The End of the World (20 page)

“Oh, that’s right. And your father is Shaye’s boss and that’s how you met. I remember now.” I realize that I’m beginning to emulate the same jerkiness I’ve come to despise, but I can’t stop myself. Maybe I just don’t like Kevin. Maybe I can see right through him. Maybe I’m just jealous. All options are wide open and lying on the table in front of me. “Makes for a pretty convenient dating relationship, if you ask me.”

“Yeah, it is.”

“No one asked you.”

They both respond at the same time in very telling ways, one with a smirk on his face and the other with that ever-present scowl. Kevin isn’t stupid. He knows who has the upper hand in their relationship. He’d better just never physically use it on her. I’ve threatened to kill before, even if I’ve never actually had to carry said threats out. Yet.

“No matter, it’s all very interesting. Now, what else can we talk about?”

“Nothing,” Kevin says. “I’m ready to go.”

Shaye jumps up to grab her coat, though from the look on her face, her enthusiasm matches the same eagerness one might feel when preparing for a root canal or kidney stone extraction.

I frown, scrambling for something to keep her here. “You sure? I could keep this conversation going for hours.”

“It seems like you already have,” Kevin mumbles. I shoot a glare his way, the sarcastic jerk. Add that nasty trait to the list of grievances I have against him.

Knowing I’ve lost the battle, I fake yawn into my fist for no real reason other than I’m on a roll and might as well see it all the way through to the end.

“Well kids, I’m tired. If you two are going out, you should probably get started so that Shaye doesn’t get back too late.”

Two things about the absurd statement I just made. First, I’m the youngest in the room. Kevin looks to be about eight years older than Shaye. He could practically be my dad in some backwards countries. And second, this isn’t my apartment, but I just implied I would be waiting up for her to return. Which I will be, because…I just will. It’s what I do.

Starting now.

Shaye just looks at me. “So that I don’t get back—What time is my curfew, Dad?”

I pretend not to hear her and instead focus on Kevin’s laborious move to stand up. Seems like the first, second, third beer have kicked in. The fourth should hit any minute now. Too bad I won’t get to witness the stumbling and slurred words firsthand.

“Actually, I’m pretty tired. Shaye, run me home. All this talk has given me a headache, and I can’t decide whether I want to smack you around or go to sleep.” He gives a pathetic laugh at his crass joke and steadies himself against the wall. “Sleep wins tonight.”

Clearly his well-rehearsed charm isn’t sustained with alcohol.

“That’s too bad,” I say. “I guess I’ll take care of her for you tonight. But tomorrow night, she’s all yours.”

Over my comatose body, but I decide against adding that last part.

Shaye grabs her keys.

“Cameron, I’ll be back in a few.” She opens the door and waits for Kevin to walk through, then whips around to face me. “Do not leave,” she whispers through clenched teeth. “Because when I get back, I’m gonna kill you.”

I don’t answer, just stare for a moment. And then I give her a slow, deliberate wink.

And then her face turns red.

And then the door slams in my face.

That reaction might alarm me. It might stress me out a little. I might even start to worry that I took things too far. Except that just before she stormed out…

I happened to see her smile.

*

Shaye

That boy.

That man.

And herein lies the problem. I can’t decide which one he is. The internal debate has kept my mind spinning all day like it’s stuck on a hamster wheel. It’s the kind of private indecisiveness that turns into mental torture of the worst kind. All traces of the kid he used to be are absent now. He has a five o’clock shadow and sculpted biceps and towers over me by half a foot for heaven’s sake, and if I’m being totally honest here, I can barely function around him for how handsome—I can’t think about that now. Besides, honesty is overrated and he has some explaining to do.

Even though I’m hardly mad anymore, I slam the front door for dramatic effect when I walk inside the apartment. A tiny fragment of my anger returns when he barely reacts to the sound, just keeps flipping through channels like he owns the stupid remote.

“You want to tell me what that was about?” Shoulders squared, voice raised, a glare at his hand and then subsequently at the television. I think I have the don’t-mess-with-me act down pretty well.

“Your boyfriend’s a jackass.”

I roll my eyes. Apparently Cameron has the devil-may-care act down even better.

“No, he isn’t. Not once you get to know him.” The lie rolls right off my tongue like there was never a day I
couldn’t
lie to Cameron.

With a sigh, he props himself on one elbow to look at me. “Nice try. But you forget I know you. And in less than one hour tonight, I’m pretty sure I just figured out your type.” He falls back down and tucks an arm under his head, then resumes watching whatever animated cable show he was into.

I’m pretty sure I was just insulted, and I’m even more certain he’s done with television. I march toward the set and plant myself in front of it. My house, my rules.

“What do you mean, my type? I don’t have a type.”

Oh, but I might. And he might have brown hair and blue eyes and take up the length of a sofa in ways that have my imagination playing all sorts of games in my mind.

But my possible type deserves so much better than me.

My momentary distraction dissipates somewhat when I realize he’s talking.

“Did you hear me, Shaye?”

I blink, try to focus. “No.”

He gives me a look that communicates just how close he is to being finished with me forever. I don’t concern myself with it for a second.

“I said you totally have a type, and it just walked out that door. And I’d venture to guess a dozen other guys just like him have also walked out at one time or another.”

I can feel my mouth falling open and my defenses going up, though I’m not sure either are justified because he’s right. He’s off by four, but that’s just semantics. Still, I do have my pride.

