Chapter 1 Charlotte #2
"I know." My voice had been so steady. So calm. Like I was delivering a diagnosis to a patient instead of watching my marriage flatline. "I know you can't."
What I meant was: I know you won't. I know I was never worth the fight.
Almost a year has passed since that day. The sight of a newborn should bring joy; instead, all I see is this. I sat in the car for a full three minutes staring at nothing, then finally dragged myself inside.
The silence of my apartment was a physical thing. It rushed in the moment I closed the door, pressing against my eardrums like water pressure.
I took off my sneakers, leaving them in their usual haphazard pile by the entryway, and padded into the kitchen.
The apartment was fine. Small, clean, safe.
A one-bedroom with beige walls and decent afternoon light.
I'd rented it eleven months ago, right after the divorce papers were signed, because it was close to my mother's place and because I couldn't stand looking at the house Drew and I had shared for another second.
"Practical," my mother had said, nodding her approval when she'd helped me move in. "Sensible."
That was me. Practical Charlotte. Sensible Charlotte. Charlotte, who always made the responsible choice and ended up alone anyway.
I poured a glass of water from the tap, leaning against the counter as I drank. The evening sun slanted through the blinds, painting tiger-stripes on the laminate floor.
My phone buzzed. I glanced at it without much interest, expecting a work notification or maybe a spam text about my car's extended warranty.
Beth
You're coming Saturday. Not a question.
I stared at the message, my stomach having its usual fit from anxiety.
Charlotte
Hello to you too.
Beth
Greetings are for people who aren't avoiding my calls. You're coming.
Charlotte
I haven't decided yet.
Beth
Liar. You decided a week ago, you're just too scared to admit it.
I hated that she knew me so well. It was deeply inconvenient.
Charlotte
Maybe I have plans Saturday.
Beth
Your plans are a glass of wine and a true crime documentary. They can be rescheduled.
Charlotte
What if the documentary is really good?
Beth
Charlotte Marie Huston.
She'd pulled out the middle name. That meant she was serious.
Beth
I'm not letting you rot away in your apartment while everyone else misses the chance to see how hot you look at 35. That would be a crime against your cheekbones.
I laughed despite myself, the sound echoing in the quiet kitchen.
Charlotte
My cheeks aren't that impressive.
Beth
They could cut glass, and you know it. Stop deflecting. Saturday. You, me, a badly decorated gymnasium, and all the wine the PTA moms can provide.
I set down the phone, my eyes drifting to the rectangle of cardstock propped against the fruit bowl. The edges had curled inward over the past week, a silent testimony to how long I'd been avoiding it.
RIVERSIDE HIGH SCHOOL
15 YEAR REUNION!
Come catch up with old friends and memories! Saturday, October 14th. Riverside High Gymnasium. 7 PM.
My phone buzzed again.
Beth
Also, I heard a rumor, and I need you there to help me investigate.
Charlotte
What rumor?
Beth
Not telling you unless you commit to coming.
Charlotte
That's blackmail.
Beth
That's friendship. Same thing. So?
I picked up the invitation, turning it over in my hands. The paper felt flimsy, impersonal. A mass-printed summons to nostalgia that had probably been sent to every name on a database.
But to me, it felt like a dare.
A cold dread pooled in my stomach at the thought of walking into that gymnasium. Of being surrounded by people who remembered seventeen-year-old Charlotte, the girl with the nursing scholarship and the golden future and the boyfriend everyone envied.
That girl was gone. She'd been dismantled piece by piece over fifteen years, and what remained was a thirty-five-year-old divorcee who lived in a beige apartment, forgot to eat lunch, and had exactly one friend persistent enough to text-harass her into social obligations, all hail Beth.
I could already hear the questions, delivered with polite interest that barely masked the curiosity beneath. So, Charlotte, what have you been up to? Married? Kids?
And I'd have to say it. The words I practiced until they sounded almost casual: "Actually, I'm divorced. No kids."
I'd watch the flicker in their eyes. The swift recalculation. The pity disguised as sympathy.
Oh, you poor thing.
Or worse, the unspoken question hovering beneath their concern: What did you do wrong?
My phone buzzed.
Beth
Char. I can feel you spiraling from here. Stop it.
Charlotte
I'm not.
Beth
You absolutely are. You have that energy. I'm getting spiral vibes through the phone.
Charlotte
That's not a thing.
