More Than Forever
Page 72

"CAM!" Jake's at my side now, pulling my arm and leading me to the door. "I'm not letting you go, Lucy!" I shout, just as Jake shoves me out the door, closing it behind both of us.
"You need to calm the fuck down," he says. But there's a sadness in his voice and I want to punch him. I need for people to stop feeling sorry for me. I just need people to understand.
"You don't fucking get it!" I tell him, sitting down on the porch steps. "You don't fucking understand!"
He sits next to me, silent, for what feels like hours.
And I cry. Again.
He rubs the back of his neck before speaking, "You think I don't know what it feels like to want to be there for a girl that you love? When she's so broken and hurt that she doesn't see you standing there, with your arms open..." His voice breaks, before he clears his throat. "Trust me, dude. I know. It's the fucking hardest thing to do—to be around the person you love, every day, and not be able to love them. I've been there. I've lived it. But she needs time—"
"Time? She's had all fucking summer and she's done nothing but push me away! Nobody gives a fuck about the way I feel. She needs time? I need her. And no one fucking cares!"
"It's hard, Cam. She's here because Kayla understands. She's helping her deal with her grief."
I turn to him now, eyes narrowed. "What grief? What the hell are you talking about?"
His eyes widen slightly, as if surprised. "She has to mourn, Cameron. You guys made a baby, and that baby..."
I don't hear what he says next. I can't hear him through the sound of the blood rushing in my ears. But over that sound, I hear her voice. "Cameron?" she says, taking a seat next to me.
I turn to her, my eyes searching her face for an answer. Or a question. "I didn't know," I whisper.
She places her hand on the side of my face.
With eyes closed, I tell her, "I didn't know you were mourning. I was so focused on us and what you thought was our future that I didn't think about the past. I didn't think about what we lost. I didn't even think about losing a baby," I sniff back my sob. "I'm so fucking sorry, Lucy. I should've known. I was always able to read you, and I failed when you needed it the most."
She cries now, bringing my face to her neck. "It's okay," she soothes. "I'm hurting, Cam. And I don't know how to deal with it."
She pulls her face back but I hold onto her tighter. "Why won't you talk to me about it?"
She shakes her head. "I don't know what to say. I don't know how to explain it. I mean, with Mom I knew it was coming, and when it did, I was relieved. But this—I didn't expect this. I didn't know until it was over. And we never even got to say hello, or goodbye. There was no goodbye. No closure."
-LUCY-
He tells me to meet him at the river behind his old house. He doesn't tell me why, but he makes me promise to show up right before sunset. And to bring Lucas and my dad.
He must call them beforehand, because when I show up Saturday afternoon, they're ready, dressed in suits, the way they only ever do when we visit Mom on the anniversary of her passing.
I look down at my clothes, wondering if I'm underdressed. "You look beautiful, sweetheart," Dad tells me.
We get in Dad's truck with me in the middle. Lucas holds my hand the entire time. And I still don't know what's happening.
The instant my eyes see the river, and Cameron standing at the edge dressed in a suit, and Heather and Mark dressed in black, I know.
I try to turn around, but Lucas holds me in place. "It's time," he says.
There are six folding chairs, three on each side. One side for his family, and one for mine.
Cam won't look at me. Not directly. When he sees us arrive, he sits on the chair next to his mom, and we take the other three.
Then we sit there, facing the water, waiting for I don't know what.
"I'm sorry," a woman's voice breaks the silence. She stands in front of us, her genuine smile in place. She looks at Lucas and me with recognition. "My, you two have grown. What beautiful children," she says. I recognize her as the pastor from Mom's funeral.
I cover my mouth, to stop the cry from escaping. She clears her throat and looks at everyone individually. "I dislike these ones the most," she sighs. She opens her book, slips on her reading glasses, and starts. "There is no footprint too small, that it cannot leave an imprint on this world..."
Cam's cry has me turning to him. He grips his forearm with one hand, using it to cover his eyes. He's bent over in his seat, sobbing quietly.
His mom cries too, but her tears are silent. She rubs slow circles in his back, the way he's done with me so many times. Leaning forward, she whispers words meant only for him. He doesn't stop crying, and neither do I.
Finally, I stand up and take the few steps to get to him. I settle my hand on his shoulder, causing him to look up.
If heartbreak had a face, his would be it.
He sits up straighter, his hand on my waist. He cries into my stomach, unashamed. I cry with him, so hard I can barely stand. So I sit on his lap with our arms around each other. And we cry into each other necks, holding on tight.
We grieve.
We mourn.
And we love.
We take our broken hearts and we piece them back together, in the place where it all began. Where a boy that barely knew me took me to break. Taught me to let it go. And helped me to heal.
As the sun sets, and the sky turns orange, we each place a flower in paper boats and release them down the river. "Did you have a feeling?" the pastor asks. "If it was a boy or girl?"
"Girl," we say at the same time.
She smiles at us. "Did you want to name her?"
I look up at Cameron standing next to me with his hand on my waist. "Hope," I whisper to him. "You gave me Hope."
*
Cameron stands in front of us with a piece of paper in his hands. He looks first to his mom, and then to me sitting next to her.
He tries to smile, and then he clears his throat as his eyes wander to what's in his hands.
Seconds pass before he speaks.
"More Than Forever," he says, and then glances up at me. "By Cameron Lovesyoumore."
And in a moment of complete sadness, I didn't think it was possible—but he makes me laugh.
******
Once upon a time there was a little boy whose mother made him watch Aladdin—more times than what should be legally allowed for boys. Yet each time, he'd sit with her, under her magic carpet blanket and watch intently, because he knew it made her happy.
It was a story about a boy named Aladdin—a poor boy—who found love in the strangest of places. He fell in love with a girl, a princess, living in a giant castle, filled with many, many people. Mainly boys. This girl had no mother—or at least one that he could tell. And even though people surrounded her, she was lonely. She was sad. The only thing that he found she had comfort in was her pet tiger that she took everywhere. In my story, her tiger is an e-reader.
One day, the boy found the nerve to speak to this beautiful princess, all alone in her giant house. He said to her, "Do you trust me?" She smiled, and said yes. And off they went, on an epic adventure. They went on a magic carpet ride. He promised to show her the world, shining, shimmering, splendid...