The Edge of Always(32)

“I know. I know.” I hug her tight and walk her to the foot of the bed, guiding her to sit down. I crouch between her legs, propping my arms on her thighs and taking both of her hands into mine. I look up at her and say one more time, “It wasn’t your fault.”

She wipes away a few tears, and we just sit here like this for what feels like forever. I think she believes me—either that or she’s just avoiding it. Then she looks toward the wall behind my head and says in a quiet voice, “Does this make me a drug addict?”

I want to laugh, but I don’t. Instead, I just shake my head and smile softly up at her, pressing my fingertips around her hands gently.

“It was a moment of weakness, and even the strongest person isn’t immune to weakness, Camryn. Four days and one bottle of painkillers doesn’t make you a drug addict. Bad judgment call, but not an addict.”

She looks back down at me. “Michelle and Aidan are going to think so.”

I shake my head. “No, they won’t. And no one else will, either.” I stand up and sit down beside her. “Besides, it’s nobody’s f*cking business. This is something only you and I have to know about and deal with.”

“I’ve never done anything like that before,” she says, looking out ahead of her. “I can’t believe—”

“You weren’t yourself,” I say. “You haven’t been since Lily died.”

The room gets strangely quiet again. I look at her from the side, but I give her this moment. She appears lost in deep thought.

And then she says, “Andrew, maybe we shouldn’t be together,” and her words hit me so fast and so hard that I feel like the air has been sucked out of my lungs.

I’m so stunned that it’s like her words have completely stolen all of mine. My heart is racing.

Finally, when she doesn’t elaborate, I manage to get out, “Why would you say that?” And I’m scared of her answer.

She continues to stare out ahead of her, tears rolling slowly down her cheeks. And then she does look at me and I see the same intense pain in her eyes that I know she sees in mine.

“Because everybody that I love tends to leave me, or die.”

Relief courses through me, but it’s overshadowed by her pain.

It’s in this very moment that I realize this is the first time Camryn has opened up about any of this to me, or to anyone else. I think about the things Natalie told me, and about the conversations that Camryn and I had while on the road, and I know that right now Camryn is admitting the depth of her pain not only to someone else, but more important, to herself.

“I feel so selfish saying it,” she goes on, and I absolutely let her without interruption. “My dad left us. My mom changed. My grandma, the only person that was the same and was always there when I needed her, died. Ian died. Cole went to prison. Natalie stabbed me in the back. Lily…” She looks at me finally, the pain intensified in her face. “And you.”

“Me?” I crouch in front of her again. “But I’m here, Camryn. I’ll always be here.” I take her hands into mine. “I don’t care what you do, or what happens between us. I’ll never leave you. I’ll always be with you.” I wrench her hands. “Remember when I said you were the world to me? You asked me to remind you if you ever forgot. Well, I’m reminding you now.”

Sobs shudder through her body.

“But you could’ve died,” she says, tears straining her voice. “Every single day I was at that hospital, I thought it was going to be your last. And then when it wasn’t and you pulled through, I still found myself reading it. Weeks, months later, because a part of me felt like I needed to get used to the idea of you being gone. Someday. Because I just knew you were going to leave in one way or another. Just like everybody else.”

“But I didn’t,” I say with desperation and smile a little with it. I sit on the floor and pull her down with me. “I didn’t die. I didn’t because I knew you were there with me the whole time. Because I knew we were meant to be together, and that if you were going to be alive then so was I.”

“But what if you do?” she asks.

I didn’t anticipate that.

“What if the tumor comes back?”

“It won’t,” I say. “And even if it does, I’ll beat it again. Hell, I went eight months without going to the doctor once and I still beat it. With you in my life, whipping my ass to make me go regularly for checkups, there’s no way it could kill me later.”

She doesn’t seem fully convinced of that, but I see a tiny ray of hope in her face and that’s what I wanted to see.

“I really am sorry,” she says, but instead of telling her not to be, I let her have this moment, too, because it feels more like allowing herself some closure. “I bet you never bargained for this kind of crazy baggage.” She wipes her fingers underneath her eyes.

Trying to lighten the mood some, I rub my hands across her bare knees and say, “I’d still love you if you were one of those chicks who runs to the bathroom to gag themselves after they eat, or if you had a secret clown sex fetish.”

She laughs lightly through her tears, and it makes me smile.

I raise her chin with the edge of my finger and get serious again, looking deep into her beautiful watery-blue eyes.