The Edge of Always 3 page

She purses her lips, lifting one side of her mouth, and takes a hold of my elbow. “We’ve got all afternoon for you to figure it out, so let’s get to the salon and you can be thinking really hard about it on the way.” She bends over and takes up her purse and bag, dangling them on her free wrist while walking with me toward the closest mall exit.

We’re at the salon in minutes and it’s a packed house, which is exactly how I remembered it being on weekends. Natalie and I are perched high in the pedicure chairs with two girls tending to our bare feet. It’s been a long time since my last pedicure, so I hope my toes aren’t too hideous.

“You know, Cam, you never did tell me why you left.” Natalie looks over at me. “Please tell me it wasn’t my fault.”

“It wasn’t anyone’s fault in particular,” I say. “I just needed to get away for a while. I couldn’t breathe.”

“Well, I’d never do something that reckless, but I admit, the way things turned out was nothing short of amazing.”

That makes me smile. “They did, didn’t they?”

“Absolutely,” she says beaming, her brown eyes lit up. “You ended up with sex on legs”—the girl doing her pedicure glances up briefly—“an engagement ring, and a cute-ass baby on the way.” Natalie laughs. “I’m fuckin’ jealous!”

I laugh too, though not as loud. “First off, why be jealous of me when you’ve got Blake? And second, how do you know what our baby will look like?”

Natalie purses her lips and looks over at me like I’m stupid. “Seriously? The two of you couldn’t produce an ugly baby.” The girl doing my toes rolls her eyes at the other girl. “And I’m not jealous of you because of Andrew, I’m jealous because I’ll probably end up like my mom, never seeing much outside of North Carolina. I’m OK with that. I’m not like Miss Greyhound, and I feel claustrophobic when someone breathes on me too closely, but in a way I do envy you.”

I think to myself about what she said, but I don’t elaborate on it.

My back is starting to hurt again, and I try readjusting myself on the seat without being able to move my feet much. My side hurts a little, too, but I’m sure it’s from all of the walking around today.

“So have you figured it out?” Natalie asks.

“What?”

She blinks, surprised at how easily it seems I forgot our conversation at the mall. I didn’t forget at all; I’ve just been trying to avoid it.

“The truth is,” I begin, looking away from her and picturing Andrew in my mind, “I don’t want to move back home or stay in Texas. I mean I do want to be here, but I’m terrified I’ll end up like your mom, too.” I never would’ve used her mom as an example, but it really was the easiest way to make Natalie understand, especially since she just used the same comparison moments ago, so it was a no-brainer.

“Yeah, I totally get you,” Natalie says, nodding. “But what else would you do? There’s really not much you can do otherwise, especially with a baby on the way.”

God, why did she have to say that? I sigh quietly and try not to look at her so she doesn’t see the disappointment in my face. Natalie is my best friend, but I’ve always known she’ll be one of those people who live out their entire lives in a colorless bubble and only wake up to regret it when it’s too late to change it. She just proved it with her comment about how having a baby pretty much means the end of line as far as a fun, fulfilling kind of life is concerned. And because she’ll never understand, I don’t respond to that, either.

“Cam? You sure you’re OK?”

I catch my breath and look over at her. Another sharp pain moves through my side and suddenly I feel like I’m starting to break out in a mild sweat. Without regard to the girl doing my pedicure, I pull my foot away from her hands and grab the arms of the chair to lift myself out of it.

“I need to go the restroom.”

“Camryn?”

“I’m alright, Nat,” I say, stepping down from the chair. “Sorry,” I say to the girl, and I make my way past her and head toward the short hallway underneath the restroom sign. I try not to look like I’m in pain on the way because I don’t want Natalie following me, but knowing her she will, anyway.

Placing my hand on the stall door, I swing it open and lock myself inside, finally able to show my true level of discomfort. Tiny beads of sweat cover my forehead and the area underneath my nostrils. Something’s definitely not right. This may be my first time ever experiencing a pregnancy, but I can still tell that what I’m feeling right now isn’t normal. I use the restroom quickly, head out of the tiny stall that’s only adding to the discomfort, and move over to the elongated sink.

