It’s after midnight now. I already stopped at an internet café and purchased Camryn’s plane ticket to North Carolina online and afterwards stopped at an ATM and withdrew more than enough cash to pay her cab ride to the airport and one home from the airport in North Carolina.
On my way into the front lobby of our hotel, I ask the front desk clerk for an envelope, a piece of paper and something to write with and then I sit down on a couch in the lobby and write Camryn a note:
Camryn,
I’m sorry I left like I did, but I know I couldn’t say goodbye face-to-face. I hope you’ll remember me, but if forgetting me is easier then I can live with that, too.
Never hold back, Camryn Bennett; be sure to do what you want in life, say what you feel and never be afraid to be yourself. Fuck what everybody else thinks. You’re living for you, not them.
The code below is what you’ll need to give to the airport to get on your plane home. All you’ll need is your I.D. The plane leaves tomorrow morning. The cash is for your cab.
Thank you for best two weeks of my life and for being there for me when I needed you the most.
-Andrew Parrish
KYYBPR
I read the note over five times before I’m satisfied with it and finally fold it and place it with the cash into the envelope.
I make my way to the elevator. One last hurdle is slipping out without Camryn knowing about it. I hope she’s still asleep. Please just let her be asleep. I can do this if I don’t have to see her, but if she sees me…No. I have to be able to do this either way.
And I will.
I step out of the elevator on our floor and make my way through one long, brightly-lit stretch of hallway past several rooms. Seeing our rooms out ahead makes my stomach swim nervously. I walk past quietly; worried that my shoes shuffling across the floor might be enough to let her know I’m out here. There’s a DO NOT DISTURB sign hanging on her doorknob and I don’t know why but seeing it causes my stomach to twist up in knots. Maybe because the only time I’ve ever hung one of those on a hotel door was when I was inside getting laid. The thought of Camryn being f**ked by some other guy….
I grind my teeth together and walk past. How insanely pathetic was that? She’s not even mine and I just got raped by a crazy-jealous reaction.
The sooner I get out of New Orleans, the better.
I slide my card-key in my door and slip inside the room. It looks exactly the way I left it: clothes strewn near my bags and Aidan’s guitar propped against the wall underneath the mounted light fixture. I move through the room, gathering up everything and have an oh-yeah moment when I realize I probably would’ve left my chargers in the wall if I hadn’t of seen them at the right angle when I passed. I unplug them and shove them along with my clothes down into my bag. Lastly, I hurry into the bathroom to get my toothbrush from the sink.
Camryn is standing in the doorway when I walk back out.
CAMRYN
29
“ANDREW? ARE YOU ALRIGHT?” I look across at him, crossing my arms as the room door clicks closed softly behind me.
I’ve been so worried about him…worried because I was afraid he’d left without saying goodbye, but more worried because of the state of mind he was in when he left. Because his father just died.
I catch my breath quietly and he walks past me towards his bags sitting on the end of the bed.
Why won’t he look at me?
I glance at the bags again and realize instantly what he’s doing. I let my arms fall back to my sides and I walk closer to him.
“Please talk to me,” I say gently. “Andrew, you scared the shit out of me—.” He shoves his toothbrush into his duffle bag, keeping his back to me. “—if you need to go to the funeral, that’s good. I can go back home. Maybe we can talk—”
Andrew whirls around.
“This isn’t about the funeral or my father, Camryn,” he says and his words hurt me without knowing the meaning behind them first.
“Then what is it?”
He turns away from me again, pretending to rummage through one of his bags though I know it’s just a distraction. I see an envelope sticking out of his back pocket. RYN is written across the front; the first half of what I’m guessing is my name is covered by the fabric of his pocket.
I reach out and take it.
Andrew turns around again and his face falls.
“Camryn…,” he breathes a sad breath and looks briefly down at the floor.
“What is this?” I ask looking down at my name.
Already I’m pulling out the top flap from inside the envelope with my finger.
Andrew doesn’t answer; he just stands there waiting for me to read the contents of the note because he knows I’m going to anyway.
He wants me to.
I see the cash and leave it in the envelope without touching it and I set it aside on the foot of the bed. All I care about is the note in my hands that already is crushing my heart and I haven’t even read it yet. I look up at him and down at the note a few times before finally unfolding it.
My hands are shaking.
Why are my hands shaking?
And as I read, a hot lump wedges itself in the center of my throat. My eyes are burning with anger and hurt and tears.
“Babe, you knew this trip had to end sometime.”
“Don’t call me babe,” I snap, gripping the note tightly within my fingertips now down at my side. “If you’re leaving, you no longer have that right.”
His rock-hard abs press firmly into my back. I feel his warm arms slip around my nak*d waist; one hand moving up to fully squeeze one breast, the other sliding down in-between my legs. My neck falls back against his chest when he slips a finger between my throbbing lips below and teases me with it. I gasp, tilting my neck back so that I can reach his mouth. His tongue snakes out to touch mine; the fleshy warm wetness of it drives me insane. He crushes his lips against mine and kisses me ravenously, to the point that neither of us can breathe. And then he forces me forward onto the bed. My hands burrow into the sheets, my fingers curling into the fabric until he presses all of his weight on my back and my arms can’t hold my body up anymore. He grabs my wrists again and pulls them around behind me, pressing himself against me.
“Goddammit, please f**k me, Andrew…please,” I beg, my voice shuddering with my breath. I say what I feel this time without his prompt.
And it feels so right.
Andrew leans fully over me; I feel his hardness forceful and persistent. I want him inside of me so bad, but he’s keeping it from me on purpose, making me feel like any moment he’s going to shove it in me, but he never does.
Shivers attack my body again when I feel the tip of his tongue trace a path along the back of my neck. One side of my face is pressed against the mattress, the hard weight of his body on top of me forbidding me to move. I bite my lip when the sting of his teeth clamps down on my back, enough to cause pain, but not breaking the skin. And after he bites me he kisses and licks each spot to ease the tender pain.