The Edge of Always (The Edge of Never 2)

I don’t want to talk about me right now, but I guess I better answer her, since she’s brought it up twice.

I bring my knees up, too, and prop my forearms on top them. “Well, aside from the clichéd rock-star dream everybody has, I wanted to be an architect.”

“Really?”

“Yeah,” I say with a nod.

“Is that what you were studying in college before you dropped out?”

I shake my head. “No,” I say and laugh lightly at the absurdity of my answer. “I was in college for accounting and business.”

Camryn’s eyebrows draw inward. “Accounting? Are you serious?” She’s almost laughing.

“I know, right?” I say, laughing it off myself. “Aiden offered me part ownership of his bar. Back then I just had dollar signs in my eyes, and I thought that owning a bar would be an awesome opportunity. I could play my music there and… I don’t know what I was thinking, but I jumped at my brother’s offer. Then he started talking about how I’d need to understand the business aspects of it and all that shit. I enrolled in college, and that was pretty much where the idea ended. I didn’t give a shit about accounting, or running a bar or having to deal with all of the negative that comes with owning a business.” I pause for a moment and then say, “I guess, like you said, I was delusional, wanted all the positives but none of the negatives. When I realized it didn’t work that way, I said f**k it.”

She lifts to sit upright with me. “So, then why didn’t you pursue the architect thing?”

I smirk. “Probably for the same reason you didn’t pursue the astrophysicist thing.”

She just smiles, having no real rebuttal to that one.

I gaze beyond Camryn’s blonde hair and out at the field. “I guess we’re just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl,” I say.

Her eyes narrow. “I’ve heard that somewhere before.”

I smile and point at her briefly. “Pink Floyd. But it’s the truth.”

“You think we’re lost?”

I tilt my head back a little and look up at the stars behind her and say, “In society, maybe. But together, no. I think we’re right where we need to be.”

Neither of us say anything more for quite some time.

We lie back down next to each other and do what we came out here to do. As I gaze up at the infinite blackness of that sky, I’m in complete awe of the moment. I think I find some of myself up in those stars. For a long time I forget about music, being on the road, about the tumor that almost killed me last year, and the moment of weakness that almost killed Camryn’s spirit. I forget about losing Lily, and about the fact that I know Camryn stopped taking her birth control pills and didn’t tell me. And I forget about the fact that I stopped pulling out for a reason and didn’t tell her.

I really do forget about everything. Because that’s what a moment like this does to you. It makes you feel like something so small inside of something so massive that it’s beyond comprehension. It strips away all of your problems, all of your hardships, all of your worldly needs and wants and desires, forcing you to realize just how insignificant all of it really is. It’s like the Earth becomes completely silent and still, and all that your mind can understand or feel is the vastness of the Universe and you gasp thinking about your place within it.

Who needs psychiatrists? Who needs grief counselors and life coaches and motivational speakers? Fuck all that. Just stare at the night sky and let yourself get lost in it every now and then.

* * *

Something unpleasant wakes me the next morning. I sniff the air with my eyes still closed, my mind not fully awake but my body and sense of smell working ahead of me. There’s a mild chill in the air and my skin feels moist, as if covered by early morning dew. Rolling over onto my other side, I sniff the air again and it’s even fouler than before. I hear something rustling nearby, and finally my eyes open a slit. Camryn’s passed out next to me. I can just barely see her blonde braid lying on the blanket in between us. She seems to be curled in the fetal position.

What is that smell?!

I cover my mouth with my hand and start to raise myself from the blanket. Camryn begins to move at the same time, rolling over onto her back and rubbing her face and eyes with both hands. She yawns. As I sit upright and open my eyes the rest of the way, Camryn asks, “What the hell is that smell?” and her face contorts.

I’m just about to say that it’s probably her breath when her blue eyes grow scary-wide as she looks behind me.

Instinctively, I turn around fast.

A herd of cows stand just feet from us, and when they sense us moving around, they spook.

“Oh my God!” Camryn jumps up faster than she did that night the snake slithered over our blanket, causing me to do the same.

Two cows moo and moan and grunt, backing into the other cows behind them, stirring the herd that much more.

“I think we better get outta here,” I say, grabbing her hand and running with her.

We don’t wait long enough to stop and grab the blanket at first, but I stop and double back seconds later to snatch it up. Camryn shrieks and I start laughing as we dash away from the cows and toward the car.

“Awww, shiiiit!” I yell when I step in a huge pile of it.

Camryn cackles with laughter, and we both practically stumble the rest of the way through the field, me trying to scrape the shit off the bottom of my shoe while running at the same time, and Camryn’s flip-flops getting caught on the ground as they try to keep up with her feet.