This can’t be happening…

My hands are shaking uncontrollably. No, my whole body is shaking. I raise my hand to the automatic soap dispenser and wash my hands but I never get the chance to dry them off before what is going on hits me full force. I break down in a blubbering mess, pressing my hands against the edge of the counter. The physical pain is gone for now, but… maybe I’m just being paranoid. Yeah, that’s all it is. Paranoia. The pain is gone, so surely I’m all right.

I take a deep breath and then several more before raising my head from between my slouching shoulders and look at myself in the mirror. I lift one wet hand and wipe the sweat from my face and the leftover tears from my cheeks. I even feel better long enough to be grossed out when I realize I’m standing in a public restroom with bare feet.

The entrance door swings open and Natalie marches inside.

“Seriously, are you OK? No, I take that back, obviously you’re not, so what’s going on? I’m calling Andrew. Right now.” She starts to leave the restroom and go back into the front where her phone is, but I stop her.

“Nat, no, just wait.”

“Screw that,” she says. “I’m calling him in exactly sixty seconds, so you have less than that now to explain.”

I give in because as much as I wanted to let myself believe I’m OK, deep down I know I’m not. Especially after what I saw before I left the stall.

“I’ve been having back and side pain and I’m spotting.”

“Spotting?” She makes a slight disgusted face, but masks it well and is clearly more worried than disgusted. “You mean like… blood?” She looks at me in a suspicious sidelong glance and then holds it there until I answer.

“Yes.”

Without another word, the bathroom door swings shut behind her and she’s gone.

Now, there comes a time in a person’s life when you have to face something so horrible that you feel like you’ll never be the same person again. It’s like something dark swoops down from somewhere above and steals every shred of happiness you have ever felt and all you can do is watch it, feel it go, knowing that no matter what you do in your life that you’ll never be able to get it back. Everybody goes through this at least once. No one is immune. But what I fail to understand is how one person can go through it enough for five people and in such a short time.

*

I’m lying in an emergency room hospital bed curled up within a blanket. Natalie sits on the chair to my left. I can’t speak. I’m too scared.

“What the fuck is taking them so long?” Natalie says about the doctors. She stands up and begins to pace the room, her tall heels clicking softly against the bright white tile floor.

Then she changes her tune.

She stops and looks at me and says with a hopeful face, “Maybe since they’re taking their sweet time about checking you out, they don’t think it’s anything to worry about.”

I don’t believe that, but I can’t bring myself to say it out loud. This is only the second time I’ve ever been to an ER. My first time, when I nearly drowned after jumping off bluffs into the lake, it seemed I was in there for six hours. And that was mostly just to stitch up the gash I got on my hip from when I hit the rocks.

I roll over and lie on my side and stare at the wall. Just seconds after, the sliding glass door opens. I think it’s finally a doctor, but my heart skips a few beats when Andrew comes into the room. He and Natalie exchange a few low words that I pretend not to hear.

“They haven’t even been in here yet except to ask her a few questions and to give her a blanket.”

Andrew’s eyes fall on mine briefly, and I see the worry in his face even though he’s trying really hard not to be so obvious. He knows what’s happening as much as I do, but also like me, he’s not going to say it or let himself believe it until a doctor confirms it first.

They talk for a few seconds more and then Natalie comes over to the side of the bed and leans over to hug me.

“Only one person allowed in here with you at a time,” she says as she pulls away. “I’m going to sit out in the waiting area with Blake.” She forces a smile at me. “You’ll be alright. And if they don’t hurry up and do something, I’m going to raise some hell up in this bitch.”

I smile a little, too, thankful for Natalie’s ability to make that happen even in my darkest hour.

She stops at the door and whispers to Andrew, “Please let me know as soon as you do,” and then she slips out of the room, closing the glass door behind her.

My heart sinks when Andrew looks at me again, because this time I have his full attention. He pulls the empty chair over and sets it down next to my bed. He takes my hand and squeezes it gently.

“I know you feel like shit,” he says, “so I’m not going to ask.”

I try to smile, but I can’t.

We just look at each other for a while. It’s like we know what the doctor will say. Neither one of us are allowing ourselves to believe that maybe, just maybe, things will be OK. Because they won’t be. But Andrew, doing everything he can to comfort me, won’t allow himself to cry or to appear too concerned. But I know that he’s wearing a mask for my sake. I know his heart is hurting.

