Camille's car pulled up to the small restaurant in Greenwich Village, far from the gleaming towers of Midtown

where she now spent her days. The place looked unchanged from when she'd last visited, before the divorce,

before Victoria, before she becsomeone else entirely.

"Are you sure you don't wantto cin?" Alexander asked from the driver's

seat.

Camille shook her head. "This is something | need to do alone."

"Call if you need me," he said, squeezing her hand. "I'll be twenty minutes away."

She nodded, gathering her courage before stepping onto the sidewalk. Through the restaurant window, she

could already see them-Margaret and Richard Lewis. Her parents. Waiting at a corner table, her mother

nervously rearranging silverware, her father checking his watch.

This marked the first tthey would meet without Victoria's watchful presence since their cautious reunion

months ago. No buffers. No mediators. Just three people trying to rebuild what years of hurt and betrayal had

shattered.

The bell above the door jingled as Camille entered. Her mother looked up, face lighting with a smile that couldn't

hide the anxiety beneath. They stood as she approached, awkwardly hovering between formality and intimacy.

"Camille," her father said, the first to recover. "You look well."

She allowed a brief hug, still uncomfortable with physical contact from the people who had once doubted her

most. "Thank you for suggesting this place," she said. "It's been a long time."

"You used to love their chocolate almond cake," Margaret said, her voice softer than Camille remembered. "You

would beg to chere on your birthday."

"Did 1?" Camille asked, genuinely trying to recall. So many memories had been pushed down, buried beneath

pain and reinvention.

They settled into their seats, ordering drinks to bridge the awkward silence. Three people who shared blood but

had becstrangers, searching for common ground.

"We saw the press conference," Richard said finally. "You were quite impressive." Camille smiled faintly. "Victoria

trainedwell."

"It wasn't just training," Margaret interjected. "That poise was always in you. Even as a child."

The waiter brought their drinks. Camille wrapped her fingers around her water glass, needing something solid to

hold.

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"I've been thinking about your childhood lately," Margaret continued, her eyes showing a new vulnerability.

"Looking through old albums. Remembering."

"What have you remembered?" Camille asked, unable to keep the edge from her voice. What their memories

contained and what hers held might be very different. Margaret reached into her bag and pulled out a small

envelope. She slid it across the table. "I found these last week. | thought you might want them."

Camille hesitated before opening it. Inside were three photographs she'd never seen before. The first showed a

girl of about six sitting on a dock, fishing rod in hand, gap-toothed grin wide beneath a sun hat too large for her

small head.

"Cedar Lake," Camille murmured.

"Your first fish," Richard said, smiling at the memory. "A tiny sunfish. You insisted we release it because it 'had a

family waiting.""

The second photo showed the sgirl a few years older, standing beside a science fair project. WATER

ECOSYSTEMS proclaimed the header in careful block letters.

"You won first place," Margaret said. "The judge said he'd never seen such advanced work from a fourth grader."

The third photo stopped Camille's breath. In it, she sat at a piano, her small fingers positioned carefully on the

keys, her face a study in concentration.

"My piano lessons," she whispered. "I'd forgotten."

"You were so determined," Margaret said, her eyes misty. "You practiced that Chopin piece until your fingers hurt.

Said you wanted it to be perfect."

"What happened to the piano?" Camille asked, the memory taking shape as she spoke. "It was a baby grand.

Mahogany."

Richard and Margaret exchanged glances.

"We gave it away," Richard admitted. "After you stopped playing."

"After Rose came," Camille said, the pieces connecting. "She hated my playing. Said it gave her headaches."

An uncomfortable silence fell. Rose's nstill carried the weight of all they'd lost, all they'd failed to see.

"We didn't understand then," Margaret said finally. "We thought we were helping two sisters bond. We didn't see

what she was doing."

Camille studied her mother's face, searching for the truth. "Why didn't you believe me? When | told you about

her and Stefan?"

Margaret flinched, but didn't look away. "Because believing you meant facing our failure. Admitting we'd been

blind for years."

"It was easier to think you were mistaken," Richard added, his voice rough with emotion. "Than to accept that we

had let Rose manipulate all of us for so long."

