The Edge of Always 11 page

I feel sick. God, I’ve never, ever, had a hangover like this before. The early morning sun and the breeze coming off the ocean wake me up. At first I just lay here because I’m afraid if I move I’m going to throw up. My head is pounding, the tips of my fingers are numb, the rest of my body a nauseous, trembling mess. I moan and open my eyes the rest of the way, pressing one arm horizontally across my stomach. I know there’s no way I’m getting off this beach without puking for a good five minutes first, but I try to hold it back as long as I can.

My cheek is pressed into the sand beneath me. I feel grains sticking to my skin. Very carefully, I reach up a finger and shuffle it away before it gets inside my eye.

I hear a thwap followed by a cracking noise and shouting.

Against the argument from my stomach, I roll over onto my other side facing the ocean.

“Get off of him!” I hear a girl scream.

That wakes me up even more, and for a split second I realize just how out of it I really was. But I’m wide awake now. I raise my head from the sand to see Andrew pummeling Tate with his fists.

“Andrew!” I try to shout, but my throat is sore and my voice is hoarse, so I only manage to croak out his name instead. “Andrew!” I say again, gaining more control over my voice.

“What the fuck is wrong with you, man?!” Tate yells.

He’s trying to back away from Andrew, but Andrew just keeps coming. He punches him again and again, this time knocking Tate on his ass in the sand.

Then Tate’s brother joins in and spears Andrew from the side. They both fall off of Tate and roll several feet. Andrew grabs Caleb by the throat and lifts him over his body, throwing him hard against the sand, and is on top of him in seconds. He punches Caleb three times before Tate is behind him, pulling him backward and away.

“Chill the fuck out, man!” Tate screams.

But Andrew rounds on him catching his chin with an uppercut, and I hear another stomach-turning crunch. Tate stumbles backward, holding his hand over his jaw.

“You drugged us! I’ll fucking kill you!” Andrew roars.

I finally manage to get to my feet, though I stumble once before I make it over to him. Just as I go to grab his arm to try pulling him away, I’m pushed hard on my ass from behind. I don’t even know what happened, but for a second it knocks the breath from my lungs. I look up to see Caleb on top of Andrew. I must’ve been caught in the crossfire of Caleb’s attack on Andrew from behind.

I raise my body back out of the sand and see Elias coming our way.

In a panic, I look to both sides of me and back at Elias seemingly in slow motion. Are all three of them about to gang up on Andrew? Oh no way in hell! I start to grab Tate while he and Caleb are punching Andrew, but I’m pushed out of the way by Elias.

“Move!” he growls at me.

Andrew manages to hold his own well against Tate and Caleb, he’s still on his feet and he’s still returning punches with both of them, but if Elias joins in, I don’t think he’ll be able to fight all three of them.

Elias jumps in, and I can’t tell who’s hitting who when a pair of hands grab me underneath the arms from behind.

“Stay back here with me, girl,” Bray says.

Amid my confusion and dread, I see Elias punching Caleb and relief washes over my body, though it’s short-lived.

Andrew’s mouth is bleeding. But then all four of them are bleeding somewhere. I think the fight is going to go on forever, and with each blow Andrew gives and receives, I wince and shut my eyes, just wanting to block it all out of my head. I’m sitting in the sand with Bray’s arms wrapped around me from behind, because she still thinks I’ll try jumping into the fight myself. But I’m right back to feeling like I’m going to puke, and I can hardly move. Sweat is beading off my forehead. The back of my neck feels clammy. The sky is starting to spin.

“Oh no. Bray… I think I’m—”

I lose it right there. I feel my body heave violently out of her grasp and my hands come down in front of me, digging into the sand. My back arches and falls, arches and falls, as I vomit over and over and over again. Oh God, please make it stop. I’ll never drink again! Please just make it stop! But it seems like I never stop. The more I vomit, the more my body reacts to the smell of it, the sound of it, the taste of it, and it just makes me vomit that much more. I can barely hear the fighting in the background anymore over my own noises and the dry heaving when there’s nothing left in my stomach to come up. Finally, I fall over onto my side. I can’t move. My body is shaking uncontrollably, my skin is both cold and hot and now clammy all over. I feel Bray sitting next to me.

