Happy Birthday to You (Birthday Trilogy, Book 3) (32 page)

Two tears dropped from my eyes. “But what
about you… Leese… I can’t live without you!”

“You’ll figure it out,” she said, trying
to remain calm, trying not to let her emotions run wild. She took a step
backward.

“But Leese…” I breathed heavily, trying
to form my thoughts into words. I could barely talk now, I was crying so hard.
“The baby… our baby…”

She shook her head. “It’s not even a
person yet… it’s OK…”

“Our child… you can’t—”

“Cam, this is the only way. Now please,
turn around, and don’t look. This will all be over. We can’t waste another
second. We need to save Kimber and Wes—”

“You can’t!”
 

“I have to go!” She started walking
backward. She wiped the tears from her eyes. “I love you, Cameron. I always
will.”

Liesel started to turn around. I shouted
it before I could even think straight: “Liesel! Wait!”

She turned back to me. “What?”

Are
you sure about this, Cam?

“I’ll let you go…” I looked back at
Kimber and Wesley, and took a deep breath.

Yeah,
I think I am.

“Just please, Leese,” I said, “before you
go… please say good-bye to my sister.”

“I can’t,” she said. “There’s no
time—”

I stared at her, my heart pounding, my
head telling me what I needed to do. “Please… for me.”

She sighed, shook her head, and raced
over to the coffin. She looked down to see what I had just seen, a
ninety-year-old woman, near dead, fighting for her final breaths.

Liesel extended her arm, took Kimber’s
hand in hers, and said, “Good-bye, Kimber. I’ll miss you.”

It wasn’t a long good-bye. But it gave me
just enough time to start sprinting toward the cliff.

“Oh my God!” Liesel shouted as she turned
toward me. “Cameron! What are you doing?”

I didn’t look back. I didn’t think. I
didn’t breathe. And I didn’t stop. I just kept running, faster and faster and
faster and faster.

I jumped off the cliff, looking straight
down at the rocks below, willing to sacrifice myself, waiting to die, so that
my sister, my best friend, my wife, and my unborn child, could live on.

“Nooooo!” Liesel screamed. “Cameron!”

Two giant white lights shot out of her
palms and struck me in the back. I looked down and waited to fall. But I
didn’t. I remained in mid-air, levitating.

She pulled me around. There she was,
keeping me alive by the power of her palms, tears streaming down her face. All
she had to do was let go.

“Leese, you need to let me go.”

“I won’t!” she screamed. “Cameron, I love
you! I can’t live without you!”

“This way you live on, and I live on.
Because of our baby.
You have to live for our baby.”

She just shook her head, bringing herself
down to her knees.

“You have to let me go, Leese.
For Kimber.
For Wes.
And for the sake of our child.
Please…”

She continued shaking her head, her
sobbing now uncontrollable. “I… I can’t. I won’t.”

I looked down, then back at Liesel. “I love
you, Liesel. I’ll love you forever… but please... you need to let me go.”

She continued to weep as she closed her
eyes, turned her hands into fists, and brought them down to her sides.

As I started to fall, past the cliff,
past Liesel, Kimber, and Wesley, down toward the rocks below, I could see the
future already. I could see Kimber, in that coffin, opening her eyes, taking
deep easy breaths, feeling the softness of her cheeks, jumping up and down as
that perfectly rambunctious fourteen-year-old I would never forget. I could see
Wesley rolling over, padding down his dirty clothes, licking his chin to find
facial hair, blinking real fast to discover he was finally nineteen again. And
I could see Liesel, at the edge of the cliff, sobbing, in pain, but rubbing her
belly, knowing deep down, in her heart, that the right choice had been made.

I was close to hitting the rocks, but I
wasn’t afraid. I saw life for what it was now:
a miracle.

I got to live. I got to love.

I got to save the world.

 
EPILOGUE: LIESEL

“Hey! Slow down! Watch out for the
cliff!”

“K, Mom!”

The brown-haired boy almost struck the
fence before pulling out in front of his mom and pedaling faster and faster, so
far away that for a moment Liesel lost sight of him.

“Cameron Jr!”

She heard a soft giggle as she turned the
corner that looked out over the city, at the same cliff where her husband
perished five and a half years ago. Liesel stopped the bike and turned to her
left, where she saw her son laughing, his hands clamped over his mouth.

“Did I scare you?” he asked with a
knowing smile.

“You damn know well the answer to the
question.”

“Ooooooh, you used an X word!”

Liesel shook her head. “No, damn is fine.
Shit’s the one I’m trying to avoid.”

The boy’s jaw dropped open. “Another X word!”

She rode up beside the boy and smacked
him playfully on top of his head. “Come on, Cam. Get serious. I told you I was
taking you up here for a reason.”

His smile faded, and he nodded. “I know.
I’m sorry.”

He pulled out the kickstand on his bike
and took his mom’s hand.

“So this is where…”

“Yeah,” Liesel said. “Over here.”

Liesel walked with her son toward the
back of the dirt field, the same place over five years ago where Liesel killed
her sister and Cameron sacrificed himself so that the human race could live on.
Liesel’s little boy, who she named Cameron Jr. because she wanted to keep the
memory of her deceased husband alive, knew that his father had passed on, but
until today, he didn’t know how or why. Liesel wasn’t prepared to go into
specifics, but she was determined to finally, on his fifth birthday, share some
details about the man who stole her heart all those years ago.

Liesel kneeled down in front of the
gravestone. She’d visited this sight before, but she hadn’t brought her son
here. She set him down on her lap and pointed to the tombstone, which stated:
CAMERON JASON MARTIN: June 10, 1994-June 21, 2013.
BELOVED
HUSBAND, BROTHER, FATHER, AND FRIEND.
HE ALSO SAVED THE WORLD.

