"Oh, baby, you don't have to do that; it hurts like hell on the ribs."

"But I want it and I don't care how much it hurts."

I feel my eyes finally start to water and I lean in and enclose my mouth around hers.

"I would love that," I whisper onto her lips.

She kisses me softly and whispers back, "After your surgery, when you're well enough then we'll go."

I nod. "Yeah, Gus will definitely need me there to make sure the placement of your tattoo lines up with mine-he laughed at me when I went in to get this on my ribs."

She smiles. "He did, huh?"

"Yeah," I chuckle. "He accused me of being a hopeless romantic and threatened to tell my friends. I told him he sounded like my father and to shut the fuck up. Gus is a good guy and one helluva tattoo artist."

"I can see that."

I spear my fingers through her hair, constantly brushing it back over the top of her head. But then cold, hard, cruel reality slips back in-between us and wakes me up. I had almost let myself become completely delusional.

"Camryn, I want you to be prepared."

"Don't start that-"

"No, baby, you have to do this for me," I say. "You can't let yourself believe one hundred percent that I'm going to live through this. You can't do that."

"Andrew please. Just stop."

I place my fingers on her lips, hushing her. She's crying again. It hurts me to see her cry, but this is something that needs to be said.

"Just promise me that you'll continue to tell yourself that I might die."

"I can't make myself say something like that!"

I squeeze her tighter.

"Promise me."

She grits her teeth.

Finally she gives in and forces herself to say, "...I promise."

It's only for my sake. I know she won't do it.

"But you have to promise me that you'll pull through this," she adds, nestling her head underneath my chin again. "I can't be without you; Andrew, you have to know that I can't."

"I know, baby...I know."

Silence fills the space between us.

"Will you sing to me?" I ask.

"What do you want me to sing?"

"Dust in the Wind," I answer.

"No. I won't sing that song. Don't ever ask me that again. Ever."

My arms tighten around her.

"Then sing anything," I whisper. "I just want to hear your voice."

And so she starts to sing Poison & Wine, the same song that we sang together back in New Orleans when we lay in each other's arms that night. I sing along with her a few verses, but I'm weak. Weak with emotion. Weak with sickness and stress. Weak with a broken heart. Weak with inevitability.

We fall asleep in each other's arms.

"Got some tests to run," a voice says above the bed.

I stir awake the rest of the way to see one of the nurses standing at my side of the bed. I feel dizzy, strange. I feel a lot like I felt minutes before I passed out in my apartment. When I woke up in this bed, all I could remember was the smell of bacon. I could still smell bacon for hours afterwards. I kept asking the nurses if the cafeteria was nearby because the bacon was so strong.

"You should probably get dressed," the nurse says with an assuming smile.

I guess she figures Camryn and I did a lot more in here than visit and sleep considering we're both half-naked.

Camryn gets out of the bed and gets dressed while the nurse checks my stats. There's a wheelchair near the foot of the bed.

"What kind of tests?" I ask weakly.

I feel a little disoriented. Shit. Please just let Camryn leave first before something else happens to me....

"Andrew?" Camryn comes back over to the bed. She knows something is wrong.

I raise one hand to ward her off. "No, baby, I'm alright; just a little dizzy. Trying to wake up."

The nurse comes back around to help me sit up, moving the IV out of the way.

"He'll be gone for an hour or two, maybe more, while they run more tests," she says. "So you should grab a bite to eat, stretch your legs and come back in a little while."

"But I-I don't want to leave him."

"Do what she says," I demand, though in the kindest voice I can manage. "I want you to go eat." I turn my head to see her this time and point my finger at her. "But no steak," I say playfully. "You still owe me a steak dinner, remember? When I get out of here, that's the first thing we're doing."

I get the smile out of her that I was longing for, although it's not as bright as I had hoped.

"OK," she agrees, nodding with reluctance. "I'll be back in a few hours and I'll be waiting for you."

She rushes back over and kisses me softly and we share a wordless moment.

Finally, I get into the wheelchair and the nurse wheels me out of the room. I look back only once but then I tear my eyes away from her. Because I feel like this is the last time I'm going to see her. The bright white floor moves like running water beneath me as I'm pushed down the length of the hallway. Patterns in the shiny tile start to appear as I stare fixedly because I can't bring myself to raise my eyes. At first I think it's just lack of willpower, but I start to realize that it's something else. We turn right at the next corner. I hear voices coming toward us, but I never look up. I hear the wind brush my exposed back as the wheelchair seems to pick up speed. My head feels so heavy, like a block of concrete placed between my shoulders.

I hear Camryn's voice and I think I'm raising my head to see her, but really I haven't moved at all. It's not Camryn's voice. It's the nurse. She's saying something to me about how many fingers- It's the last thing that I remember before everything goes black.

Death. It's an odd thing. I never imagined it like this. Everything feels weightless. My body. My mind. The hand I continuously try to move in front of my face.

I hear voices around me all of the time, but I can never make out what they're saying.

Am I really dead? I don't understand this at all. How long have I been here like this? And where the hell am I?