“You’ll be all right,” I hear her say. “Wow, that stuff really messed you up.”

“What was it?” I ask, and right when I do, pieces of my memory from last night start to come back to me.

I don’t even hear if she answered my question, or not.

I remember that everything was fine, just a normal kind of drunk, until shortly after we started drinking the gin. And then out of nowhere, I couldn’t see anything directly in front of me because it was way too close. I kept focusing my eyes at things farther out, the ocean and the stars and the light from the boats moving across the water in the distance. I remember thinking that a ship was coming toward us and that it was going to crash onto the beach. But I didn’t care. I thought it was… beautiful. It was going to kill us all, but it was beautiful. And I remember hearing Andrew singing this sexy song. I laid my head on his chest and listened to him sing. I wanted to crawl on top of him and get naked, and I would have if I could’ve moved.

And I remember…

Wait.

That blonde bitch. She asked me… wait.

I raise my body from the sand.

“I think you need to lay still for a bit,” Bray says.

My fingertips come up to my forehead.

I remember her sitting next to me and Bray. She was as messed up as the rest of us, but I didn’t feel jealous of her anymore. She talked to us for a while, and I didn’t mind.

As it’s all coming back to me, my body is starting to shake more.

She tried to kiss me. I think I kissed her back…

I think I’m going to be sick again.

I draw my knees up and rest my elbows on top of them, burying my face in my hands. I’m still so dizzy. I still feel like I’m not done puking. I don’t have that great feeling of relief after vomiting. No, the need to be sick just intensified, this time brought on by my nerves.

The rest is coming back to me and even though I want to force it out of my mind, I don’t.

She asked me if she could sleep with me and Andrew. Yeah, I remember now. But… oh God… I thought she really meant to sleep, but I realize now that I was so high I didn’t know she meant it sexually.

I told her I didn’t care.

Then I remember her…

My breath catches. My hand flies to my mouth, my eyes are wide and stinging from the breeze.

I remember her giving Andrew a blow job.

Trying to push myself to my feet, I feel Bray’s hand on my back.

“Girl, come on,” she says, pulling me back down on the sand with her. “Don’t go over there. You’ll just get hurt.”

I jerk my wrist from her hand and try to get up again, but the sudden movements mixed with the frayed nerves just sends me back into a dry-heaving episode.

Then I hear Andrew above me.

“Shit,” he says to Bray. “Will you run to my car and get a bottle of water out of the ice chest in the back?”

Bray takes off to do it.

Andrew rolls me over onto his legs just as I stop dry-heaving. He brushes my hair away from my eyes and my mouth.

“They fucking drugged us, baby,” he says.

My eyes open a crack to see him above me, his palms resting on my cheeks.

“I’m going to kill that bitch. I swear to God, Andrew.”

The look in his eyes is that of a person being stunned. He probably didn’t know that I knew. “She’s still passed out. Baby, I’m…”

The guilt in his face cuts through me. “Andrew, I know what happened,” I say. “I know you thought she was me. I saw what you did.”

“It doesn’t matter,” he says, gritting his teeth. Moisture is forming around his eyes. “I should’ve known it wasn’t you. I’m so fucking sorry. I should’ve known.” His hands tighten a little around my face.

I’m about to tell him to stop blaming himself when Elias comes over to us.

“I’m sorry, man, we didn’t know. I swear.”

“I believe you,” Andrew says.

Bray comes back with the water, and I’m already regaining some of my strength. I lift myself up and sit upright, lying against Andrew’s bare chest. He wraps his arms around me and squeezes me so hard, like he’s afraid I’m going to get up and run away.

Then he reaches out and takes the bottle from Bray. He twists off the top and pours some in his hand and wipes it across my forehead and mouth. The coolness of it instantly soothes me.

“Look man, I’m sorry,” Tate says, coming up behind us. “We thought you wouldn’t care. We just dropped some in everybody’s drinks. Being generous. We didn’t bring you out here with any fucked-up intentions.”

Andrew manages to carefully move away from me, though still so fast I barely felt his absence and he punches Tate again. A nauseating crunch echoes through the space around us.

“Please, Andrew!” I shout.

Elias grabs Andrew and Caleb grabs Tate, holding them off of each other.

