The End of the World (31 page)

This should make me feel better.

It doesn’t.

But some part of me still wants to know, to be vindicated anyway.

“So he confessed?”

The detective sets down the stack of papers and looks at me. Sympathy rings his eyes like an old pair of eyeglasses. “To killing Pete in self-defense. In exchange for a lesser sentence, yes. The charge would be justifiable homicide.”

I suck in a breath, one that’s as silent as I am cold. A thin trail of goose bumps travels my spine; an odd sensation when the rest of me is beginning to sweat.

“Nothing Carl ever did was justifiable. How much less?”

He sniffs, looks to the right of the room. “Three years maximum since it’s his first offense. But if you would consider going public with your story…” He clasps his hands together on the table in front of us. “If we could add a rape and molestation charge to the evidence against him, it would certainly help things.”

My first thought is to scream
No!
and run from the room, because to tell my story is to say things out loud. To say things out loud means that people will find out. That Cameron will find out. The world can think what they want of me, but Cameron…

The idea of him knowing the worst details of my already pitiful past is something I’m not sure I can live with.

It takes me only seconds to realize the prospect of Carl out in three years is a harder thing to reconcile. As much as I would like to throw a blanket over my secrets and curl up alone with them for the rest of my existence, I swallow my regret over Cameron and slowly begin to spill the memories that have stayed locked inside my mind for well over a decade. Some things are difficult to recall. Other details seem like they happened yesterday, like I was just pulled out of that twin-sized bed and dragged to Carl’s room…like I just stumbled my way back to my own bedroom, always sore and sometimes bleeding, after an hour or more of hushed, yet carefully orchestrated, terror.

The thought of publicly recalling that terror rips my heart out and leaves it shredded in the interrogation room. I start to speak anyway, because there’s nothing else I can do.

And to my surprise, something strange begins to happen in the middle of all the talking.

The broken parts of my heart feel like they’re piecing back together. And that’s when I realize it doesn’t take a perfectly whole heart to live. It takes a healing of whatever is left, a heart finally not marred with cuts and gashes and bruises dirtying up the outside.

And when I’m finished purging all my ugly secrets, for the first time in years, it seems my heart might be on its way back to better.

*

I’ve told my
story and explained in grueling detail all the low points I can remember about my years living with the Bowden’s—there were no high points so I didn’t bother pretending they existed—and now all I want to do is go home. Go to sleep. Sleep until all traces of turmoil and exhaustion are gone, which might take me a year. Maybe two. Funny how a mountain of painful memories can reduce a girl to wanting to fall into a valley of oblivion.

“I think you’ve given us enough information, Ms. McCormick. We’ll call you if we need more. Just make sure you stay close by in case we have any more questions.”

I nod, assure the man that I won’t leave because, really, where would I go? This place is my life. This town and all the experiences I’ve lived through inside its borders are so deeply ingrained in me that sometimes it’s hard to know where the city ends and my life begins.

More than likely, I’ll never leave again.

I pick up my keys and purse and follow him toward the door. Like every other second of the last two days, Pete is on my mind. In the landscape of an entire life, my time with him was short; my memories of him are not.

I want a peanut butter sandwich.

Gimme a peanut butter sandwich.

I want mayonnaise crackers.

Gimme mayonnaise crackers.

And repeat.

Back then, the requests drove me insane. Today, I’d give my right arm and part of my leg to hear him say those words again. It’s a regret that will live with me forever, even as I raise my own son and listen to all his strange requests—frequent as they are.

I’m so deep in my own memories as I walk out the door that I slam headlong into Cameron exiting the room across from me.

Cameron

I
step into
the hallway and it’s like a bomb detonating in the room. It’s Shaye—standing right in front of me—staring right through me. I hoped for it. But I’ve changed my mind.

The police station is filled with controlled chaos, but the three feet of empty space currently separating me from her contains nothing but silence. Eerie silence. Uncomfortable silence. A silence filled with lies.

Because I’m a liar.

A stupid, dirty liar.

I can tell myself a million times that I don’t want to see Shaye and then start over and tell myself a million times more, but my reaction proves I won’t mean a word of it.

My heart pounds inside my ears.

My pulse throbs against both wrists.

My head explodes with the rush of blood.

My mind ricochets with a thousand what-should-I-dos?

She, on the other hand, just stares back at me. Of all the expressions I imagined might cross her face the moment we saw each other again, indifference wasn’t one of them. But just as I’m thinking this, something gives way in her eyes. A twitch. A shadow. Maybe what she’s feeling isn’t indifference after all. Maybe this is what pain looks like in its rawest form.

“I didn’t expect to see you here.”

It’s the lamest thing I can say, the dumbest words ever uttered from one human being to another, but I say them anyway. The silence has killed my brain cells. My leftover intelligence can fit in the palm of my stupid shaking hand.

“Honestly, seeing you didn’t cross my mind either.”

She shifts. Her chin comes up.

I stiffen, suddenly ticked off. It’s nice to know I never crossed her mind, although I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. She’s left me twice already. Just like that, all the compassion I felt in the interrogation room is gone.

