The End of the World (22 page)

Shaye

For six straight
days, all I’ve done is replay Cameron’s words in my mind like a bad cheer in the fourth quarter of a state playoff game.
“I’ll go with you…I’ll wait for you….”
Except I see nothing but a disappointing tie in my future, and I can’t decide if trading in my current blissfully unaware status for something that might make me crushed and broken is worth the risk.

I also can’t decide if Cameron was actually talking about the house, or if his words were symbolic of something more personal. Right now, I don’t have time to decide.

“Are you almost ready?”

It’s the third time Mike has asked me, and I’m starting to get nervous. Not because he’s ever laid a hand on me or even raised his voice loud enough to make me flinch, but because I can hear the beginnings of a temper. A flare of anger is what sparks the rest, at least in my vast experience. Maybe not with Mike yet, but it’s what I’m used to because for some reason it’s what I attract. I hate it, but it’s all I know. All it takes is a few well-placed words to lead to a poorly positioned fist followed by five days with me unable to see through a blackened, swollen eye and struggling to eat around a partially fractured jaw.

That’s only happened once, but I’ll never forget the pain.

“Almost. I just need to find my shoes,” I call from my bedroom closet. It’s a lie. I’m already wearing my shoes and skirt and new shirt that I found on the super clearance rack at Kohl’s last night, and everything is ready to go out for the evening.

Everything except me.

I can’t name the reason, but something has me feeling uneasy. Unsettled. Part of me wonders if it’s an irrational fear of a freak disaster happening, but the majority of me knows I’m just dreading spending the time out with Cameron and Kara. They’re cute together. Kissy and happy and giggly—a real life Ken and Barbie. The whole nauseating display is making me sick. Maybe that’s completely unfair, but I’m a girl and that’s just the way it is.

“What are you doing back here? Everyone is waiting on you, but as usual you’re running late.” Cameron. Always looking out for me in the most annoying ways.

“Can you not hear? I just said I’m looking for my shoes.” The sigh that rises up and out of me is both loud and obnoxious, but it can’t be helped. When he doesn’t reply with a sarcastic comeback, I glance his way just in time to catch his pointed stare. At my feet.

“Found them.” He glances up at me. The smile that lights his eyes quickly turns into a concerned frown at whatever look I must be giving him. “What’s wrong? Are you not up for going out?”

I shift in place. It would be nice, just once, if Cameron couldn’t read my mind. “Not really, I guess. It feels like too much work. Too many complications. Too many…too many…” I pretend to search for a word that’s already blaring through my mind like a whiny kid who won’t stop asking for candy.

“People?”

I shoot him a glare. “Would you stop doing that?”

He blinks at me, surprised at my outburst. “Stop doing what?”

“Finishing my sentences. Reading my mind. It’s annoying.”

This earns a laugh. “I’m sorry for being so irritating, but you must be used to it by now. Besides, there’s only four of us. Not exactly a crowd. Now are you ready to go?”

I press my lips together. Not exactly a crowd. As far as I’m concerned, four people in this group is two people too many. We might as well be in a football stadium sitting shoulder to shoulder with ten thousand strangers chomping on hot dogs and two-fisting cups of Michelob. Somehow that sounds more pleasant.

I study my shirts, my jeans, the empty hangers dangling alone, waiting for a strip of cloth to keep them company. Finding no way out of this night except through my open closet door, I walk through it just as Mike yells at me again. This time, his temper burns red.

“Shaye, get out here! Just grab some shoes and be done with it!”

Before I exit my bedroom, a hand circles my wrist and tugs me backward. It’s a move I’ve felt once before from Cameron, outside a bedroom door similar to this one. When I look up, the same questioning look lines his eyes that I saw four years ago. A look of panic. A look of fear.

“What?” I ask, even though I’m already sure of the question.

“Has he ever…?”

“No, Cameron. He hasn’t.”