Andrew lets Elias hold him back, but he shakes him off and turns back to me, helping me up from the ground.

“Let’s go,” he says. He starts to carry me, but I shake my head at him, letting him know that I’m OK to walk on my own.

He grabs his guitar and I grab our blanket, and we head toward the Chevelle.

“Maybe we should give Bray and Elias a ride back,” I say.

Andrew tosses the guitar in the trunk and takes the blanket from me, throwing it back there with it. Then he walks over to his side of the car, lays his arms across the roof and then his head in between them. He takes a deep breath and then slams his fist down on the metal. “God damn it!” he shouts and hits it again.

Instead of trying to talk some sense into him, I decide to let him cool down on his own. I look at him with a kind expression from the other side of the car. And then I get inside and close the door. He stays there for a minute longer until I hear him say, “I’ll give you two a ride back if you want.”

Elias and Bray, carrying their stuff, approach the car and get in the backseat.

Andrew

I don’t even know how I find our way back so easily. I think at one point, I didn’t care much if we got lost. But I get us back without a wrong turn or having to pull over and ask for directions. Not much is said between the four of us. And the little that was spoken, I don’t remember any of it.

We pull into the parking lot of the hotel and part ways with Elias and Bray. Maybe I would’ve thanked Elias or wished them luck on the rest of their trip, or maybe even invited them with us somewhere tonight, but given the circumstances all I can do is nod when they thank us for the ride.

I pull away and drive around to our side of the hotel.

Camryn seems uncertain about talking to me yet. Not afraid, just uncertain. I can’t even look at her. I feel like fucking shit for what happened, and I’ll never forgive myself for it.

Camryn grabs my hand and we head straight up to our room. I swing open the door and start tossing our stuff in our bags.

“It wasn’t your—”

I stop her. “Don’t. Please. Just… give me a minute…”

She looks at me so dejectedly, but nods and gives in.

Soon, we’re on the road again, heading north up the coast. Destination: Anywhere But Florida.

After driving for an hour, I recall what happened last night in my head over and over again, trying to make some kind of sense out of it. I pull off the highway and the car crawls to a stop on the side of the road. It’s so quiet. I stare down at my lap and then up through the windshield. I realize that I’m white-knuckling the steering wheel. Finally, I swing open the door and get out.

I walk fast over the gravel and dirt and then down through the slope in the ditch, coming up the other side and head straight for the first tree.

“Andrew, stop!” I hear Camryn calling out to me.

But I keep going and when I face that goddamn tree, I hit it as hard as I hit Tate and Caleb. The skin over two of my knuckles splits open and blood runs over the top of my hand and in between my fingers, but I don’t stop.

I only stop when Camryn steps around in front of me and pushes me so hard in the chest with the palms of both hands that I almost fall backward. Tears are streaming from her eyes. “Stop it! Please! Just stop it!”

I let myself fall onto the grass into a sitting position, my knees bent, my bloodied hands dangling at the wrists. My body slumps over forward, my head hanging there. All I can see is the ground beneath me.

Camryn sits down in front of me. I feel her hands on the sides of my face, trying to raise my head, but I don’t let her.

“You can’t do this to me,” she says, her voice shuddering. She tries to force my gaze, and finally I let her because it hurts like hell to hear her cry. I look her in the eyes, my own eyes brimmed with angry tears that I’m trying to contain. “Baby, it wasn’t your fault. You were drugged. Anybody could have made that mistake as messed up as you were.” Her fingers tighten against both sides of my face. “It. Wasn’t. Your. Fault. Do you understand me?”

I try to look away, but she moves my hands out of the way and sits between my legs on her knees, facing me. Instinctively, I put my arms around her.

“I should’ve known still,” I say, looking down. “And it’s not just about that, Camryn, I was supposed to keep you safe. You never should’ve been drugged in the first place.” Just thinking about it causes the anger and hatred toward myself to rise up again. “I was supposed to keep you safe!”

She wraps her arms around me and forces my head onto her chest.

She pulls away. “Andrew, look at me. Please.”

I do. I see pain and compassion in her eyes. Her gentle fingers cup my unshaven face. She kisses my lips slowly and says, “It was a moment of weakness,” as if to remind me of what I said to her several months ago about the pills. “It’s my fault as much as it was yours. I’m not stupid. I should’ve known too not to leave our drinks alone with them even for a second. It’s not your fault.”

