Chapter 15 #3
“Right back at you.” I turn to face her. “You said you didn’t want this night to end. Well, I don’t want this to end.” I motion between us. “Whatever this is, I want to keep it going.”
She hooks her finger around the collar of the robe and tugs. “Then climb aboard, sailor. This ship is heading out to sea.”
I roll on top of her. “I have no idea how that metaphor works in this scenario, but I get the drift.”
She brushes her lips against my jawline, sending a hard shiver through me. “The drift. Even when you’re being serious, you manage to be funny.”
I don’t want her to know the effect those lips are having on me. I dip my mouth to hers. She tastes like mint, not that I’m surprised. Between us, we swished enough mouthwash to destroy bacteria that hadn’t even formed yet.
She pulls back, and I see splotches of green on her pale face. I point at her cheek. “You’ve got a little cucumber.”
“I know you don’t.” She smiles. “And now you have pink on your cheeks, too.”
I touch the mask that’s hardened on my skin. “I should probably wash this off first.”
“Do it after,” she says, shifting her hips beneath me. “I think we’ve both waited long enough.”
I wake up before dawn to feel the weight of Cricket’s arm and leg pressed against me like it’s the most natural thing in the world. My whole body stiffens, and I do mean all of it.
She tilts back her head to look at me. “Did my alarm wake you?”
“No. I didn’t realize you were up.”
“Sunrise yoga, remember?” She smiles. “Last night was pretty great, huh?”
“It was.”
Straightening, she twists her torso to regard me. “What is it?”
“What do you mean? I agreed with you.”
“Last night you were Mr. Fun. Now you sound like you’re at a funeral. What happened?”
What happened is that I had hours in dark solitude to think. I can picture this lifestyle for myself—tranquil, serene, with my favorite person by my side. It’s perfection, the kind of life people dream about.
And it’s dangerous.
It isn’t me. I’m not like Cricket. I wear suits and attend boring cocktail parties. I spend the majority of my days behind a desk at a computer. I’m in a committed relationship with my job. It wouldn’t be fair to Cricket, knowing I can never be the man she wants me to be.
“You seem to think I’m not the competitive hard-ass I say I am…”
“That’s right. You’re not an extrovert either.” She pats my leg. “I know you think you’re Mr. Mayor, out there shaking hands and memorizing everybody’s name, but that’s all part of the act.”
“Act?” I echo.
“You’re not an extrovert, Charlie. You’re an introvert forced to walk in the expensive shoes of an extrovert.”
I relax slightly. “How does that work?”
“Your social battery runs out by the end of every day. All you want is to be left alone. That’s why you like to work late. It isn’t because you’re a night owl. It’s the time of day when you don’t have to interact with other people.”
It takes me a minute to digest what she’s said. “I’m an introvert,” I finally repeat.
“It’s not an insult. We’re all introverts here, for the most part. That’s one reason this camp works so well. We understand it isn’t personal when somebody wants to go hide in their room for a couple hours to recharge.”
Growing up, I wasn’t allowed to have ‘down time.’ If my parents were entertaining, the kids were expected to be charming and engaging until the last guest left for the evening.
I took those habits straight to college with me, through law school, and into adulthood, not once questioning whether the behavior aligned with my actual needs.
Maybe Cricket is right. Maybe I don’t know myself as well as I think.
She swings her leg over mine and switches to her stomach so that she’s facing me. “It’s okay to experience joy, Charlie. It isn’t a crime.”
“It isn’t that.” I can’t explain this to her without revealing more about myself than I’m comfortable with. “If I acknowledge that I’m enjoying myself, that I feel happy, then that increases the odds that something bad will happen to take it all away.”
“You’re superstitious?”
“Not quite. It’s more that if I let myself feel joy, the more it will hurt when it ends. If I don’t let myself experience the high…”
“No high means no low. Got it.”
“When I was a kid, the second my parents saw that I enjoyed something, it became a skill to master.”
“Like baseball?”
I nod. “And if I wasn’t deemed good enough, then it was taken away. Doing something simply for the fun of it—that isn’t the Thorpe way.”
She quirks an eyebrow. “I’m sorry. I’m stuck on the fact that Charlie Thorpe was bad at something. Is that true?”
“Not really,” I admit. “I wasn’t bad at anything, but that’s not the same as being the best. The bar was so high, I’d get neck cramps from always looking up.”
She doesn’t laugh. Instead, she says, “I’m sorry. That must’ve been hard for you.”
“I liked boats when I was younger. Canoes. Kayaks. Anything on the water.”
“You were a different person in the water last night,” she agrees, “in the best possible way.”
“My parents saw that spark of joy and immediately turned it into a measurable achievement.”
“They bought you a yacht?”
I snort-laugh. “Close. They made me join crew. Up at the crack of dawn and out on the water to practice rowing. I avoided boats for years after that.”
She threads her fingers through mine. “Couldn’t you have said no?”
I try to imagine a scenario where I told my parents no. “My father is a very persuasive man.” If bullying can be considered persuasive. And my mother leans toward manipulation to get her desired outcome.
“How did you get out of rowing?”
“Same way I got out of baseball.”
“Didn’t they hold college tuition over your head?”
“Oh sure. That was definitely a topic of conversation, but I knew they wouldn’t let me drop out of college. It would tarnish the family image. Anything to avoid a scandal.”
“Was law school your idea or theirs?”
“I thought it was mine for a long time.” I pause to reflect. “Lately I’m beginning to see that none of it was about me. Or at least about what I wanted.”
“They wanted you to succeed on their terms and you wanted their validation.”
“More that I didn’t want to lose it.” I can’t believe I’m sharing all this with her.
I don’t talk about my family—the real version of it.
Everyone thinks the Thorpe family is picture perfect because they’ve worked hard to cultivate that image.
Social media only adds to the pressure to keep up appearances.
Each post is carefully curated before it’s allowed to see the light of day.
I’m fairly certain my brother still sends his posts to my mother for approval before he dares to share them.
A world-class surgeon terrified of disappointing his parents by having a hair out of place.
“I hope you don’t mind me saying this again, but I don’t get the sense you’re happy in your other life, Charlie.” She rests her head on my shoulder and smiles up at me. “But this one seems to suit you. I wish you’d embrace it.”
“I want to.” I really, really do. But it’s hard to overcome thirty-five years of conditioning in a week or two.
“You may be an introvert, but you have a knack for bringing people together and creating a community, a sense of camaraderie. I admire that about you.”
Her cheeks grow flushed. “I’m sure you do the same in the legal community. In case you haven’t noticed, you’re very likable.”
“But mine has a purpose. You… You’re just being yourself.”
“And what’s your purpose in getting everyone at camp to like you?”
Her question brings me crashing back to reality. No matter how I feel about her, she’s right—a relationship between us wouldn’t work. I’d let myself feel that spark of joy until she digs a little deeper and realizes I’m not good enough for her and cuts me loose.
“That’s the thing about this camp,” I say. “There is no try, only do.”
Laughing, she throws her head back and clips me on the chin with the hard part of her skull. Realizing what she’s done, she jerks forward. “Omigod, Charlie! Are you okay?”
I touch my lip and glimpse a splotch of red on my finger. “Twice in twelve hours. I’m starting to take it personally.”
“I forgot how close I am to you. I am so sorry,” she says with another snicker.
So am I , I want to tell her, but I love that laugh too much to diminish it.