The waiter returned for their food orders. Camille hadn't even looked at the menu, but found herself requesting

the mushroom risotto, her old favorite from years ago.

When they were alone again, Margaret reached across the table, stopping just short of touching Camille's hand.

"We can't undo what happened. But we're trying to understand it better. To understand you better."

"Victoria helpedsee things clearly," Camille said, the na shield she still instinctively raised.

"Victoria gave you what we couldn't," Richard acknowledged. "Strength when you needed it most."

"But before Victoria," Margaret said

gently, "there was just Camille. A little girl who loved fishing and piano and science projects. Who collected

butterflies and pressed thbetween wax paper. Who cried when she found a bird with a broken wing and kept

it in a shoebox until it healed."

Camille's throat tightened. Those memories felt like they belonged to someone else, a girl who existed before

pain and betrayal had reshaped her.

"You remember all that?" she asked.

"We remember everything," Margaret answered. "Even if we forgot what mattered for a while."

Their food arrived, giving Camille a moment to collect herself. The risotto tasted exactly as she remembered,

creamy, rich with herbs and wine. A flavor from her past that still existed in the present.

"May | show you something else?" Margaret asked after they'd eaten in silence for a few minutes. When Camille

nodded, she pulled a worn journal from her bag. "This was yours. From when you were Eleven."

Camille recognized it instantly, the flowered cover, the small lock that had made her feel her thoughts were safe.

She hesitated before taking it, unsure if she wanted to reconnect with the girl who had written in those pages.

"I found it when we were cleaning out the attic," Margaret explained. "After we thought that you were dead."

Camille opened the journal, her

breath catching at the sight of her own childish handwriting. She skimmed entries about school achievements,

friend troubles, dreams of becoming a famous scientist or musician or writer, the limitless ambitions of a child

not yet touched by doubt.

One entry caught her eye, dated just weeks before Rose arrived:

*Mom and | planted the garden today. She says the roses will bloom by summer. Dad builta bench so | can

sit and read next to them. It's going to be MY special place. Mom says everyone needs a place that's just theirs,

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where they can think their own thoughts.*

A forgotten memory surfaced... of sitting on that bench with a book, sun warming her face, her mother

gardening nearby. Of feeling utterly safe, utterly known.

"You remember the garden?" she asked, looking up at Margaret.

Margaret nodded, her eyes bright with unshed tears. "You helpedchoose the plants. You wanted yellow roses

because they looked like sunshine."

"What happened to it?" But Camille already knew the answer.

"Rose happened," Richard said quietly. "She was allergic. Or said she was."

Another silence fell, heavier than before.

"We failed you," Margaret said finally. "There's no excuse for that. But the love was real, Camille. It always was."

Camille closed the journal, running her fingers over its worn cover. She thought of Victoria, who had saved her

but never truly nurtured her. Who had rebuilt her but never reminisced about who she'd been before.

"I don't know if we can go back," Camille said honestly. "Too much has happened."

"We don't want to go back," Richard said. "We want to go forward. To know who you are now, not just who you

were then."

"And we want you to know us," Margaret added. "Not as the parents who failed you, but as people trying to do

better."

Camille looked at these two flawed, hopeful people across the table. They had hurt her deeply. Had believed

Rose over her. Had enabled years of subtle undermining that had eroded her sense of self.

But they had also given her piano lessons and fishing trips. Had built her garden benches and celebrated science

fair victories. Had loved her before it all went wrong.

"I think," she said carefully, "we might try for chocolate almond cake."

It wasn't forgiveness, not completely. But it was an opening, a small space where something new might grow.

Their faces lit with cautious joy. As Richard signaled for the waiter, Margaret reached across the table again. This

time, Camille met her halfway, their fingers touching briefly.

"Tellmore," Camille said. "About the girl | was. The parts I've forgotten."

As Margaret began to speak of birthday parties and school plays and summer afternoons, Camille felt something

shift inside her, not a tearing down of the walls she'd built, but a small window opening Just enough to let in the

light of memory, of connection, while keeping her boundaries intact.

Just enough to begin again.