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My smile fades, too, and I prop my hands on the edge of the bed and let my body slump between my shoulders. “Yes. We were going to backpack across the world after graduation, or maybe just Europe, but we were determined; had that much planned out at least.” I look straight at Andrew now. “We knew we didn’t want to do the college thing and end up working the same job for forty years—we wanted to work everywhere, try everything while on the road!”
Andrew laughs. “That’s actually a pretty cool idea,” he says. “One week you’re waitressing at a bar and bankin’ on tips and the next week, in a different city or town, you’re belly-dancing on a street corner and tourists are tossing money in a jar as they walk by.”
My slumped shoulders bounce softly with laughter and I blush, looking over at him. “Waitressing, sure, but belly-dancing?” I shake my head. “Not so much.”
He grins and says, “Ah, you could pull it off.”
Still with a hot, blushing face I look out ahead of me again and let the blush fade.
“Six months after Ian died,” I go on, “my brother, Cole, killed a man in a drunk-driving accident and now he’s in prison. And after that, my dad cheated on my mom and they got divorced. My new boyfriend, Christian, cheated on me. And then, of course, you already know about what happened with Natalie.”
That’s all of it. I told him everything that, combined, made me want to get away. But I can’t look at him because I feel like I shouldn’t be done, like he’s thinking to himself: OK, where’s the rest of it?
“That’s a lot of shit to dump on a person’s lap,” he says and I look back up when I feel him adjusting on the bed beside me. I smell his minty breath now that he has turned fully at the waist to face me from the side. “You have every right to be hurt, Camryn.”
I don’t say anything, but I thank him with my eyes.
“I guess I can see now why you weren’t hard to convince to go on this road trip with me,” he says.
His face is unreadable. I hope he doesn’t think I’m using him to mimic that part of my life I had planned with Ian. The whole road trip situation seems similar, even to me now that I think about it, but it couldn’t be further from the reason I left with Andrew. I’m with him now because I want to be.
It’s in this moment that I realize I haven’t been thinking of Ian and Andrew so much because I’m trying to find Ian in Andrew … I think it’s guilt … maybe I’m trying to replace Ian completely.
I stand up from the bed and shake those thoughts from my mind.
“So what are you going to do?” Andrew asks from behind. “After this road trip is over, what do you plan to do with your life?”
My heart hardens in my chest. Not once during this trip with Andrew, or even before I met him after I left North Carolina, have I thought beyond the present. It wasn’t ever that I tried not to think about what lies ahead, I simply just didn’t think about it at all. Andrew’s question wakes me up and now I feel panicked inside. I never wanted a dose of that reality; I was content with my illusion.
I turn around, my arms crossed over my chest. Andrew’s beautiful eyes are gazing intensely at me.
“I … don’t really know.”
He looks mildly surprised, his gaze becoming more contemplative and his eyes stray.
“You can still go to college,” he says, offering ideas to help me feel better, I guess, “and it doesn’t mean you have to get a job afterwards and work there until you die—hell, you can still backpack across Europe if you want.”
He stands up with me. I can tell the thinking gears are churning in his head as he paces the dark green carpet a few times.
“You’re gorgeous,” he says and my heart flutters, “you’re intelligent and obviously have more determination than the average girl; I think you could do just about anything you wanted—shit, I know that all sounds commonplace, but it couldn’t be truer in your case.”
I shrug. “I guess so,” I say, “but I don’t have the slightest idea about what I want to do except that I don’t want to go home to figure it out. I think I’m afraid that if I go back there, I’ll be drowned in the same crap I pulled myself out of when I got on that bus that day.”
“Tell me something,” Andrew says suddenly and my eyes lock on him, “what part of being around everyone else frustrates you the most?”
Frustrates me?
I think on it for a second, my gaze fixated on the brass lamp mounted on the wall beside the bed.
“I-I’m … not sure.”
He steps up to me and places two fingers at the bend of my arm, guiding me to sit back down with him and I do.
“Just think about it,” he goes on, “based on what you’ve told me already, what is different between you and them?”
I hate it that it’s taking me longer to figure something out that he seems to already have an idea about. I stare down at my hands within my lap and think about it long and hard until I come up with the only answer I feel might be right, but I’m still unsure of myself:
“Expectations?”
“Is that a question, or your answer?”
I give up.
“I really don’t know—I mean I feel … restricted around everyone, with the exception of Ian, of course.”
He nods and listens, letting me go on without interruption while the answer is hanging on the tip of my brain.
And then out of nowhere, the answers just come:
“No one wants to do what I want to do,” I say and my explanation begins to unfold more quickly now that I feel more confident in the answer. “Just like with living free and not taking the ordinary route, y’know? No one wants to step out of their comfort zone to do that with me because it’s not something most people do. I was afraid to tell my parents I didn’t want to go to college because that’s what they expected me to do. I accepted a job at a department store because my mom expected it to fulfill me in some way. I went with my mom every Saturday to visit my brother in prison because she expected me to go, because he’s my brother and I should want to see him even though I didn’t. Natalie relentlessly tried to hook me up with guys because she thought it was abnormal that I be single. I think I’ve been afraid most of my life to be myself.” My head whirls around to face him. “In a way, that was even true with Ian.”
I look away quickly because that last part was not something I really expected to say out loud. It just came out while the realization was taking shape in my mind so fast.
Andrew looks inquisitive, but at the same time, unsure if he should probe.
I’m not sure if I should elaborate.
He nods.
Apparently, he decides it’s not his place to further this particular subject.
He twists the inside of his cheek in between his teeth. I watch him for a moment, always trying to force down the obvious attraction I have for him, but it’s becoming harder to do. I glimpse his lips and wonder what they taste like. And then I force my eyes away—I’m doing it again. Right now. I’m afraid to tell him what I want. Or, at least what I think I want.
“Andrew,” I say and his face quietly reacts to my voice saying his name.
Think about this, Cam, I say to myself. Are you sure this is what you want?
“What is it?” he asks.
“Have you ever had a one-night stand?”
It