Chapter 52
52
“ A re you really blaming yourself for this?” Jane asked as she lifted the burger to her mouth.
Carlisle knew it was supposed to be a rhetorical question, but she did blame herself. Dipping her fry in her ketchup, she swished it around and thought about it. She had ordered the same burger she always ordered and maybe she should have mixed it up.
“Blame is a strong word, but I do feel some responsibility,” she admitted to her friend. “He was clear with me from the beginning. He had another family, and they would always be the most important thing to him.”
Carlisle shrugged slightly as Jane chewed her food while she chewed on the thought. Taking the first bite of her own burger, Carlisle sighed. She was glad she’d ordered the same old thing. Today of all days, she needed a damn good burger.
“I guess I just thought he would change for you,” Jane said eventually, as she laid the burger back down and took a sip of her coke. “He was so in love with you but, clearly, I’m an idiot. Just look at my own track record.”
Carlisle tried not to flinch at the past tense of Simon “was” so in love with her. Or at Jane’s reference to Joe turning out to be a complete douchebag of a human. Neither of them had seen it until it was far too late.
“I feel so bad about this.” Jane lifted her eyes to the ceiling. Carlisle was about to ask, what did you even do? but Jane filled it in. “I pushed you. Right before everything went to shit, I pushed you to admit you were in love with him.”
“You weren't wrong.” She was still in love with him, and Carlisle knew it would take a while to shake that. She'd had a boyfriend in high school and when he dumped her hard it had taken her almost a year to shake that one off. To stop missing him. To stop still being in love with the person she thought he'd been. And to stop still wishing for the fantasy future that had apparently always been a fantasy.
In her later years of college, she’d had another boyfriend. He even told her at one point that he expected them to get married. That time, she'd been the one to back out. It was too much for a relationship that she'd simply been marking time with. But this?
Things with Simon had felt like the real deal.
She ate two more fries. Crispy and golden and hot, they were exactly what she needed. She grabbed for her milkshake, having decided her depression needed to sugar splurge today, too. “Maybe I was so head over heels in love with him because I needed someone to be head over heels in love with. Look what I just went through. He helped me get out the other side of it. Maybe that’s all it was.”
Jane nodded but her gaze didn't quite sharpen and focus, and Carlisle understood. Putting both hands up in the air as if surrendering, she said, “I know, I know, I'm not out the other side of it yet. But I'm better than I was and part of that is due to Simon and maybe Kitten.”
“You should get your own cat,” Jane told her. Clearly, getting her own man wasn’t as easy of a task.
Carlisle nodded, for once actually considering the idea. Kitten had dug her claws into all the furniture that Carlisle had invested in, but maybe an older cat would be better. Unless, of course, the cat distribution system simply chose for her. She thought the boyfriend distribution system sure hadn't worked very well.
Still, a cat was about all she could handle now. Luckily, Jane changed the subject. “How's Charlie doing?”
“The same. I don't think he's getting any better. Hell, he might actually be doing worse.”
“Worse how?”
“Just digging in, fortifying whatever walls he's built up.” Carlisle tried to shake it off. Her twin was a mystery, even to her.
“Do you know what happened to him yet?”
“As far as I know, he hasn't told anyone.” But there wasn’t anything else to add about Charlie—which was concerning in itself. Talk turned to Jane’s kids. To Tyler’s achievements in fifth grade. Dylan's third grade certificate that he'd gotten for midterms.
“They have midterms in elementary school?”
“They do now,” Jane sighed. “Honestly, I'm going to make you attend Stella’s preschool graduation with me.”
“Like little caps and gowns?” When Jane nodded, Carlisle laughed. “I’ll be there. That sounds adorable.” And she would be there, because the way Joe was going these days, he wouldn’t.
Jane deftly changed topics again. “We have two interviews next week. I booked them back to back, so there’s only one trip.”
“You've got the kids covered?”
“Yes, ma'am,” Jane said with a grin.
The grin was acceptable now. Carlisle didn't dread the interviews anymore. They played the video each time and she’d seen it enough that she was becoming less affected each time.
“I have an idea,” Carlisle offered, dipping one of her last fries in the ketchup. Her burger was also somehow mysteriously gone. She wanted to believe she'd enjoyed it, but she'd been holding back on this, waiting to see what Jane said. “I think it will work. But everything I've read says we're going to fumble it first. And it's going to cost us some money.”
Something there was an incredibly short supply of right now.
But at least it wasn't going to cost her her heart.