The End of the World (29 page)

“Definitely not him.”

A few more pages crackle as she turns them one by one. “Him?”

This guy is a bit cuter, but still not Cameron. “Nope.”

I want to stop playing this game. Eventually she’ll find him. And that’s when the questions will start.

How did you meet him?

How long did you date?

Why did you break up?

I’ve asked these same questions of friends; they’ve asked them of me in the past.

But I’ve never, not once, not a single time in recent or distant memory, talked to anyone about Cameron. And I want to keep it—

“Him?”

That way.

But there he is, smiling at me from the wrinkled page, looking at me with that same familiar expression that says
, I’m just fine, my heart isn’t broken, I barely remember you, I’ve moved on to happier times.

Which was my desire for him when I left him all those years ago. It’s my desire for him still.

Except that in the deepest part of me that no one can see, his smile hurts.

Because right next to that secret place rests my heart, and my heart hurts too.

I’m not sure it’s ever going to stop.

Emily closes the magazine. “Something tells me there’s a story there. Something also tells me not to ask about it.”

“No, it’s okay,” I offer her a weak smile. “He’s a guy I grew up with. A guy that I once thought…”
I would marry. I would live with forever. Was my soul mate.
But I say none of these things. Instead, I sigh. “I haven’t seen him in four years.”

Emily studies her fingernails. “So what happened?”

“I got pregnant, but the baby wasn’t his.” I shrug as though that one fact explains it all. For the millionth time in all these years, I’m split in half with two sides of self-doubt.
If you’re having a baby, I’m having one too.
I remember those words daily, no longer sure that I did the right thing. But like most things in life, decisions are made and consequences are lived with. I just thought time would have made things easier by now.

“And he couldn’t deal with the idea of loving a woman with a kid?”

I look at her. “He would have dealt fine. He even offered to help me raise him.”

Emily leans back in her seat. “Then what broke you up?”

“Me.” I shake my head, remembering. “There was more. So much more….” I lay down the straw I’ve spent the last five minutes mangling and look up, once again emotional. There were about a thousand other reasons I’d never be good enough for Cameron, all of which started before most girls my age graduated from middle school. The list was long. Not even a year’s worth of pencil erasers could wipe it away. “He deserved better. And hopefully by now he’s found it.”

You’re my life now…

If you’re having a baby….

These thoughts run through my head on repeat even now. Thankfully Emily interrupts them, reaching out to place a hand over my own.

“I guess I hope so too, for your sake. Believe it or not, I understand. My heart’s been broken a couple of times as well, and it absolutely sucks.” She balls up a napkin and tosses it inside her now empty bowl, then snaps on the plastic lid. “And I for one am sick of—”

She looks up. Stops. Stares over my shoulder.

And frowns.

It takes me a minute to realize she’s staring at the television.

“This story.” Emily shudders and blows out some air. “Did you hear about it? It freaks me out when things like this happen so close to us.”

“What is it?”

I twist in my seat to study the screen, wondering what has her so bothered, expecting to see coverage of a highway accident or yet another scandal involving a local schoolteacher. Those are commonplace in our little area of the country right now.

But I’m wrong.

It only takes me a second to know. Only a second for my heart to stop. Only a second for my ears to quit working. I can no longer hear what the newscaster is saying because my ears are ringing so loudly and the picture is screaming so forcefully and the headline is rushing at me so violently. I’m trying to dodge every part of it while sitting perfectly still, but I can’t.

I can’t.

And then I’m not sitting still anymore because I’m falling. I’m falling and my face is wet. And on the way down water runs into my open mouth and I think I hear a scream.

I think the scream is mine.

But I can’t know for sure, because all I can do…

All I can feel…

All I can think is…

Not Pete.

Cameron

I
don’t know
where news reporters get their information, but it didn’t take long for them to find me. I’ve been on the phone for over an hour fielding questions and being asked for statements and trying not to listen to the painful details of that night. As if I don’t have enough memories of my own. As if every thread of every moment isn’t carefully stitched into the fabric of my very scrambled brain.

I look at my phone and toss it on the sofa, praying to God it doesn’t ring again.

According to the news, Carl and Tami had been fostering and abusing kids for over a decade, taking the money and waiting until social worker visits dwindled to nothingness before their violent natures really kicked in. According to reporters, Pete fared the worst of all; Pete on the receiving end of Carl’s fist because of what Carl called his “crazy obsession with stupid things.”

Two things about this:

I never thought Carl would lay a hand on Pete. A sick obsession with Shaye? A peculiar hatred for me? Sure. But never the younger kids. Never ever the younger kids.

And as of now, no one knows about Shaye.

*

Shaye

I haven’t stopped
watching television all day.

I haven’t stopped crying.

My head hasn’t stopped hurting.

The phone hasn’t stopped ringing.

They know I lived in that house.

I have no idea what else they know.

I’m too afraid to answer the calls and find out.

