“Thank you for inviting us,” I say.
With a big smile, Michelle waves me on, and I head out the front door.
When I make it down the steps, Andrew pops the trunk on the Chevelle, and I toss my bag inside. It’s long past the five minutes he gave me, but I dare him to say anything to me about it.
“Are you ready?” Andrew asks, shutting the trunk.
I inhale a deep breath, look at Asher and Aidan and before I answer, I go over to hug them both.
“Glad you came up,” Aidan says.
“Keep my brother in line,” Asher says.
I smile at them both and hop in the front passenger’s seat and Andrew shuts the door for me.
They say their good-byes. A minute later Andrew slides into the driver’s seat, and a wisp of cold air escapes into the car behind him.
He looks over at me. “So this is how it’s gonna’ go,” he says, resting his wrists on the steering wheel. “We head southeast, toward the coast—”
“Wait,” I interrupt him, “you planned it out?” That’s so against his style. It makes me wonder.
Andrew grins softly and says, “Some of it. But it’s necessary.”
“What part is necessary?”
He looks at me as if to say, Will you let me finish?
I get quiet and let him continue while he reaches over me and pops the glove box. “We’re going to head south and stay on the coast through the winter,” he says, and now all I can think about is just how long he plans to be on the road. Through the winter? I can’t wrap my head around what the hell he’s thinking. He pulls out a map and unfolds it on the steering wheel. I look at him warily. “I hate the frickin’ cold. If we stay on the coast and head farther south, time it just right, we can avoid snow and shit for the most part.”
OK, good plan, I admit. I can’t stand cold weather, either, so yeah, this is definitely necessary. I nod and let him go on.
Andrew points at the giant map and starts to run the tip of his finger along our route. “We’ll start on the Virginia coast and go south from there, making our way through your home state—but no stopping to visit.” He points at me. “We’re just passing through, all right?” He waits for me to answer.
I nod again and say, “All right,” because surely there’s a method to his madness, and I feel like I need to go along with it.
He looks back at the map and his finger starts to trail along it again. “Then South Carolina, down to Georgia, and then we’ll make the trip around the entire length of Florida’s coastline from Fernandina Beach”—his finger makes a long, wide sweep over the paper—“and all the way around to Pensacola.”
“How long will all of this take?”
He smiles and shakes his head at me. “Does it matter?” Then he sloppily folds the map into an uneven stack of paper and tosses it on the seat between us. “I’m calling the shots as far as direction, this time. Mainly because I don’t want to freeze my ass off. But—” he turns back around and faces the front, looking away from me “—well, it’s just the way it needs to be.”
“Why are you doing this, Andrew?”
His eyes fall on me again. “Because it’s right,” he says with such a deep gaze. “Because you’re in the car.”
His words confuse me. “Because I’m in the car?”
He nods subtly. “Yeah.”
“But… what does that even mean?”
His green eyes soften with his smile, and he leans across the seat and takes my chin into his hand. He kisses my lips and says, “You could’ve fought me tooth and nail over this. You could’ve told me to go fuck myself when I said to get our stuff. But you didn’t.” He kisses me softly one more time, and the mint from his breath lingers on my lips. “You didn’t run in that house because I told you to, you did it because it’s what you wanted. You’ve never done anything just because I told you to, Camryn. I’m just the kick in your ass, is all.”
I try to hide the smile sneaking up on my face, but I can’t. He leans over, presses his lips to my forehead, and straightens in his seat. The engine purrs aggressively for a moment when his foot taps the gas pedal.
He’s right. Anything he’s ever told me to do, even if I complained about it, I never would’ve done if a part of me didn’t want to. It amazes me how he always knows things about me before I do.
17
I think yesterday in Chicago was the first time I couldn’t predict Camryn’s reaction to one of my demanding ideas. My girl was broken. It was scarin’ the shit outta me more every day, the person she was becoming. I took a risk calling Asher up that night and asking him to drive the Chevelle all the way to Chicago. I didn’t know what Camryn might do, and truthfully, I was worried she’d refuse to go. Because of the guilt. Hey, I hate it that we lost our Lily. I would cut off an arm or a leg to have her back. But what’s done is done, and sitting back drowning in our sorrows and refusing to do what makes us happy for any reason is total fucking bullshit. That’s how you kill yourself. A slow, painful suicide. If Camryn would’ve refused, I would’ve carried her over my shoulder, kicking and screaming, and shoved her in the backseat of the car. Because this is our life. We met on the road; we grew to know and to love each other on the road. It’s where we were meant to be for however long, and it’s what we’re going to do until it becomes clear that we were meant to do something else.
The first fourteen long hours of our road trip are uneventful and quiet. I drive the whole way from Chicago to Virginia Beach listening mostly to the radio or my CD’s when I can’t find a decent station. Camryn, although smiling and talking about the sights as we drive past, still isn’t herself, but she’ll get there. It might take her a few days, but she’ll start to come around.
The beaches are different on the East Coast than they are in Texas. They’re cleaner, and the ocean water over here looks like ocean water is supposed to and not the muddy, murky Gulf water of Galveston.
