I nod again and say, “All right,” because surely there’s a method to his madness, and I feel like I need to go along with it.
He looks back at the map and his finger starts to trail along it again. “Then South Carolina, down to Georgia, and then we’ll make the trip around the entire length of Florida’s coastline from Fernandina Beach”—his finger makes a long, wide sweep over the paper—“and all the way around to Pensacola.”
“How long will all of this take?”
He smiles and shakes his head at me. “Does it matter?” Then he sloppily folds the map into an uneven stack of paper and tosses it on the seat between us. “I’m calling the shots as far as direction, this time. Mainly because I don’t want to freeze my ass off. But—” he turns back around and faces the front, looking away from me “—well, it’s just the way it needs to be.”
“Why are you doing this, Andrew?”
His eyes fall on me again. “Because it’s right,” he says with such a deep gaze. “Because you’re in the car.”
His words confuse me. “Because I’m in the car?”
He nods subtly. “Yeah.”
“But… what does that even mean?”
His green eyes soften with his smile, and he leans across the seat and takes my chin into his hand. He kisses my lips and says, “You could’ve fought me tooth and nail over this. You could’ve told me to go f**k myself when I said to get our stuff. But you didn’t.” He kisses me softly one more time, and the mint from his breath lingers on my lips. “You didn’t run in that house because I told you to, you did it because it’s what you wanted. You’ve never done anything just because I told you to, Camryn. I’m just the kick in your ass, is all.”
I try to hide the smile sneaking up on my face, but I can’t. He leans over, presses his lips to my forehead, and straightens in his seat. The engine purrs aggressively for a moment when his foot taps the gas pedal.
He’s right. Anything he’s ever told me to do, even if I complained about it, I never would’ve done if a part of me didn’t want to. It amazes me how he always knows things about me before I do.
Andrew
17
I think yesterday in Chicago was the first time I couldn’t predict Camryn’s reaction to one of my demanding ideas. My girl was broken. It was scarin’ the shit outta me more every day, the person she was becoming. I took a risk calling Asher up that night and asking him to drive the Chevelle all the way to Chicago. I didn’t know what Camryn might do, and truthfully, I was worried she’d refuse to go. Because of the guilt. Hey, I hate it that we lost our Lily. I would cut off an arm or a leg to have her back. But what’s done is done, and sitting back drowning in our sorrows and refusing to do what makes us happy for any reason is total f**king bullshit. That’s how you kill yourself. A slow, painful suicide. If Camryn would’ve refused, I would’ve carried her over my shoulder, kicking and screaming, and shoved her in the backseat of the car. Because this is our life. We met on the road; we grew to know and to love each other on the road. It’s where we were meant to be for however long, and it’s what we’re going to do until it becomes clear that we were meant to do something else.
The first fourteen long hours of our road trip are uneventful and quiet. I drive the whole way from Chicago to Virginia Beach listening mostly to the radio or my CD’s when I can’t find a decent station. Camryn, although smiling and talking about the sights as we drive past, still isn’t herself, but she’ll get there. It might take her a few days, but she’ll start to come around.
The beaches are different on the East Coast than they are in Texas. They’re cleaner, and the ocean water over here looks like ocean water is supposed to and not the muddy, murky Gulf water of Galveston.
It’s late in the evening. We watched the sun set over the horizon just as we entered Virginia Beach, and it was the first time I’ve seen that spark in Camryn’s eyes since before the miscarriage. If I’d known that a sunset could do that, I would’ve taken her to watch one a long time ago.
“So, are we getting separate rooms?” she asks as we get out of the car in the parking lot of our first hotel.
I can tell she’s joking, but I bet she doesn’t expect me to call her on it.
“That’s exactly what we’re doing.” I pop the trunk and shoulder both of our bags.
“Are you serious?” She’s shocked, and it’s funny.
I just play it off the best I can. I never intended to get separate rooms, but now that she brought it up, it’s not such a bad idea.
I close the trunk, and we head into the hotel lobby.
“Andrew, I think we’re past this.”
“Two nonsmoking king rooms side by side, please, if you’ve got ’em.”
The front desk clerk taps the stuff in on her computer. I ignore Camryn for the most part, fumbling my wallet for my credit card.
“Andrew?”
“I don’t have two side by side,” the woman says, “but I do have two directly across the hall from each other.”
“That’ll work,” I say.
Camryn whispers, “I can’t believe you’re going to spend money on two rooms when clearly we’ve had tons of sex already…” Camryn just goes on and on while the clerk looks covertly at us like we’re nuts. I love that look on people’s faces, that dumbfounded I-can’t-believe-you-just-said-that look.