“Are you sure it’s a good idea?” I asked before we left for Rome. “What if you go back there and ruin the memory, like you did that day with the woods behind your childhood house?”
“It’s a risk I’m willing to take,” she said, packing Lily’s clothes into our suitcase. “Besides, I’m not going there to relive those six days with my dad, I’m going to remember those six days with my dad. I can’t ruin something I can’t fully remember.”
When we got there I witnessed Camryn remembering everything. She took Lily and sat down with her on the Spanish Steps, I imagine much in the same way her dad did when he brought her here.
“We love you very much,” Camryn said to Lily. “You know that, right?” She squeezed Lily’s hand.
Lily smiled and kissed her momma on the cheek. “I love you, Momma.”
Then Lily sat between Camryn’s legs while Camryn worked her fingers through her blonde hair, twisting it into a new braid and laying it over her shoulder to look just like her own.
I smiled and watched thinking about a day so long ago:
“It would be a friendship thing, I guess,” she said. “Y’know, two people who happen to be sharing a meal together.”
“Oh,” I said, grinning faintly. “So now we’re friends?”
“Sure,” she said, obviously caught off guard by my reaction, “I guess we are sort of friends, at least until Wyoming.”
I reached over and offered my hand to her, and reluctantly, she took it.
“Friends until Wyoming it is, then,” I said, but I knew I had to have her. Longer than Wyoming. Forever would be sufficient.
It still blows my mind how far we have come.
After nearly three years on the road it was finally time to go home.
We went back to Raleigh and back to our humble little house. Natalie and Blake moved out and got a new place on the other side of town. Lily later started school, and for the next several years we were happy, but there was always a part of us that felt empty. I watched my little girl grow up into a beautiful young woman with dreams and goals and aspirations in life that rivaled mine and Camryn’s. I like to think that we—Camryn and I—are to take credit for how Lily turned out. But at the same time, Lily is her own person, and I think she might’ve turned out the way she did even without our help.
I couldn’t be prouder.
It seems like so long ago. And, well, I guess it was. But even today, I look back on the day I met Camryn on that Greyhound bus in Kansas, and it’s still so vivid and alive in my mind that I feel like I could reach out and touch it. To think, if the two of us hadn’t left like we did, told society and its judgments to piss off, we never would’ve met. If Camryn would’ve let fear of the unknown get to her too much, we might never have gotten on that plane to Jamaica. We truly lived our lives the way we wanted to live them, not the way the world expected us to live. We took risks, we chose the unconventional route, we didn’t let what anyone thought about our choices get in the way of our dreams, and we refused to settle doing anything for too long that we didn’t enjoy. Sure, we did things all the time that we didn’t want to do because we had to—worked in a few fast-food restaurants for a while, for instance—but we never let any of it control our lives. We found a way out eventually instead of letting it win. Because we only have one life. We get one shot at making it worth living. We took our shot and ran like hell with it.
And I think we did pretty damn good.
I honestly don’t know what else to say. It’s not like our life is over now that our story seems to be. Nah. It’s definitely far from being over. Camryn and I still have so much left to do, so many places to see, so many of Life’s Rules to defy.
Today is the first day of the rest of our lives. It’s a special day, for Lily, for us, for everything the three of us stand for. Our story is over, yes, but our journey isn’t, because we’ll always live on the edge until the day we die.
Epilogue
Fifteen years later
Lily
“Lily Parrish!” Mrs. Morrison calls out my name from the stage in the auditorium. I hear my friends and family shouting from the crowd, followed by whistles and clapping.
I reach up and hold my graduation cap on my head as I ascend the wooden steps. It fits oddly. My dad teased me, said it’s because I have an oddly-shaped head, and it’s my mom’s fault because I couldn’t have gotten it from him.
As I walk across the stage more whistles and shouting and clapping fills the auditorium. My heart is beating fast against my ribs. I’m so excited. I think I’ve been smiling this big for the past twenty minutes.
Principal Hanover holds my diploma out to me, and I take it from her hand. The clapping gets louder. I look down at the front row at my parents, standing next to their seats, bright-eyed and animated with excitement. My mom blows me a few kisses. Dad winks at me and claps. They are both so proud of me that it’s choking me up. I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for them. I couldn’t have asked for better parents.
After the graduation ceremony is over, my boyfriend, Gavin, and I make our way through the crowds to find my mom and dad.
Mom engulfs me in her arms and kisses my head. “You did it, Lily!” She squeezes me. “I’m so proud!” I hear the tears in her voice.
“Mom, don’t cry. You’ll mess up your mascara.”
She rubs her finger underneath both eyes.
Dad hugs me next. “Congratulations, babygirl,” he says.
I push up on my toes and kiss him on the cheek. “Thank you, Daddy.” Then he pulls me around to his side and fits his hand on my waist protectively.