“You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me,” she goes on, “and I can look you in the eyes right now and say that as much as it hurts, I can accept Ian’s death. I can accept Lily’s death. I can accept anyone else’s death even though whoever it is, it will be unbearably hard. But yours…” She pauses and doesn’t even blink as she looks deeply into my eyes. “I could never accept yours. Never.”
The silence between us only amplifies the sound of the ocean. I want to take her into my arms, to crush my lips over hers, but I just sit here, staring at her because the words she just spoke to me are the most powerful words I’ve ever heard or felt or understood.
Finally, I reach out both arms and lift her onto my lap. I wrap my arms around her back and look into her eyes and say, “I believe you and I feel the same way.”
She cocks her head gently to one side. “Really?”
“Yeah. Camryn, I can’t live without you. I could try, but it would be a miserable existence. It isn’t just about me; you could die tomorrow just as easily as I could. Neither one of us are immune to it.”
She doesn’t object, but she looks away for a brief moment.
I cup her cheeks within my hands, forcing her gaze. Her skin is cold.
“We have to live in the moment, remember?” I say and instantly get her attention again. “We need to make a pact, you and me, right now. Will you make a pact with me?” I move my hands back a little to warm her cold ears.
She nods. “OK,” she says, and I’m glad she trusts me enough with this not to ask questions before agreeing.
Moving one hand away from her ear, I trace the tips of my fingers across her forehead and down the sides of her cheeks. “We can’t control death,” I say. “There’s nothing either of us can do to avoid it or to hold it off. All we can control is how we live our lives before it comes for us. So, let’s promise each other things that we can hold true to no matter what.”
Camryn nods and smiles slimly. “What kinds of things?” she asks.
“Anything. Whatever we want from each other. Like…” I stand up from the sand and bury my hands in my pockets. I gaze out at the ocean, sifting through my mind for the best promise to start with. I can think of only one thing at the moment, so I turn back to her and point my index finger upward and say, “This has nothing to do with the tumor or anything specific, but I want you to promise me that if I’m ever put on life support for any reason and you feel in your heart that I’m not going to pull through, you feel like I’m suffering, that you’ll take me off of it.”
Her smile fades, and she just looks up at me like I ruined the moment. I reach down to her and take her by the hand, bringing her to her feet with me.
“I’m not trying to be morbid. This is just something that’s always bothered me, y’know? You see it on TV and in movies. Some guy is hooked up to every machine known to man trying to keep him alive because the family has hope, or whatever. Nothing wrong with hope, but damn, that shit terrifies me.” I gently wrap my hands around her arms. “Never let me live like a vegetable. Promise me that. You know me better than anyone, and I trust you to know when I’ve had enough. So promise me.”
Slowly, she starts to come around. It takes her a second, but she begins to nod. “Promise me the same,” she says.
I smile and say, “You got it.”
She takes a step back and hides her hands in her sleeves. Wrapping her sweater tight around her body, she begins to pace.
She stops and looks at me. “Promise me that if I ever get Alzheimer’s or dementia, and I don’t remember anyone that you’ll visit me every day and read to me like Noah read to Allie.”
“Who?” I ask, but then it hits me. “Oooh, I see.” I laugh and shake my head at her.
Her eyes and her smile get bigger and she yells, “Andrew! It’s not funny! I’m being serious!” She laughs and I grab her, pulling her into my arms.
“All right, all right!” I say, squeezing her wriggling body against me.
“It was your idea,” she says, “so don’t make a joke out of it.”
“I know. You’re right, but…really? You have to go all Sparks on me?”
I feel her elbow dig into my gut, and I double over a little and overdramatize the pain it caused, my face strained with agony and laughter. To add insult to injury, Camryn gives me a push and knocks me over into the sand. Then she stands directly over me with one foot on each side of my waist, hands propped on her h*ps all authoritativelike. I keep one hand on my gut, laughing and straining to keep my face straight, though I know damn well I’m not really fooling her.
“Leave it to you to make fun of a very serious moment.” She says this so seriously that it just makes me laugh harder, mainly because it’s so hard for her to keep a straight face.
She starts to sit on me, and she’ll probably try to beat me with her flimsy little hands, but I reach out just before she does and I grab her between the legs and squeeze really hard.
“Owww!” she moans and starts to fall over but I hold her still in the position. “What is it with you grabbing my paarrr—shit, Andrew!—grabbing my parts?!”
I apply more pressure and slowly raise my back from the sand, guiding her backwards. She falls to her knees at eye level with me.
“Because I like it,” I whisper onto her lips. “Now be still.”
The mood between us shifts in a matter of seconds. Her cold skin becomes warmer, her eyes become rapt, her body compliant.
