The Edge of Always(94)

I smirk at her. “Oh, really? Since when did you become so educated in mental health issues and the medications they use to treat the hundreds of diagnoses?” My brow rises a little, just enough to let her see how much I know she has no idea what she’s talking about.

When she wrinkles her nose at me instead of answering, I say, “I’ll heal on my own time, and I don’t need a pill to fix it for me.” My explanation had started out kind, but unexpectedly turned bitter before I could get the last sentence out. That happens a lot.

Natalie sighs and the smile completely drops from her face.

“I’m sorry,” I say, feeling bad for snapping at her. “Look, I know you’re right. I can’t deny that I have some messed-up emotional issues and that I can be a bitch sometimes—.”

“Sometimes?” she mumbles under her breath, but is grinning again and has already forgiven me.

That happens a lot, too.

I half-smile back at her. “I just want to find answers on my own, y’know?”

“Find what answers?” She’s annoyed with me. “Cam,” she says, cocking her head to one side to appear thoughtful. “I hate to say it, but shit really does happen. You just have to get over it. Beat the hell out of it by doing things that make you happy.”

OK, so maybe she isn’t so horrible at the therapy thing after all.

“I know, you’re right,” I say, “but…”

Natalie raises a brow, waiting. “What? Come on, out with it!”

I gaze toward the wall briefly, thinking about it. So often I sit around and think about life and wonder about every possible aspect of it. I wonder what the hell I’m doing here. Even right now. In this coffee shop with this girl I’ve known practically all my life. Yesterday I thought about why I felt the need to get up at exactly the same time as the day before and do everything like I did the day before. Why? What compels any of us to do the things we do when deep down a part of us just wants to break free from it all?

I look away from the wall and right at my best friend who I know won’t understand what I’m about to say, but because of the need to get it out, I say it anyway.

“Have you ever wondered what it would be like to backpack across the world?”

Natalie’s face goes slack. “Uh, not really,” she says. “That might… suck.”

“Well, think about it for a second,” I say, leaning against the table and focusing all of my attention on her. “Just you and a backpack with a few necessities. No bills. No getting up at the same time every morning to go to a job you hate. Just you and the world out ahead of you. You never know what the next day is going to bring, who you’ll meet, what you’ll have for lunch or where you might sleep.” I realize I’ve become so lost in the imagery that I might’ve seemed a little obsessed for a second, myself.

“You’re starting to freak me out,” Natalie says, eyeing me across the small table with a look of uncertainty. Her arched brow settles down, and then she says, “And there’s also all the walking, the risk of getting raped, murdered, and tossed on the side of a freeway somewhere. Oh, and then there’s all the walking…”

Clearly, she thinks I’m borderline crazy.

“What brought this on, anyway?” she asks, taking a quick sip of her drink. “That sounds like some kind of midlife-crisis stuff—you’re only twenty.” She points again, as if to underline her next words: “And you’ve hardly paid a bill in your life.”

She takes another sip; an obnoxious slurping noise follows.

“Maybe not,” I say, thinking quietly to myself, “but I will be once I move in with you.”

“So true,” she says, tapping her fingertips on her cup. “Everything split down the middle—Wait, you’re not backing out on me, are you?” She sort of freezes, looking warily across at me.

“No, I’m still on. Next week I’ll be out of my mom’s house and living with a slut.”

“You bitch!” she laughs.

I half-smile and go back to my brooding, the stuff before that she wasn’t relating to, but I expected as much. Even before Ian died, I always kind of thought out of the box. Instead of sitting around dreaming up new sex positions, as Natalie often does about Damon, her boyfriend of five years, I dream about things that really matter. At least in my world, they matter. What the air in other countries feels like on my skin, how the ocean smells, why the sound of rain makes me gasp. “You’re one deep chick.” That’s what Damon said to me on more than one occasion.

“Geez!” Natalie says. “You’re a freakin’ downer, you know that right?” She shakes her head with the straw between her lips.

“Come on,” she says suddenly and stands up from the table. “I can’t take this philosophical stuff anymore, and quaint little places like this seem to make you worse—we’re going to the Underground tonight.”

“What?—No, I’m not going to that place.”

“Yes. You. Are.” She chucks her empty drink into the trash can a few feet away and grabs my wrist. “You’re going with me this time because you’re supposed to be my best friend and I won’t take no again for an answer.” Her close-lipped smile is spread across the entirety of her slightly tanned face.