My eyes stray downward, and then I look back at her again. I don’t know how I can make her understand that because of how and who I am, I feel an intense sense of responsibility for her. A responsibility that I take pride in, that I’ve felt since the day I met her. It kills me… it kills me to know that in my “moment of weakness” I couldn’t protect her, that because I let my guard down she could’ve been hurt, raped, killed. How can I make her understand that it doesn’t matter if she doesn’t fault me for it, that her opinion, although I don’t take it for granted, doesn’t excuse my moment of failure? She’s entitled to a moment of weakness. I’m not. Mine is just failure.

“And I would never, ever hold that against you,” she adds.

I just look at her, searching her face for meaning and then she goes on:

“What that girl did,” she clarifies. “I’d never bring it up. Because you did nothing wrong.” I feel her fingertips press into the sides of my face. “Do you believe me?”

I nod slowly. “Yeah. I do believe you.”

She sighs and says, “It might’ve been partially my fault, anyway.” She looks away from my eyes.

“How so?”

“Well,” she says, but hesitates with a distant look of regret on her features, “I think I may have accidently given her permission.”

That certainly takes me by surprise.

“I remember her asking about sleeping with us, and I think I told her that yes, she could. I-I didn’t know she meant it… sexually. If I had been sober I definitely would’ve caught onto that. Andrew, I am so sorry. I’m sorry I let that crazy bitch violate you.”

I shake my head. “It’s neither one of our faults, so don’t feel like putting any of the blame on yourself, all right?”

When I don’t see that smile I was fishing for fast enough I reach out and grab both sides of her waist. She squeals as I start tickling her. She laughs and squirms so hard that she falls backward onto the grass, and I sit on top of her waist, holding my weight up by my knees on either side so I don’t crush her.

“Stop it! No! Andrew, I fucking swear! Stooooop!” She laughs hard, and I bury my fingertips around her ribs some more.

Then I hear the warning siren from a cop car sound once and go dead as it pulls up behind my car.

“Oh shit,” I say, looking down at Camryn. Her hair is matted with dried grass sticking out in various spots.

I jump off her and reach out my bloody hand to help her up. She takes it and rises to her feet, dusting herself off. We head back to the car just as the cop is getting out of his.

“Do you normally leave your door wide open on the highway like this?” the cop asks.

I glance at my door and back at him.

“No, sir,” I say. “I had to throw up and just didn’t think about it at the time.”

“License, insurance, and registration.”

I pull my license from my wallet and hand it to him and then go around to the passenger’s side to fish for my insurance and registration from the glove box. Camryn leans against the back of the car with her arms crossed nervously over her chest. The cop goes back to his car—after taking notice of the blood on my hands—and sits inside to run my name.

“I hope you’ve not been hiding any robberies or murders or anything from me,” Camryn says, as I lean against the hood next to her.

“Nah, my serial-killing days are over,” I say. “He’s got nothin’ on me.” I elbow her gently in the side.

A few unnerving minutes later the cop joins us at the back of the car and hands my stuff back to me.

“What happened to your hand?” he asks.

I look down at it, for the first time feeling the throbbing pain now that he’s brought it to my attention. Then I point to the tree not too far away. “I sort of hit the tree.”

“You sort of hit the tree?” he asks suspiciously, and I notice him glancing at Camryn every few seconds. Great, he probably thinks I beat her or some shit, and considering she does look pretty rough after last night’s incident and our recent scuffle in the grass, it probably helps confirm his assumption.

“OK, I hit a tree.”

He looks right at Camryn now. “Is that what happened?” he asks her.

Camryn, nervous as hell and likely knowing what the cop is thinking really happened as much as I do, suddenly has a Natalie moment.

“Yes, sir,” she says, gesturing her hands. “He got mad because some assholes—” she winces “—sorry, took advantage of us last night, and he was beating himself up over it all morning to the point of ultimately taking it out on that tree! I ran out there to stop him before he hurt himself and we talked about it and the reason I look like hammered shit—sorry—is because of the screwed-up night we had. But I promise we aren’t bad people. We don’t do drugs and he’s not a serial killer or anything, so please just let us go. You can even search the car if you want.”