“There’s people out here…,” she tries to say softly, but my hand tightening between her legs steals her voice away.
“I don’t care,” I say, scanning her eyes first and then the plump, wetness of her lips. “They’re far enough away.”
“But… what are you doing…”
“Just be still. Be quiet.” I trace my tongue over her bottom lip and gently suck on it. I feel her try to kiss me, but I don’t let her. I move my hand from the outside of her pants and slide it behind the loose-fitting fabric to find her warmth. God damn, she’s already wet. Leaning into the crook of her neck, I shut my eyes and inhale the scent of her skin. She stays very still, but I can feel her body quivering and her pulse beating fast under my touch. I want to f**k her so bad. But I won’t yet, because I like to torture myself. I f**king love it.
My free hand drops from around her waist, and I move it to her thighs, forcing her to spread her legs farther apart. “Open them,” I say with my lips barely touching hers, and she does exactly what I tell her, moving her knees outward against the sand. She tenses up a little when I sense a man walking by not too far away, but I squeeze her again, slipping two fingers inside of her and forcing her to look only at me. She gasps and I shudder quietly, feeling the inside of her tightening around my fingers. I look into her eyes, sometimes mine straying to study the curvature of her mouth. “Don’t look away from me,” I say. “I don’t care if you feel like you need to shut your eyes. Don’t. Keep your eyes on mine.”
She nods subtly as if she’s afraid I’ll stop if she does it wrong.
I move my fingers in and out of her slowly at first, pulling them out and using her wetness to keep her cl*t wet, rubbing my middle finger over it in a circular motion. Every time I touch it her eyes start to close, but I stop the second I notice and she regains control of her gaze. I move my fingers inside her again, a little faster and with my thumb apply more pressure to her cl*t each time. Tiny moans escape from her parted lips, sucking in the chilled air around us and my warm breath as I breathe harder onto her mouth. But she never takes her eyes off of mine and she doesn’t speak, even though I know she wants to do both.
“Admit it,” I whisper leaning in to her ear, “at this point, you wouldn’t care if anyone was watching. Would you? You’d let me f**k you right here in front of everybody and worry about the shame only after it was over.”
I feel her head nod next to mine.
“What else would you let me do?” I ask and keep my lips near her ear. I keep my fingers moving.
“Anything you wanted,” she says with a gasp in her voice.
“Anything I wanted?” I rub my thumb firmer against her clit.
“Yes…,” she says and her breath sputters softly. “Anyf**kingthing you wanted…”
Her words, her voice laced with need, makes me insanely hot for her, and I’m so f**king hard I can hardly stand it. My fingers move harder and faster. Her body begins to tremble, her thighs shake trying to hold herself up. I pull away from her ear and look into her eyes again. She keeps hers trained on mine the best she can, her lids are getting heavier, her breath uneven and wispy. But her eyes widen and freeze when I hit that special spot, and I make sure not to break the rhythm.
“Don’t look away,” I say and continue to stare fiercely into her eyes.
As she starts to come, my gaze only strengthens, piercing hers in a moment of hungry lust. It’s like I can see the pleasure emanating from around her irises, feel the heat of her orgasm coming off the sensitive skin on her lips, which want to kiss mine so savagely, but I still won’t let her. And as her quivering body begins to calm, I push my two fingers deeper inside, feeling her constrict around them all the while keeping pressure on her cl*t with the pad of my thumb.
She collapses onto my chest.
I wrap her trembling body up in my arms and kiss the top of her head.
“What the f**k are you doing to me?” she says.
I laugh lightly and hold her tighter. “Whatever the hell I want,” I answer cunningly.
Tilting her head back away from my chest, she gazes up at me. “Well, I don’t care what you say, you’re not going to get me off this time without me returning the favor.”
“Oh, is that right?”
“Yes, that’s exactly right, so don’t even try it.”
“What are you going to do to me then?” I feel my grin deepening.
“Whatever the hell I want,” she says with a grin even more wicked than mine.
Then she rises to her feet and taking a hold of my hand brings me up with her.
“But not out here,” she says. “It’s getting too cold.”
“You’re the boss,” I say and let her start to pull me along.
I would never bring it up, but I do notice as we walk away from the beach, Camryn looks back once at the photo of her and Ian lying on the sand. Her hand squeezes firmly around mine, and she looks over at me smiling softly as we cross the boardwalk.
I know I really had little to do with her finally finding her closure. Yeah, I forced it on her, but it was Camryn who in that moment faced one of her biggest fears. She stared into the face of someone she loved and lost, and finally accepted it. I admit, it was strange how it all happened, and I never went out there with any sexual intentions, especially in a moment like that. But Camryn, in the time she spent alone on that beach thinking about Ian, long before I joined her, she had already figured it all out.