Chapter 05 CHARLIE
“Come on. Let’s get you inside where it’s warm,“
I said as Shana walked toward her car.
Confusion was written across her face as I laughed, gently pulling her in the other direction. “What are you doing?”
I jerked my head toward the house. “I live here.”
She stopped dead in her tracks. “You’re fucking with me.”
I chuckled. “Nope. I bought it about a year ago. I’ve been slowly fixing it up. It’s a work in progress. Come on, let me finally give you the tour.”
Her smile could have been captured from space. “I never thought I’d ever get to see the inside, except through the windows.”
I opened the front door. Beau skidded across the floor and almost wiped out trying to greet us. Laughing, I picked him up, and he happily licked my face until I spluttered and put him down, where he circled Shana's legs excitedly.
“This is Beau. He’s never met a stranger,“
I said, exasperated.
She bent down, giving him love, and he soaked it all up. I playfully muttered something under my breath about how he always stole all the attention. “Feel free to explore. I’m happy to give you a full tour once I get us both warmed up.”
Once I was out of her view around the staircase, back toward the kitchen, I quietly freaked, hugging myself. I wanted to squeal and dance around, but I also was only cautiously optimistic. Our past wasn’t full of roses.
Flipping on the electric kettle, I grabbed the tea I’d happened to purchase out of nostalgia from a specialty grocery store in St. Louis. It was Shana’s favorite back in the day, and I hoped she still loved it.
Shana and I had known each other since seventh grade. We were joined at the hip, and would often stay at each other’s houses for days or weeks at a time. We grew up like siblings. We were in ninth grade when she’d told me she was trans. We were in a committed relationship by eleventh grade, when I came out as a lesbian, and I was ready to propose to her by our sophomore year of college.
But Shana had been deeply unhappy. She’d always had a wanderer’s heart, and college was her parents’ dream for her, not her own. She’d been drawn to the arts in ways that I didn’t know were possible at that time. Photography, painting, singing—you named it, she did it, or knew someone who did, or could talk for hours about the craft and the pros she looked up to. And she was always so effortlessly perfect at all of them.
She’d been well-loved in our circle of friends, though her friend group was much larger than my own. Shana eventually got mixed up with the wrong crowd, and got wrapped up with people who stole her sunshine. When the opportunity arose for her to work on scholarship under a famous photographer, I couldn’t let her light dim any further. I was crushed inside, but I enthusiastically supported her decision publicly. She’d needed to leave our small town and head off on a new adventure.
The day she was supposed to leave for her first trip, I was brutally attacked. I was in a coma for months, and not even my own family knew what had happened. They thought I’d left with Shana, and I later learned that Shana thought I’d left her in the time she needed me most. By the time I was safe to be around again, years had past, and Shana had become the darling of the photography world. I couldn’t bring myself to try reconnecting at that point. She deserved sunshine.
I made my way back toward the living room, where I could hear Beau’s nails clicking on the floor. He pranced in front of me, and I quietly admonished him to go lay down.
Shana was standing at the window in the living room, idly rubbing her crossed arms as snow fell heavily outside. Her face reflected off the glass from the lamp on the side table. She was still wearing the dress from the shoot, and her light brown hair, braided down her back, had baby’s breath interwoven through the strands.
I stood there for a few moments, memorizing her as if it’d be the last time I’d see her here. Eventually, I took one step, then another until I reached her. She was here, tangible, and I had to get out of my head. I handed Shana her mug, resting my chin against her shoulder, watching the snow with her, remembering her scent. “Thank you for staying,“
I whispered against her neck, my lips barely touching her skin.
She shivered before she turned around. I took a small step back as her shoulders tensed up a little. “Charlie, you didn’t have to,“
she started.
“I wanted to, and I had it here already,“
I replied.
“I haven’t had karak in some time. I can’t believe you remembered the tea I liked.“
As she raised the cup, her eyes closed and a smirk played along her lips.
It happened in slow motion. Her throat contracted as she took a sip before something crashed upstairs, and Beau took off in search of whatever it was. Shana jumped, and the glass in her hand fell to the floor. It bounced off the area rug, thankfully not shattering, but I scrambled to pick it up as Shana yelled, “What the fuck was that?”
I couldn’t hold back the laugh. I was still in the armor from the shoot, and Shana was still in her medieval dress, the amethyst color bringing out the hazel in her eyes. We looked like we belonged in a different time, and the house was the perfect backdrop. I stood back up and went to the kitchen to grab a towel, still chuckling.
When I got back to the living room, Shana was gone.