I feel like I've been sleeping forever. But what bothers me is how I'm even conscious of it.

"Andrew? Please wake up...."

"Andrew...."

Sometimes life takes you off course...

THE EDGE OF NEVER.

To find out how Camryn and Andrew's journey started See the next page for a preview of The Edge of Never

1.

Natalie has been twirling that same lock of hair for the past ten minutes and it's starting to drive me nuts. I shake my head and pull my iced latte toward me, strategically placing my lips on the straw. Natalie sits across from me with her elbows propped on the little round table, chin in one hand.

"He's gorgeous," she says staring off toward the guy who just got in line. "Seriously, Cam, would you look at him?"

I roll my eyes and take another sip. "Nat," I say, placing my drink back on the table, "you have a boyfriend-do I need to constantly remind you?"

Natalie sneers playfully at me. "What are you, my mother?" But she can't keep her eyes on me for long, not while that walking wall of sexy is standing at the register ordering coffee and scones. "Besides, Damon doesn't care if I look-as long as I'm bending over for him every night, he's good with it."

I let out a spat of air, blushing.

"See! Uh huh," she says, smiling hugely. "I got a laugh out of you." She reaches over and thrusts her hand into her little purple purse. "I have to make note of that," and she pulls out her phone and opens her digital notebook. "Saturday. June 15th." She moves her finger across the screen. "1:54 p.m.-Camryn Bennett laughed at one of my sexual jokes." Then she shoves the phone back inside her purse and looks at me with that thoughtful sort of look she always has when she's about to go into therapy-mode. "Just look once," she says, all joking aside.

Just to appease her, I turn my chin carefully at an angle so that I can get a quick glimpse of the guy. He moves away from the register and toward the end of the counter where he slides his drink off the edge. Tall. Perfectly sculpted cheekbones. Mesmerizing model green eyes and spiked up brown hair.

"Yes," I admit, looking back at Natalie, "he's hot, but so what?"

Natalie has to watch him leave out the double glass doors and glide past the windows before she can look back at me to respond.

"Oh. My. God," she says eyes wide and full of disbelief.

"He's just a guy, Nat." I place my lips on the straw again. "You might as well put a sign that says 'obsessed' on your forehead. You're obsessed short of drooling."

"Are you kidding me?" Her expression has twisted into pure shock. "Camryn, you have a serious problem. You know that, right?" She presses her back against her chair. "You need to up your medication. Seriously."

"I stopped taking it in April."

"What? Why?"

"Because it's ridiculous," I say matter-of-factly. "I'm not suicidal, so there's no reason for me to be taking it."

She shakes her head at me and crosses her arms over her chest. "You think they prescribe that stuff just for suicidal people? No. They don't." She points a finger at me briefly and hides it back in the fold of her arm. "It's a chemical imbalance thing, or some shit like that."

I smirk at her. "Oh, really? Since when did you become so educated in mental health issues and the medications they use to treat the hundreds of diagnoses?" My brow rises a little, just enough to let her see how much I know she has no idea what she's talking about.

When she wrinkles her nose at me instead of answering, I say, "I'll heal on my own time, and I don't need a pill to fix it for me." My explanation had started out kind, but unexpectedly turned bitter before I could get the last sentence out. That happens a lot.

Natalie sighs and the smile completely drops from her face.

"I'm sorry," I say, feeling bad for snapping at her. "Look, I know you're right. I can't deny that I have some messed-up emotional issues and that I can be a bitch sometimes-."

"Sometimes?" she mumbles under her breath, but is grinning again and has already forgiven me.

That happens a lot, too.

I half-smile back at her. "I just want to find answers on my own, y'know?"

"Find what answers?" She's annoyed with me. "Cam," she says, cocking her head to one side to appear thoughtful. "I hate to say it, but shit really does happen. You just have to get over it. Beat the hell out of it by doing things that make you happy."

OK, so maybe she isn't so horrible at the therapy thing after all.

"I know, you're right," I say, "but..."

Natalie raises a brow, waiting. "What? Come on, out with it!"

I gaze toward the wall briefly, thinking about it. So often I sit around and think about life and wonder about every possible aspect of it. I wonder what the hell I'm doing here. Even right now. In this coffee shop with this girl I've known practically all my life. Yesterday I thought about why I felt the need to get up at exactly the same time as the day before and do everything like I did the day before. Why? What compels any of us to do the things we do when deep down a part of us just wants to break free from it all?

I look away from the wall and right at my best friend who I know won't understand what I'm about to say, but because of the need to get it out, I say it anyway.

"Have you ever wondered what it would be like to backpack across the world?"

Natalie's face goes slack. "Uh, not really," she says. "That might... suck."

"Well, think about it for a second," I say, leaning against the table and focusing all of my attention on her. "Just you and a backpack with a few necessities. No bills. No getting up at the same time every morning to go to a job you hate. Just you and the world out ahead of you. You never know what the next day is going to bring, who you'll meet, what you'll have for lunch or where you might sleep." I realize I've become so lost in the imagery that I might've seemed a little obsessed for a second, myself.