“Well, now that we both have not seeing each other again established, I guess we can keep it up. And seeing as you live in Oklahoma City with your
husband
, it shouldn’t be too difficult.” For one split second I doubt myself as the detective’s words flash through my mind.
She lives in Tulsa…
I gather up my anger and fling a little at her. “Take care, Shaye.”

After a long look, I walk around her and head for the door, trying my best to pretend that every part of me isn’t an obliterated mass of pain and anguish buried underneath her rejection.

“My husband?”

My stupid heart lurches before I force it back in place. My body though…I place a hand on my hip and begrudgingly turn, hoping I look ticked off. Hoping to appear annoyed. Of course, her husband.

Again, doubt scratches the surface of my mind.

“Mike. The guy I saw you with a couple of years ago. Don’t try to deny it, Shaye.”

She bites her lower lip and frowns at me. I’ve kissed that lip. The memory still burns.

“Can we go somewhere and talk? Maybe get some coffee?”

I raise an eyebrow. “Sure, Shaye, how about a cup of coffee and then you can get up and run away again like always?”

I hate myself for sounding like a wounded schoolboy, hate myself even more for letting her know she hurt me.

“Cameron, please. Just for a few minutes?”

It’s the threat of tears that does it. That look in her eyes gets me every time. Because I know they’re not just because of my words or the history between us. The fresh agony of discovering Pete’s suffering is right there for anyone to see.

It’s that agony that has me going against my normally good judgment. I feel myself relent. Slowly. Slowly. Done.

“Fine. Follow me. I’m driving.”

*

Shaye

He thinks I’m
married.

This whole time, he has believed I’m married. Living in Oklahoma City with Mike and not just under his nose. Not two blocks away from each other in the same part of Tulsa, as I’ve just discovered.

Cameron practically lives next door to me. The idea makes me feel confused and awful and desperate for so many reasons. We’ve live so close together—and yet we’ve drifted so far apart.

I had my chance with Cameron and threw it away long ago.

He’s trying to act normal and talk normal and generally be cordial, but he hates me. It’s there as plain as day. It’s there so clearly that my heart is slowly shredding from the look in his eyes alone.

But like him, I’m pretending not to see it. Like him, I’m doing a lot of acting too.

“So I’ve read a couple of your articles,” I say, reaching for my coffee and taking a sip. I’m not thirsty. In fact, I’ve had so much to drink that I really need to go to the bathroom. But I won’t get up. I won’t leave this table. Every part of me fears that if I walk away for even a second, I would come back to find him gone.

I don’t say that I’ve read them all. That I have every copy of all the magazines with his face inside sitting on my office floor and my bedroom floor taking up so much space that the piles could almost pass for another piece of furniture. I don’t say that his longer hair and unshaven skin makes him so good-looking that my stomach releases a nest of butterflies every time I look at him.

Instead, I inhale the aroma of the espresso-drenched coffee shop in a silent wish that the air alone would calm my nerves.

It doesn’t work. If anything, I only get more jittery.

He stretches his arms over his head. He’s bored with me. Another piece of my heart falls to the floor at the same time my hands begin to shake. I cross my arms over my chest to protect both.

“Yeah, I’ve been writing for a couple of years now. Since I graduated, in fact.” He looks over his shoulder; I’m pretty sure he’s mapping an escape route.

“Your articles are good,” I say. “Really good.” This entire conversation is stilted. Stupid. We might as well be talking about the weather or the latest flu epidemic for as formal and strained as it is. Once upon a time I considered Cameron my soul mate, and now…

“Thanks, Shaye.” He drums his hands on the table in front of us, a quick rap. One two three. And then he sighs. “Well, look. It’s been great seeing you again, but I really need to get going. I have work to do and…”

“Okay, sure,” I interrupt, forcing my eyes not to go wide and swallowing the giant snake of disappointment inching its way up my throat when he moves to stand up. I stand beside him and reach for my purse, cursing the fact that my knees have joined my hands in doing their own nervous dance. It’s awkward and uncoordinated, both leaving me in danger of falling down on my way out of this place.

Somehow I make it outside. Make it to his car.

Every second we don’t speak on the way back to the police station, the part of me that wants to appear casual and cool and composed dies. And it’s in that death my courage finds its way back—the courage I’ve misplaced for so many years. Why is it that life is such a fan of last-minute situations? Why must it force our hand with the threat of final chances? I’m not sure of either, but this is where we are. Now or never. Too little too late. If I don’t get the words out now, I’m certain I’ll regret not saying them forever.

My hand is on the door, ready to push against the rejection I tell myself is a clear possibility, but I have no intention of actually getting out. All of a sudden I’m desperate to tell him about Mike, about Zachary. To tell him I love him, that I will never leave him again. To tell him the truth. I open my mouth and force the words out before I can talk myself out of saying them.

“Cameron, I’ve missed you. So much. Would you maybe want to—?”

He looks me dead on, and my heart falls into my feet.

“I’m moving away, Shaye.”

It’s a whisper I can barely make out. “I made the decision last week. My job in Austin starts in three weeks.” His thumb slowly traces the steering wheel. “When I saw you earlier today, I was so happy. And for the smallest second I wondered if—” I watch as his Adam’s apple bobs up and down on a swallow. “But then I realized at the coffee shop that I’ll never be happy just to see you, Shaye. That will never be enough.” He looks straight into my eyes, his gaze unwavering.