Before long, a doctor comes in with a nurse and in some strange, dreamlike state I eventually hear him say that there is no heartbeat. I think the world has come out from underneath me, but I’m not sure. I see Andrew’s eyes, glazed over by a thin layer of moisture as he stares at the doctor while the doctor speaks words that have faded into the background of my mind.

Lily’s heart is no longer beating.

And I think… yeah, neither is mine…

Andrew

We’ve been in Raleigh for two weeks now. I won’t even go into all the shit we—Camryn—has gone through in that time. I refuse to talk about the details. Lily is gone, and Camryn and I are devastated. There’s nothing I can do to bring her back, and I’m trying to cope any way I can, but Camryn hasn’t been herself since that day and I’m starting to wonder if she ever will be again. She won’t talk to anyone. Not to me or her mom or Natalie. She talks, just not about what happened. I can’t stand to see her this way because it’s obvious, under that I’m-perfectly-fine façade, that she’s in so much pain. And I feel powerless to help her.

Camryn has been in the shower for a long time while I’ve lain here in her bedroom staring up at the ceiling. My phone rings next to me on the nightstand.

“Hello?” I ask.

It’s Natalie. “I need to talk to you. Are you alone?”

Caught off guard, it takes me a second to reply. “What for? And yes, Camryn’s in the shower.”

I glance toward the door to make sure no one is listening. The water is still running in the shower, so I know Camryn is still in there.

“Has her mom said anything to you about… anything?” Natalie asks suspiciously, and I get the strangest feeling from it.

“You need to elaborate a little more than that,” I say. Already this conversation is annoying the piss out of me.

She sighs heavily into the phone and I’m growing impatient.

“OK, listen; Cam is obviously not herself,” she begins (yeah, no shit), “and you need to try to talk her into going back to her psychiatrist. Soon.”

Her psychiatrist?

I hear the water shut off, and I glance toward the closed door again.

“What are you talking about, her psychiatrist?” I ask in a lowered voice.

“Yeah, she used to see one and—”

“Wait,” I whisper harshly.

The bathroom door opens, and I hear Camryn shuffling back toward the room.

“She’s coming back,” I say really fast. “I’ll call you back in a few.”

I hang up and set the phone on the nightstand seconds before Camryn opens the door wearing a pink bathrobe and a towel wrapped around her head.

“Hey,” I say as I pull my hands behind the back of my head and lock my fingers.

All I really want to do is call Natalie back and find out everything she was going to tell me, but instead I do one better and just go to the source. Besides, I’m not about keeping secrets from her. Been there, done that once, and I won’t do it again.

She smiles across the room at me, then tosses her hair over and works the towel in it with her hands.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Of course,” she says, rising back up and letting her wet blonde hair fall behind her.

“Did you used to see a psychiatrist?”

The smile disappears from her face and is instantly replaced by a deadpanned expression. She walks over to the closet and opens it. “Why do you ask?”

“Because Natalie just called and suggested that I try to get you to go back.”

She shakes her head with her back to me and starts sifting through the clothes hanging in front of her. “Leave it to Natalie to make me out to be a crazy person.”

Still in my boxers, I get out of the bed, letting the sheet fall away from my body and I walk over to her, placing my hands on her hips from behind.

“Seeing a psychiatrist doesn’t make anyone crazy,” I say. “Maybe you should go. Just to talk to someone.”

It does bother me that I can’t be that someone, but that’s not the important issue.

“Andrew, I’ll be fine.” She turns around and smiles sweetly at me, placing her fingertips on the edge of my jawline. Then she kisses my lips. “I promise. I know you and Nat and my mom are really worried about me and I don’t fault you for that, but I’m not going to a psychiatrist. It’s ridiculous.” She turns back around and pulls a shirt from a hanger. “Besides, what those people really want to do is write a prescription and send me on my way. I’m not taking any mental drugs.”

“Well, you don’t have to take any ‘mental’ drugs, but I think if you had someone else to talk to it would help make what happened easier.”

