The Edge of Always (22 page)

My breath catches. My hand flies to my mouth, my eyes are wide and stinging from the breeze.

I remember her giving Andrew a blow job.

Trying to push myself to my feet, I feel Bray’s hand on my back.

“Girl, come on,” she says, pulling me back down on the sand with her. “Don’t go over there. You’ll just get hurt.”

I jerk my wrist from her hand and try to get up again, but the sudden movements mixed with the frayed nerves just sends me back into a dry-heaving episode.

Then I hear Andrew above me.

“Shit,” he says to Bray. “Will you run to my car and get a bottle of water out of the ice chest in the back?”

Bray takes off to do it.

Andrew rolls me over onto his legs just as I stop dry-heaving. He brushes my hair away from my eyes and my mouth.

“They fucking drugged us, baby,” he says.

My eyes open a crack to see him above me, his palms resting on my cheeks.

“I’m going to kill that bitch. I swear to God, Andrew.”

The look in his eyes is that of a person being stunned. He probably didn’t know that I knew. “She’s still passed out. Baby, I’m…”

The guilt in his face cuts through me. “Andrew, I know what happened,” I say. “I know you thought she was me. I saw what you did.”

“It doesn’t matter,” he says, gritting his teeth. Moisture is forming around his eyes. “I should’ve known it wasn’t you. I’m so fucking sorry. I should’ve known.” His hands tighten a little around my face.

I’m about to tell him to stop blaming himself when Elias comes over to us.

“I’m sorry, man, we didn’t know. I swear.”

“I believe you,” Andrew says.

Bray comes back with the water, and I’m already regaining some of my strength. I lift myself up and sit upright, lying against Andrew’s bare chest. He wraps his arms around me and squeezes me so hard, like he’s afraid I’m going to get up and run away.

Then he reaches out and takes the bottle from Bray. He twists off the top and pours some in his hand and wipes it across my forehead and mouth. The coolness of it instantly soothes me.

“Look man, I’m sorry,” Tate says, coming up behind us. “We thought you wouldn’t care. We just dropped some in everybody’s drinks. Being generous. We didn’t bring you out here with any fucked-up intentions.”

Andrew manages to carefully move away from me, though still so fast I barely felt his absence and he punches Tate again. A nauseating
crunch
echoes through the space around us.

“Please, Andrew!” I shout.

Elias grabs Andrew and Caleb grabs Tate, holding them off of each other.

Andrew lets Elias hold him back, but he shakes him off and turns back to me, helping me up from the ground.

“Let’s go,” he says. He starts to carry me, but I shake my head at him, letting him know that I’m OK to walk on my own.

He grabs his guitar and I grab our blanket, and we head toward the Chevelle.

“Maybe we should give Bray and Elias a ride back,” I say.

Andrew tosses the guitar in the trunk and takes the blanket from me, throwing it back there with it. Then he walks over to his side of the car, lays his arms across the roof and then his head in between them. He takes a deep breath and then slams his fist down on the metal. “
God damn it!
” he shouts and hits it again.

Instead of trying to talk some sense into him, I decide to let him cool down on his own. I look at him with a kind expression from the other side of the car. And then I get inside and close the door. He stays there for a minute longer until I hear him say, “I’ll give you two a ride back if you want.”

Elias and Bray, carrying their stuff, approach the car and get in the backseat.

I don’t even know how I find our way back so easily. I think at one point, I didn’t care much if we got lost. But I get us back without a wrong turn or having to pull over and ask for directions. Not much is said between the four of us. And the little that was spoken, I don’t remember any of it.

We pull into the parking lot of the hotel and part ways with Elias and Bray. Maybe I would’ve thanked Elias or wished them luck on the rest of their trip, or maybe even invited them with us somewhere tonight, but given the circumstances all I can do is nod when they thank us for the ride.

I pull away and drive around to our side of the hotel.

Camryn seems uncertain about talking to me yet. Not afraid, just uncertain. I can’t even look at her. I feel like fucking shit for what happened, and I’ll never forgive myself for it.

Camryn grabs my hand and we head straight up to our room. I swing open the door and start tossing our stuff in our bags.

