The Edge of Always

41

I think a lot about my life before, even before Camryn and I met, and I see that it’s kind of scary how much I’ve changed. I was what she calls a “man whore” when I was in high school. And, OK, I was a bit of a man whore after high school, too—she knows about every woman I’ve ever been with. About my partying days. She knows pretty much everything about me. Anyway, I think about my past a lot, but I don’t miss it. Except every now and then when reminiscing about growing up with my brothers, I do feel that nostalgia that Camryn was talking about our second time in New Orleans.

I don’t regret anything I did in my past, as wild as I was at times, but I wouldn’t do it over, either. I managed to get through that life and score a beautiful wife and daughter, which I really don’t deserve.

I found out yesterday that Aidan and Michelle, after two kids and years of marriage, are getting a divorce. I hate that for them, but I guess not everybody is meant to be together like Camryn and me. I wonder if they could’ve made it if they hadn’t killed themselves working. That bar consumed my brother, and Michelle was being consumed by her job, too. Camryn and I talked about how they seemed to be drifting apart, even on Camryn’s first visit to see them before Lily was born.

“All they do is work,” Camryn said one night last year. “Work, take care of Avery and Molly, watch TV, and go to bed.”

I nodded contemplatively. “Yeah, I’m glad we didn’t end up like that.”

“Me, too.”

Asher, on the other hand, is with a sweet girl named Lea. And I’m proud to say that they decided one day to spontaneously make the move to Madrid. My little brother has really done well for himself, landing a job as a systems software engineer, which allowed him to relocate. He didn’t have to. He could’ve stayed put in Wyoming, but apparently he’s more like me than I knew. Thankfully, Lea shares his interests and determination; otherwise, their relationship would end up more like Aidan and Michelle’s than mine and Camryn’s. And Lea’s income from selling handmade dresses on the Internet is pretty awesome, I hear. Camryn thought about trying something like that out, until she realized she’d have to sew.

With them living in Madrid, it gave us a place to stay while we were there ourselves. Asher insisted that we didn’t have to pay rent, but we paid it anyway. Camryn didn’t want to be a “moocher,” as she put it.

“One dollar,” Asher said, just to appease her.

“No,” Camryn said. “Six dollars and eighty-four cents a week, and not a penny less.”

Asher laughed. “Girl, you are kind of weird. Fine. Six dollars and eighty-four cents a week.”

It started out that we were only going to stay with my brother for a couple of weeks, but one night, Camryn and I had a heart-to-heart.

“Andrew, I think maybe we should stay put for a while. Here, in Madrid. Or, maybe we should go back to Raleigh. I don’t want to, but…”

I looked at her curiously, yet at the same time it was apparent to me that we have been thinking along the same lines. “I know what’s on your mind,” I said. “It’s not as easy as we wanted it to be, traveling with Lily.”

“No, it’s not.” She looked off in thought, and her expression hardened. “Do you think we did the right thing? By taking her to so many places?”

Finally, she looked at me again. I could tell by the look in her eyes that she hoped I would say that yes, we did the right thing.

“Of course we did,” I said, and I meant it. “It was what we wanted to do when we set out on that first day. We have no regrets. Sure, we had to do things differently for her safety, bypass a lot of places we wanted to see, stay put in places longer than we wanted to so we didn’t give her whiplash, but we did the right thing.”

Camryn smiled softly. “And maybe we instilled a love for travel in her.” She blushes. “I don’t know…”

“No, I think you’re right,” I said.

“So what do you think we should do?” she asked.

We stayed with Asher and Lea for three months before we set out again. We had one last stop to make before we were to head back to the United States: Italy. Camryn finally admitted to me the reason behind her persistent desire to go to Italy. Her dad took her there once on a business trip when she was fifteen. It was just the two of them. And that trip with her dad was the last time she felt like his little girl. They spent a lot of time together. He spent more time with her than he did on business.

“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.