The End of the World (16 page)

“Her soul

My soul

Broken in different ways

Too impossibly broken to be made whole again

Maybe…”

(LM)

Cameron

I
t’s almost the
end of spring, and the sun is already hot. Almost as hot as the girl sitting across from me in a pale yellow dress with a slit up the side of her thigh. We met at the university and we’ve been dating officially for three months, and it’s going well. She’s an art major and I’m a journalism major and who knows? A few more months like this and I might make the situation a little more permanent. I know nineteen is too young to be thinking so seriously about my future and who I may or may not want to spend it with, but dorm life is too communal for a guy who spent a third of his life in foster care, and I can’t live on my friend Bradley’s sofa forever. I crashed his apartment nine months ago today, and I’m fairly certain I overstayed my welcome six of those months ago.

“Babe, can you hand me the salt?” she asks me, her ankle brushing mine under the table.

I slowly hand it over, letting my fingers brush against hers in the process. With her long locks and slender figure, she every man’s dream. Most of all, mine. I never thought I would feel this way about a woman. Especially one that wasn’t—

Snatching up my knife, I cut that thought off before it has a chance to materialize.

Shaye left, end of story.

Lately with Kara, I’ve been thinking long-term. I would like for my future to include her if she’s up for it. I briefly allow myself to remember the window shopping I did only yesterday afternoon while passing by on my way to the dry cleaners. One carat, platinum setting, teardrop cut. Engagement rings cost a small fortune, but it would be worth it to have a little permanence in life. Especially for a guy who’s never known what commitment feels like.

When she grins and traces my index finger with her own, I’m sure of it. I could stay with this girl for a very long time.

“A little slow on the shaker pass, don’t you think?” she asks, taking it from me and sprinkling some over her fettuccini.

“Maybe a little. Though can you blame me?”

Kara shrugs and giggles into her plate. At twenty, she’s a bit older than me.

I pick up my fork and jab it into a slice of chicken parmesan. “So are we still on for tomorrow? If I’m not out by the weekend, I think Brad will evict me and make me pay back rent and maybe the entire cleaning deposit. Which really isn’t fair seeing the place is a mess one hundred percent of the time.”

Kara smiles around a mouth full of noodles and shakes her head. “You probably owe him that much and more. Who lets someone crash for free for nine months anyway?”

Kara is beautiful, but she’s also a bit stingy with money. I have no doubt that if I’d been sleeping on her couch, I would have not only paid rent, but also for a painter and new appliances. That’s what happens when you’re half-raised by your depression-era great grandmother in a meagerly-furnished two bedroom apartment while your single mother works the night shift. The old woman didn’t have much, and passed the minimalistic belief onto her granddaughter.

Kara does like to shop though, and looks fantastic in everything she buys.

“So is that your answer? I should pay him and forgo any hopes of an apartment of my own?” This chicken is the best I’ve ever tasted, and I make a mental note to come back.

“Of course I’ll go with you,” she says. Reaching for her water glass, she swirls it, indicating that it’s empty and she needs a refill. “Do you see our waiter?”

I turn in my seat to crane my neck, but see no one but the hostess who brought us to this table a half-hour ago. I do spot a pitcher only a few yards away. With another glance around the room, I stand up.

“I’ll get more water for you.” It’s silly how much this makes me feel like a hero for a moment, but I like the brief rush of doing something for my lady. Especially one looking up at me with that killer smile on her face. Who knows? Maybe tonight will finally be the night. Three months is a long time to expect a guy to wait. Made even more difficult when the girl doing the making is as sexy as Kara.

I’m almost to the pitcher when I glance up. Maybe it’s out of fear of getting caught…of being reprimanded. Maybe there’s some rule about grabbing pitchers that don’t belong to you…maybe people get kicked out of restaurants for this sort of behavior.

That one glance changes everything.

All thoughts of that one carat diamond still sitting in that jewelry store window disappear in one blink.

Four years.

It’s been four years of looking and looking and looking and all of them smash together in my mind and crash around my feet and leave me standing barefoot in an inch of shattered memories and broken promises. I swear I just saw a girl that looks exactly like Shaye. I’m wearing the same dress shoes I showed up in, but my feet hurt and my heart pounds and my head throbs and everything inside me aches in a way I haven’t felt since I was fifteen.

The faded note currently folded inside my wallet behind my debit card and driver’s license is the only remnant I have from her—from our life in that house—before she ran away and left us all.

The girl removes her black apron and heads for the door. With barely a passing thought of Kara still sitting at the table, I bypass the water pitcher and follow her dark hair and very distinct walk that has been forever seared in my memory. I might be wrong. I know I might be wrong.

There’s no way I’m wrong.

My feet are moving boulders and they’ve added miles and miles of flooring to this entryway since I arrived, but I finally burst through the glass front doors, warm air encircling me like a noose that tightens around my neck. I scan the parking lot, scan it again. Seconds, minutes, hours go by and then I spot her across the lot, ducking inside an older model blue Toyota Corolla.

With a fist to my forehead, I watch her drive away. I force myself to breathe.

Breathe, Cameron.

Breathe.

It’s just like before, except this time I got to watch. This time, I saw it unfold. This time, I’m not alone.

I study the pavement and slowly calm down. Shaye was here. I’m going to find her. And when I do, I’ll look into her eyes, and she will look into mine, and once and for all I will know. I’ll have my answers—I’ll know the truth about what happened and why and where that leaves us both.

I have searched the world over for four years for her, but now that I’ve seen her—there is nothing but anger bubbling up inside of me.

