Chapter 23
CHARLIE
Pick up, pick up, pick up—
“Oh thank god,” I breathe when Gemma answers, on what I’m guessing is the last ring.
“Charlie, babe, what’s wrong?”
So maybe I should have toned down the desperation in my voice just a tiny bit, but ohmigod, this is desperate.
“If I got, like not badly cut, but just a little, and needed Band-Aids and stuff, would you do it for me?”
“What are you talking about?”
Then quieter, in the background of the call, another voice, lower and softer than Gemma’s. “Is he okay?”
“Oh shoot, are you with Rosa right now?” Quickly, I check the time on my phone. Five twenty-three. “Crap, Gem, you’re on your way to dinner right now, aren’t you?”
“It’s fine,” she reassures me. “Rosa’s driving. And after you call me up with a crazy ass question like you just did, I think we both definitely want to know what’s going on. Are you hurt?”
“No, I mean yes, but that’s not the point.
And not really,” I add, because telling Gemma I’m hurt and not explaining will only get her focused on things that are so totally not the point right now, and I very much need her to stay on the point.
I’ve just spent the last few hours pretending like what happened back in the woods with Myles didn’t make me feel like Dorothy stepping out her door and into Oz for the first time.
There’d been a moment, after he’d just finished plastering my chest with half a box’s worth of Band-Aids, that I’d almost given in and asked him what was happening.
The next second though, doubt had crashed through me and uprooted all my courage.
Because what if I was totally just misreading things?
What if he really did just feel guilty that I’d gotten hurt?
I’ve promised him that I’m not trying to get anything more than friendship from him, and unless he’s the one pushing things farther than that, I’m not straying from that promise. Today teetered on the edge of more maybe, but until I’m sure it wasn’t just all in my head, I’m not taking any chances.
How I managed to keep myself together and act (mostly) normal the rest of the day, I really don’t have the slightest idea. By the time Myles dropped me off, a whole minute and a half ago, I’d felt like my head would explode if I didn’t get to talk things through with Gemma right now.
“You’re really okay?”
“Focus, Gem. I just got a kind of nasty scratch, but it’s fine, and I need to know. Would you do it, or leave me to do it myself?”
“You’re a big boy, Charlie. I’d let you take care of your own Band-Aids. But what—”
“If Rosa got hurt,” I push on, giddiness rising, making me have to fight down a manic, half desperate laugh that’s been trying to break free from me for the last who knows how many hours. “Would you do it for her? Even if she could totally do it herself?”
“This is getting awkward, babe.”
She doesn’t sound awkward, and in the background, I can hear Rosa laughing.
“You would, wouldn’t you?”
“I guess.” More giggling, from both of them this time. Rosa whispers something I don’t catch—not sure I really want to, for that matter, and they both giggle harder than ever.
“So when I slipped in the woods and cut myself, why would Myles insist on being the one to clean me up when I totally could have done it myself?”
There’s silence on the other end of the call, before, “Charlie, no. I don’t know what was going on in his head but, just no.”
All the lightness is gone from her voice, traded out for deadly serious, worried Gemma. More so even than when she’d thought I might be hurt.
“Look, babe, I don’t know what he was thinking, alright, but like I told you last weekend, if you start overthinking this, it’s just going to break your heart all over again, so don’t go there.
Yes, you’ve convinced me that he’s not a total douche canoe, but the man is straight.
If he wasn’t, wouldn’t the time to tell you have been when you had your heart-to-heart about how he’s pretty much always known you were gay and that it doesn’t change him being your friend?
“I know you’ve been in love with him forever,” she goes on, gently.
“But up ‘til now, you’ve done the only thing you could do and not let yourself start hoping he’s falling for you too.
Don’t change that now, okay? The two of you have always been weird, right?
All cuddly, sleeping in each other’s beds—”
“That was one time—”
“And this weekend—”
“He was sick and—”
“Exactly. There’s always a non-crushy reason for the things the two of you get up to, even though for anyone else, they’d be raising green flags all over the place for more than just friends.
You’ve just gone and gotten your heart un-broken with the way the two of you are rebuilding your friendship.
Don’t throw that away by breaking it for yourself, hoping for things that aren’t ever going to happen. ”
“You weren’t there, Gemma.” I shake my head, gripping hard to the phone, pacing back and forth across the room. My heart’s going about a thousand miles an hour, and not even all the logic of what Gemma’s just said is enough to erase what I know I saw in Myles’s eyes.
