On My Knees Page 2

  While my dorm mates frolicked on Southern beaches for spring break, we spent our days in bed. At night we’d walk downtown, have dinner, and get tipsy. We’d rush home so we could make love again or fuck wildly and loudly, our uninhibited sex sounds echoing through the mercifully empty halls of the house.

  We soaked up every precious minute and talked endlessly about the future we wanted together. Marriage and babies and happily ever after. With so much of the future unknown, we let ourselves dream and imagine the life we could have. I had no idea when or how our future would take shape, but I prayed that when the time came, I could give him everything he wanted.

  As the days passed, our touches lingered. Our kisses were deeper and the wild fucking gave way to tender, unhurried lovemaking. I let the tears come, finally, and he kissed them away, never asking why. He held me, loved me, and helped me forget, if only for a moment, that we were running out of time.

  As hard as we tried, loving slowly couldn’t delay the passing of time. We walked along the edge of the campus, and I tried not to think about the dwindling days. Soon he’d fly back, and I’d return to my monotonous and work-filled life as a student. I leaned against his shoulder, wishing I could freeze time or kidnap him. Surely my roommate wouldn’t mind a third.

  The pond sparkled with moonlight as it fed into the river. Cameron slowed, turning to me. Held my hands in his. I looked up at him, mesmerized by how his eyes glittered in the semi-darkness. He was beautiful. Perfect. And at least for now, all mine.

  “You okay?”

  “I’m fine,” I lied. I didn’t want to waste time talking about the inevitable.

  “I don’t want to go either,” he said, echoing my thoughts.

  I stared at the ground between us. “I can’t even think about it.”

  “We’ll get through it. After I get through tech school, everything will be easier, I promise.”

  My heart ached at the thought of enduring another long separation. “Summer will be here soon,” I said, offering a ray of hope, but I swallowed the tears that threatened. I had to save the rest of them until he left. I couldn’t taint our last couple days with sadness over the unavoidable.

  “About that…”

  I looked up, questioning the sudden tension in his pose. His jaw was tight, and he looked down to our intertwined hands. He took a deep breath.

  “What? What’s wrong?” My stomach knotted. Had he waited to drop more bad news on me?

  “I know you said that you were going to try to work up here over the summer.”

  I nodded. “The housing is cheaper with my tuition. It makes the most sense.”

  “I know, but maybe instead of visiting me wherever I get stationed, you could come live with me for the summer.”

  I frowned. “But you said you couldn’t live off base. I couldn’t afford it, Cameron.” I hated admitting my financial woes. Such limitations had never existed for him.

  “I can’t live off base right now, but I could…”

  I tried to finish his thought in my mind, but I knew nothing about the intricacies of the military. Already the institution had more rules than I could fully comprehend.

  “How?”

  “We could get married.”

  I widened my eyes and dropped my jaw slightly as I sucked in a sharp breath of the cool night air. “Married?” I barely recognized my voice as I said the word. The sound, strained and high, betrayed my panic and ran in stark contrast to how we’d spoken of it hours ago, a far off dream we’d both shared.

  “If we got married, I could live off base. We could be together. I’d make plenty of money to support us both until you came back to school. And after, of course.”

  The intensity that once hummed between us now hung frozen in the air as I absorbed his words. I struggled to reply, my lips moving wordlessly. Panic seized my lungs. I couldn’t breathe.

  This wasn’t how it had happened in my fantasies. We were older, my life was far more stable than it currently was, and I was smiling and crying and jumping to kiss him with one yes after the other pouring from my lips. Yet now I fought a wave of nausea. My vision blurred. The subtle sounds around us muffled behind a jumble of broken thoughts flooding my brain.

  “I don’t understand what you’re saying,” I finally said. True enough, I had no idea where this proposal had come from.

  He gripped my hands tightly. I was vaguely aware of the dampness of my palms, but my thoughts were too scattered to care.

  “Maya, I want to marry you.”

  The earlier softness in his voice gave way to determination. He looked at me intently. He was serious. I was scared to death that he was.

  “There are logistics with the military, yes, but none of that matters as much as wanting to be married to you. Everything we’ve had this week… I want that forever, to know that nothing can take that away from us.”

  “But—” I stumbled over my words, hoping I didn’t look as scared as I felt. “Are you… Do you mean, like, now?”

  He paused. “We could do it this weekend, before I leave. Just you and me. We don’t need anyone else.”

  I took a small step back and out of his grasp, hoping it would allow me to breathe easier. My chest heaved with labored breaths. My mind had spun straight out of the love coma that we’d been living in for days. For all my loving him, I could not have been more shocked by this.

  “I don’t have a ring…” His shoulders sagged.

  My uneasiness only grew with the asking in his eyes.

  “I don’t care about a ring, Cameron, but this is so sudden. Do you realize what you’re asking me?”

  “I know exactly what I’m asking you. Trust me, I’ve thought about little else for weeks. I wanted to ask you the minute I saw you.”

  My gaze darted between the ground and buildings in the distance. I needed something to hold my focus, because my thoughts were running rampant.

