Page 50 of Snowed In with her Mountain Men
“There was this… this thing that happened, not long after I started my first tour,” I went on. “I lost a friend. A good one, too. I didn’t know him long, but we got close on Parris Island, during training together. And then, well…”
Camryn shushed me gently, with a kiss on the lips.
“Not now,” she whispered. “Tell me another time.”
Her smile was gentle, reassuring. Emotionally and physically, it put me at ease.
“But trust me when I say… I understand.”
“You do?”
Camryn squeezed my hand again, her thumb running over the scar tissue there without question. Quietly she slipped from the room, padded across the hall, and returned moments later, clutching something.
“My mother died when I was ten,” she said, settling down beside me again. “Aneurysm. She dropped me off at school one morning, went to work, and never came home again.”
“Damn.”
She nodded. “It was the day before Thanksgiving. We were hosting. There was a bunch of new food in the fridge, with red and green stickers all over it. Red meant we couldn’t eat it, it was for the holiday. Green was go ahead and chow down.”
“That’s kinda funny,” I chuckled.
“Yeah. Mom was kooky like that,” she murmured. I watched her blue eyes lose focus, as they took on a faraway look. “I remember my dad and I having to take those stickers off, after the funeral,” she went on. “It felt like the saddest thing; going through the fridge, peeling them off. Knowing that mom had been so excited when she put them on. She was so looking forward to cooking for everyone. She had all these favorite dishes; especially the ones her mother had taught her.”
“Did she teach you any?”
Camryn’s long hair dangled down on either side of her face. I brushed it back as she shook her head.
“Not one,” she breathed. “Never got to. She was a nurse, so she was always busy. But it always felt like there would be time for it, you know? Like we had all this future ahead of us. It would happen down the line.”
Now I was the one squeezing her hand. It felt so soft and warm.
“My point is, when she dropped me off at school that day, all I said was ‘bye,’ and ran off. Not even ‘goodbye.’ How fucked up is that? I couldn’t even give her the full fucking word.”
“Camryn—”
“I could’ve hugged her. I could’ve kissed her and told her I loved her. I could’ve done just about anything else, other thantake her going out of her way to drive me to school for granted. You know what I mean?”
I slid my arms around her now, squeezing her snugly against my side. I did it every bit as much for myself, as for her.
“This right here,” she said, “is my favorite photo of us.”
She held out a tiny strip of four photos, actually. The kind of photos you’d get goofing off with friends, in one of those little self-serve photo booths.
“This was my favorite day, too,” Camryn went on. “I was in the third grade. Mom surprised me, and picked me up early from school. She took me to lunch at my favorite restaurant; and let me play on the playground. Then we went to the movies, just her and I. There was a little arcade in the theater, and right before we went in, we took these photos…”
I glanced down, and my heart threatened to explode. There was Camryn, beaming happily through a set of missing front teeth. Her mother sat behind her, making a different funny face over her shoulder in each of the four photographs. She was beautiful of course, just like her daughter. But her expressions were of such joy, such pure unbridled happiness, I almost couldn’t bear to look.
“Whenever I think about the last time I saw her, and how I should’ve said something different?” Camryn went on. “I stop and pull this out. When I look at it, I remember how very much she knew that I loved her, and she loved me. And how our last words — or lack of words — meant nothing, really. Because our relationship was so much more.”
She pushed back to look up at me again. Her eyes were glassy, but the tears were happy ones.
“Don’t dwell on silly last words,” she told me. “Remember the good times you had with your friend, the jokes you shared, the things he did that made you laugh. That’s all that really matters.”
Raising her arms, she pulled her T-shirt over her head and tossed it to the floor. Her breasts spilled forth, bouncing pertly, those amazing pink nipples all round and perfect. It was the most beautiful, feminine thing I’d ever seen.
“Now sleep with me,” she said, pulling me back into my bed. “And I’ll keep the nightmares away.”
We climbed beneath the sheets and I spooned into her, feeling the warmth of her nakedness against my back. An arm slid around me, locking tightly at my waist. Her lips were warm; as they brushed my ear from behind.
