more painful topic. For both of us. I saw her. She was so small she would’ve been able to fit in the palm of my hand. But Camryn refused to look.
She shakes her head. “Not really,” she says about Ian’s funeral. “I was there, but I wasn’t. My way of letting him go was shutting him out of my mind, every word he ever said to me, his face, anything I could shut out, I did. I only went because it’s what everybody expected of me. If I wasn’t so worried about what everyone else would think, I would’ve stayed home that day.”
“But that’s not closure,” I say carefully. “That’s the same thing as sweeping the dirt underneath the rug. It’s still there. You know it’s there. And it’ll bug the shit out of you until you do it right.”
“I know,” she says.
After a few long seconds of silence, I reach into my back pocket and pull out the photo.
“Y’know, if he was still alive, I’d be a little jealous. He’s kind of hot, for a guy.”
Camryn smiles over at me and I notice her eyes just barely skirt the photo.
I set it down on the sand next to our knees. Then I get serious again. “Camryn, what’s going on with you— the pills you took, all of it—isn’t just about losing Lily. You know that, don’t you?”
She doesn’t answer, but I can sense that she’s thinking hard about what I said.
“You shut everything out. Ian. Lily. According to Natalie, even your grandma and Cole and the fact that your dad left and seems to care more for his new girlfriend than he does for you.” I say it like it is because that’s exactly how it needs to be said. “Instead of dealing with it, grieving, whatever, you just shut that shit out and expect it to go away on its own. You’ve been doing that long before we met. You’ve got to know that it just piles up, and one day you’ll snap and go off the deep end.”
“I know. You’re right as usual,” she says dejectedly.
“Do you believe that, or are you just agreeing with me to get me to shut up?” I grin over at her, hoping to get a smile out of her.
And it works.
She smiles and says, “No, I do believe it. I just wish I would’ve believed it sooner.”
“Why do you believe it now?”
“Because you’re like a philosopher with tattoos.” She laughs and it sends a shot of warmth through my blood.
I can’t believe she’s laughing. At first, I thought it was going to take a long time for Camryn to come to terms with all of this, but she surprises me every day.
“A
Camryn turns sideways and lays her head on my lap. She looks up at me with those doelike blue eyes of hers, and I can’t help but reach down and touch the softness of her face.
“Do you want to know the truth?” she asks.
“Of course,” I say, but I’m feeling a little anxious all of a sudden.
“It’s like I told you back at Aidan’s,” she says. “If I ever lost you, of all people, that would do it for me. When I miscarried, it triggered all of my fears again. About losing you. It was like, in that second of tragedy I was reminded about death all over again and how fast it sneaks up on a person. If God or Nature or whoever or whatever the hell it is out there controlling all of this could be so cruel and heartless to kill my baby, then It wouldn’t have any second thoughts about killing you, too. It scares me, Andrew. The thought of ever losing you kills me inside. And because I almost lost you once, it makes the fear that much worse.”
“But I told you before—”
She lifts away from my lap and sits directly in front of me, her knees burrowed into the sand.
“I know what you told me,” she says. “But it doesn’t matter what you believe, or that you know all the right things to say to make it better. You don’t know for sure what will happen, Andrew. The tumor could very easily come back and despite everything we do, all of the precautions we take, it could kill you.”
I start to argue, but she’s so intent on saying these things to me that I know I have to let her.
“You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me,” she goes on, “and I can look you in the eyes right now and say that as much as it hurts, I can accept Ian’s death. I can accept Lily’s death. I can accept anyone else’s death even though whoever it is, it will be unbearably hard. But yours…” She pauses and doesn’t even blink as she looks deeply into my eyes. “I could never accept yours.
The silence between us only amplifies the sound of the ocean. I want to take her into my arms, to crush my lips over hers, but I just sit here, staring at her because the words she just spoke to me are the most powerful words I’ve ever heard or felt or understood.
Finally, I reach out both arms and lift her onto my lap. I wrap my arms around her back and look into her eyes and say, “I believe you and I feel the same way.”
She cocks her head gently to one side. “Really?”
“Yeah. Camryn, I can’t live without you. I could try, but it would be a miserable existence. It isn’t just about me; you could die tomorrow just as easily as I could. Neither one of us are immune to it.”
She doesn’t object, but she looks away for a brief moment.
I cup her cheeks within my hands, forcing her gaze. Her skin is cold.
“We have to live in the moment, remember?” I say and instantly get her attention again. “We need to make a pact, you and me, right now. Will you make a pact with me?” I move my hands back a little to warm her cold ears.
She nods. “OK,” she says, and I’m glad she trusts me enough with this not to ask questions before agreeing.
Moving one hand away from her ear, I trace the tips of my fingers across her forehead and down the sides of her cheeks. “We can’t control death,” I say. “There’s nothing either of us can do to avoid it or to hold it off. All we
Camryn nods and smiles slimly. “What kinds of things?” she asks.
“Anything. Whatever we want from each other. Like…” I stand up from the sand and bury my hands in my pockets. I gaze out at the ocean, sifting through my mind for the best promise to start with. I can think of only one thing at the moment, so I turn back to her and point my index finger upward and say, “This has nothing to do with the tumor or anything specific, but I want you to promise me that if I’m ever put on life support for any reason and you feel in your heart that I’m not going to pull through, you feel like I’m suffering, that you’ll take me off of it.”
Her smile fades, and she just looks up at me like I ruined the moment. I reach down to her and take her by the hand, bringing her to her feet with me.
“I’m not trying to be morbid. This is just something that’s always bothered me, y’know? You see it on TV and in movies. Some guy is hooked up to every machine known to man trying to keep him alive because the family has hope, or whatever. Nothing wrong with hope, but damn, that shit terrifies me.” I gently wrap my hands around her arms. “Never let me live like a vegetable. Promise me that. You know me better than anyone, and I trust you to know when I’ve had enough. So promise me.”
Slowly, she starts to come around. It takes her a second, but she begins to nod. “Promise me the same,” she says.
I smile and say, “You got it.”
She takes a step back and hides her hands in her sleeves. Wrapping her sweater tight around her body, she begins to pace.
She stops and looks at me. “Promise me that if I ever get Alzheimer’s or dementia, and I don’t remember anyone that you’ll visit me every day and read to me like Noah read to Allie.”
“Who?” I ask, but then it hits me. “Oooh, I see.” I laugh and shake my head at her.
Her eyes and her smile get bigger and she yells, “
“All right, all right!” I say, squeezing her wriggling body against me.
“It was your idea,” she says, “so don’t make a joke out of it.”
“I know. You’re right, but…
I feel her elbow dig into my gut, and I double over a little and overdramatize the pain it caused, my face strained with agony and laughter. To add insult to injury, Camryn gives me a push and knocks me over into the
