Chapter 30
30
S imon lay in his own bed with Carlisle curled under his arm, her head on his shoulder. He hadn't put his shirt on yet and the feeling was just borderline of squirrely.
He wanted to, but getting up to do it would be more noticeable than not. After a moment of indecision, he decided he would just pay attention. He’d do it when he could but he didn’t want to draw attention by making a big deal out of it.
Carlisle had seemed a little off tonight and he'd done everything he could to take her mind off it—whatever it was. She hadn’t quite said.
His attentions had worked for a while—one of the condoms in the couch was gone. That memory would stick with him for a while. Now, after round two, lying together in his bed, they both should have been totally relaxed, but it wasn’t working. He could feel the change as her brain came on again, and whatever she had been holding at bay slowly began to seep back in.
“What is it?” He whispered it into the space around her, hoping she was still awake enough to hear. The tension in her skin, under his touch told him she was. But he didn’t know if such a broad question would yield anything .
She only shook her head, and he didn't know why.
Even though normally he would have said it wasn't his place to push her, he pushed a little. Bringing his free hand up, he traced the edge of her jaw as if touching her would make it easier for her or for him. He wasn't quite sure which. But the feel of her skin under his fingertips was like being home.
He pushed, softly, again. “It feels like something. You seem a little tense.”
Simon felt more than heard her prep to say something to him. He couldn't put his finger on it. He liked the idea that he knew her that well. When she said the words, it didn't surprise him all that much.
“I met my brother for lunch today.”
“That's great. He called you?” Simon knew she had been waiting to hear from Charlie and growing tense that she hadn’t. Shouldn’t this be good news?
Each day that Charlie had seen the other family members but hadn't called her, Carlisle had wound up just a little more. Simon didn't know what that was like: Having a twin. Hell, he might even have a twin somewhere, but he'd never known about it. Whatever aching feelings he might have that a part of him was missing didn't seem to be about a lost twin.
He didn’t know what it was like either, to have his family not contact him. He and his mother had been thick as thieves since he’d met her. She’d been his whole world. When Darcy had come along, they’d both doted on the new baby. He didn’t like to think about him . And, in the end, it had been him, his mom, and Darcy and everything else in the world existed beyond that little bubble. He had never experienced the wait of wanting one of them to reach out.
“How did it go?” Simon continued stroking the side of her face. It was the smallest movement, and maybe he’d just imagined that she leaned into his touch. But he wanted to touch her .
“On the surface, it was fine. We went to lunch. We talked about another award that he's apparently getting for one of these photos.” She paused, sucked in a breath. “He said he was angry that they had sent him home.”
Simon pushed again. “There was a ‘but’?” He could hear it somewhere under the rapid-fire recollection of the beats of her conversation with her brother.
“He's not right. He acts like everything's okay, but his smile doesn't quite reach his eyes. His laugh isn't quite . . . normal. He’s always looking around like he's waiting for something to pop up. Then, if something pops up, he flinches. The server came up behind him once and even she could see that something was wrong. He insists that he's fine. We thought it might be PTSD.”
She paused for a moment, taking a breath and a break from letting it all gush out. “I want to think that's right, but I'm no therapist. And he won't see a therapist!”
Carlisle moved as if she wanted to throw her hands up, but couldn't from where he held her curled against his side. Having let it all out, maybe having run out of what she knew to do, she tried to change the subject on him.
“Your mother called again tonight.”
He'd moved out of the room to take the call. There was a part of him that felt the calls should be private, they were between him and his mother. They had nothing to do with Carlisle. Even so, there was another part of him that thought about letting her listen in as if he were testing her. If this was going to be the thing that would break them, he’d rather know now.
Or maybe not at all.
Simon was a bit surprised to find he liked being here—in a relationship with her . In the past, his girlfriends had been demanding, needy for his time and attention. Things he didn’t have all that much to spare. Maybe it was because of the move; he was away from his mom and sister for the first time except that one fast year in college. Maybe it was just Carlisle.
She needed other things—sometimes she didn’t give herself enough credit, she was still working her way through her accident, and it left her with night terrors. But those things he could deal with.
