“Please just shut up,” I say, turning to Camryn. “I’ll come over to your room and do you for a little while, don’t worry. So stop making a scene.”
Camryn’s eyes grow as wide as the clerk’s.
I take Camryn’s hand and pull her along toward the lobby exit.
“I hope you enjoy your stay,” the clerk says in a bewildered manner as we round the corner toward the elevator.
Camryn bursts out laughing the second the elevator doors close. “What was that?!” she asks, unable to contain herself. “I feel like we’re two immature sixteen-year-olds!”
“But you’re laughing,” I point out. “So it’s totally worth the immaturity.”
The elevator stops on the second floor and we step out into the hall.
“But really, Andrew, why separate rooms?”
Proving further that spontaneity really does serve a purpose, I think about the mail I had Natalie send me in Chicago as we walk the length of the hall together. We stop in the center of the hall in front of our rooms, and I drop the bags on the green-speckled carpeted floor.
“Just for tonight,” I say, reaching into my bag in search of that envelope.
Camryn stands over me, watching quietly. I can tell she wants to say something but she isn’t sure at this point what it could be.
I stand up straight with the envelope in my hand. She glances down at it, but isn’t sure what my intentions are.
“Tonight you’ll stay alone in your room,” I say and hold the envelope out to her.
She stopped smiling when I first pulled the envelope out of the bag. All she can do now is look at me in confusion and wonder.
Carefully, she reaches out and takes the envelope, still unsure of everything, maybe even whether or not she wants to know what’s inside.
I slide her card key into her room door and open it, carrying her bag inside. She follows several steps behind, wordless and suspicious, the envelope clasped in her reluctant fingers. I set her bag on the long TV stand and check out her room like I always did before. I flip the lights on and test the heater before pulling back the sheets to make sure they’re clean. Remembering Camryn’s hotel comforter phobia, I strip it completely off the bed and toss it on the floor in a corner of the room.
She stands at the foot of the bed, unmoving.
I move over to stand in front of her. I look into her eyes and just watch the way hers look back at me. I move my index finger along the edge of her eyebrow and then down the side of her face and feel her skin heat under my touch. I want her. When her eyes lowered to look at my lips, it triggered something predatory in me. But I hold my needs back for her sake. Tonight, hopefully, will be about closure.
“Cam went to the funeral,” Natalie said to me on the phone the day I called her from Aidan’s house. “But she arrived late, sat in the very back near the exit and left before the service was over. She refused to walk up to the casket.”
“Did she ever talk to you about it at all?” I asked.
“Never,” Natalie said. “And whenever I tried to bring it up, the funeral, the accident, anything about it, she shut me down.”
Tonight will be hard for Camryn, but if she doesn’t go through with it, she’ll never get better.
“You know where I’m at,” I whisper softly, letting my hands slide away from her arms. “I’ll be up all night. Started writing another song yesterday, and I really want to work on it while it’s fresh in my mind.” We’ve slowly but surely been writing our own material, especially since our trip to Chicago, and after the night we played at Aidan’s bar, Camryn expressed interest in it for some reason.
Camryn nods and smiles weakly underneath that look of concern on her face, concern over what’s lurking inside that envelope.
“What if I don’t want to stay in this room by myself?” she asks.
“I’m asking you to,” I say earnestly. “Just for tonight.”
I don’t want to say any more than that, but I hope the sincerity in my face does what words might otherwise do.
“OK,” she agrees.
I peck her on the lips once and leave her alone in the room.
I just hope this doesn’t backfire on me.
Camryn
Andrew leaves me in the room. Alone. I don’t like it, but I’ve learned to listen to him over the short five months we’ve been together. Five months. That amazes me every time I think about it because it feels more like we’ve been together five years, all of the stuff we’ve gone through. I sometimes think about my ex Christian, my cheating rebound boyfriend after Ian, who I was with for four months. We barely knew each other at all. Now that I think about it, I can’t even remember his birthday or his sister’s name, who lived two streets over from where he did.
A whole other world with Andrew.
In five months I found myself with him, fell in total, unconditional crazy love, truly learned how to live, met practically his entire family and quickly felt like a part of them, went through a life-and-death journey with Andrew, got pregnant and engaged. All in five months’ time. And now here we are facing another hardship. And he’s still with me every step of the way. I was stupid and weak and took pills and he’s still here. I wonder if there’s ever anything I could actually do that would be so awful that he’d leave ever me. Something in my heart tells me that, no, there isn’t anything. Nothing at all.
I will never understand for as long as I live, how I was lucky enough to be with him.
In my moment of reflection, I notice that my eyes never left the door after he walked out. Finally, I look down at the envelope in my hand, and I don’t know why but it scares me to think about what’s inside. I’ve contemplated it over and over for the past week. A letter? If so, what could it possibly be about? And who would it be for and from? Why would Natalie write me a letter? Why would she write Andrew a letter?