Chapter 67
CHAPTER 67
AIDEN
Two months later
She’s lying in my arms, on the large couch we’ve used so often in the past weeks. On the projector screen, the opening credits start to roll set to the notes of an upbeat pop song. There’s aerial footage of a large villa, surrounded by towering palm trees. Then quick flashes between different faces—all of them tan and attractive. A group of young people. British, American, Canadian. There’s an Aussie, too.
And then, the gold text. The Gamble.
Charlotte takes a deep breath.
“You okay?” I ask.
She’s got a firm grip on the remote. “Yeah. I think. But I’m not sure how far in I’ll make it.”
“We can stop anytime,” I say.
It had been her idea, a week ago. She’d said it so suddenly, over lunch at the Malibu house, on a beautifully sunny Saturday. I think it’s time I rewatch my season.
It shocked me. But then, she’d explained why she thought it was necessary. Both for her book, but also to see… if it was as bad as she remembered. It’s grown in my head, she told me. I think it’s a dragon I need to slay.
So here we are. I know I’ll get upset by what I’ll see. I told her that, warned her about it. She said I didn’t have to watch.
It’ll be… Blake will be there. It will include ? —
I cut her off. I know very well what it’ll include, and I don’t feel jealousy when faced with that prick. It’s a decade in the past.
What I do feel?
Pure and sheer anger.
But I’m not about to let her go through this on her own.
“There I am,” she says softly.
On-screen, younger Charlotte stands at the edge of a pool. She’s in a short blue sundress, showing off her tanned arms, and her hair is bleached to a wheat-blonde. It suits her, but nothing is as pretty as her natural color.
She’s holding a colorful cocktail and watching a group of guys across the water. They’re by some kind of shuffleboard, and the show is about to kick off with one of the inane challenges inherent to The Gamble .
“Oh. I’m kinda cute, actually,” she says. There’s true surprise in her voice.
I kiss her forehead. “Of course you are.”
“I remember being so nervous about what to wear. My mom and I went to the mall before to get a ton of dresses.” She digs her teeth into her lip, and we watch another few minutes in silence.
“Oh, wow,” she says after a confession by a red-headed girl who said she really liked Charlotte. “I had forgotten about Emily. She was… out of all the girls, she was actually pretty nice.”
“What happened to her after the show?”
“I don’t know.” Charlotte’s voice is thoughtful. “I kinda lumped her together with the rest.”
We watch several episodes in one evening.
Charlotte jumps ahead sometimes. Other times she pauses and sits up, as if to take a more thorough look at the scene. When Blake calls her Sugar Puff the first time, I want to bury my fist into a pillow.
But beside me, Charlotte laughs.
“What?” I ask.
She shakes her head, her eyes on the screen. “I don’t feel anything.”
“Nothing?”
“Well, a bit of secondhand embarrassment, I will admit. But it’s because he’s so cringeworthy. Entertaining, sure. But he’s the cringey one. Not me.”
“Of course he is, sweetheart. He’s an asshole.”
She laughs again, and it’s a sound of such relief that it makes my fists relax against the cushion.
“I thought… I thought I wouldn’t make it through five minutes. I thought I would be a sobbing mess on this couch. But I’m not. I’m not, Aiden.”
“You’re strong,” I tell her. “And you’ve grown so much since you were that nineteen-year-old.”
“I have.” Her smile fades, and she tracks her younger self’s movements on the screen. Looking tired and red from the sun, the Charlotte of a decade ago nervously looks around at the other, older contestants. “You know what? That girl? If she was anyone but me, I would feel for her.” Her voice turns thoughtful. “Isn’t that… I should feel for her, too. Past me. I was young and in way over my head, and I navigated it all as best I could.”
“You definitely did.”
She shakes her head slowly. “Compassion, maybe. Is that the answer? I didn’t realize...”
“You’ve shown it to a ton of your memoir subjects,” I tell her. “Curiosity to learn why they did what they did, and the empathy to understand them, even when you haven’t necessarily agreed with their choices.”
“Yeah. That’s true.” She leans back against me and looks at the younger version of herself on screen. The girl she once was is laughing at something the guys are doing. “Maybe it’s time I do that for myself, too.”