“I can’t believe that just happened!” Camryn laughs, as we finally make it back to the car. She arches her body forward and props her hands on her knees, trying to catch her breath.

I’m out of breath, too, but I still relentlessly scrape the bottom of my shoe on the asphalt. “Dammit!” I say, rubbing my foot back and forth.

Camryn jumps up on the hood of the car, letting her legs hang over the front. “Now can we say that we did it?” she asks with laughter in her voice.

I stand still and catch my breath. I look at her, at how beautiful and bright that smile of hers is, and say, “Yeah, I think we can safely mark it off our list.”

“Good!” she says. Then she points behind me. “Do it on the grass,” she says with one side of her mouth pinched into a hard line. “You’re just spreading it around doing it like that.”

I hop over into the grass and start rubbing my foot back and forth again. “Since when did you become an expert on shit?”

“Better watch your mouth,” she warns, getting into the driver’s seat.

“What are you going to do?” I taunt her.

She starts the Chevelle and revs the engine a few times. There’s a cruel gleam in her eyes. She props her left arm across the top of the open window and next thing I know she’s driving slowly past me.

I give her the warning eye, but her grin just gets bigger.

“I know you won’t leave me here!” I shout as she goes past me.

Surely she wouldn’t…

She gets farther away and at first I call her bluff and just stand here, watching her get smaller and smaller…

Finally, I take off running after the car.

Camryn

29

The first thing that comes to mind when we make it to New Orleans is home sweet home. I get a rush when the sights become familiar: the great oak trees and beautiful historic homes, Lake Pontchartrain and the Superdome, the red and yellow streetcars that always reminded me of toys. And, of course, the French Quarter. There’s even a man playing a saxophone on a street corner, and I feel like we’ve driven directly into a New Orleans postcard.

I look over at Andrew, and he smiles across at me briefly. He flips on his blinker and we turn right onto Royal Street. My heart flutters and pounds at the same time when I see the Holiday Inn. So much happened here ten months ago. This place… a hotel, of all places… it’s so much more than that to me, to both of us.

“I figured you’d want to stay here while we’re in town,” Andrew says, beaming.

Because the memories are still figuratively taking my breath away, I can’t answer him, so I just nod and match his smile.

We grab our stuff from the car and head into the lobby. Everything looks exactly the same, except maybe for the two women behind the front desk when we approach. I don’t remember seeing them before.

Vaguely I hear Andrew ask about the availability of our old rooms while I’m looking around at everything, trying to soak it all in.

God, I missed this place.

“Yes, looks like both of those rooms are vacant,” I hear one of the front desk clerks say. “Would you like both?”

That gets my attention.

Andrew turns to me. I guess he wants to know what I think.

I switch my bag to the opposite shoulder and hesitate for a moment, pondering the question. I never anticipated this, or that it would be such a hard decision.

“Ummm, well…” I look to Andrew and then the clerk, still undecided. “I don’t know. OK, maybe we should just get the one we…” I stop myself, not wanting to make us look like two immature sixteen-year-olds this time, and then I eye Andrew with that knowing look. “The one where the deal was sealed.”

Andrew’s lips struggle to remain straight, but I clearly see the smile in his eyes as he reaches out his hand to the clerk and hands her his credit card.

We leave the lobby shortly after and ride the elevator up to our floor. On the way down the hall I’m still absorbing everything around me, right down to the color of paint on the walls, because it’s all part of a memory no matter how big or small or seemingly insignificant. The feeling of being here again… I almost feel like I’m going to break out in happy tears. But I’m excited, too, and that saves me from becoming a blubbering mess.

Andrew stops in between the two doors of our old rooms, two bags and the electric guitar I bought him hanging over his shoulders. He’s been meaning to buy a case for the guitar, but he hasn’t gotten around to it yet.

“Strange being here again, huh?” he asks, glancing over at me.

“Strange, but in a good way,” I say.

We stay like this for a minute, looking at each other and then at the two doors, until finally Andrew steps up to the one we paid for and slides the key card through the lock.

It really is like stepping into the past. The door swings open slowly, and it’s as if all the emotions that we experienced in this room were left behind and are now greeting us as we enter. As we step inside, I remember every night we slept here, apart and together, as if it happened yesterday. I look at the spot near the bed where I stood when Andrew broke me down and made me his. I glance toward the window overlooking the busy streets of the French Quarter. I envision the day Andrew sat on that windowsill playing his acoustic, and even when I was the one over there, dancing and singing to “Barton Hollow” when I thought I was alone. I turn to see the bathroom, and as Andrew flips on the light in there my gaze falls to the floor first and I recall the night, although vaguely, when he slept next to me.