Rebuilding Charlie (Black Dog Inn)

Chapter 1

Charlie

I sat on my tiny couch and tried not to shake apart.

My fingers flexed and curled into fists in a rhythm only my body understood. I had failed again.

I hadn’t thought David would be “The One” or anything like that, but he’d been…. I grunted and got up, walking to the back windows that had the unfortunate view of my childhood home.

I’d turned thirty last month, but I still lived above my parents’ garage. I’d moved here three years ago, when my first serious relationship ended with him keeping the apartment we’d rented together and I’d had nowhere else to go.

This was supposed to be a temporary solution. A pit stop.

My unfocused gaze snapped to the front door. My mother marched out of it, clearly on the warpath. I stepped to the side, not wanting to see her expression yet. I’d get an earful very soon. When I heard her wrench open the side door, I leaned my butt against the windowsill and crossed my arms over my chest. I hated how much her steps coming up the stairs made me flinch.

I hated my mother. I’d tried all my life to love her, but somewhere in elementary school, I’d realized that on some level, that didn’t matter because she’d never loved me.

“Charlie!” she screeched as she threw open my door.

“Mother,” I murmured.

“What did you do ?” She stopped in the middle of my studio apartment and looked around. Then her piercing gaze turned to me, and I could easily picture the flames in them. “Why would you let David go like that?” I didn’t have time to formulate an answer—I’d tried for the last half an hour in anticipation of this conversation—before she barreled on. “He was such a good man! Nice apartment, steady job, made good money. Handsome, too. What is wrong with you?”

It was the last sentence that made me recoil. I’d heard it so many times in my life, it now lived somewhere deep inside my psyche and jabbed at me whenever someone used it around me.

“He wasn’t patient enough,” I pushed the words out, imagining barbs that tore my throat and mouth as they rolled out.

She harrumphed and whirled around. I knew her expression even though her back was to me. She went to the floor length mirror by the door and ripped the sheet off it.

“Why can’t you just be normal? Why did you have to punish us this way?” The whiny sharpness I knew too well entered her voice. She whirled back to face me and shook the sheet at me. “Why do you have to be so useless ?” Ah, my other favorite word.

“Because I was born to make your life a living hell, Mother. Everyone knows that,” I deadpanned, feeling my hatred curl around my heart like a shield. “Ever since I was born all those weeks early, my only goal in life was to live and make you miserable.”

Something inside me cracked, and I pushed away from the windowsill, taking two steps toward her.

For the first time ever, I saw her hesitate. She realized I was snapping.

I took another step. An eerie calm fell over me, and I hated it with vigor I couldn’t feel right then.

“Don’t you t-talk to me like that!” she managed, then she tossed the balled-up sheet at my chest. “There was nothing wrong with David! It’s you who is—”

“Faulty. A freak. Wrong. Stupid. Disgusting. Useless. ” I advanced, and she backed up. “I know, Mother. Not only have you told that to me all my life, but he did, too. Don’t you think it’s time for me to eject people like that from my life?”

I saw the exact moment when she registered what I was saying. She turned tail and escaped as if I’d lit a fire under her.

I grabbed the edge of the door with one hand and dropped the sheet in front of the mirror with the other. Unable to face my image even for the few seconds it would take for me to put the sheet back up, I stepped out of my so-called home and sat on the top step.

The garage below was meticulously organized. Mom’s sedan was parked in the middle and Dad’s tools were neatly hung on a peg board on the right side. On the left and against the back wall under the stairs, there were shelves upon shelves of storage bins.

My eyes caught up on the tools. I knew there were sharp things there. I’d stood in front of that bench fifteen years ago, feeling the same thing I felt now.

I swallowed hard and pushed myself to my feet, then moved down the stairs as if in a trance.

There were tools for whittling. Carpet knives. Hell, other things I still couldn’t name.

I swayed a little as I gripped the edge of the bench top. If I was just brave enough, this could be done so fast.

With my hand shaking, I pulled out my phone from my pocket and found my brother’s number.

“Blue?” I breathed out as soon as the call connected. “I’m in the garage, I….” I sobbed.

