A Happy Ending (Shannon and Cammie)

Chapter 17

Shannon POV

She was at a loss for words, just like I was. She gave me a look that asked all of her questions without her having to say a word, but still I could hardly speak. The sheer emotion of her name could bring me to my knees at any given moment. I tried so hard to hold it together. 

"We were together in high school," I began. I hated telling people about her because that meant I had to relive all the memories, so eventually I just stopped telling everyone. Even the people that asked, I would just give them some lame excuse not to talk about it. Cammie was different, though. She deserved to know. "She was my first girlfriend. My only girlfriend, until I met you. I was in love with her. She was the girl that taught me how to be okay with being myself." I caught myself smiling a little bit, thinking about her. Thinking about all the memories we made. I let a tear fall. 

Cammie looked completely confused. She wiped the tear from my cheek and let me continue talking. 

I gathered myself enough to finish the story. "We dated for two years. Senior year, we both knew that we would be going to separate schools. Her family was from New York, so she was going to school there. I was going to Oklahoma. We knew what that meant, but we tried desperately to work around it. We spent every moment together that summer. I went with her to visit her school, she came with me to visit mine. On the day that she had to move up to New York, I gave her a ring. It was a promise ring. That day, we promised each other we would always come back, no matter what." At this point, my face was soaked with tears. I wasn't sobbing, I was just letting them fall. And they fell like a waterfall. 

"What happened, Shan?" She asked. 

Flashback

-----------------------------------

"I'm going to miss you so much," I told her, trying to stop the tears from falling. 

She leaned into my chest, "I love you, Shannon. I'll come back to you. I promise." 

I found solace in that word. Promise. She never broke her promises. She hardly ever made them, but when she did, you knew she intended on keeping it. We promised each other that we would come back here. In four years, when we were both finished school, we would come back to where we first met and we would fall in love all over again. It may sound like a cliche, naive, high-school-romance thing to do, but we meant it. We were those kids you'd see and know they were soulmates. 

"Goodbye, baby," I blew her a kiss as I watched her pull out of my driveway. I was their last stop before driving nearly 24 hours to New York. I broke down as soon as I got inside my house. I couldn't fathom that I had just said goodbye to the love of my life for the next four years. 

The rest of the day dragged on. Mom and I left shortly after they did, but our drive wasn't nearly as long. I stared out the window for most of the ride, dreaming of the life we'd make together. 

I was snapped out of my trance by my phone ringing. A smile grew across my face when her name lit up on my screen. 

"Hey babe," I answered the phone. 

The other end was choppy. I could hear crying. My immediate thought was that she had changed her mind. She realized that the distance was going to be too hard. "Liv?" I questioned, trying not to let myself get too worked up. 

"Shannon," her mother's voice broke through on the other end of the phone. She sounded frantic. "She's gone," her words were bullets that shot through my heart. They echoed in my mind. I felt my entire body shut down and the world around me stopped moving. I was brought back to reality by her mother on the other end. "I'm so sorry," she cried into the phone. To this day, I don't know why she apologized to me. She had just lost her daughter, yet she was apologizing to me. I couldn't even speak. I hung up the phone and felt my eyes burning with tears. I held my phone in my hands, looking down at it. My screen was lit up, revealing my background picture that was a picture of me kissing her cheek. 

"You promised," I whispered. 

-----------------------------------

"Shan," she whispered to me. Even she was crying now. "I had no idea." 

I shook my head, "it's okay, Cam. You had a right to ask." I tried to reassure her, but I knew she felt bad. 

"What happened?" She questioned further, once I had gathered myself a bit. 

"They got into a car accident. They had gotten off the highway to take a pee break. At an intersection, a truck ran a red light a smashed into the passenger side of their car. She was the only one that didn't make it," I told her. It was still hard to talk about her, but it got better with time. I had accepted what happened, but that doesn't meant that I don't wish I could take it all back. 

She grabbed my hand and stroked it soothingly. I wasn't crying anymore, but I was still sad. I hadn't talked about her in years. Hardly anyone in LA even knew about her. Amy was the only one, because she found a picture of her one time. "I'm so sorry, Shannon," Cammie apologized. 

I kissed her forehead and pulled her into my chest. "She would have loved you," I gave her a sad smile. 

"Tell me about her," she said. I liked that. Most of the other people I told would just apologize and then give me an awkward hug. But she wanted to know about her. I found that so courageous, that she could listen to me talk about a girl I used to love and not feel jealous or angry. 

We spent hours talking about her. I told her everyone I could remember and she just let me keep talking. It felt nice to talk about her in a way that didn't make me cry. It made me happy, actually. I had never had someone that I could just talk about my memories with, other than the therapist my mom made me see after she died. 

Olivia's parents had her buried just outside of New York City, in the town she grew up in. Her parents even still lived there. 

The next day, Cam asked me if I wanted to go visit her grave. It was something I had done only once before, and it was too soon after her funeral to even appreciate it. I was still upset and angry. 

"I'd really like that, actually," I smiled at her. "Do you want to come with me?" 

She looked at me, "are you sure?" 

I nodded and she smiled, "I would love to." 

So that was how we spent our day. The drive wasn't any more than an hour. "This is it," I said, pointing to the entrance of the cemetery. I always hated cemeteries. They were just so sad. 

"Are you ready?" She asked, taking my hand in hers. I nodded my head and we began walking. Her headstone wasn't too far from the entrance. When we found it, Cam stayed back for a moment so that I could talk to her alone. 

"Hey Liv," I began. I always thought it was odd when people talked to a stone, but now I realized why. It was the closest thing I had to actually speaking to her. "I think about you everyday." I talked to her just as I would have if we were catching up over drinks after 10 years of not seeing each other. "There's this girl. Her name is Cammie. She reminds me a lot of you, actually. She looks at me the same way you used to and she gets that same crease in her forehead when she's mad at me." 

I looked over at Cammie who was standing far enough away so that she couldn't hear me. I waved her over. "Olivia, this is my girlfriend, Cammie." I looked from the stone and then to Cammie. "I think you guys would have been best friends," I smiled at her. 

Cammie hardly said anything while we stood there. In her defense, I don't know what I would have said either. We didn't stay too long. When we were walking away, Cam stayed back a few feet. I stopped when I heard her start to say something. 

"I'll always take good care of her. I promise." I felt tears begin to form in my eyes, but shook them away before Cammie could see. She sounded just like Olivia when she said that. I blinked for a second and I could have sworn I was standing back in my driveway, holding her in my arms as we said goodbye. 

The more I think about it, the more I realize how alike Liv and Cam are. Part of me wants to believe it worked out that way for a reason. That Olivia sent Cammie to me. That she wanted me to love Cam the way I loved her.