“It wasn’t your—”

I stop her. “Don’t. Please. Just… give me a minute…”

She looks at me so dejectedly, but nods and gives in.

Soon, we’re on the road again, heading north up the coast. Destination: Anywhere But Florida.

After driving for an hour, I recall what happened last night in my head over and over again, trying to make some kind of sense out of it. I pull off the highway and the car crawls to a stop on the side of the road. It’s so quiet. I stare down at my lap and then up through the windshield. I realize that I’m white-knuckling the steering wheel. Finally, I swing open the door and get out.

I walk fast over the gravel and dirt and then down through the slope in the ditch, coming up the other side and head straight for the first tree.

“Andrew, stop!” I hear Camryn calling out to me.

But I keep going and when I face that goddamn tree, I hit it as hard as I hit Tate and Caleb. The skin over two of my knuckles splits open and blood runs over the top of my hand and in between my fingers, but I don’t stop.

I only stop when Camryn steps around in front of me and pushes me so hard in the chest with the palms of both hands that I almost fall backward. Tears are streaming from her eyes. “Stop it! Please! Just stop it!”

I let myself fall onto the grass into a sitting position, my knees bent, my bloodied hands dangling at the wrists. My body slumps over forward, my head hanging there. All I can see is the ground beneath me.

Camryn sits down in front of me. I feel her hands on the sides of my face, trying to raise my head, but I don’t let her.

“You can’t do this to me,” she says, her voice shuddering. She tries to force my gaze, and finally I let her because it hurts like hell to hear her cry. I look her in the eyes, my own eyes brimmed with angry tears that I’m trying to contain. “Baby, it wasn’t your fault. You were
drugged
. Anybody could have made that mistake as messed up as you were.” Her fingers tighten against both sides of my face. “It. Wasn’t. Your. Fault. Do you understand me?”

I try to look away, but she moves my hands out of the way and sits between my legs on her knees, facing me. Instinctively, I put my arms around her.

“I should’ve known still,” I say, looking down. “And it’s not just about that, Camryn, I was supposed to keep you safe. You never should’ve been drugged in the first place.” Just thinking about it causes the anger and hatred toward myself to rise up again. “I was supposed to keep you
safe
!”

She wraps her arms around me and forces my head onto her chest.

She pulls away. “Andrew, look at me. Please.”

I do. I see pain and compassion in her eyes. Her gentle fingers cup my unshaven face. She kisses my lips slowly and says, “It was a moment of weakness,” as if to remind me of what I said to her several months ago about the pills. “It’s my fault as much as it was yours. I’m not stupid. I should’ve known too not to leave our drinks alone with them even for a second. It’s
not
your fault.”

My eyes stray downward, and then I look back at her again. I don’t know how I can make her understand that because of how and who I am, I feel an intense sense of responsibility for her. A responsibility that I take pride in, that I’ve felt since the day I met her. It kills me… it
kills
me to know that in my “moment of weakness” I couldn’t protect her, that because I let my guard down she could’ve been hurt, raped, killed. How can I make her understand that it doesn’t matter if she doesn’t fault me for it, that her opinion, although I don’t take it for granted, doesn’t excuse my moment of failure? She’s entitled to a moment of weakness. I’m not. Mine is just failure.

“And I would never,
ever
hold that against you,” she adds.

I just look at her, searching her face for meaning and then she goes on:

“What that girl did,” she clarifies. “I’d never bring it up. Because you did nothing wrong.” I feel her fingertips press into the sides of my face. “Do you believe me?”

I nod slowly. “Yeah. I do believe you.”

She sighs and says, “It might’ve been partially my fault, anyway.” She looks away from my eyes.

“How so?”

“Well,” she says, but hesitates with a distant look of regret on her features, “I think I may have accidently given her permission.”

That certainly takes me by surprise.

“I remember her asking about sleeping with us, and I think I told her that yes, she could. I-I didn’t know she meant it… sexually. If I had been sober I definitely would’ve caught onto that. Andrew, I am so sorry. I’m sorry I let that crazy bitch violate you.”

I shake my head. “It’s neither one of our faults, so don’t feel like putting any of the blame on yourself, all right?”

