The End of the World (17 page)

They’re finally open for business, and now it’s time to walk inside and see if she is here.

Because I know why Shaye left her situation. I know why she left the house. If I let myself, I even know why she left Pete and Maria and Alan.

But I’ll never understand why she left me.

If it takes me all day, I won’t leave until I find her.

*

“More water?”

Crap.

I nod my head yes and push my glass toward the server, absorbing the absurdity of it all. How many times can you let someone refill your water glass before you need to get on with it and place an order? I’ve been here forty-five minutes, and my eyes have been trained on the front door for every second of that time, but nothing. Nothing at all has happened and I’m not sure anything is going to.

“Thank you,” I say, lifting the glass to my lips and taking a long sip.

“Have you found anything you would like to order?” She clasps her hands in front of her and rocks on her heels a bit. I’m taking up a table and there’s line at the door, and we both know I need to either order something or leave. I open my menu and pretend to look over the choices, then give up and close it with a sigh.

“I’m not hungry.” The words sound stupid coming from a guy sitting at what, in my opinion, is the best table in the restaurant. The confused look on her face confirms it.

“Then why are you here?”

For the first time, I glance at her nametag. “Well Christy, that is the question of the hour, isn’t it?”

She just stares at me, then bites her lip and looks down, uncertain if I’m crazy or maybe trying to flirt. I shut down that second possibility before it has time to materialize.

“Do you know Shaye McCormick?”

Her wide eyes connect with mine before settling into a more normal stare. But bingo, they know each other. Now I just need her to admit it.

“Who’s asking?” she says.

“I’m asking.”

She shrugs with both shoulders, as if my statement is the most obviously dumb thing in the world.

“Look Christy, I’m an old friend of Shaye’s and I need to find her. It’s important. I have something that she needs, that she’s needed for a long time.”

“Like what?”

Like me.

But I don’t say that. Her eyebrows push together. This isn’t going well at all.

“We grew up together, and the last time I saw her she gave me something. I want to give it back because I know it’s something she wants.”

She widens her stance I think in an effort to appear intimidating—funny since she stands no more than five foot one and her short blonde hair is cut in a style that reminded me of Tinkerbell the moment I spotted her walking toward me. Still, I smile. If she wants to appear threatening, I’ll let her.

“If you know her so well, tell me where she lives.”

I stop an eye roll. “Somewhere in Tulsa, I assume. But if I had her address, I wouldn’t be talking to you now, would I?”

Her chin goes up. “What’s her middle name?”

I swallow a smile. This one, I’ve got. “Dawn.”

She blinks. That caught her by surprise.

“What about her birthday?”

“May sixteenth. Which means she turns twenty-two next month.”

Her gaze cuts through me like razor blades. “How do I know you’re not a stalker?”

I hold out my hands. “Because I’m not a stalker.”

Finally, her shoulders slump. “Shaye doesn’t have many friends, but something tells me you really are one.” She looks around to make sure no one is listening. “What do you need to know?”

I hope she can’t hear the way my heart is pounding in my ears. It’s all I can hear, all I can feel “Her address. Just that.”

After one long look, she pulls out an order pad and pen and scratches out a few words, then pushes the paper across the table at me. “Don’t make me regret this.”

I fold it in half and stand. “I won’t. And Christy?”

She worries her bottom lip. “What?”

“I’m not a stalker. I’m someone who cares about her. But please do me a favor and don’t tell her I stopped by.”

She swallows. “I won’t. Besides, I don’t even know your name.”

It’s true, she doesn’t. The kind thing would be for me to give it to her, especially considering she just handed me what could be the pink slip to my future. But I can’t risk it. If Shaye knows, she might run. And I’m sorry, but I just can’t bring myself to go through that again.

“For now, let’s keep it that way.”

With a smile at her and a much-desired address in hand, I walk out of the restaurant without giving it to her.

*

Shaye

There was a
man waiting outside my apartment when I got home from work tonight. He sat on the outside steps and didn’t look up when I approached, but I know he saw me. I know he was waiting for me. One second he sat wringing his hands, popping one and two and three knuckles as he went down the row of ten, and the next minute he sat perfectly still, almost as if he was listening to my movements as I jammed my key in the door and turned the knob.

When I walked inside and peered out the window, I saw the last of his form as he ascended the steps. He never said a word.

I locked all three deadbolts tonight.

I wish I had seen more of him than the top of his stocking-cap covered head.

Cameron

I
found her.

I found her and then I found an apartment.

It took all of two days, but it’s mine and I’ve moved in all my belongings and I’m only one floor above her.