He wondered if he could make it last a while longer before it all fell apart. He simply told her yes. Carlisle had been there for the call. It wasn’t a question.
“Did she need more money?”
Simon felt the muscles in his lower back tense up. Damnit. As if she were judging him for that, or worse, if she were judging his mother . . .
It wasn't what he wanted, but he honestly wasn't surprised when the words snapped from between his teeth. “It's not your business.”
The cool night air rushed between them letting him know she had pulled away. Carlisle put her hands up in the dim light that filtered through the blinds—the blinds that he desperately needed to replace. But with what spare money? Was that her problem?
He could see her palms out as if she were holding him at bay. As if he were the attacker here.
“It's not a judgement,” she said, “It's just a question. It's something you deal with a lot. And I'm here with you. I'm here for you .” She paused a moment and added, “You seemed upset after the call.”
It took a moment to calm himself down. He shouldn’t jump to conclusions or expect her to be like his past girlfriends had been. Carlisle was different. But was she different enough?
Maybe it was time to tell her more. She already knew he gave his mother money, and she knew he gave his mother a reasonable portion of his income .
This time when he answered, he almost wanted to make it as bad as possible, as if he were daring Carlisle to judge him. If she did, he could kick her out. If he ended it now, maybe that would be better.
He said, “She couldn't make the house payment.”
“Why couldn’t she make the house payment?” Carlisle asked softly. Though he tried to find a rude tone in her words, he couldn’t. Only soft curiosity. He couldn’t let his heart sink deeper, there was still too much between them. “You said she had a job. Are they paying her enough?”
“It pays enough,” he said. He'd been ready to snap back at her, to end them and watch in satisfied anger and heartache as she moved naked through the room, finding her clothes. In the flash of righteousness, he wondered if she’d feel some kind of shame.
But she hadn’t asked that way. She just seemed more curious about why his life was like this. He didn’t even decide to tell her the truth, it just came out.
“She does and it should cover the house, but she misses a lot of days.”
“Is she sick? Or does she miss the days because of Darcy?” The words were soft and Simon had to wonder if she was using some kind of ER nurse technique on him to get him to answer her questions without getting his hackles up. Damn, it was working .
“Sometimes her own sick days but mostly for Darcy.” He took a breath and with his exhale he let a lot of the pain and frustration out. “When Darcy is up, sometimes she doesn't take her medicine. She wants to create and feels like her brain only really works when she’s not dosed up. The meds make her function better, but also like she can't fully be herself.
“I think when Darcy has her up days, and is off her meds, that's when things are really good for her. So she tries to make those days happen . . .” But he didn't know what to say next .
Carlisle filled in, “The up days always eventually come down, though. Don't they?”
He nodded. He didn’t know if Carlisle could see him, maybe she felt the move. “Sometimes they last a couple of weeks. Once it was just a couple of hours—so stunningly fast.”
“What happens when she starts trending down?”
“Sometimes she melts down. Sometimes she breaks things because she's angry and can't handle the anger.”
Carlisle shrugged, not the response he was expecting. “I would be angry too if I only had a week or two to be myself and then it all just started disappearing.”
Simon rolled to his side to look at her then. Only the faint edges of her face showed in the dim light, but it was enough for the concern to show. It was like being hit with a stunning realization, because he hadn't thought of it that way.
He knew Darcy dealt with a lot, but he hadn't thought of it as each time watching herself and her autonomy slip away. Nodding, he felt his throat tighten but he wanted to say the next words. He almost wondered if Carlisle would help him understand his sister even better.
“Sometimes she disappears. She goes off on her own looking for something. She's just gone, and we have to drop everything and find her. Sometimes we even have to get the police involved.”
“It’s dangerous for anyone to disappear for too long.” She said it like she knew, and he figured with her ER experience she must have seen at least some of it. It was worse for a person with a mental illness, without their medication. And it wasn’t even about them. They were preyed on by the evils of the world if they weren’t functioning the way the world thought they should.
“How long does she stay gone?” Carlisle's voice was soft and sad, not judgmental at all. A small part of him was almost mad that he hadn't been able to kick her out, because her concern made him fall a little harder for her. He might already be in love with her. What was he going to do when she realized that he could never be anything more than this?