Chapter 37
— Chapter 37 —
I didn’t see Charlie for a few months after he kissed me. He’d sold out the development he was building around his new house and started breaking ground on another neighborhood over by the high school. He was keeping long hours, so Step would pick me up at the pool house on his way home from the office.
“It’s not really on the way,” Step would say, sighing. “It’s across town and back.” But he did it because he wanted to keep his new business buddy happy.
One night, Step was late picking me up from Steena and Charlie’s house.
The phone rang just as Charlie walked in the door. He grabbed it in the kitchen, and I could hear him laughing.
“Yeah, no worries,” Charlie said. “I understand. I’m sure I’ll make the same mistake myself someday.” After he hung up, he walked into the playroom and said, “Your dad forgot and went straight home. No problem. I’ll drive you.”
I was scared to be alone with Charlie again, but also fascinated. I hadn’t stopped thinking about that kiss. It was my first kiss that didn’t feel familial. Right after it happened, everything I thought about it made me feel gross and ashamed. But sometimes when I was lying in bed at night, I thought about Charlie kissing me. I’d reimagine the moment, making up scenarios that could make it okay. Like what if Steena had left Charlie for another man, and even though we knew it was strange, we had fallen completely in love? I imagined standing in that bathroom, looking out the window at the stars, and maybe it was the Fourth of July, and maybe we could see fireworks, and he’d tell me I was more beautiful than the sky, and dip me backward and kiss me like we were in a movie. I’d imagine it over and over again and feel the pressure of his lips against mine in every inch of my body.
My daydream was so vivid and clear that it felt like Charlie had to know about it too, like I’d been broadcasting my thoughts. When we walked out to his car together, I was flushed and nervous, heart beating in my throat.
The smell of whiskey on Charlie’s breath filled the car. He was talking fast, telling me things about the new development: a soil assessment, an old oak tree they weren’t allowed to take down. “But as my dad always tells me, accidents happen,” he said, with a laugh that was too intense. “Oops. Sorry, tree!”
I kept my fingers touching the door handle so I could open it the second he stopped the car in my driveway. But as I was trying to leave, he grabbed my arm. I turned back to look at him. In the dome light, his pupils were tiny dots framed by gold and green. He kissed more roughly this time. I felt like his breath was mine too, trapped in my nose, sour like an apple core left in a lunch box. When I tried to pull away, his grip on my arm tightened. I felt a scream forming in my chest, expanding into my throat, but I was unable to make a sound.
He finally let me go when I started to cry, my ragged breath breaking our lips apart.
“Woah,” he said. “Where did that come from?” As if we’d both been equally invested. And I was sure we hadn’t been, but then unsure, because I’d wanted to scream, but I didn’t. Because I could have gotten out of the car a little faster if I’d tried. Because I had spent so many nights imagining a better version of our first kiss. And I missed the Charlie who made me feel like I belonged.
“I don’t know,” I mumbled and pushed the car door open. When I ran up the stairs to the landing, I could see my mother standing at the living room window.
She’d witnessed what Charlie did, and for a moment, I felt relieved. Maybe she wouldn’t have believed me if I’d told her, but she had to believe what she’d seen. When she opened the door to let me in the house, she was red-faced, disgusted. I expected her to run after Charlie’s car to give him a piece of her mind.
Instead, she said in a sharp whisper, “We raised you better than that,” spit particles following her words. Her breath smelled like Charlie’s.
“No,” I pleaded. I wanted to tell her it wasn’t my fault, but I was scared there was something I did or didn’t do to make Charlie kiss me, and maybe my mother had seen that part too.
She hissed, “Don’t make a mess of our lives, Freya!” She kept looking over her shoulder. I could tell she didn’t want Step to know.
When I climbed into bed, Cassiopeia was shining bright through my window, and I wished on all her stars that I had the kind of mom who would chase down Charlie and tell him not to lay a hand on me ever again. Or at least the kind of dad who would remember to pick me up after work.
Steena and Charlie moved into their new house a few weeks later. That house was on the way home from Step’s work, but my mother started picking me up. Every time I went over there, she’d be waiting for me in the driveway at seven-thirty on the dot. But I had the distinct feeling that she was trying to protect Charlie from me, not the other way around.
That summer, I started working at The Aster, and picked up as many hours as Enzo would give me. Jam drove me to work before his piano lessons, and Carlos drove me home at the end of the night. Once school started, I worked double shifts on both days of every weekend.
As soon as I turned sixteen, Shorty sold me an ’82 Ford Fiesta he’d bought for parts. He gave it to me at cost and helped me fix it too. Once I had my learner’s permit, Carlos got me straight on parallel parking so I could pass my driver’s test. And then Enzo had Mary write me an employment letter that allowed me to drive after nine with my new junior license.
After that, I didn’t have to rely on anyone to see Aubrey. I didn’t have to get in the car with Charlie ever again. I felt certain I’d solved the problem. When I did see Charlie, it was always around Steena and Aubrey. Sometimes, when he could flash me a look that Steena wouldn’t see, he’d raise his eyebrows and hold up his hands as if to say, Oops! But otherwise, it felt like everything had gone back to normal. So it was almost easy to pretend nothing had ever gone wrong. And eventually, I started to believe that was true.