She stops with her back still turned to me and lets her arm drop to her side, the shirt clenched in her hand. She sighs, and her shoulders finally relax amid the silence. Then she turns around and looks me dead in the eyes.

“The best way for me to cope with what happened is to forget it,” she says, and it tears a gash in my heart. “I’ll be OK as long as I’m not forced to be reminded of it every day. The more you all try to get me to ‘talk about it’ ”—she quotes with her fingers—“and the longer you all keep looking at me with those quiet, sad expressions every time I walk into the room, the longer it’s going to take me to forget.”

This isn’t something you can’t just forget, but I don’t have the heart to say this to her.

“OK, so…” I step away and move absently back toward the bed “… how long are we staying here? Not that I’m eager to get back.” It’s only one of several questions I want to ask her, but I’m equally leery about all of them. I’ve felt like I’ve been walking on eggshells around her with everything I’ve said in the past two weeks.

“I’m not going back to Texas,” she says casually and goes to slip on a pair of jeans.

Eggshells. They’re everydamnwhere.

I reach up and rub my palm over the back of my head.

“That’s fine,” I say. “I’ll go back by myself and pack and if you want to, while I’m gone you can go out with Natalie and look at apartments for us. Your pick. Whatever you want.” I smile carefully across the room at her. I want her to be happy, and I’ll do anything I can to make that happen.

Her face lights up, and I think I’m genuinely tricked by it. Either that or she’s genuinely smiling. At this point, I can’t tell much anymore.

She walks over to me and backs me up toward the foot of her bed, pressing her palms against my chest. Then she pushes me down against it. I look up at her. Normally I would be on her by now, but it feels wrong. I know she wants it. At least, I think she does… but I’m scared to touch her and have been since the miscarriage.

She sits on me, straddling my waist, and despite being afraid to touch her it’s instinct to press myself against her. She drapes her hands over my shoulders and gazes down into my eyes. I bite down on the inside of my mouth and shut my eyes when she leans in to kiss me. I kiss her back, tasting the sweetness of her lips and taking her breath deep into my lungs. But then I pull away and hold her by the waist to keep her from trying to force herself on me.

“Babe, I don’t think…”

She looks stunned, cocking her head to one side.

“You don’t think what?”

I’m not sure how to word this, but I just say the first version that comes to mind.

“It’s only been two weeks. Aren’t you still—”

“—bleeding?” she asks. “No. Sore? No. I told you, I’m fine.”

She’s anything but fine. But I have a feeling that if I try to convince her, it’ll backfire on me somehow.

Damn… maybe I do need to brave the wild and talk to Natalie, after all.

Camryn slides off my lap, but I stand up with her and wrap my arms around her back, pulling her into my bare chest. I press the side of my face against the top of her wet hair.

“You’re right,” she says, pulling away to see my eyes. “I should, ummm… get back on my birth control pills. We’d be stupid to risk this again.”

She walks away from me.

That’s not exactly what I was getting at. Sure, it’s probably for the better that we were more careful this time around because of what she just went through. But to be completely honest, I would lay her down right now with the sole intention of getting her pregnant again if that was what she wanted. If she asked me to. I don’t regret the first time at all and would do it all over again. But it would need to be what she wants, and I’m afraid if I was ever the one to bring it up that she might take it as my suggestion, that she might feel guilty about losing my Lily, and she’ll want to get pregnant again because she thinks it’s what I need to feel better.

Camryn takes the robe off and tosses it on the end of the bed and then starts to get dressed.

“If that’s what you want to do,” I say about the birth control pills, “then I’m with you on that.”

“Is that what you want?” she asks, pausing to look me in the eyes.

Feels like a trick question. Be careful, Andrew.

I nod slowly. “I want whatever you want. And right now I think for your sake, it’s the best thing to do.”

There’s absolutely no readable emotion in her eyes, and it’s making me nervous.

Finally she nods, too, and her gaze falls away from mine. She slips on her jeans and then rummages through her dresser drawer for a pair of socks.

“I’ll go to my doctor today if they can squeeze me in.”

“All right,” I say.

And as if we didn’t just have a somewhat depressing, serious conversation, Camryn comes over and smiles at me just before pecking me on the lips.

“And then you can be yourself again,” she says.

“What do you mean?”