Liesel snickered at that last line, which
she thought sounded jokey at the time but knew it had to be added. It was a
true statement, after all. And she knew Cameron would’ve agreed with the
simplicity of the statement. She knew he would’ve found it just as humorous,
and just as appropriate, to be included.

“Is this where he’s buried, Mom?” the boy
asked.

“Yes. I thought about a cemetery. But I
didn’t think it was appropriate to put him to rest among hundreds of others.
Cam, your dad was a true original. He did something… that surprised even me.
All throughout high school he was so selfish, worried only about his own needs.
I thought this way about him for the longest time, before he finally noticed
me. But in the end… he turned out to be the man I always hoped and knew he
could be… a selfless, honorable hero… not just for us… but for the whole
world.”

“What did he do, Mom?”

Liesel smiled, trying not to get choked
up. “He made it so that you and I could have a life together. When you’re
older, I’ll tell you more, I’ll be more specific. But for now, just know, that
if your dad hadn’t done what he did five years ago… you wouldn’t be here. None
of us would.”

The boy smiled and started picking at the
bushes next to the gravestone. “Mom… I wish I could meet Dad. Even just… for a
minute.”

“I know, honey.” She wrapped her arms around
him and kissed him on the cheek. “It may be the next best thing to that… but
Cam… I have a surprise for you tonight.”

He looked up at his mom. “What?
The slumber party?
I thought that was tomorrow.”

“It is. That’s not what I’m talking
about. I’m putting on a small get-together for you tonight, too.”

“What?
Another
party?” He looked confused. “But all my friends are coming
tomorrow!”

“I know,” Liesel said. “Tonight, on your
real
birthday, it’s going to be just the
two of us, plus a few select guests. We’re gonna have cake, a few presents, and
a surprise… something that I think you’re going to enjoy very much.”

“What is it?”

“I can’t tell you. That’s why it’s called
a surprise.”

He sighed. “But
Mom
!”

“Come on. We have to start heading back.”

Liesel got back on her bike and turned
around to see her son take one last look at his father’s gravestone. He sighed,
loudly, before getting back on his bike.

“You OK?” she asked.

“Yeah, fine,” he said.

“OK. Let’s go.”

They rode their bikes back the way they came,
all the way to their car, which Liesel had parked at the edge of the Caughlin
Ranch neighborhood.

Liesel still lived in Reno, but she was
across town now, in an area called Damonte Ranch. Traffic was light as
usual—Hannah’s spell had wiped out ninety percent of the world’s
population back in 2013, and the rebuilding was still in its early stages. In
fact, when Hannah’s spell was finally broken at 12:33 P.M. on Tuesday, June 21,
the oldest living person in the world was only twenty-two years old. Therefore,
in the last five years, there was a lot of progress to be made, with a lot of
history having been wiped out from what the majority of the world believed to
be an environmentally rooted plague. Nobody in the younger generation
understood why it stopped, just in time for humanity to be saved, but everyone
still living was grateful that it had. There was a rough road ahead, but
everyone, especially the young adults, who were now the seniors of the world,
felt confident there would be a day in the future when life could finally go
back to normal.

“Is that Auntie’s car in the driveway?”
Cam Jr. asked.

“You bet!”

Liesel pulled her electric-fueled Hybrid
up the driveway, and stepped out to see the now nineteen-year-old Kimber Martin
holding a birthday cake in her hands, slowly walking up toward them.

“Hi Kimber,” Liesel said, slamming her
car door.

“Auntie!” the boy shouted, running up and
jumping into Kimber’s arms.

“Look at you!” Kimber said. “You’re
getting so big! How old are you today?”

The boy lifted five fingers.

“
Five
?”

“Mmm hmm.”

Kimber gave Liesel a brief hug. “Sorry
I’m late.”

“Oh, no, no,” Liesel said. “We just got
back from our bike ride.”

“Oh… you mean…”

Liesel nodded.

“Wow,” Kimber said. “So you finally took
him there.”

“Yeah, I figured today was the day.” She
smiled at her son,
then
brought her eyes back up to
Kimber. “How’s school going?”

Kimber shrugged. “Well, since the oldest
professor at the university is just four years older than I am, I can’t say
it’s ideal. But it’s fine, I guess. I’m glad I’m taking business with Professor
Whitmore, instead of world history with a guy three years younger than me.

“Professor Whitmore?” Liesel asked. “You
mean Aaron, right?”

“Yeah. Finally got his certificate to
teach. He’s amazing.”

“You dating anyone? I feel like I haven’t
seen you in awhile.”

“Nobody yet,” Kimber said. “This dumb kid
Casey keeps asking me out, but I don’t know… I’m kind of happy being single at
the moment.”

“Good,” Liesel said. “Me too. Here, let
me help you with the cake.”

“Oh no, I got it. Should we head inside?”

“Yeah.” Liesel turned to her son. “Hey
Cam, can you open the door for Auntie?”

“Sure thing, Mom!” her boy shouted at the
front door.

Kimber, Liesel, and Cam Jr. made their
way into the house, which was small but perfect for the mother and son. Liesel
had become head manager at a brand new restaurant in town called JJ’s, after
switching, finally, from Uncle Tony’s, where she had been promoted to manager
soon after all the stores and restaurants started opening again in the fall of
2013. The new job paid enough for her mortgage, for food, for her child’s
well-being, and then some—she had taken Cam Jr. on his first vacation
this year, to Washington D.C.

“You wanna set the cake down on the
kitchen table?” Liesel asked Kimber.

“OK.” Kimber plopped the cake in the
center of the glass table and put out four forks, napkins, and plates.

Cam Jr. clapped his hands together,
taking a moment to pet and kiss the now eleven-year-old Cinder, who looked
eager for a treat, and pointed at the cake. “Is that
chocolate
?”