I didn’t even ask Kara to help, something she wasn’t happy about. Three short nights ago, all I wanted was for her to start a life with me. I was contemplating rings. I was envisioning a future with her. I still am. Maybe. Maybe I’m not. I don’t know what I want. All I know is that Shaye lives below me, and I still haven’t worked up the courage to tell her I’m here.

She has a boyfriend. Last night, I paced outside my door trying to work up the courage to head down to hers. I had taken my first step down when I heard them.

“Shaye, hurry up with that key. I need to pee and you’re taking forever.”

“Stop being so pushy. I’m holding two bags and my purse and a bottle of wine you don’t even need and you’re too drunk to help. Why don’t you just let me take you home?

“Sweetheart, as far as you’re concerned for tonight, this is my home.”

I heard her sigh from here.

His name is Kevin.

I’ve never seen his face, but I already hate him.

I’ve spent tonight with my face pressed against a questionable pane of glass, alternately opening and closing my eyes as sleep tries intermittently to claim me. It’s won more than once, but I keep fighting against it in my quest to see Shaye. It occurred to me this morning that she always parks in the same spot. It also occurred to me that I have a perfect view of that spot from this particular bedroom window.

I sit up and check the time on my cell phone. It’s just after four o’clock in the morning and her car still isn’t in the parking lot. My first instinct is to be worried because why would she stay out this late? My second and stronger instinct is to be annoyed because I know exactly who she’s with, and I don’t like it at all.

It’s all so confusing. I have no claim on her, and I never have. But I’m ticked off and my face hurts and my back hurts and this window pane is dirty and has probably given me a disease I’ll likely never recover from. I yawn and rub my eyes. What I need is a better place to sleep, one that involves lying prone instead of sitting at a weird upright angle.

I stand to grab the only blanket I own and toss it on the mattress. It’s the only piece of furniture in this apartment besides a wobbly recliner that saw its best day in the early eighties. Seventies, maybe. The sixties are a definite possibility. Next my pants come off, followed by the button-up I’ve worn all day because I thought people looking for apartments should look nice to make a good impression and all that. A dumb assumption to make, I now know. Especially when that person winds up in what is nothing more than a glorified slum.

I look around and take in my meager surroundings. Not that long ago I lived in a large house with seven bedrooms and five bathrooms and a winding staircase that provoked no small amount of awe—a mansion by most standards—and now I live here in this rundown room.

At least this room has no secrets.

At least this room is filled with light, despite its ugly parking lot view.

This room is a million times nicer than the mansion ever was.

Unable to resist one last look, I glance out the window again to see if by some miracle Shaye has arrived. And glory hallelujah angels be praised, I see something: headlights attached to a blue sedan. It stops, and the door opens. A pair of shoeless legs appear, followed by a half-covered body. In one hand she carries a pair of sandals. In the other hand she holds a sweater, a bag, and her dress up across her chest because it’s unzipped and looks as if it’s two seconds away from tumbling to the ground.

And this, more than anything else piled onto this pathetic excuse for a sleepless day and night…

This.

Makes.

Me.

Mad.

Why is she having to hold up her clothes? And why is she finally showing up well after four o’clock in the morning? And why is she out so late? And what kind of man let her drive home this late?

Her dress slips, but she catches it just in time. Shaye has always been pretty. But good lord with long chestnut strands falling around silky bare shoulders that even the moonlight is smart enough to notice, now she’s beautiful. And I’m no longer a boy. My throat goes dry just watching her, and I tap against the window a few times with my forehead. I’m nineteen and she’s almost twenty-two and we haven’t seen each other in four years and it’s practically sunrise … and she has a lot of explaining to do tomorrow.

And I have a lot of thinking to do tonight.

With one last glare outside, I shoulder feelings I don’t like and walk away from the window, then I toss myself on the bed and climb inside the blankets with a groan. It’s going to be impossible to sleep tonight with visions of Shaye playing through my mind like a silent film on repeat. I bury my head as best as I can in the folds of my thin pillow.

It isn’t long before I’m on my back and blinking up at the ceiling, because now—somehow—I have to work up the courage to actually talk to her.

*

Shaye

I’m certain of
it now.

I have a stalker.

Not a creepy, hooded stalker with sunglasses and a hard stare like you see on low budget, late-night television movies when there’s absolutely nothing else to watch. But a stalker still. Once from the steps outside my apartment, and every night since then watching me through the bent slats of his mini blinds as he looks out the window.

At me.

He’s always looking at me.

I noticed him through the mini blinds the night I arrived home from Kevin’s apartment two nights ago. Or mornings ago, depending on your perspective. I rolled into the parking lot an hour before sunrise, completely exhausted and holding more of my clothes than what I was actually wearing.