“Oh come on,” she says, “you’ve not tried to have sex with me once since this happened.” She grins and then her eyes scan my naked chest slowly. “I have to say, I miss my sex-crazed Andrew Parrish. For the past three days, I’ve been taking care of myself a lot.” She leans in toward my lips and then moves toward my ear, tugging my earlobe carefully with her teeth, and whispers, “I did it in the shower just minutes ago. You should’ve been there.”

Shivers run down my back and all the way into my feet. Shit, why didn’t she just ask me to get her off? I’d happily do it for her. Surely she knows that by now.

I grab her face and kiss her hard while she grabs a handful of my cock. The next thing I know, I’m lying across her bed and she’s crawling on top of me. Her fingers linger around the elastic of my boxers while she looks across my body with devilishly hooded eyes.

Oh God, if she’s about to put me in her mouth…

I didn’t even realize my eyes had shut until I feel her fingers wedge between my boxers and my skin. Then she starts to slip them off, and all I see is the back of my eyelids.

My conscience rears its ugly head and I stop her, lifting halfway from the bed, my upper body held up by my elbows. “Baby, not right now.”

She pouts. She actually pouts, and it’s the perfect equivalent of puppy-dog eyes, and I sort of want to give in to her because it absolutely melts me.

“I want you to. Trust me… I really want you to.” I laugh a little with those words. “But let’s wait. Your mom will be back anytime, and I—”

She cocks her head to the side and beams at me. “It’s OK,” she says and kisses me one more time before hopping off the bed. “You’re right. The last thing I want is my mom to catch me giving you a blow job.”

Did I just refuse a blow job? This girl really has no idea how firmly she has my nuts in a sling. I better not tell her or she might abuse her power. Hell, what am I saying? I want her to abuse it. I fucking love her.

Camryn leaves with her mom later in the morning after they managed to get a last-minute appointment with her gynecologist. I had this urge to pull her mom off to the side at some point to ask about the things Natalie tried to tell me, but I never got the opportunity. They had to leave within the hour to make that appointment, and it would’ve been weird if I slipped into a room with her mom. She’d know right away that we were talking about her.

9

Camryn left me with her car. I briefly asked her why she didn’t just drive her car instead of taking the bus that day last July, and she responded with: “Why didn’t you take yours?” It took everything in me to put myself in the driver’s seat of a little red Toyota Prius, but I sucked it up and drove to Starbucks, where I agreed to meet Natalie.

Everything about this feels dangerous and dirty. And I don’t mean dirty in a good way. I mean that I will want to shower with Lava soap once this is over with. Natalie walks in without Blake and moves her way through the room toward me, her long, dark hair pulled into a ponytail. I made sure to get a table farthest away from the tall glass windows for fear of someone seeing me with her. It doesn’t matter that no one around here knows me; that’s beside the point. I tried to get her to just tell me whatever it was she needed to tell me, over the phone, but she insisted we meet.

She sits down on the empty chair, and her purse hits the tabletop at the same time.

“I don’t bite,” she says, smirking.

Maybe not, but I bet your—

“You don’t have to pretend to like me,” she interrupts my thoughts. “Cam’s not here. And I’m not as dense as you think I am.”

I admit she surprised me. I really thought she had no clue about my dislike of her. She may be my fiancée’s best friend, but she really hurt Camryn when she shut Camryn out months ago and didn’t believe her when Natalie’s ex, Damon, confessed that he had fallen for her. That’s bullshit.

I lean away from the table and cross my arms over my chest. “Well, since we’re being honest, tell me, what the hell is your problem?”

That caught her off guard. Her eyes grow wide with surprise and then narrow. It looks like she’s chewing on the inside of her mouth out of frustration.

“What do you mean by that?” She crosses her arms now and cocks her head to one side, her ponytail falling to one side.

“I think you know what I mean,” I say. “And if not, then maybe you are as dense as I thought.”

I can’t help being such an asshole toward her. I could’ve gone on forever just tolerating her and never saying a negative word to her, but she was the one who put it all out on the table when she sat down. It’s her own damn fault.

A little lightbulb just flickered in her head and the glint in her brown eyes darken with comprehension. She knows exactly what I’m referring to.

