A Missing Heart(37)

“What are you doing?” I ask him.

“Going to Cancun,” he says with an outlandish expression, as if I were nuts for asking.

“Can I have my phone and Cammy’s bag please?” Why is he such a tool sometimes?

“Sure, but you can find it in Cancun,” he says with a quick wink.

“Dude, look, I’m really sorry about all of this. I can’t just leave Cammy behind, though.”

“Look, guys. Brink, can I have my bag? I’ll leave you AJ in return. He can use the trip, but I’m going to head back to D.C.”

“You’re coming with us,” Brink says with a smug grin.

“Thank you, but I could hardly afford to drive here,” she says politely. This breaks my heart a little, since I hate that she had to spend whatever money she had to drive here, and I greeted her the way I did. Then just to make matters worse, she was selfless enough to tell me to go on this stupid trip anyway. I’m a jackass who never deserved this girl in the first place.

“I bought you a ticket. Don’t worry about it, chica—oh, that’s Spanish for girl, you should know that because we’re going to Mexico, and they don’t speak English. Oh crap, do you have a passport? I didn’t even think to ask!”

Brink also didn’t think to ask if she wanted to go to Cancun. Yet, Cammy is smiling. “I do, I always have it in my purse. I considered running away once, and I figured if I was going to do that, I might need a passport. Haven’t separated from it since.” She took that whole running away business seriously, and I didn’t. We never got too deep into the conversation on where we’d run away to, but she mentioned Canada. I loved the idea at that moment. I’ve always loved any idea Cammy has had.

“How long is the trip?” she asks. It’s something I should have considered asking too.

“Eight days. We’ll be back a week from Sunday.”

Cammy sits down on the seat we’re standing beside and places her hands over her eyes. “Crap. Crap. Crap.”

“What’s wrong?” I ask her.

“I’m supposed to meet with the dean next Friday to discuss a possible job placement for the summer. It’s a pretty big deal.”

“The ticket is refundable for the next thirty minutes. My pops knows people at the airline we’re flying with. No harm, no foul if you can’t go,” Brink says.

Cammy grinds her jaw back and forth for a long minute. “You folks ready to go?” the driver asks.

“I hate this whole ‘becoming an adult’ thing,” Cammy says, standing from her seat. “If I miss the interview, it will be next to one of the dumbest things I’ve ever done.”

I nod, “I agree. I’ll stay here with you, and you can leave when you need to.”

“No,” she says sternly. “Brink, make sure he has a good time, and stay out of trouble, both of you.”

“Cam,” I say.

“AJ, don’t argue,” she says, with an accompanying smile. “This is what’s best. I promise.” She leans over and kisses my cheek. “Oh, and thank you for the sweet gesture, Brink. No one has ever done something so ridiculous for me.”

Brink laughs. “I am here to shock and awe.” He places his hands behind his head and lifts his feet up to sit sideways on the seat.

Cammy opens her bag and retrieves a white box. “Here. I brought this for us.”

“What is it?” I ask.

“Open it,” she tells me. I sit down in one of the seats and pull her down with me, creating a little privacy from Brink. I open the box, finding a cupcake with a “Happy Birthday” candy piece in the center. My heart feels as though it’s splitting back open from the wound that has hardly healed and I look up at her, finding the same pain swimming through her eyes. Cammy takes my hand within hers and squeezes tightly. “I hope she’s happy,” Cammy says.

“She is. She has to be. That’s why we’re going through pain, so she can be happy. It’s what good parents do, right?” I tell her, saying what I’ve done my best to convince myself of over the past year.

Cammy shakes her head and wraps a strand of hair behind her ear. “Send me a postcard,” she says while placing a kiss on my cheek. “And have fun, okay?”

I’m hardly able to agree before she makes her way off of the shuttle.

The thought that this could be another long or permanent goodbye makes my stomach hurt. I hate feeling like this because I think this might be it for me. This pain. It’s too much to continue living through.

She’s letting me go so I can live.

I have to let her go, so she can live too.

I stand up and glance over at Brink. “Bud, can you hold this shuttle for like five minutes? I just—”

Brink glances at his watch. “Yeah, we’re early. You have a few. You okay?”

“No.”

I step off the shuttle, running after her. “Cam!”

Her golden-brown waves spiral around her head as she stops and turns. “No way, AJ. You need to go and enjoy yourself,” she scolds me.

“Cammy,” I say, breathlessly, as I reach her.

“Yeah,” she asks with a small smile.

“I think we need to break things off now before it gets to be too much. It’s already too hard to handle. I need to be with you and I can’t be. This hurts too much. Missing our daughter, and you—it’s all too much.” What am I doing? Is this considered self-defense? God, I’m such an *. She just drove all the way up here with a goddamn cupcake for our daughter’s birthday, and now she probably thinks I’m saying this because she’s taking an interview over going to Cancun with me. “But it’s not because you can’t come to Cancun with me—”