“I just can’t believe you’re going through this after what you went through with Ian. It’s like some cruel fucking joke that fate is playing on you.”
It does feel like that in a way, but with Andrew, it feels much worse than some cruel joke.
“Girl,” she says, laying her hand on my leg, “think about it: what are the chances that everything that happened the way it did, were just coincidence?” She shakes her head at me. “I’m sorry, Cam, but that’s just too much coincidence—you two were meant to be together. It’s like some wicked fucking fairytale love story that you just can’t make up, y’know?”
I don’t say anything; I just contemplate it. Normally, I would comment on her dramatic usage of words, but this time I can’t. I just don’t have it in me.
She forces my gaze. “Seriously, do you think you would be put through all this only to watch him die?”
Her using that word stings, but I hold it down.
“I don’t know.” I look out at the trees on the lawn, but I don’t really see them. All I see is Andrew’s face.
“He’s going to be OK.” Natalie cups my face in her hands and stares into my eyes. “He’ll get through this, you just have to tell death to piss off, that you got this one, y’know?”
She surprises me sometimes. Right now is one of those times.
I smile gently and she wipes the tears from my cheeks.
“Let’s go find a Starbucks.”
Natalie stands up with her giant black leather purse dangling from one arm and reaches out her hand to me.
I’m reluctant.
“I…Natalie, I really want to stay here.”
“No, you need to get away from this bad energy for a while—hospitals suck the hope out of everything—come back when he’s back in his room and then you can introduce me to that sexy piece of Kellan that I’m oh-so-fucking jealous of you for.” She smiles a huge, toothy smile.
She always gets me to smile, too.
I take her hand.
“Alright,” I give in.
We take the Chevelle to the nearest Starbucks. Natalie drooled all over the car all the way here.
“Jesus, Cam, you really hit the jackpot with this one.” She sits across from me sipping her iced latte. “Guys that perfect are rare.”
“Well, he’s not perfect,” I say, sloshing my straw around in my cup. “He’s got a dirty mouth, he’s stubborn, he forces me to do shit I don’t want to do and he always gets his way.”
Natalie grins and sucks on her straw.
Then she points at me briefly. “See, like I said: perfect.” She laughs and then she rolls her brown eyes. “And pu-lease—makes you do shit you don’t wanna do, my ass. Something tells me you love it when he tells you what to do.” She slaps her hand upon the table and her eyes bug out. “Ooooh, he’s rough in bed, isn’t he? Isn’t he?!” She can hardly contain herself.
I did tell her that we had sex, but I didn’t exactly give her the juicy details.
My eyes stray downward at the table.
She slaps the table again and a guy sitting behind her looks over at us.
“Oh my God, he is!”
“Yes, he is!” I hiss, trying not to laugh. “Now will you be quiet?!”
“Come on, you have to give me an itsy-bitsy detail.” She presses her thumb and index finger together to show just how itsy-bitsy and she squints one eye.
Ah, what the hell? I shrug and lean across the table and look to both sides of me to see if anyone seems to be listening.
“The first time,” I start to say and her head looks frozen in time, eyes bugged out, mouth parted, “he practically forced himself on me…you know what I mean…of course I wanted him to, you know.”
She nods like a bobblehead, but doesn’t speak because she wants me to continue.
“I can tell he is naturally dominant and wasn’t just doing it because I told him it’s what I like. I can also tell that he was still being careful, not to go too far because he wanted to be sure if it was OK.”
“Did he ever take it any further?”
“No, but I know he will.”
Natalie smiles.
“You’re a freaky little sexual deviant,” she says and I blush so hard I can’t look up for a moment. “Sounds like he’s exactly what you needed in every aspect. He brought shit out of you that Ian and Christian couldn’t.” She looks upward as if at the heavens and says quickly, “You know I love you, Ian,” and kisses two fingers and pushes them toward the sky. She looks back at me quickly.
“Well, that’s not why I love him.”
Natalie’s mouth snaps shut. So does mine. I think all of the air was just sucked right out of the room. I didn’t even realize what I was saying.
Why did I have to say that out loud?
“You’re in love with him?” she asks, though she doesn’t seem so surprised.
I don’t say anything. I just swallow down any other words I had been prepared to say.
“If you weren’t in love with him after everything you’ve been through with him, I’d think you were the one with the brain tumor.”
Even though I hate that she used those two cruel and horrific words, I know she didn’t mean anything by it.
But regardless of her lighthearted banter and her way with so easily making me forget that things aren’t so great right now, I’ve already exhausted my ability to play along with her anymore. I’m grateful for her helping me to lift my mind of the depression and fear for Andrew, even if only for a few minutes with her talking about sex and being like we used to be.
I can’t anymore.
I just want to get back to the hospital and be with him.
Natalie and I head back after sundown and we walk together through the front doors and hitch a ride on the elevator.
“I hope he’s already done,” I say nervously, staring at that blurred reflection on the elevator door again.
I feel Natalie’s hand slip around mine. I look over at her to see her smiling gently at me.