“Charlie? Charlie, turn away from the tools. Right now. I’m on my way.” I heard him say something to someone, likely his soon-to-be-ex-wife he was still living with, because they were still best friends and co-parents, even if they’d fallen out of love. “Charlie? Go back upstairs, okay?”

I nodded, then whispered, “Okay.”

I forced myself to walk up the stairs, one step at a time. All the while, Blue talked to me, told me where he was exactly, spoke of familiar street names and landmarks, and by the time I made it to my couch, he said he was on our street.

I let go of the phone and let it drop next to me. I didn’t even have the energy to hug myself. But then who would want to hug me anyway? I sure didn’t.

Minutes later, heavy steps moved up the stairs and my brother burst through the door.

“I’m here; Charlie, I’m here.” He rounded the couch and squeezed himself into the space next to me, then pulled me to his chest like he had so, so many times.

Oh, right. My brother loved me unconditionally. Enough to hug me, even when I was at my lowest. Especially when I was at my lowest.

I woke up on my bed, feeling groggy. I could smell coffee and pizza and smiled despite feeling like crap.

“How long was I out?” I asked, trying to decipher the time from the way light was coming through the windows.

“Hour and a half, ish,” Law, or Blue, like I called him, answered.

He stood across the space in my little kitchenette and poured a mug of coffee, then another one.

I groaned and sat up on the edge of the bed. “Fuck.”

Blue snorted softly. “Move to the couch. The pizza box is on the coffee table.”

I did as I was told, only stopping to shake my body a little to wake up faster. It was a quirk of mine, and I saw my brother smile.

We didn’t talk for a while, just ate pizza and drank coffee. Eventually my time ran out.

“What happened?” he asked in his kind, patient tone.

My big brother. I loved him beyond reason. He’d been my champion since I was born 12 weeks early when he was five years old. I wasn’t supposed to make it, yet here I was, thirty years later.

“I told you we were going to dinner at his business partner’s place, right?” I didn’t need to clarify who “he” was, Law already knew David had fucked up. At his nod, I sighed and continued, “He failed to mention that the guy’s wife loves to decorate with mirrors.”

Blue’s jaw dropped, luckily just before he could take a bite of a slice. “He what?”

I chuckled with no humor. “Yup.”

The string of expletives was impressive. He even put his pizza down. He rubbed his hand over his face, then looked at me. “And then what happened?”

“I had an anxiety attack, had to leave mid-dinner”—I’d felt proud of sticking until that point, too, but there’d even been mirrors in the fucking dining room—“which led to David telling me I was an embarrassment and a freak and whatnot, and then he broke up with me.”

I could feel the rage radiating off my brother. He took in a few deep breaths, then picked up his slice again. He knew he wasn’t allowed to go hurt people who hurt me. The only thing he could do was to be there for me.

“And then Mom happened,” I finished the story. Didn’t have to explain that, either. She was his mother, too.

We ate silently until the pie was gone, then I curled up in a corner and he leaned his back to the other one. Our knees were touching, the couch too small for two grown men.

“I think you should call Nic,” Blue murmured.

“Huh?” My best friend Nicole and her wife Dana lived way across the country.

“You need to get out of Arizona, Charlie. You need a fresh start somewhere small and quiet, where mom can’t reach you.” At my blank look, he sighed and rolled his eyes. “Didn’t you tell me they bought that motel and offered you a job?”

“Oh, that.” I frowned. “I don’t think they were serious. More like talking about how much they hate accounting and all the paperwork.”

He groaned and hung his head, before giving me a look of pure brotherly exasperation. “Charlie. They love you. They want what’s best for you. You need to give them a call. Even if they weren’t serious about that job, I’m sure there’s something you can do there to help them out, right? Besides, you have savings for a bit, you don’t need a new job immediately.”

“But my accounts—”

“Fuck your accounts! Dad can handle them until he finds someone else! This is not where your heart is, Charlie! You hate it here. You hate Mom and for a good reason. She’s so toxic she’s polluted your whole life. You need to get out.”

“I don’t kn—”

He grabbed my hands and shook me gently. “I can’t fucking lose you.”

“Oh,” I breathed. “Oh.”

“It was enough to see that look on your face once, little brother,” he said quietly. “I can’t….”