“It started last weekend, when he was sick, but I told myself that it wasn’t anything.
Today though, he was weird. So totally not his usual self.
At first, I thought he might be upset about what happened last weekend, and so I did what I do when I’m anxious, you know, just talk and talk and talk, but then I realized he wouldn’t stop just staring at me.
Like the way I always want to stare at him. Something’s different.”
There’s more. Today was full of more. I’d felt it, even if I can’t explain it to Gemma, and even if she doesn’t believe me.
I have to get some air.
I’ve made myself dig in and work all morning, grading science labs and math tests.
The only interruptions to my focus have been a long call with my parents, filling them in on everything that’s happened in my life over the two and a half weeks they were in Spain, hearing about how incredible their trip was, and a few texts with Gemma.
She feels bad about last night. I can read it between the lines in her messages, especially in the extra heart emojis she’s adding to literally every text. And maybe she’s also just plain feeling sorry for me. Because neither of us have changed our minds.
I’d fallen asleep last night totally convinced that eight hours of my unconscious going to work on my memories of the hike would pick them apart until I’d see reason and understand that I’d fallen victim to an out-of-control case of wishful thinking.
Far from the hope-hangover I’d been so sure I’d wake up to though, not a thing has changed when I think back to yesterday.
Long, lingering looks that end with Myles startling when he sees me looking back.
How I’d looked down to see his parted lips trembling with his shallow breaths as he’d leaned in close to dab at the cut on my chest.
The way the fingers of his hand on my back flexed and twitched, digging ever so slightly into my skin.
Splotches of pink under the scruff of his facial hair.
The tension that hovered in the air between us like the heat that shimmered over my skin with every touch of his hands.
Tight jeans had been a very good choice for yesterday. If I’d been wearing anything with anymore give, he’d have totally seen how hard I’d been from the moment his knees hit the ground in front of me.
But Gemma’s right. Myles is straight. What reason could he possibly have for not telling me if he wasn’t?
I let out a frustrated, miserable sigh as I drop my head to the table in front of me, giving it a series of soft bangs that do precisely nothing to make the contradictory thoughts buzzing around it make any more sense.
“What is going on, Cyril? What does it mean?”
I turn my head, resting my cheek on the cool, solid wood beneath it as I look over to where Cyril’s lying, curled up in his heated bed.
Probably because it was a chilly morning and I never took the time to make a fire, he’s spent the whole day so far there instead of winding around my ankles and butting my legs for attention.
Slowly, he opens his eyes at the sound of my voice, but just as quickly closes them again.
“Ugghhh,” I groan as he rolls his head to the side to get even comfier than before. “Even you aren’t any help today, do you know that?”
Annnd, even though, logically, I know there’s probably no way he understands what I was saying, now I can’t help feeling like a total jerk.
When I sit up, a pre-algebra test flutters down from where it had gotten stuck to the side of my face.
Definitely time to get out for a bit.
What I really want is to see Myles again, but yesterday he’d told me that he was going to be ripping up the old carpet on his stairs and painting today, and I know he hasn’t been spending as much time working on his dad’s house as he feels like he should.
Besides, the last thing I want is to come off as clingy, even if I’m not wrong about how different things felt yesterday.
Instead, I’ll head out for a walk.
Cyril lifts his head and greets me with a raspy meow as I stop off at his bed on my way to grab my coat.
“It’s not your fault, lovvie.” I kneel down beside him, scratching under his chin until he stretches out his neck and starts to purr. “You know I didn’t mean that, right? You know I’m sorry?”
He reaches out and curls his paw around my wrist, squeezing rhythmically as I continue to scratch. Accepting my apology.
“You’re the best help,” I tell him as he rubs his cheek against my hand, closing his eyes and letting out a contented chirp.
I want to scoop him up and give him a cuddle before I go, but he seemed extra sore yesterday. Tomorrow during lunch, I’ll have to call and make him a vet appointment to see if he needs his arthritis meds adjusted.
Instead, with one last scratch, a stroke down his back, and a whispered, “Love you, lovvie,” I hop back up and head out the door. I don’t exactly have high hopes that a walk will clear my head, but it’s better than sitting here and blaming innocent old cats for not distracting me from my obsessing.