The elevator opens up and we head down the hallway.
Asher and Marna are walking towards us in the opposite direction.
The look on their faces causes my heart to fall into the pit of my stomach. I squeeze Natalie’s hand so tight I’m probably crushing it.
When Asher and Marna stand face to face with us, tears slip relentlessly down her cheeks. She grabs me into a hug and shudders out the words:
“Andrew fell into a coma…they don’t think he’s going to make it.”
I step back away from her.
Every little sound, from the air filtering through the vents in the ceiling to the people shuffling past us in the hallway, it’s all shut out in an instant. I feel Natalie’s hand go for mine, but I absently push it away and stumble back further, my hands pressed over my heart. I can’t breathe…I can’t breathe. I see Asher’s eyes, glistening with tears as he looks at me, but I look away. I look away because he has Andrew’s eyes and I can’t bear it.
Marna reaches into her purse and pulls out an envelope. She steps up to me carefully and takes both of my hands, putting the envelope into them.
“Andrew wanted me to give this to you if anything happened to him.” She folds my fingers over the envelope with her own fingers. I don’t look down at it; I just look at her, tears drenching my face.
I can’t breathe….
“I’m sorry,” Marna says, her voice trembling, “I have to go.” She pats my hands motherly. “You’re always welcome in my home and in my family. Please know that.”
She nearly falls and Asher wraps his arm around her waist and walks her away down the hall.
I just stand here in the center. A few nurses walk by, but go around me. I feel the wind brush my face lightly when they walk past. It takes me an eternity to gather the courage to look down at the envelope in my hands. I’m shaking. My fingers fumble the flap on the envelope.
“Let me help you,” I hear Natalie say and I’m too outside of myself to protest.
She slips the envelope from my fingers carefully and opens it for me, slowly unfolding the letter inside.
“Would you like me to read it for you?”
I look at her, my lips quivering uncontrollably and I shake my head as I finally understand her question. “No…let me….”
She hands me the letter and I unfold it the rest of the way, my tears falling onto the paper as I read:
Dear Camryn,
I never wanted it to be this way. I wanted to tell you these things myself, but I was afraid. I was afraid that if I told you out loud that I loved you, that what we had together would die with me. The truth is that I knew in Kansas that you were the one. I’ve loved you since that day when I first looked up into your eyes as you glared down at me from over the top of that bus seat. Maybe I didn’t know it then, but I knew something had happened to me in that moment and I could never let you go.
I have never lived the way I lived during my short time with you. For the first time in my life, I’ve felt whole, alive, free. You were the missing piece of my soul, the breath in my lungs, the blood in my veins. I think that if past lives are real then we have been lovers in every single one of them. I’ve known you for a short time, but I feel like I’ve known you forever.
I want you to know that even in death I’ll always remember you. I’ll always love you. I wish that things could’ve turned out differently. I thought of you many nights on the road. I stared up at the ceiling in the motels and pictured what our life might be like together if I had lived. I even got all mushy and thought of you in a wedding dress and even with a mini me in your belly. You know, I always heard that sex is great when you’re pregnant. ;-)
But I’m sorry that I had to leave you, Camryn. I’m so sorry…I wish the story of Orpheus and Eurydice was real because then you could come to the Underworld and sing me back into your life. I wouldn’t look back. I wouldn’t fuck it up like Orpheus did.
I’m so sorry, baby…
I want you to promise me that you’ll stay strong and beautiful and sweet and caring. I want you to be happy and find someone who will love you as much as I did. I want you to get married and have babies and live your life. Just remember to always be yourself and don’t be afraid to speak your mind or to dream out loud.
I hope you’ll never forget me.
One more thing: don’t feel bad for not telling me that you loved me. You didn’t need to say it. I knew all along that you did.
Love Always,
Andrew Parrish
I fall to my knees in the center of the hall, Andrew’s letter clutched in my fingertips.
And that’s the last thing I remember about that day.
Two months later…
40
THE SUN IS SHINING and there’s not a cloud in the sky. I even hear birds chirping. I guess it’s kind of perfect for a day like this. The heel of my shoe presses against a soft patch of grass. I’m dressed in a cute white and yellow sundress that falls just above my knees. My hair is braided around to one side, how Andrew always insisted I wear it. My hands are folded together down in front of me as I stare down at the gravestone that reads: PARRISH in big chiseled letters across the back. It was hard to come here, but it has been a long time coming.
I keep my eyes down, staring absently at the mound of clay-like dirt that still seems fresh after two months since the burial. Not even the rain pounding on it over and over again seems to help flatten it any. I glance out at all of the other graves, most of them already covered by grass and I can’t feel sad, only comforted as though these people here, although long gone to all of us, have each other’s company.
A pair of hands slip around my waist from behind.
“Thank you for coming here with me, babe,” Andrew says into my ear and then kisses my cheek.
I take his hand and pull him around to my side and we look down one last time at his father’s grave together.