But all of it together doesn’t compare to the mangled mass of flesh that used to be my heart. It hurts. The pain won’t stop. Some details I never knew. Some things I’ve just been told by a few careless reporters who made heartless assumptions. Some things will haunt me from this point on more than I’ve ever been haunted before.

Because some things are much worse than going three days without food. Some things might have been prevented if I’d backed up Cameron’s story. Some things could have turned out differently if I hadn’t left Pete there…Maria there…Alan there…Cameron there to fend for themselves.

Everything might have turned out differently if I hadn’t been too scared to talk.

These same thoughts go on and on in one continuous cycle. And through it all, the memory of Pete’s peanut-butter-stained face stares back at me in a silent cry for help.

Cameron

I
t takes until
six o’clock to get the call I’ve dreaded all day. Tomorrow morning I’m due at the police station, and there’s no way to avoid it.

I spent the first two hours this morning quietly eating breakfast, drinking coffee, and the next six with me alternately cursing the phone and planning an escape route should that phone call actually come through, followed by an hour making dinner in my small kitchen while watching depressing newscasts. In the last forty-five minutes since it finally
did
come through, I’ve recited varying degrees of the same thought on repeat inside the cramped confines of my brain.

Shaye will be there giving her own statement.

And I’m not sure how I feel about seeing her.

Tonight, however, this article isn’t going to write itself. Thirty minutes of staring at a blank screen has garnered me nothing but a colossal headache and blurry eyesight. Both are better than the wad of misery currently growing inside my chest.

“You never did tell me how you knew that guy,” James says from his spot on my living room sofa. James has a tired wife and newborn son who still rarely sleeps through the night, but something tells me that for now, he’s decided I need him more. I don’t tell him he’s right.

His voice is quiet, like he’s aware of the need to be respectful even though he’s not certain of the reason behind it. And even though I know it’s only a matter of time before the story breaks and my scrawny sixteen-year-old image is lit up all over television, I stay vague. For now, I would like to remain hidden.

“I knew him from when I was a kid.” The click of my pen up and down, up and down is the sole sound in the room.

“So…you were one of his foster kids?”

I hear the caution in his voice. The implication.
Were you abused? Did you know the kid they found buried on the property?
The answer is yes. Of course the answer is yes. He knows it. I know it. There’s enough certainty in his question that all that’s required of me is a look. So I give it to him. One pointed look, and his eyes dip down to his lap.

“I’m sorry, man.” James tents his fingers, shakes his head back and forth. “Let me know when you’re ready to talk about it.”

And that’s the thing about James—he’s as casual as he is faithful. The guy is good, all the way to the core.

“Thanks.” I force a smile, one I don’t feel anywhere except on my mouth, but one that makes the situation seem a little lighter somehow. And right now light is what I need. “I’ll let you know.”

I sit forward, slide my chair a bit closer to my living room desk. The space functions as my home office. Located in a one-bedroom condo situated near Utica square—I kept that old promise to myself after all—it’s about the best I can manage. But the place is nice; nicer than anything I’ve ever lived in before. Too bad I might not be here much longer.

“I got a job offer in Austin. Associate editor at
Texas Monthly.
” I blurt the words out before I can think twice about keeping them in. His reaction doesn’t surprise me—James is nothing if he isn’t calm—but his words do.

“I think you should take it.”

I just look at him. “You do?”

Finally, a hint of what he’s thinking. He smiles. “Dude, you have about a million things on your mind here, most of which is a chick you never talk about, but who I know you’re still obsessed with.”

I don’t tell him she’s married.

At my frown, his hands go up. “What?” he says. “You decline every blind date I try to set you up with, and do you seriously think I don’t see the way you look over your shoulder every time we go out? It’s like you’re constantly searching for someone, but you never find her.”

He’s right on all counts. Stupid because my time with Shaye ended years ago.

I take a deep breath. “But moving means…”

“It means you’ll have a chance to start over. I think you should. But I’ll miss you, man.”

I stare at the wall, weighing his words. It takes three seconds to know they’re heavy with truth. I shrug, accepting the inevitable. “I’ll miss you too. Now,” I say, “you never did give me a good rhyme for burned.” Not that I care. Not that it matters. But right now I need a distraction.

James furrows his brow in thought. “Um…ferned?”

I hesitate, then toss my pen at his forehead, thankful when it hits the mark.

“I have no idea why people pay you to write. That’s not even a real word. Now come up with something that requires more than a second-grade education.”

Thank God he laughs. Tonight of all nights, I’m desperate to hear the sound.

Two minutes later and armed with the word
churned
, I write my story. It isn’t the best thing I’ve ever come up with, but it’s all I have to give.

Because tonight, all I can manage to think about is tomorrow.

*

Shaye

I dropped off
Zachary at preschool an hour ago, and I’ve been standing in front of my bedroom mirror trying not to hyperventilate ever since.

It’s a police station.

A
police
station.

Drunk people will be there. Thieves will be there. Men and women strung out on heroin or crack or whatever their drug of choice is—will be there.