His voice drops to a whisper. His eyes turn hard. “I swear to God, if he lays a hand on you…”

“He won’t.” Without thinking, I reach up to brush a strand of hair from his eyes. The move could be interpreted as maternal, nurturing, me taking care of him like the big sister I should be. And if I actually felt that way, life would be easier. “He won’t, Cameron.”

He lets go of my wrist, satisfied by my response. But instead of walking away like I expect him to, he takes a step toward me and cups the back of my neck with his hand. The kiss on the forehead is unexpected and soft. My heartbeat is not. In the span of a handful of seconds, it turns violent inside my chest.

“What was that for?” It takes work to make my voice sound light, carefree.

He gives me a grin that pricks my heart with shards of broken glass, and shrugs. “Just for being you. You’re pretty cool, you know. I think I’ll keep you around for a while.”

I laugh and give him a halfhearted shove. “If I don’t dump you first, which right now is looking pretty likely. I can’t believe I’ve put up with you for this long. Now let’s go eat, or…whatever it is we’re doing.”

I’ll go with you…I’ll wait for you…

There it is again, that same frustrating mantra that has played through my mind all day. But the truth is, if there was any way for his statement to be true in the way I wish it could be, I would wait for him too.

Forever.

And ever.

Shaye

“G
et dressed. We’re
going out.”

I look down at the ripped jeans and sweatshirt I’ve worn all day and try not to get offended. Sure, maybe a few kernels of popcorn are scattered on my lap and that just might be a smear of melted butter around the top part of one breast, but it’s Saturday night. Mike is working, I’m not, and since when is it life’s worst crime to watch Hallmark movies until a person’s brain goes numb from the holly jolly cheer of it all? Never, that’s when. So why is he interrogating me?

“I am dressed, we’ve been out every night this week, and I’m busy. What makes you think I want to go out now?” A piece of popcorn misses my mouth and falls onto the sofa. So what? I’ll never win any awards for etiquette.

Cameron makes a dramatic show of falling down on the sofa next to me. Within seconds he’s eyeing my body, the bowl I’m holding, the television. He makes a face. “First of all, that hardly counts as dressed. You look homeless.”

“I do not!”

“Second of all, every time we’ve gone out it’s with Kara and Mike. We never go out with just each other.”

He’s right, and lately those dates have been just short of disastrous. He and Kara have been fighting more and more lately and Mike and I…Mike and I…I just don’t know about us. I’m getting tired of his bossiness.

“Sometimes we sit by the pool,” I point out. It’s weak, not worth mentioning. Cameron seems to agree.

“Third of all,” he goes on, ignoring me as usual. “You’re sitting here watching Christmas movies and you don’t even have a tree in this place. Not even a single strand of lights.”

“Neither do you.”

He looks at me like I couldn’t be dumber. “Why would I bother when I spend all my time here?”

“And that’s another thing,” I say, not caring in the least about the fact that I never brought up a
first
thing. “Why are you always here? You come in every night like you own the place, help yourself to my food, tell me all the ways I’m slacking, and then demand that I spend time with you. Well, maybe I want to spend time with…” I gesture to the screen, “…what’s his name from
Full House
. Have you ever once considered that?”

His expression falls right along with his body. Before I know it, he has smoothly situated his head on my lap and I’m blinking down at his face. He moves his head back and forth, making himself comfortable. This is so normal that my hand works on reflex; my fingers thread through his hair in the way Cameron has come to expect. “His name is Dave…something, and you’ve seen this movie four times already. Get up. At least change into something that isn’t streaked with grease.” He eyes the spot on my shirt and grins. “Interesting location, by the way. Now let’s go. Daylight’s burning, and we’ve got stuff to do.”

“It’s already dark outside.”

“An unnecessary observation. Now scratch above my left ear.”

I give his face a little shove, giggle like the sucker I am, and scoot out from under him. He begins to protest, but I cut him off. “I can’t play with your hair and change clothes at the same time. So where are we going?”