It’s late in the evening. We watched the sun set over the horizon just as we entered Virginia Beach, and it was the first time I’ve seen that spark in Camryn’s eyes since before the miscarriage. If I’d known that a sunset could do that, I would’ve taken her to watch one a long time ago.
“So, are we getting separate rooms?” she asks as we get out of the car in the parking lot of our first hotel.
I can tell she’s joking, but I bet she doesn’t expect me to call her on it.
“That’s exactly what we’re doing.” I pop the trunk and shoulder both of our bags.
“Are you serious?” She’s shocked, and it’s funny.
I just play it off the best I can. I never intended to get separate rooms, but now that she brought it up, it’s not such a bad idea.
I close the trunk, and we head into the hotel lobby.
“Andrew, I think we’re past this.”
“Two nonsmoking king rooms side by side, please, if you’ve got ’em.”
The front desk clerk taps the stuff in on her computer. I ignore Camryn for the most part, fumbling my wallet for my credit card.
“Andrew?”
“I don’t have two side by side,” the woman says, “but I do have two directly across the hall from each other.”
“That’ll work,” I say.
Camryn whispers, “I can’t believe you’re going to spend money on two rooms when clearly we’ve had tons of sex already…” Camryn just goes on and on while the clerk looks covertly at us like we’re nuts. I love that look on people’s faces, that dumbfounded I-can’t-believe-you-just-said-that look.
“Please just shut up,” I say, turning to Camryn. “I’ll come over to your room and do you for a little while, don’t worry. So stop making a scene.”
Camryn’s eyes grow as wide as the clerk’s.
I take Camryn’s hand and pull her along toward the lobby exit.
“I hope you enjoy your stay,” the clerk says in a bewildered manner as we round the corner toward the elevator.
Camryn bursts out laughing the second the e
levator doors close. “What was that?!” she asks, unable to contain herself. “I feel like we’re two immature sixteen-year-olds!”
“But you’re laughing,” I point out. “So it’s totally worth the immaturity.”
The elevator stops on the second floor and we step out into the hall.
“But really, Andrew, why separate rooms?”
Proving further that spontaneity really does serve a purpose, I think about the mail I had Natalie send me in Chicago as we walk the length of the hall together. We stop in the center of the hall in front of our rooms, and I drop the bags on the green-speckled carpeted floor.
“Just for tonight,” I say, reaching into my bag in search of that envelope.
Camryn stands over me, watching quietly. I can tell she wants to say something but she isn’t sure at this point what it could be.
I stand up straight with the envelope in my hand. She glances down at it, but isn’t sure what my intentions are.
“Tonight you’ll stay alone in your room,” I say and hold the envelope out to her.
She stopped smiling when I first pulled the envelope out of the bag. All she can do now is look at me in confusion and wonder.
Carefully, she reaches out and takes the envelope, still unsure of everything, maybe even whether or not she wants to know what’s inside.
I slide her card key into her room door and open it, carrying her bag inside. She follows several steps behind, wordless and suspicious, the envelope clasped in her reluctant fingers. I set her bag on the long TV stand and check out her room like I always did before. I flip the lights on and test the heater before pulling back the sheets to make sure they’re clean. Remembering Camryn’s hotel comforter phobia, I strip it completely off the bed and toss it on the floor in a corner of the room.
She stands at the foot of the bed, unmoving.
I move over to stand in front of her. I look into her eyes and just watch the way hers look back at me. I move my index finger along the edge of her eyebrow and then down the side of her face and feel her skin heat under my touch. I want her. When her eyes lowered to look at my lips, it triggered something predatory in me. But I hold my needs back for her sake. Tonight, hopefully, will be about closure.
“Cam went to the funeral,” Natalie said to me on the phone the day I called her from Aidan’s house. “But she arrived late, sat in the very back near the exit and left before the service was over. She refused to walk up to the casket.”
“Did she ever talk to you about it at all?” I asked.
“Never,” Natalie said. “And whenever I tried to bring it up, the funeral, the accident, anything about it, she shut me down.”
Tonight will be hard for Camryn, but if she doesn’t go through with it, she’ll never get better.
“You know where I’m at,” I whisper softly, letting my hands slide away from her arms. “I’ll be up all night. Started writing another song yesterday, and I really want to work on it while it’s fresh in my mind.” We’ve slowly but surely been writing our own material, especially since our trip to Chicago, and after the night we played at Aidan’s bar, Camryn expressed interest in it for some reason.
Camryn nods and smiles weakly underneath that look of concern on her face, concern over what’s lurking inside that envelope.
“What if I don’t want to stay in this room by myself?” she asks.
“I’m asking you to,” I say earnestly. “Just for tonight.”
I don’t want to say any more than that, but I hope the sincerity in my face does what words might otherwise do.
“OK,” she agrees.
I peck her on the lips once and leave her alone in the room.
I just hope this doesn’t backfire on me.
Camryn
Andrew leaves me in the room. Alone. I don’t like it, but I’ve learned to listen to him over the short five months we’ve been together. Five months. That amazes me every time I think about it because it feels more like we’ve been together five years, all of the stuff we’ve gone through. I sometimes think about my ex Christian, my cheating rebound boyfriend after Ian, who I was with for four months. We barely knew each other at all. Now that I think about it, I can’t even remember his birthday or his sister’s name, who lived two streets over from where he did.