  The future we spoke of seemed a lot closer for him than I’d realized. The dreams we shared were within reach now, but I couldn’t feel anything but crushed emotionally. The warm blanket of the past few days had been ripped away, and I was left with the shock of his request.

  “Why now?”

  “Why wait?”

  “I can’t just run away. I have things I need to take care of. Things here.”

  A confused frown marked his brow. “Like what?”

  “I don’t know. Work, I guess.” I offered the weak half-truth, not wanting to get into the real reasons why I couldn’t skip town with my would-be husband come May.

  “You can find work wherever I am, or don’t worry about it at all. Take the summer off. I’ll be making more and can take care of you, of us.”

  As if anything could be that simple.

  Frozen, I tried to think of how I could convince him this was rash. Too soon. “I don’t know, Cameron,” I murmured. “I need time to think about this, I guess.”

  I chanced a look in his eyes. His jaw was tightly clenched, his whole posture on edge.

  “Do you want to marry me or not?” His voice was a mere whisper.

  I’d asked for time to think, but this wasn’t a negotiation of terms. This was a moment—one that demanded an answer, not an excuse.

  Fine mist swept over my skin, and I fought a new wave of sickness. I couldn’t. It was too much. Too fast. As head over heels as I was, as we both were, I couldn’t go through with it. One day, yes. But I couldn’t say when that would be. He wanted to take care of me, but he’d never really understand the weight I carried.

  “I do want to marry you, Cameron. I really honestly do, one day, but not…today. We shouldn’t rush into this.”

  “Rush? I’ve spent two months away from you and it’s killing me. I thought you felt the same way.”

  I fought the tremble in my hands, wringing my fingers together. With each word, I felt him slip further from me. I stared past him to the pond. The campus had darkened under the night sky. This was my life, and I hadn’t really thought seriously abo
ut what it might look like outside of our idle dreaming. He was calling me out on all the promises we’d made, and here I was reneging.

  I loved Cameron, but being with him was like being in a dream, a fantasy where I could believe that everything was possible, that everything was going to be okay. But he didn’t know everything. He’d never understand the forces that weighed me down, the battles I fought away from the eyes of my friends here. He’d only known a life of privilege. Security, normalcy, a family that by most standards would be considered perfect. Certainly compared to mine.

  I’d hinted about the situation with my mother, but I’d never shared the embarrassing details of how I’d grown up, or how her life had fallen into woeful disrepair since I left for school. What chance would I have with him if he knew who I really was?

  “I want to be with you, Cam.” I prayed that could be enough.

  “Then marry me. There’s never going to be anyone else for me. This is it.” The look of love in his eyes, the look I’d seen so many times before, left no doubt.

  “Marriage?” I shook my head, pleading with him to relent on this dream that I couldn’t give him.

  He winced. “You say the word like it makes you sick, Maya.”

  “It is making me sick.” I half turned away, wrapping my arms around myself to chase away the chill of the night. He was pushing me so hard. Everything I was saying was disappointing him, hurting him. I hated it. I hated everything about this conversation. I wanted to go home and fall asleep in his arms and wake up as if we’d never had it.

  The hurt in his eyes lanced through me. My heart fell.

  “You’re telling me no, then.”

  I shook my head, my heart breaking. I had no other choice, and I’d never be able to make him understand my reasons. “I can’t.”

  “What was this week about?” His voice strained, laced with hurt frustration.

  I shrugged, wishing we could forget all this, turn back time, and go back to the place where we were both happy simply being with each other, without this looming expectation that I’d never be able to live up to. “Us, being together, like it’s always been.”

  “This is so much more than it’s ever been. You know that. What do I really mean to you? What does any of this mean if, when it comes right down to it, you don’t want to be with me?”

  “You’re everything to me, Cameron.”

  His hard laugh tore through me. “Apparently not.”

  “Stop it.” My voice was watery. My guilt was giving way to despair, and I felt weak and powerless over where this was all going.

  “What am I, then?”

  “You’re my lover, my friend. I don’t know how I would have gotten through this year without you.” Being with Cameron had given me hope, something to look forward to every weekend before he left. Our all-consuming love held so much promise.

  “So I’m a crutch? Someone you can rely on emotionally but don’t really want to commit to?”

  I exhaled sharply at his words, my eyes burning with unshed tears. “No.”

  “Then what? Explain it to me.”

  “This is crazy. You’re being crazy, asking this of me. People don’t do this anymore.”

  “I don’t give a shit what people do.” He rubbed his forehead, breathing audibly through clenched teeth. “So this is it?”

  My heart thudded against my chest. “What do you mean?”

  “This is it, Maya. I can’t…” He shook his head, avoiding my gaze. “You have no idea what I’ve been through. All I’ve thought of is you and this moment. But if this is how you feel, we should stop wasting our time.”

  I gasped, panic flooding me. “No.”

  I reached for him but he stepped back, raising his hands as if in surrender.

  “Let’s talk about this.” He was slipping away. I couldn’t lose him over this.

  I could no sooner find the words to make him stay as I could stop the tears from falling free down my face.

  “Cameron, wait. Please.”