She left us, and I want answers.

Four years is a long time to wait.

One more day is not.

With one last glance in the direction of that shrinking blue Corolla, I head back inside. My girlfriend is waiting…that beautiful girl in the yellow dress who just might be the key to my future.

In truth, as I slide into the seat across from Kara, the only thing I can see is that discarded black apron and the map of my plan for tomorrow.

*

Shaye

This stupid sad
feeling has wrapped itself around me and settled in for a springtime nap even as I’m racing across town, managing to hit every traffic light in my quest to meet Kevin on time. I can’t shake it, no matter what I try. Music doesn’t work, singing doesn’t work, even counting to one hundred and back to one doesn’t work to calm my unexplained nerves. Though I shouldn’t be surprised. On average, this same sadness occurs a couple times a year, once on the day that would have been my mother’s birthday and once on the day when—

That’s when it hits me. I can’t believe I didn’t remember until now.

Today is the day I left Cameron to fend for himself at the Bowden’s.

Four years and six hours and seventeen minutes ago while he was still asleep, I shut the door on the best friend I’ve ever had, before or since. In all the years since I last saw him, the ache hasn’t gone away. Though if I’m being honest, I’m glad it hasn’t gone away because to go away would mean I’ve forgotten him.

I’ll never forget Cameron. I quit trying to years ago.

To this day, leaving him without a word or forwarding address is my biggest regret. He was my only friend. My only ally against that horrible place and all it represented. My only help with the kids and the chores and the day-to-day grind of a thousand things to do and a million hurtful insults to help prod you along the way. And I left him without a word. The hole inside me that opened wide with the decision to leave has remained gaping and festering ever since.

Pulling into the first spot I see at the never-crowded Mickey’s Diner, I move the gearshift into park and leave the motor running. But I don’t have time to dwell on Cameron now, because I’m finally here, and I can see the look on Kevin’s face. It’s not a happy one.

It takes only a second for him to slide into the passenger seat beside me.

“You’re late again.”

“You’re drunk,” I say. “That makes three times this week. I told you if you didn’t stop drinking, I would walk. I meant it, Kevin.”

I know it’s not smart to challenge Kevin, and normally I don’t. But tonight I feel like fighting. Tonight, I want to take a swing, even if the victory is short lived and tomorrow finds me holding a trophy in the air with one hand and a bag of frozen peas over my shattered confidence.

Tonight, I’ll take my chances.

“You’re not going anywhere,” he says. “And whether I drink or not is none of your business,” he says.

“It is when I’m the one who picks you up from work every day and you make my car reek with alcohol.”

I know it in the half second before his hand strikes my cheek; I’ve gone too far. The sting is mild. I’m pretty sure the mark is not.

“Shut up and take me home. I have a headache, and your high-pitched whine is making it worse.”

I pull the car onto the road and decide to stay quiet even though every foul word in the English language is perched on my tongue just itching to jump off. And for the millionth time in my life I wonder how I’ve gotten here. The question has ten sinister fingers wrapped around my throat and hasn’t let go in forever. In the same way a story can have a disappointing end or the last few inches of a rope can lead to sudden death, sometimes it’s easy to give up. Stop trying. Simply quit caring and settle for less.

“Kevin, wake up. We’re here.” I make no move to shut off the car or act like I’m going inside this time. After this day, all I want to do is go home and sleep.

He lifts his head from the window and looks at me with red-rimmed, hard eyes. “You’re coming in with me.”

It’s a statement of fact, not bothered to be disguised as an invitation. And he’s right. I’ll go inside. Probably stay the night. It’s what I do. It’s what the cycle demands. And we both know that tomorrow morning Kevin will be a sorrowful mess. And I will know better. I’ll know I shouldn’t say that I forgive him or that I love him or that it will be fine. But, I’ll do it anyway—I’ll do it again and again because I hate loneliness way more than the occasional black eye or bruised heart.

Even though alone is my way of life.

Has always been my way of life.

For that reason, putting up with the bad behavior of others seems to be a better alternative than spending time thinking about all I’ve lost.

Cameron

I
’ve been sitting
in my car for almost an hour. I know I could have called to find out what time they opened. I know there would have been a much more productive way of getting what I want that wouldn’t have involved me parking the car and shutting the engine off and starting it up again and taking it for a drive around the block before parking it and beginning the process all over again.

Five times.

I’m on the last curve of the fifth straight time I’ve repeated this routine, but I still have twelve minutes to wait. Twelve long minutes to either lose my sanity or somehow gather the bits of it that remain and pull myself together.

When I was little—maybe five or six—my mother’s favorite television show was Jeopardy. She called Alex Trebek her pretend boyfriend and never missed an episode, so by default, neither did I. The thing I remember most about those shows was the one person…the one idiot who messed up a question so profoundly, so embarrassingly, that the audience would give a collective groan and Alex Trebek would grin. A knowing grin. An unbelieving grin. A grin that said, “You had your chance, and you blew it. You were so close to walking away with the prize, and you let it slip out of your grasp. And everyone in America just witnessed your downfall.”

That’s how I feel in this exact moment. Like I’m on the edge of a downfall…of ruining my one chance…of either getting the prize or walking away from it. I want answers. I need answers.

And the stupid restaurant isn’t even open.

I turn the key to fire up the engine and take off on round six when movement catches the corner of my eye. The front door of the restaurant swings open, and a guy in a black apron like the one I remember from yesterday props it open with door stop. He heads back inside, and that’s my cue.