“I know, I deserve that,” she says and looks away from me. “I’ll regret what I did to Camryn probably forever, but she forgave me, so I don’t know why you have to be such an ass about it. You didn’t even know me then. You still don’t know me.”

No, I don’t, I’ll give her that much, but I know enough and that’s all I need. At least I can confront Natalie. Damon, or whatever the hell his name is, is another story. I sure would like to have him sitting in front of me instead of her. I’d like nothing more than to bury his lip between his front teeth.

“But this isn’t about me,” she says, again with that smirk of hers, “so let me just get on with why I asked you to meet me here.”

I nod and leave it at that.

“Cam and I have been best friends for a really long time. I was there for her when her Grandma died, when Ian died, when her brother Cole killed that man and went to prison. Not to mention when her dad cheated on her mom and they got divorced.” She leans over the small table. “All of that happened just within the last three years.” She shakes her head and presses her back against the seat and crosses her arms again. “And those were just the major things to turn her life upside down, Andrew. Honestly, I think that girl was dealt a really shitty hand.” She raises her hands up in front of her and says dramatically, “Oooh, but no way can I tell Cam that. She bit my head off the last time I tried to give her some credit. I’m tellin’ yah, she doesn’t like pity. She hates it. She has this screwed-up mind-set where no matter what bad falls in her lap that there are too many people out there who have it worse.” She rolls her eyes.

I know exactly what Natalie is referring to. Camryn tried to avoid her problems while on the road with me, so I know firsthand, but what Natalie doesn’t know is that I helped pull Camryn out of that shell somewhat. It makes me smile inside to know that I could succeed in under two weeks where Natalie, her so-called best friend, couldn’t in the years they’ve known each other.

“So, she just accepts it,” she goes on. “She always has. I’m telling you, she has a lot of pent-up hurt and anger and disappointment—you name it—that she’s never been able to properly deal with. And now with what happened with the baby…” she swallows and her brown eyes grow heavy with unease “… I’m really afraid for her, Andrew.”

I did not expect that my meeting with Natalie would result in the deep worry over Camryn’s health and state of mind that it has. I was worried about her before, but the more she talks, the worse it gets.

“Tell me about this psychiatrist thing,” I say. “I asked her about it earlier, but she wouldn’t really go into it with me.”

Natalie crosses one leg over the other and sighs heavily. “Well, her dad talked her into seeing one shortly after Ian died. Cam went every week, and she seemed to be getting something out of it, but I think she had us all fooled. You don’t leave without telling anyone and board a bus like she did, if you’re ‘getting better.’ ”

“Her dad was the one who talked her into it?”

Natalie nods. “Yep. She’s always been closer to her dad than her mom—Nancy’s great, but she’s kind of ditzy sometimes. When her dad packed up after the divorce and moved to New York with his new girlfriend, I think that messed her up even more. But of course, she would never admit it.”

I take a deep breath and run both hands over the top of my head. I feel guilty hearing all of this from Natalie of all people, but I’ll take it where I can get it, because apparently Camryn wasn’t ever going to tell me any of it herself.

“She mentioned something about pills,” I say. “Said she wasn’t going to go to any psychiatrist because they just—”

Natalie nods and interrupts, “Yeah, she was put on some antidepressants, took them for a while. Next thing I know, she’s admitting to being off of them for a few months. I had no idea.”

Finally, I just cut to the chase. “So what exactly did you bring me here for?” I ask. “Hopefully it wasn’t just to tell me all of her secrets.” I do appreciate knowing this information, but I have to wonder if Natalie is only telling me because she gets off on it. Probably not. I think she genuinely cares about Camryn, but Natalie is Natalie, after all, and that’s just not something I can overlook.

“I think you need to watch her,” she says and has my full attention again. “She really did fall into some depression after Ian died. I mean it was like I didn’t know her for a long time. She didn’t cry or act like I expect depressed people are supposed to act, no, Cam was…” She looks up in thought and then back at me again. “She was stoic, if that’s even the right word. She stopped going out with me. She stopped caring about school. Refused to go to college. We had our college plans all mapped out in our freshman year, but when she fell into that depression stuff, college was the last thing on her mind.”

Date: 2015-02-03; view: 524