The Edge of Always(11)

“Oh hell yeah it is,” I hear Natalie say from the door of my room.

The kiss breaks and we both turn around at the same time to see her standing there with her arms crossed and wearing a lopsided smirk. Her long, dark hair rests over both shoulders. First thing I do is wonder just how much she overheard.

Andrew covertly rolls his eyes at the intrusion. Poor guy. The things he does for me.

Natalie saunters into the room and plops down on the end of my bed. Obviously she didn’t hear anything incriminating or else we’d know it by now. She slaps her hands together sharply and says, “Chop! Chop! We’re going to get pedicures and manicures and all kinds of cures today.”

By the look on Andrew’s face, I know he wants so damn bad to call her on that foot-in-her-mouth moment. I glare at him sharply to warn him not to say a word and he just smiles, zipped lips and all.

“Feelin’ any better today?” Natalie asks.

I slip my feet down into my Rocket Dog loafers—or as Andrew calls them, the ugliest shoes he’s ever seen—and then start brushing out my hair.

“Yeah, actually I do feel better,” I say, looking at her through the reflection in the mirror. “Still a little off, but better than yesterday.”

“Do me a favor and keep an eye on her,” Andrew says to Natalie. “If she starts complaining of pains or whatever, give me a call, all right?”

Natalie nods. “Sure thing. I mean it wouldn’t be the first time the girl ignored a health problem. Last year she lay around for two days moaning and groaning about a toothache—it was so annoying—before she finally went to the dentist.”

“I’m standing right here,” I say, pausing with the brush against my hair.

Natalie waves me off and goes back to Andrew. “I’ll call you if she sneezes more than four times in a row.”

“Good,” Andrew says and then turns back around to me. “You hear that?” he asks sternly. “I’ve got backup now.”

Since when did Andrew become part of the Natalie clique? Just a few seconds ago he was one hundred percent anti-Natalie. I shake my head and go back to my hair, twirling it through my fingers into a braid and snapping a rubber band on the end.

Andrew kisses me and Lily good-bye and heads out to wherever with Blake. And I’m heading out the door with Natalie shortly after, hoping I can get through this day without back pains or anything else that might trigger Natalie to call Andrew and haul my ass off to the nearest emergency room.

We spend some time in our usual Starbucks first and then hit the mall to swing by Bath and Body Works, where Natalie has been working for a month. She introduces me to her manager and the two girls who work with her. I forget their names right after they tell me. Her manager is nice, even told me to come back and fill out an application if I wanted. Natalie jumped right in to explain that I would be heading back to Texas soon, and when I didn’t confirm her statement fast enough, Natalie knew I was holding something in and she could hardly stand it. I smiled and thanked her manager, and the next thing I know, Natalie is practically dragging me out of the store and is in my face.

“Spill it!” she says, her eyes bugged out of her head.

I step over to the balcony railing and lean against it. She follows, dropping her purse and one store bag on the floor next to her feet.

I contemplate my answer, because really I’m not sure what to say. I can’t say that yes, I’m moving back to Raleigh, because to Natalie that will translate as: I’m moving back here and everything is going to be exactly the way it was before. What it really means is that I miss Natalie and my mom, and because Texas and I just weren’t right for each other.

The truth suddenly dawns on me as I stare out intently across the mall. All those days I lay around in bed staring up at the ceiling while Andrew was working at the shop with Billy Frank, I kept trying to figure out what the hell was wrong with me, why I’ve been feeling so homesick yet at the same time not really wanting to come back home. I remember when I first arrived in Texas with Andrew. Hell, I remember while we were on the road together shortly before we drove over the Texas state line. I didn’t want to go there. I was afraid that everything would end in Texas, that the exciting life I was living with Andrew on the road would become nothing more than a memory once we made it to our final destination.

And in a way… it has…

I swallow a huge lump in my throat and mentally catch my breath.

It’s not because of Lily. I love her so much and could never blame her. Because the truth is that life doesn’t end with a pregnancy. A lot of people seem to think that, but I believe in my heart that it’s all in the way you choose to live it. Sure, having a baby is one of the most difficult things to do, but it’s not the end of the world. It doesn’t have to be the shattering of a person’s dreams. What Andrew and I have been slowly doing without realizing it is what shatters dreams: we’ve been getting too comfortable. The kind of comfortable that sneaks up on you years later, hits you in the back of the head, and says: Hey dumbass! Do you realize you’ve been doing this shit every day for the past ten years?

I keep my eyes trained out ahead. “I’m not sure what we’re doing, Nat,” I say and then finally look over at her. “I mean, yes, I’m moving back home, but…”

Her dark eyebrows draw inward with a questioning look. “But what?”