“Yeah.” I squeezed his fingers tightly. “Okay.”

His phone dinged, and he grimaced at the message. “Caitlyn is on call, there’s an emergency.”

“Okay. Go. Kiss the kids for me.”

We were all used to Caitlyn’s job by now. As a cardiothoracic surgeon at the top of her game, she was needed at odd hours, sometimes for extended lengths of time.

“Call Nic. I’ll message you later to ask you if you did it.” He went to the door and looked at me. “So, you better. Or I’ll come back and whoop your ass, kid.”

I rolled my eyes, then nodded. “Fine. I’ll call her.”

“Good.” As he was about to close the door behind himself, he tossed a casual “I love you!” over his shoulder.

“Love you too!”

The fact that we said it a lot to each other didn’t mean it was any less important.

It took me two hours to gather my courage to call Nicole, which was tragicomical as hell.

“Yo, Glasses!” she answered the call.

I chuckled. “Hey there, Sweetie,” I countered. We’d had a landlady once who insisted on calling her Sweetie, and well my nickname came from the obvious.

“You calling to take the job?” she asked, and I heard the creak of a chair, maybe?

“Uh.” So, she had been serious? “Kinda. I mean….” I exhaled long and loud. “My brother has told me I need a change of scenery.”

“Let me guess, that idiot David dumped you over something that wasn’t your fault, and Law, being the best big brother anyone could ask for, told you that this was it?”

I lifted the phone off my ear and stared at it for two seconds. Then I put it back and snorted. “Is my life that predictable? Do you have hidden cameras?”

“Charlie, baby, you don’t belong in the desert. You hated going back there. You need to come here where there are actual seasons. And a shitload of work neither I nor Dana have time to do. Or have true skills for.”

“So, you just need an accountant?” I snarked, even as I felt moved as fuck.

“No, you asshole. You need to get away from the hag that gave birth to you. Sure, the kiddos will miss you, but we certainly have the room to have them visit.”

Right. That was the other thing; Law and Caitlyn’s kids were important to me and vice versa. I hated the idea of not seeing them as often as I did now.

“There’s video calls and voice messages, Uncle Charlie,” Nic said gently. “Maybe visits somewhere in between here and Phoenix?”

“It’s a big fucking country, Nic.”

“It is, but….” She sighed in a way that told me she was gearing up to say something important. “I’m legitimately scared that your mental health takes a nosedive and….” She knew about my almost-attempt and how dark things got on occasion.

There was a noise in the background, and I heard her wife’s voice. “Who’s that?”

“It’s Charlie.”

“Is he coming to save us?” Dana asked. Then I heard rustling, and she repeated the question, “Hey. You coming to save us from ourselves? I need my wife, and right now she’s being buried by a pile of paperwork and receipts.”

I chuckled. “Yeah,” I said. “I guess I’ll be there as soon as I have my car serviced so it lasts the journey there and get it packed.”

“Sweet. I better make sure I have ingredients for ziti ready.” She gave the phone back to Nic.

“Let me know the details. I’d offer to fly there to drive back with you, but—”

“No, no. You have your hands full as is,” I objected quickly. “I don’t know when, but… soon, okay?”

“Okay. Hang in there.” Then, “Love you, Glasses.”

“Love you too, Sweetie.”

Four days later, I packed my SUV full of things I wanted to keep, pointedly ignored my mother’s face in the living room window, and shook my dad’s hand.

“Drive safely, son,” he said with surprising warmth in his tone. I hadn’t been sure he was any more capable of it than my mother.

“I’ll do my best.” Then, I glanced over his shoulder. “Take care of Mom.”

“I will.”

I turned and got into the car, turning the key. As the engine rumbled to life, I found myself smiling. I wasn’t sure how this all would go, but I realized I wasn’t scared. I was… relieved.

My phone pinged with a text. It was from Blue’s oldest, Harper.

Drive safely, Uncle Charlie. We love you so, so much.

I’ll drive so very carefully, kiddo. Be good. Talk to you soon.

Then I rolled up the sleeves of my thin flannel shirt and ignored my forearms as much as I could. I had to start somewhere. I felt like accepting and loving myself was going to be a road longer than my journey to northern New York State, but I was ready. Maybe.