Face. Palm. Moment.

I laugh it off inside. We don’t have anything to worry about if he searches the car. Unless… our temporary friends, Elias and Bray, just happened to drop a bag of weed or any kind of incriminating stuff somewhere in my backseat, by accident.

Oh shit… please don’t let this turn out like it does on television.

I glance over at Camryn and subtly shake my head at her.

Her eyes widen. “What’d I say?”

I just smile, still shaking my head, because it’s all I really can do.

The cop sniffles and then gnaws on the inside of his mouth. He looks back and forth between Camryn and me several times without a word, which only increases the tension we’re feeling.

“Next time don’t leave the door wide open like that,” the cop says, his expression as unmoving as it has been this whole time. “It’d be a shame to see a passing vehicle knock the door off a 1969 Chevelle in that good a condition.”

A slim smile brightens my face. “Absolutely.”

The cop pulls out ahead of us and leaves while we stay parked inside the car for a moment.

“ ‘You can search the car if you want’?” I repeat.

“I know!” she laughs and throws her head back against the seat momentarily. “I didn’t mean to say that. It just came out.”

I laugh, too. “Well, looks like your innocent rambling, which by the way scares me a little; I think that bipolar best friend of yours has rubbed off on you, but it charmed us out of that one.”

I rest my hands on the steering wheel.

She was smiling and probably about to comment on my Natalie joke, until she sees my bloody knuckles again. Then she moves over next to me and takes my hand carefully into hers.

“We need to clean this before it gets infected,” she says. She leans closer and carefully starts picking tiny pieces of grass and dirt from around and inside the open gash. “That’s pretty bad, Andrew.”

“It’s not too bad,” I say. “I don’t need stitches.”

“No, you just need to be slapped. Don’t ever do something like that again. I mean it.” She picks out one last bit of debris and then leans over the back of the seat, reaching for the small ice chest in the back.

I turn my head to the right, and all I see is her ass hanging out of those shorts. I reach up with my bloodied hand and slip my finger underneath her bikini bottom elastic and snap it back against her skin. It doesn’t faze her, but she rolls her eyes at me when she emerges from the backseat and sits down with a water bottle.

“Rinse it out,” she demands, holding the bottle out to me.

I open my door and take it from her, holding my hand out and pouring water over the wound.

As she’s rummaging through her purse for something she says, “The next time you get that pissed off and feel the need to take out your anger on inanimate objects, I’m officially going to jot your name down on my Psychotic List.” She holds out a tube of Neosporin to me.

I just shake my head and take it. Guess I can’t argue with her on that one.

She points at the Neosporin in my hand and tells me to hurry and put it on. I laugh and say, “You sure are a demanding little heifer.”

She play-punches me in the arm (which actually hurts her) and accuses me of calling her fat. It’s all in good fun, and I think it’s her way of helping take my mind off what happened. Within minutes we’re lost in conversations about music and what kinds of bars or clubs we might play in along the way to New Orleans.

Yes, we decided at one point that no matter where we stop on the way or how long we stay that eventually we’ll visit our favorite place along the Mississippi, no matter what.

*

That was two days ago. Today, we’re laid up in a decent hotel in the great state of Alabama.

Camryn

“Are you excited about tonight, or do you need a paper bag to blow in?” Andrew asks, coming out of the bathroom with a towel around his waist.

“Both,” I say. I set the remote control down on the nightstand and sit up in the bed. “I know the song, but it’s my first solo. So yes, I’m freaking out a little.”

He digs around inside his bag by the TV and finds a pair of clean boxers. The towel drops to the floor. I tilt my head to one side, watching his sexy naked ass from the bed. He steps into his boxers and snaps them around his waist.

“You’re going to kick ass,” he says, turning to face me. “You’ve had plenty of practice and you’ve nailed it already. Besides, if I thought you weren’t ready, I’d tell you.”

“I know you would.”

“Well, are you ready for work?” he asks, slipping on the rest of his clothes.

“Yep. I guess so. How do I look?”

I stand up and twirl around, dressed in a skimpy spaghetti-strap black top and tight jeans. “Wait,” I say, putting up my finger. I slip my feet down into my new sleek black calf-high boots and zip them up the sides. Then I retwirl and do my pose again, overdramatizing it a bit.