We leave Wyoming later that night, but we go by plane. Our plans to travel around the world have only been put on hold. After Andrew’s coma and surgery, he began to recover within three weeks. The doctors were as surprised as the rest of us, but he still has needed time to recover fully and so I’ve been with him ever since, living in Galveston. He goes to physical therapy once a week, but already it seems as if he doesn’t need it.
Andrew insisted that we get up off our asses and get on the road like we planned—he’s suffering from that elated second-chance-at-life feeling which makes him more eager than ever to do just about everything. Hell, he enjoys washing dishes and doing laundry. But his mom, Marna, and I have strictly forbidden him to do too much, or to over exert himself. Andrew doesn’t like it, but he knows better than to stand up to both of us at once.
We will, quite literally, kick his ass.
But Andrew and I still plan to travel the world and keep our promise not to stay grounded to the monotony of life. None of that has changed and I know that it never will.
Natalie went back to North Carolina and we talk every single day. She’s dating Blake now, the guy Damon attacked that night on the roof. It makes me smile to know they are together. When I talk to them on Skype, I can just tell they were made for each other. At least for right now; with Natalie, one never knows what’ll happen. Damon, on the other hand, ended up getting busted for drug possession. It’s his second offense and he’s probably going to be spending a year in prison this time. Maybe he’ll learn from his mistakes, but I doubt that.
My brother, Cole, however, I think Andrew was right about him. Andrew and I took a plane to North Carolina to visit my mom and while there we went with her to see Cole in prison. He seems different, sincerely remorseful. I could see it in his eyes. He and Andrew hit it off really well. I think maybe my brother will be like the big brother I used to know once he gets out. And with Andrew’s help, I have forgiven Cole for what he did. I’ll always hurt for that family he destroyed when he killed that man in the wreck, but I’ve realized that forgiveness cures a lot of things.
My mom is still dating Roger. In fact, they’re getting married in the Bahamas in February. I’m so happy for her. I did manage to meet Roger and run him through my douchebag inspection and am happy to say that he passed with honors. Mom is rarely home anymore; he’s always sweeping her off to somewhere.
And she deserves every bit of it.
Andrew’s mom and brothers welcomed me into the family with open arms. Asher and I are really close. And regardless of how standoffish I always thought Aidan was, I love him to death. He was never really a jerk to Andrew. Honestly, Andrew deserved it. Aidan and his wife, Michelle, talk to me and about me as if I’m Andrew’s wife. It always makes me blush. More importantly, Andrew and Aidan have been getting along. Before Aidan and Michelle went back to Chicago after a quick visit last week, I just beamed watching them mess with each other and wrestle in the living room. They almost broke the television, but me and Michelle just sat back and laughed and let them show each other up with their alpha male testosterone.
And today…well, today is going to be a little different than Andrew is used to.
I walk into the living room where he’s kicked back on the couch watching Prometheus.
He reaches out for me as I walk toward him.
“No,” I say, shaking my head, “I need you to get up.”
“What’s up, babe?” He lifts from the couch and reaches up to scratch his head. His hair has started growing back, but he’s still not used to how it feels, especially around the scar where he had the surgery.
He drops his legs onto the floor to sit upright fully and I step in-between them, running my hands over his head. He kisses one of my wrists and then the other.
“Come with me.” I nod my head back, take his fingers into my hand and he follows me to the bedroom.
As always, when I take him into the bedroom he automatically thinks it’s sexual and his sexy green eyes light up like a boy.
“I just want you to lay down with me for a little while,�
� I say, taking off all of my clothes.
He seems a little confused, but it’s so cute.
“OK,” he says, smiling. “You want me naked, too? I’ll definitely get naked. What the hell am I asking for?” He starts to strip.
He lies down next to me and we face each other, pulling our bodies close and tangling our legs. He wraps his arms around me and then his fingers trail across my tattoo of Orpheus that I got two weeks ago. It’s perfect, lined up with Andrew’s flawlessly. When we lie next to each other like this, the two pieces become one.
“Are you OK, baby?” Andrew gazes at me curiously, his fingertips brushing softly across my ribs.
I smile and kiss his mouth.
Then I pull away just a little and take his hand, sliding it to my tattoo, toward the area that extends over onto my belly.
“I love my tattoo, baby,” I whisper into the small space between our faces, “but I think in about seven and a half more months, Orpheus might be a little bit stretched out.”
Andrew blinks confusedly and it takes him a few seconds to understand what I’m saying.
His head draws back in a slightly stunned motion and then after a pause, he lifts up.
“I’m due in May.”
His eyes grow wide first; he’s stunned and wordless, but then he manages to say, “You’re pregnant?” His hand immediately goes to my stomach.
His reaction makes me smile even bigger.
His dimples deepen as he looks down at me and the next thing I know his tongue is in my mouth. His kiss steals my breath away and he lifts me into his arms in the center of the bed.
“Marry me,” he says and now I’m the one stunned wordless. “I was going to ask you tomorrow night when we went out, but I can’t wait now. Marry me.”
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