The End of the World (27 page)

Today there was no kiss.

Today she barely looked at me.

Today felt off from the moment the front door opened.

And now I know why.

But here’s the problem. The single issue I have with the statement she just made. The one cold fact that has me staring at the wall, and then staring at my hands, and then staring at her, and then staring at the white stick with the two pink lines she just placed on the table between us.

I haven’t slept with Shaye.

Not once.

She’s the best part of my nights for a million different reasons, but sex hasn’t been one of them.

“Have you told Mike?”

My voice is a hollow canyon, my body floating over the middle of it in a leaky hot air balloon. Survival is in question; panic is for certain. But nothing prepares me for what she says next.

“I’m not sure it’s his.”

Now she’s crying. The girl I shared popcorn with last night in a darkened movie theater. The girl I made pancakes with last Sunday morning—extra blueberries for her, chocolate chips for me. The girl I beat in a swing-jumping contest only eight days ago, then made out with on a pile of wood chips for two hours afterward. We’ve laughed so much in the last two weeks that I’d almost forgotten our frequent brushes with sadness.

She’s crying harder now.

Watching giant tears fall from her eyes and drip down to her chest, every hidden part of me breaks. The outside shell though…it makes itself stay strong because I’m a guy and that’s what guys do, even when they feel like joining in with a little sobbing of their own.

“How can you not know? Who’s the last guy you were with?” I force this question out, demand gentleness into my tone, but what I really want to ask is
why have you been with multiple men when you’ve never once been with me?
It isn’t a fair question, especially when I already know the answer.

None of the other men were about love. They were about distraction. Numbness. Punishment. Because even after all this time, Shaye still thinks she deserves it.

And I have no idea how to make her believe otherwise.

She doesn’t answer, just sits with her head in her hands. Her chest is rocking. Rivers of tears escape through the slits between her fingers.

I feel physically ill even though I’ve known this all along. Like a best friend who watches another friend bulk up in record time for a high-intensity sport, everything is easy to overlook until you see the evidence staring back at you in the form of an empty syringe. Except there’s no quick way to fix this, at least no way that doesn’t involve a lifetime of more and more pain. And pain, it seems, isn’t finished with either of us.

There’s a schedule taped to Shaye’s refrigerator—her work schedule for the next week. She works from eight to four-thirty every day but Tuesday and Saturday—her days off. It’s nicely organized, with special events written in red along the bottom. Like grocery shopping on Monday and a hair appointment on Wednesday and dinner with me on Friday. But nowhere on it is there a space saved for Finding Out You’re Pregnant With Someone Else’s Baby. I consider standing up and writing it on the spot reserved for Saturday morning but decide against it. Some things blindside you when you dare to be happy. Some things don’t deserve special recognition. Some things you just can’t schedule.

“How far along are you?”

“I think almost four months.”

“Four months? But you’re not showing at all. Are you sure?”

She picks up the stick, turns it over in her hand. “I took three of these, and they all came up with the same result.”

This is the most lifeless conversation I’ve ever been a part of. Two people across from each other, defeated, depressed, finished.

Except we’re not. We never will be. I know this. I’ve always known it.

“Then we need to get you to a doctor. If you’re having a baby, I am too.” When her gaze darts to me, when her eyes go wide, I wonder if I’ve said the wrong thing. “Unless you want to do this alone?”

The surprised look in her eyes is replaced with sadness, and she’s once again staring at her hands.

“You’re in college, Cameron. You’re already stretched thin trying to graduate early.”

“Not too thin. I have plenty of room to start a family.”

“I’m not sure I’m going to keep it.”

This alarms me, but I try not to let it show. “What else would you do?”

She sniffs, shrugs. “I don’t know…adoption maybe?”

My hand finds the small of her back and moves in circles. “Let me help you, Shaye. I want to do this.”

She doesn’t look convinced. Her fingernails press into her skin. When she releases the hold, I can see the half-moon marks the nails leave behind. “The last thing you need is to be tied down to a kid, especially when you’re only twenty.”

I rub the space between my eyebrows, knowing this would happen eventually.

“Don’t talk down to me because of my age.”

“I’m not.”

“You just did.”

And now I’m mad. At her. At me. At Kevin. At Mike. At this whole freaking situation. But mostly because I’m twenty and I’ve lived more than most people twice my age and she still sees me as a kid, even after all this time.

I glare are her and she stares at me long and hard, but she wins the battle as usual when she stands up and walks over to my side of the table. She taps my chest, then taps again.

“Move.”

My heart rate speeds up at the same times my anger slows to a halt when I scoot my chair backward in the way she wants. She climbs onto my lap the way
I
want, facing me with one leg on either side of my waist.

Then she leans down and kisses me, slow and deep and long and full of conversation—the kind only we understand. The kiss makes me forget what we were talking about, at least for a moment.

When she pulls away, she takes my face in her hands and looks at me. Really looks at me.

“I will never talk down to you because of your age. You should know that by now.” We’re eye to eye, but she’s definitely the one in charge. And I’m fine with it. Completely fine with it. “I just don’t want you giving up your life for me.”

I laugh. “You’ve been my life for almost seven years now.
You
should know that by now.”

At that, she smiles. “I do. I’m pretty sure I always have.”

This time I kiss her.

And this time I’m the one in charge.

*

Shaye

I’m not sure
how long we sit at that kitchen table, kissing, talking, making plans with my work schedule in the background keeping track of each word we say. I see the way Cameron keeps looking at it as though he wants to pencil in our wedding date, fit in a honeymoon, and somehow build a house by hand for me, for him, for a baby and a dog in the next five months.