When I don’t see that smile I was fishing for fast enough I reach out and grab both sides of her waist. She squeals as I start tickling her. She laughs and squirms so hard that she falls backward onto the grass, and I sit on top of her waist, holding my weight up by my knees on either side so I don’t crush her.

“Stop it! No! Andrew, I fucking swear! Stooooop!” She laughs hard, and I bury my fingertips around her ribs some more.

Then I hear the warning siren from a cop car sound once and go dead as it pulls up behind my car.

“Oh shit,” I say, looking down at Camryn. Her hair is matted with dried grass sticking out in various spots.

I jump off her and reach out my bloody hand to help her up. She takes it and rises to her feet, dusting herself off. We head back to the car just as the cop is getting out of his.

“Do you normally leave your door wide open on the highway like this?” the cop asks.

I glance at my door and back at him.

“No, sir,” I say. “I had to throw up and just didn’t think about it at the time.”

“License, insurance, and registration.”

I pull my license from my wallet and hand it to him and then go around to the passenger’s side to fish for my insurance and registration from the glove box. Camryn leans against the back of the car with her arms crossed nervously over her chest. The cop goes back to his car—after taking notice of the blood on my hands—and sits inside to run my name.

“I hope you’ve not been hiding any robberies or murders or anything from me,” Camryn says, as I lean against the hood next to her.

“Nah, my serial-killing days are over,” I say. “He’s got nothin’ on me.” I elbow her gently in the side.

A few unnerving minutes later the cop joins us at the back of the car and hands my stuff back to me.

“What happened to your hand?” he asks.

I look down at it, for the first time feeling the throbbing pain now that he’s brought it to my attention. Then I point to the tree not too far away. “I sort of hit the tree.”

“You
sort of
hit the tree?” he asks suspiciously, and I notice him glancing at Camryn every few seconds. Great, he probably thinks I beat her or some shit, and considering she does look pretty rough after last night’s incident and our recent scuffle in the grass, it probably helps confirm his assumption.

“OK, I hit a tree.”

He looks right at Camryn now. “Is that what happened?” he asks her.

Camryn, nervous as hell and likely knowing what the cop is thinking
really
happened as much as I do, suddenly has a Natalie moment.

“Yes, sir,” she says, gesturing her hands. “He got mad because some assholes—” she winces “—sorry, took advantage of us last night, and he was beating himself up over it all morning to the point of ultimately taking it out on that tree! I ran out there to stop him before he hurt himself and we talked about it and the reason I look like hammered shit—sorry—is because of the screwed-up night we had. But I promise we aren’t bad people. We don’t do drugs and he’s not a serial killer or anything, so please just let us go. You can even search the car if you want.”

Face. Palm. Moment.

I laugh it off inside. We don’t have anything to worry about if he searches the car. Unless… our temporary friends, Elias and Bray, just happened to drop a bag of weed or any kind of incriminating stuff somewhere in my backseat, by accident.

Oh shit… please don’t let this turn out like it does on television.

I glance over at Camryn and subtly shake my head at her.

Her eyes widen. “What’d I say?”

I just smile, still shaking my head, because it’s all I really can do.

The cop sniffles and then gnaws on the inside of his mouth. He looks back and forth between Camryn and me several times without a word, which only increases the tension we’re feeling.

“Next time don’t leave the door wide open like that,” the cop says, his expression as unmoving as it has been this whole time. “It’d be a shame to see a passing vehicle knock the door off a 1969 Chevelle in that good a condition.”

A slim smile brightens my face. “Absolutely.”

The cop pulls out ahead of us and leaves while we stay parked inside the car for a moment.

“ ‘You can search the car if you want’?” I repeat.

“I know!” she laughs and throws her head back against the seat momentarily. “I didn’t mean to say that. It just came out.”

I laugh, too. “Well, looks like your innocent rambling, which by the way scares me a little; I think that bipolar best friend of yours has rubbed off on you, but it charmed us out of that one.”

I rest my hands on the steering wheel.

She was smiling and probably about to comment on my Natalie joke, until she sees my bloody knuckles again. Then she moves over next to me and takes my hand carefully into hers.