Beth
It's definitely a thing. I invented it. It's called Beth-dar, and it's never wrong.
I laughed again, and this time it felt almost real.
Charlotte
Fine. I'll come.
Beth
YES. I knew the cheekbone argument would work.
Charlotte
It wasn't that, your blackmail sealed the deal.
Beth
Whatever works. Pick you up at 6:30. Wear something that makes you feel hot. And Char?
Charlotte
What?
Beth
It's going to be okay. It's just one night. You survived seven years of marriage to Drew. You can survive three hours of warm Chardonnay and nostalgic small talk.
She wasn't wrong. I'd survived worse than a high school reunion.
I'd survived fertility treatments, a failing marriage, and finding out my husband had gotten another woman pregnant while I was still crying over negative test results.
A room full of people I hadn't seen in fifteen years should be nothing.
‘Should’ being the operative word.
Because beneath the dread, beneath the anxiety about questions and pity and having to perform okayness for an audience, there was something else. A small feeling, question, or even wonder that I couldn’t fully get out of my head.
Will Miles be there?
His name, remembering it still sent a jolt of emotion through me, a cocktail of old warmth and fresher pain that I couldn’t overcome.
Miles Cameron. My first love. The boy I'd been so certain I'd spend my life with, before ambition and family pressure and the vast, terrifying world beyond Riverside had pulled him away.
I hadn't seen him in fifteen years. Hadn't spoken to him since that final phone call, I still remembered it; his voice had been careful and distant and so unlike him that I'd known it was over before he even said the words.
"It's not fair to either of us to keep doing this, Charlotte. We want different futures."
I'd let him go. Told myself it was the mature thing to do. The loving thing. Now, with the clarity of time and a failed marriage behind me, I wondered if it had just been the path of least resistance for both of us.
He was probably married now. Probably had some elegant, sophisticated wife and a perfect life in some perfect city. Seeing that… seeing him happy and settled while I was... this, would be a special kind of masochism.
But what if he wasn't?
What if the years had changed him the way they'd changed me? What if he walked into that gymnasium and our eyes met across the room, and for just one second, I saw a flicker of the boy who'd known me better than anyone ever had?
I picked up my phone.
Charlotte
So you won’t tell me the rumor?
Beth
Come Saturday and find out.
Charlotte
You're the worst.
Beth
I'm the best, and you love me. See you at 6:30. Wear the green dress. It makes your eyes look special.
Charlotte
In what way?
Beth
Makes them look like you have secrets. Very mysterious. Very hot.
I shook my head, but I was smiling. Beth had been my anchor since freshman year, the person who'd held me together when Miles left, when my marriage crumbled, when I moved back to Riverside with my life in boxes and my confidence in shreds.
If she thought I could survive this reunion, maybe I could.
Maybe.
I carried the invitation to my bedroom, setting it on the nightstand next to the clock. I wasn’t even sure why I took it with me, but it felt like I’d go if it was the first thing I saw in the morning.
I got ready for bed with the same automatic efficiency I used at work. Wash face, brush teeth, pull on an old, soft t-shirt that had survived three apartments and one divorce. I slid under the cool sheets and turned off the lamp.
The room went dark, but the green numerals of the clock cast a faint glow: 10:47 PM.
My life was stable. It was small. It was safe.
I had a job I was good at, a mother who loved me, and a best friend who wouldn't let me disappear.
I was competent, capable, and utterly alone in a way that had nothing to do with an empty apartment and everything to do with the hollow space inside me I didn't know how to fill.
Something was missing. I couldn't name it. But its absence hummed constantly, like the quiet hiss of tinnitus, that only appeared when everything else was gone.
I stared at the ceiling, sleep escaping me by just a few more seconds.
Will Miles be there?
The question echoed, unanswered.
And then, as if the universe had heard me wondering, my phone lit up on the nightstand. A notification from the reunion's event page, the one Beth had forced me to join weeks ago.
I almost ignored it. Almost rolled over and let it wait until morning.
But something made me reach for it. Some instinct, some pull I couldn't explain.
The notification was simple. Just three words beneath the event header, a status update for all attendees:
Miles Cameron is attending.
I stared at the screen until the letters blurred.
Then I set the phone down, pressed my hand against my chest to lessen the ache blooming fresh within my heart, and wondered what the hell I'd just agreed to walk into.
It's just one night, I told myself.
But even as I thought it, I knew I was lying.