I’m not sure how long we sit there, but it’s long enough to know that all the promises in the world aren’t going to allow me to ruin his life. It’s long enough to know that with every kiss he gives me and with every kiss I return, we’re closer to goodbye. He might not know it, but in my heart…in every corner of my soul that screams and pleads and hopes and begs to be loved by Cameron…I’m telling him goodbye.

I love him too much to stay.

Because no matter what he says, I’m ruined.

Ruined.

This just proves it.

And there are a few things I’m certain of, a few things I know more than any piece of information I’ve ever known before with the exception of how much I love him.

This isn’t his baby.

I’m pretty sure I know who it belongs to.

Mike has already agreed to help me raise the baby.

And I’ve already agreed to let him.

Because I’m not going to let Cameron give up his dreams for me.

So even though I’m dying inside, even though I’m drowning with buckets of unshed tears, even though my heart is breaking to the point that I question how it’s still working at all, even though my chest feels heavy with the weight of my bleak future…

I’m not going to ruin Cameron too.

“Sometimes, nightmares don’t happen when you’re asleep.

Sometimes, the real nightmares are the ones you live through every day.

In the faces you look at each morning.

In the people you kiss on the cheek before you walk out the door.

In the dreams you once held that are now nearly impossible to remember.”

(LM)

Cameron

T
he baby is
cute, but she has the grip of an Iron Man competitor with the way she latches on to my ring finger and works to pull my knuckle into submission. When my hand doesn’t cooperate, she brings it to her mouth and bites down. I think she has a tooth. Maybe more than one. Because…

“Ow!” I don’t mean to yell quite that loud, but babies. Who knew they could chomp down so hard?

Apparently her mother, because she sighs and jumps up, flicking me a glance in the process. But she doesn’t look upset with me; she looks like she’s been on the receiving end of a few too many attempts at cannibalism from this angel-faced infant.

“I’m sorry. She’s teething, and everything goes into her mouth right now. The other day I found her chewing on one of her father’s dirty socks, and she can’t even crawl yet.” She settles the baby on her hip. The precious little demon immediately grasps a fistful of her mother’s hair and yanks hard. “I’m not sure how she managed to reach it, much less get it in her mouth.” She sends a pointed look at her husband, one that clearly communicates
quit leaving your dirty laundry lying all over the house
or else
.

Marriage.

Babies.

Yet another reminder of why I no longer want any part of either one.

“So back to the issue at hand,” I say, wanting to steer the conversation in the right direction. “It says here that you opened your restaurant early last year. Can you tell me what inspired you to go with Indian cuisine seeing as you’re obviously not…” I pause, let the implication hang, mainly because despite my experience and reputation, deep down I’m still somewhat intimidated in certain situations. Besides, there’s never a good way to finish a sentence like this one. Thankfully, the man finishes it for me.

“Indian?”

“Pretty much.” I nod.

Some people get offended when I point out the obvious—that maybe middle-aged white men might not be the best judges of authentic Indian or Mexican or Chinese cuisine, but this guy just laughs. I like him a little more for it. Plus he obviously knows what he’s doing; India Place is consistently billed as one of the top restaurants to visit in Oklahoma City. I’ve been looking forward to trying it for weeks now.

“My parents were missionaries in India for three years when I was growing up. I lived there from the ages of twelve to fifteen and learned all I needed to know about food preparation and proper technique from the locals…”

For the next thirty minutes, he regales me with stories of his childhood. Thankfully, the guy is an interesting storyteller—some people aren’t and a single half-hour can feel like five endless ones—and the time passes quickly. As my phone’s voice memo records us, I take notes, making sure to fill in all the gaps for the article due to
Food & Wine
by tomorrow night.

You can’t cook, but you can write about cooking…

I’ll never forget Shaye’s words spoken over store-bought birthday cake. I guess even though I sometimes hate her, I do owe her my career.

I click the end of my pen, then click it again and again and again.

Sometimes my frustration with her comes out in the strangest ways. I clear my throat and force myself to focus on the guy in front of me.

I’ve written consistently for the magazine for two years now, landing the job after working my way up from smaller publications after graduation. When I first began seeking an undergraduate degree, I wanted to become a columnist for
Sports Illustrated
. Maybe
Time Magazine
. Food critic wasn’t anywhere on my radar. But after I sampled a meal at a popular Italian restaurant in Tulsa four years ago—which resulted in a nasty case of food poisoning that left me on the sofa for three days—and then wrote a lengthy article for my college newspaper about it, the piece was picked up by the local paper. Followed by a statewide magazine. Followed by various online publications. Followed by an appearance on KTUL television, Tulsa’s local news channel.

The restaurant was shut down. That part wasn’t fun.

But the entire incident took on its own life, and I was asked to write another review on a recently opened, high-end restaurant in downtown Owasso. Reception was positive, and requests for more articles soon followed. So now, here I am. Cameron Tate. Pretty well-known in some circles. Not so much in others. But I’m living the dream—as a writer. And I’m happy.

Mostly happy.

One person could’ve made it better, but that one person now has a husband wealthier than I’ll ever be, though I have no idea why she married the guy. And this is why I hate her…sometimes. I saw her a couple years back—tracked her to an Oklahoma City subdivision with its community pool and elementary school ready-made for a perfect little family-in-the-making. She was out walking on her street with Mike by her side. There was no kid, which didn’t surprise me—when Shaye left me, I didn’t expect her to keep the baby. It’s probably been adopted now, hopefully by some nice family who loves it and not by the Carl’s and Tami’s of the world.