Cameron rolls onto his side and looks up at me over the crook of his elbow. With his long lashes and dark hair that falls over one eyebrow, the move is both sexy and adorable, and I make myself look away. I can’t think about him like that. I can
never
think about him like that. He’s way too good for me and I’m way too wrong for him. If only I could find a way to get my mind to listen to both obvious facts.

“I’m going to buy you a Christmas tree. And before I leave here tonight, this place is going to light up like it’s on fire.”

“Fine,” I say.

What I don’t tell him is that just by coming over tonight, he already makes this place shine.

*

Cameron

“It’s too short.
And ugly. And not Christmassy at all.”

This is the way Shaye has complained all night. But I want this tree. And I don’t care that it’s three feet tall and isn’t technically for my apartment. That really doesn’t matter anyway since I spend all my time at Shaye’s place. Unless Kara is at my apartment, which is becoming less and less frequent because, I don’t know, there’s just something about her that I haven’t connected with yet. Something I can’t put my finger on. Something that doesn’t fit right.

I steal a glance at Shaye and then focus on the tree, twirling it around by the top in my hand.

I like it. I like short. I like round and stubby and slightly bald around the middle. Something about this tree reminds me of Charlie Brown and the forlorn sapling he rescues on that Christmas special, therefore saving it from a sad, lonely, holiday-less existence. It’s like the runt of the litter, the burned French fry in the bottom of the box, the shriveled grape in a cluster of perfect ones.

The lonely kid that no one wants, I can’t help but thinking. But tonight is about cheer, laughter, and making Shaye feel better. Not about me and my stupid victim mentality that I wish would go away. It is fading gradually. Someday I hope for it to be gone completely. That day hasn’t come yet, but I know it will.

“It’s too short,” she repeats. I’ve had enough of her negativity.

“How would you feel if someone called you too short? Or if you were just standing here waiting for someone to pick you out of a crowd only to have everyone look you over and say no thanks. She’s too ugly. Too sparse. Too freaking little to be worth anything, definitely not a couple strands of lights.”

When I’m finished, I immediately feel ridiculous. Shaye has no problem validating those feelings. She raises an eyebrow that disappears under her red stocking cap.

“Wow, abandonment issues much?” Her eyes sparkle with amusement, and something about her expression causes my stomach to flip. The reaction is a familiar one, but I’m long past chalking it up to a silly case of puppy love. All doubts about a childhood crush died the night I found her in the laundry room, but even the things I felt in that moment—the relief, the joy, the inability to fathom that I’d finally found her—are nothing compared to the way I feel about her now.

If only I had taken better care of her all those years ago. Then maybe I would be more of the man she deserves.

“Only people with issues can spot other people with issues,” I say, feeling a sad smile steal over my lips.

Reaching up to my face, Shaye lightens my mood in the way that only Shaye can. Using her fingers, she forces my lips upward at the corners. It isn’t long before I’m smiling for real.

“If it’s that important to you, we’ll get the tree.” She drops her hand. “But only on one condition.”

My victory fist pump stops mid-air. “What condition?”

Shaye adjusts the cap around her head and looks up at me. “You have to carry it inside all by yourself. Not only that, you have to climb the ladder to get those lights all the way to the top. With no help from me.”

I should have known she couldn’t resist a smart mouth. Still, I find myself laughing.

“Shut up, Shaye.”

I barely hear her response through the sound of receding giggles.

“Make me, Cameron.”

As I watch her go, all I can think is how fun it would be to try.

Shaye

“W
hat do you
mean, you got fired?”

I knew he would react this way, because Cameron always reacts this way—not because he thinks I’m a slacker or a poor worker or an unfriendly employee—but because he thinks I’m perfect, and he can’t fathom that anyone would believe otherwise. The evidence is all over his face, morphing from shock to sadness to anger all in the span of me trying to collect my thoughts and give him a response.