“Unbearably sexy as always,” he says, grinning, and then he steps up to me and runs my braid through his hand.

Tonight I may be performing solo “Edge of Seventeen” by Stevie Nicks, but for two hours before I go on I’m going to waitress and Andrew will be busing tables. Score! I get the cool job.

It’s a packed house when we arrive at seven. I love the atmosphere of this place. The stage is decent sized, but the table and dance floor are enormous. And it’s full, which makes me that much more nervous. I walk through to the back, my hand clasped in Andrew’s as we weave our way through the crowd. We got lucky with this temp job to be able to work together for a few nights. Every other side job along the trip since Virginia has been sporadic. I’d work cleaning rooms here and there while Andrew would bartend or even fill in as a bouncer. He may not be steroid-big (and I’m glad because that’s gross), but his muscles are big enough that they hired him easily. Thankfully he didn’t have to drag anyone out by their shirts or get into any fights.

Our boss for the next few days, German—it’s his name, definitely not his nationality, because the guy is as redneck as they come—hands Andrew a white apron and a pin-on name tag that says Andy.

I hold in my laughter, but Andrew sees the amused look on my face.

German rubs his chunky sausagelike hand across his nose, wipes it on his jeans and says, “A’soon as someone leaves a table an’ takes ther’ shit wit’em you get o’er ther’ an’ get that table ready fer anodder customer.” He shakes his finger at Andy, er, I mean Andrew. “An’ don’ touch tha tips. Dems’ de waitress’s, y’hear me?”

“Yes, sir,” Andrew says. When German looks down at his order slip book for a second, Andrew mouths the words What the fuck? and I try to straighten my lips into a hard line to keep from smiling when German looks back up at us.

German looks at me, I mean really looks at me, totally unlike he was looking at Andrew just now. He smiles a yellowed smile and says, “An’ you jus’ need ta look ’zactly like you do now. Put on dat sweet smile an’ rake in dem tips.”

I can only imagine what the other waitresses who work here full-time have to go through with this guy.

I bat my baby blues at him and say with a sweet, seductive country twang in my voice, “I sure will, Mr. German. And lata when my shift is ova’ I’m sure you will unda’stand that I’ll need to go in tha back an’ freshen up before I perform t’night.”

I notice Andrew’s eyes get bigger and more intrigued, but I keep my attention on German, who I already have so tightly wrapped around my finger that if I told him to lick the floor he would ask Fer how long?

Andrew

That Southern belle accent that came out of nowhere really turned me on. She and I are gonna have to talk about that later.

I pin on my name tag, tie my apron at the back, and grab the plastic tublike thing German points to when I look over. Hell, I don’t mind this kind of work, but German is a redneck dickhead who I hope stays out of my way for the next two hours. And he could use a stick of deodorant. I mean the whole fucking stick. He really doesn’t go with the place. He’s like a rebel flag hanging in the window of a $400,000 house. The bar-slash-restaurant is actually decked out pretty nice. On the inside, at least.

I head out onto the floor with my tub fixed underneath my arm and go to the first empty table I see. I clear away all of the trash and dirty dishes covered with uneaten fries and hush puppies, and toss everything into the tub. Then I wipe the table down with the rag in my apron pocket, and straighten the ketchup and steak sauce bottles. It’s all pretty straightforward, unlike waitressing, which I guess is why only Camryn had to get an hour’s worth of training yesterday before she could start today. She may have the tip job where she can work that sexy charm of hers, but she has to put up with the creepy perverted boss. And I’m lovin’ the shit out of it. It’s what she gets for making fun of me getting the busing job. She joked around by calling me the bar’s “bottom feeder.” Well, I hope she doesn’t expect me to save her skinny butt from German’s advances. She’s on her own with that one.

I bus a couple more tables, leaving the five-dollar tip on one table and the twenty on another. When I start to head into the back to drop off the load, I’m stopped by four girls at a booth near the bar wall.

“Hey baby doll,” one of the older women says, gesturing me with the curl of her finger. “Can you take our drink order?”

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but I just bus the tables.”

I try to walk away, but a prettier one stops me.

Date: 2015-02-03; view: 512