A whole other world with Andrew.
In five months I found myself with him, fell in total, unconditional crazy love, truly learned how to live, met practically his entire family and quickly felt like a part of them, went through a life-and-death journey with Andrew, got pregnant and engaged. All in five months’ time. And now here we are facing another hardship. And he’s still with me every step of the way. I was stupid and weak and took pills and he’s still here. I wonder if there’s ever anything I could actually do that would be so awful that he’d leave ever me. Something in my heart tells me that, no, there isn’t anything. Nothing at all.
I will never understand for as long as I live, how I was lucky enough to be with him.
In my moment of reflection, I notice that my eyes never left the door after he walked out. Finally, I look down at the envelope in my hand, and I don’t know why but it scares me to think about what’s inside. I’ve contemplated it over and over for the past week. A letter? If so, what could it possibly be about? And who would it be for and from? Why would Natalie write me a letter? Why would she write Andrew a letter?
None of it makes any sense.
I sit on the end of the bed, letting my purse drop on the floor next to me, and I run my fingers over the contours of whatever is inside the envelope. But I’ve done that a few times in the past week, too, and I’m still coming to the same conclusions: it’s paper, sort of thick, folded two or three times. There’s nothing bumpy or uneven or textured inside. It’s just paper.
I sigh and start to set it down, but I just hold it. I don’t know why I don’t just open the damn thing. It’s driven me sort of crazy for a week and here I am, finally able to put the secret to rest once and for all by opening it, but I’m too afraid.
I set the envelope down on the bed and I get up, crossing my arms and watching it from the corner of my eye as I start to pace the room. I’m wary of it, like it’s going to jump out at me and claw me in leg as I walk by. Like that bitch of a cat my aunt Brenda has. I even start to dig in my purse for my cell phone to call Andrew and have him just tell me what this is all about, until I realize how stupid that would be.
Finally, I pick up the envelope, and after a long pause, feeling the light weight of it in my hand, I slide the tip of my finger underneath the sealed flap to loosen it. After breaking the seal and failing to open it carefully, I say screw it and I rip the hell out of it the rest of the way. I toss the tattered envelope on the bed and unfold the Hallmark-looking stationery to see that most of it is blank. It had been used merely to conceal the picture inside. With the back of the picture facing me, at first I refuse to turn it over to see what’s on the other side. Instead, I read Natalie’s handwriting in the center of the last piece of stationery:
This is the best one I found.
I hope it helps with whatever it is you’re trying to do.
Sincerely,
Natalie
I turn the picture over and my heart sinks like a stone when I see Ian’s smiling, vibrant face looking back at me. My cheek is pressed against his as we stare into the camera. The colored lights from the rides at the North Carolina State Fair illuminating the night in the background behind us. As if I’ve fallen into a freezing cold lake, the sight of his face shocks the breath out of my lungs. Tears instantly spring up from my eyes, and I let the picture fall from my fingers and onto the bed. Both hands come up to my face where my fingers cover my quivering lips.
How could I let myself cry over him?! Why is this happening?!
I got rid of all of Ian’s photos for a reason. Everything. I deleted every single file with digital photos of us, removed his name from my cell phone. I even threw out my nightstand that I’d had since I was a
little girl because Ian had etched IAN LOVES CAMRYN into the wood on the underside of it. I removed all reminders of him from my life the best I could because it hurt too much to know that all I had left of him were material things. I couldn’t do much about the memories, but I did my best to forget about those, too.
Why would Andrew do this to me? Bring all of that pain back into my life not just so soon after losing Lily, but at all?
A part of me wants to scream at Andrew, to march through that door and across the hall to his room and tell him how much this hurts. But my reason catches up to me too fast. I know why he did it. I know why he put me in this room alone with this photograph. Because he loves me so much that he’s willing to give me back to Ian for just one night so that I can maybe come to terms with losing him in the first place.
But I can’t look at that damn picture! I just can’t do it!
With tears streaming down my face, I grab my thick sweater from my bag and slam my arms into the sleeves roughly. And then I storm out of the room and head for the elevator.
Seconds later, I’m sitting in the cold sand on the beach looking out at the endless ocean.
18
I wonder if she’ll open it. Shit, I wonder if she’ll hate me for doing this to her, but if it’ll help her I’ll take the trade.
I press the power button on the remote control and an old Seinfeld rerun fills the quiet in my room. I kick off my shoes and hit the shower, letting the hot water beat down on me until it begins to run lukewarm. All I can think about is what Camryn is doing alone in her room, if she’s staring at that photo of her dead ex-boyfriend, and if she’s handling it. I want to go over there and be there for her, but I know this is something she needs to do on her own. Something she should’ve done a long time ago, long before we met.
After drying off I wrap the towel around my waist and rummage through my bag on the bed for a pair of boxers. I sit down, stare at the TV, then the wall, and then back at the TV again until I realize I’m just looking to do anything to take my mind off of Camryn.
The Edge of Always teon-2 Page 11