  I suppressed a sob as he turned and walked away without another word.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Five years later

  MAYA. Over the hum of a room full of machines, papers shuffling and dozens of people typing away, I swore something in the air changed every afternoon around this time. The anticipation of freedom, of sixty minutes to call our own away from this place. It was 11:55 again, and I fidgeted anxiously with my purse, checking that I had everything for my sprint. Noon struck, and I made for the elevators. I used my oversized handbag to maneuver my way to the front of the pack. Every fucking day was like this. They let us all out at the same time, like cattle.

  I ignored the bitchy stares shot my way. I was still too hung over from celebrating Vanessa’s birthday last night to care. I wasn’t wasting another five minutes of my break trying to be polite. Not today. Not most days actually, if I really thought about it.

  I hadn’t always been this way.

  I pushed the thought away as I stepped out of the revolving doors and into the street. I stopped for a second when the icy chill of winter hit me. Someone slammed into me a second later, lurching me forward. I caught myself and went into motion, not caring to look back at the asshole who’d nearly knocked me down. I’d been that asshole a few minutes ago, anyway.

  I stuffed my bare hands into my jacket pockets, cursing the cold. Delaney's was a bit of a walk, but after a few blocks, the sea of black pea coats had already thinned significantly. Several minutes later I slipped into the dark musty air of the bar. I pulled myself up onto a stool and sat frozen for a few seconds, willing the chill away. I took a breath and unwrapped myself, dropping my coat onto the empty seat next to me. As I did, Jerry appeared from somewhere. He nodded in my direction and called my usual order into the back.

  “What’s new today, Maya?” He grabbed a rag and wiped the already clean bar.

  “Same shit, different day.” I ran my fingers through my hair to get the static to die down.

  “The usual?”

  “Yup.”

  He nodded and returned with a tall glass of diet Coke and a shot of Jameson.

  I swore my body relaxed at the mere sight of them. My two best friends. Caffeine and booze. I couldn’t remember exactly when I’d started drinking during work hours. I hadn’t been caught yet, and no one from my office would ever be seen lunching here, so I honestly didn’t think much of it.

  I’d turned twenty-five over the summer, marking almost four years working in a cubicle crunching numbers. After the bailout and the economy going to hell, working in finance wasn’t as glamorous as it used to be anymore. Except the money, of course. The promise that greed would somehow keep our financial system upright and that the people who managed to do it could still get rich with the effort. Money wasn’t something I’d ever had much of, so the lack of it was all the reason I needed to go in that direction.

  Still, landing a job making as much as I did straight out of college felt impressive. Like I’d finally made it and all my hard work had paid off. But the glitz of a Wall Street job had worn off a lot faster than I’d expected when I realized that getting ahead was going to take a hell of a lot more than being good at my job. Nothing was ever easy. At least for me. Something always seemed to lurk around the corners, threatening to knock me down. But I’d come this far and was still standing.

  I took the shot of Jameson and let the liquid burn on its way down to my empty stomach. My insides twisted a bit in protest but relaxed again when the alcohol absorbed. Hair of the dog.

  Stella was sitting at the other end of the bar. She was a regular. Her hair was long like mine, but straggly and gray down to the blond tips from the last time she’d dyed it. That could have been years ago, and so much could change in the span of a few years. Even in the darkness of the bar, her pallid features seemed stark. The faint light from the windows of the tavern hit the side of her face, drawing lines of age and experience across her skin.

  “How’s it going, Stella?” I ca
lled down to her. A few of the familiar faces looked over to me before going back to whatever they were doing—reading the paper, watching TV, staring into their beers looking for answers.

  “Going real good, honey. Real good.”

  She’d had an early start from what I could tell. Her eyes were glossed over and she shot me a slanted smile. If I looked hard enough, I could believe she used to be young and beautiful, but her face was so worn and sunken now from too many long days and cold nights. Or maybe it was cold days and long nights. I didn’t know her history, but somehow I knew there wasn’t a trace of who she used to be in the person I saw before me now. People passed her over. Hell, half the people in this seedy bar, who didn’t look too much better, passed her over.

  I didn’t want to, though. I wanted to ask if she had a family, but I didn’t, knowing a question like that could hurt more than it could help.

  Jerry returned with my food. Chicken fingers and fries, my favorite. I still ate the same food as I had when I was a kid. We’d order off the dollar menu or make a batch of Ramen when Mom was short on funds, but as a kid I never argued since that had been—and still was—the good stuff. Between my poor culinary cravings and my cubicle-dwelling lifestyle, I’d kept my college fifteen, plus a few. I regretted it, but not enough to do much about it.

  “Thanks, Jerry.”

  “No problem. Let me know if you need anything.”

  “Actually, you want to get something for Stella? Just put it on my bill.” I dropped my debit card on the bar so we could settle up well before I had to jet out again.

  “You sure?” He raised his eyebrows, as if an extra ten bucks wasn’t worth spending on someone as hopeless as Stella.

  “I’m sure.” My voice was harder than it had been before.

  He walked over and tossed her a paper menu.

  “Pick something out here, sweetheart. Your little friend over there’s buying you lunch again. What’ll it be?”

  “Oh, honey. You don’t have to do that. You save your money.” She waved her hand at me, almost knocking it into her half-empty beer.