The faint trace of discontent lacing her tone stings me a little.
“Just that you’ve been through a lot and—”
Camryn puts up her hand and shakes her head scoldingly at me. “Andrew, seriously. Listen to me, OK?” She steps right up and takes my hands into hers. “Right now, the only thing that’s causing me any added misery is everybody worrying about me all the time. Think about it—we basically had this conversation just this morning. Now look at me.”
I look at her, not that I wasn’t already.
“Am I moping around?” No, you’re not. “How many times have you seen me smile in the past week?” Many times, actually. “Have you once heard me say anything to indicate I’m hurting more than I’m letting on?” No, not really, I guess.
She tilts her beautiful blonde head gently to the side and reaches up, brushing the side of my face with her soft fingertips. “I want you to promise me something.”
Normally I’d say “anything” without hesitation, but this time I hesitate.
She tilts her head to the other side, and her hand falls away from my face.
Finally, I say with reluctance, “It depends on what it is.”
She doesn’t fight it, but I see the disappointment in her expression.
“Promise me we’ll get back to normal. That’s all I ask, Andrew. I miss the way we were before. I miss our crazy times together and our crazy sex and your crazy dimples and your crazy, vibrant, life-loving attitude.”
“Do you miss the road?” I ask, and the light snaps out of her face as if I’ve said something horribly wrong.
Her eyes stray from mine and she seems lost in some deep, dark moment.
“Camryn… do you miss the road?” I need the answer to this question now more than I did seconds ago, because of her unexpected reaction to it.
After a long, silent moment she looks at me again and I feel lost in her eyes, though in an uncomfortable way.
She doesn’t answer. It’s like… she can’t.
Not knowing what’s going on inside of her head and eager to find out, I finally say, “We can do it now.” I place my hands on her upper arms. “Maybe that’s exactly what you… I mean, we need.” As the idea comes together on my tongue, I get more excited by the second just thinking about it. Camryn and me. On the open road. Living free and in the moment like we had planned to do. I realize I’m smiling hugely, my face lit up with excitement. Holy shit! Yes, this is what we need to do. Why didn’t I think of this before?
“No,” she says flatly, and her answer snaps me right out of that blissful, dreamlike state.
“No?” I can hardly believe it, or understand it.
“No.”
“But… why not?” I ask and she walks away from me casually. “There’s no reason we have to wait anymore.”
I understand in this very second the reason behind her answer. But I don’t have to be the one to bring it up because she does it for me.
“Andrew,” she says, her expression soft with regret, “if we did that it would always linger in the back of my mind that it was something we were putting off because of the baby. It wouldn’t feel right to do it now. Not for a while. A long while.”
“OK,” I say and step up to her. I nod and smile warmly, hoping to make her understand that no matter what she wants to do, or not do, I’m behind her all the way.
“So, what level of bipolar did Natalie make me out to be today?” She laughs under her breath and goes over to the shopping bag she brought with her and reaches inside.
I laugh too and lie horizontally across her bed, my legs hanging over one side, bent at the knees.
“Level yellow,” I say. “Lowest level possible. But she made herself out to be a level red.” I tilt my head sideways to see her. “But I’m sure you already knew that.”
She smiles back at me and pulls a stack of panties out of the bag and starts peeling the sticker labels from the fabric.
“Well, I’m sure she filled your head full of stuff about how I went through a depression phase and all about the ‘shitty hand’ ”—she quotes with her fingers—“I was dealt.” She points at me, squinting one eye. “But that’s just it. It was a phase. I got over it. And besides, who doesn’t go through deaths in the family, divorces, and bad breakups? It’s ridiculous that—”
“Babe, what did I tell you before? Back in New Orleans?”
“You told me a lot of things.” She tosses the sticker labels into the nearby wastebasket.
“About how pain isn’t a damn competition.”
“Yes, I remember,” she says. She starts to take the panties from the bed, but I reach over and snatch a few pairs off the top before she gets the chance. I hold up a pink lacy pair in front of me and set the other two pairs on my chest.
“Damn, I like these,” I say, and she snatches them from my fingers.