“I have not dated a dozen guys.”

Weak, but I’ve found my creative genius to be a bit lagging at the moment.

“Eleven, then?” At my blank stare, he keeps going. “Ten? Nine? Eight?” I bite my lip and glance away before realizing what I’ve done. It’s the classic guilt move, one used in every suspense novel and dramatic movie and courtroom-based television show ever made. I should know; I’ve seen most of them.

“So it’s eight, is it?” he says. “You’ve dated eight guys, each likely as overbearing and controlling as the guy you just dropped off in a drunken state only God knows where. You know you don’t have to do that to yourself, right?” He swings his legs to the ground and sits up, hands clasped in front of him. He looks up at me with the same concerned eyes that have searched inside my soul before.

I have no answer to give him. He’s wrong, but there’s no way I can explain. No way he would understand.

“Can we talk about it later? Right now I’m just so tired.”

And because Cameron is Cameron, he answers me in the exact right way. The way I want him to. The way I know he will even after four years of not being around him, because four years doesn’t change a person’s core, and four years doesn’t change a true friendship. Not if the friendship is rooted deeply in respect and understanding and knowing the darkest corners of another person’s most private experiences. No one knows me better than he does.

“Sure. Come sit down. We’ll watch a movie. Maybe even a chick flick.”

I resist the urge to raise an eyebrow. This is new. But I don’t question it.

I just sit.

And we do.

And the silent companionship nearly brings me to the gates of heaven, if only for a little while.

Cameron

I
’ve lived here
almost six months, it’s Labor Day weekend, and Shaye has a new boyfriend. His name is Mike, he’s somewhat well-off, and even I have to admit he’s a few notches above Kevin.

Which makes me hate him.

Because of this unfortunate fact, I’m still dating Kara and I don’t know why.

Which makes me hate myself, too.

But I’m not going to be odd man out. One of these days Shaye is going to figure out she needs to quit settling for second best.

We’re spending one last day at the community pool located exactly six paces off dead center of our apartment complex. I know this because I marked off the steps one night a couple months back while talking on the phone to my aunt Marie—the same aunt who wanted nothing to do with me back when I desperately needed an aunt or uncle or freaking cousin who cared, but who has now decided that she might actually want a relationship with someone who shares her blood. It’s a little bit too little, but the jury’s still out on whether it’s too late. The insecure, frightened young boy I once was thinks it might be. The man who has no family to speak of hasn’t discounted her yet.

When I drag my arm across the water to splash Kara, but fail to douse anything but the water in front of her, she giggles. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Shaye smile before she loses herself inside her latest paperback.

In one move I’m up and out of the pool, walking toward Shaye’s bag. It contains the sunscreen, the drinks, and the towels, and it happens to be conveniently located under her chair. Leaning over her to grab it, I run my hands through my hair and give my head a violent shake, soaking her with a downpour of chlorine infused raindrops.

“Cameron, quit!” she squeals, bolting upright. “Kara, make him get away from me!”

It takes less than five seconds to feel Kara’s hand grab my wrist, less than one more to be hurled into the water. We both go under and then re-emerge all tangled together, both laughing, limbs wrapped around limbs. It isn’t long before we’re kissing, water sliding off from our hair and finding its way to our conjoined lips. It takes even less time for me to be wishing we were doing more.

Something soft hits me square on the head. Shaye has always had remarkable aim.

“Get a room,” she says. “Or at least wait until I’m not being forced to watch.”

I grab the beach ball and hurl it back at her shoulder as Mike rolls his eyes. “You two act like a couple of children. Can you both keep it down? I’m trying to take a nap here.”

“Well, far be it from me to interrupt your beauty sleep.” I give Shaye a wink. She returns it with a grin.

I climb out of the pool, beckoning Kara to follow me. The afternoon has been fun, but the day is fading and tomorrow it’s back to school and books and studying and all things generally unappealing and completely void of stimulation. My hot girlfriend, on the other hand…

I think maybe Shaye had the right idea.

I turn and kiss Kara on the nose.

“Let’s get out of here?” I ask.

It’s all the encouragement she needs before she snatches up towels and slips her toes into a cute pair of dime store flip-flops.

Just before I turn to leave, I glance in Shaye’s direction. Whether for approval or dismissal or just needing some sort invisible touchstone to connect with, I always glance at her before I go. And that’s when I see it. Like always, it makes me happy and sad in a single confusing moment, because it’s the same thing I always see from Shaye, even though she thinks I don’t notice. But I do notice because I recognize it. I recognize it because it’s the same look I give her every time she leaves. It’s a look that’s spurred by an emotion that begins deep inside and can’t help working its way up until it reflects from the eyes in a twitch, a downward turn, a slight flicker of something that looks an awful lot like hurt.

She hates it when I leave her.

In the same way I hate spending any time without her.

*

Shaye

I close the
door behind me, all at once exhausted and anxious in a simultaneous, depressing moment. Mike just left. And after an hour of things I tried to enjoy at the time but don’t like to think about immediately after—things I won’t allow myself to revisit until the last five seconds before sleep claims me—I’m ready for Cameron to show up. But unlike all the other nights we’ve spent with each other since he walked back into my life, he still hasn’t knocked on my door. He hasn’t called. He hasn’t sent a single text.