Chapter 28
Charlie woke up in his childhood bedroom. He didn’t move for a long while. Didn’t want to remember.
The morning after the party, he’d gone over to his dad’s place to explain everything. He’d felt awkward about his dad getting caught up in all the drama, and a small part of him felt like he owed him an explanation for having been back in town for months without saying anything.
His dad didn’t mention any of that, though; he just made a sour expression as Charlie explained, in as clipped and detached a way as possible, what had happened with Lorenzo. When he was done, his father had apologized for causing a commotion.
No, Charlie had told him. It was my fault.
Things had only gotten more uncomfortable from there, so he’d left quickly.
But then he’d gone back to his place—his stupid little sublet apartment—which was empty and quiet. Someone else’s home, not his. The only personal stamp he’d made on it was the black-out curtains he’d put up with Lorenzo.
So he’d shoved his toiletries and computer and a few other things into a bag and gone back to his dad’s place. His dad saw his bag and let him in without comment.
And now he’d been here a week. Ava had called him a few billion times; texted, DMed, and emailed.
He was leaving her on read—not just about the column, but about the Advance Media offer, about everything.
He hadn’t turned in a column in weeks. He wasn’t sure he’d ever write again.
One of the emails in his inbox right now might have been a pink slip.
He didn’t care. He didn’t give a shit about any of it. Nothing mattered.
His eye caught on an old poster leaning rolled up against the corner of his room, faded orange and black.
It was a fan-made vintage X-Files poster, a stylized version of the shot in the credits of Mulder and Scully swinging their flashlights around.
His mom had gotten it for him his senior year of high school—for his dorm room, she’d said.
He’d called her silly for saying that, when they didn’t even know where he’d be going to college yet.
He hadn’t even known where he’d gotten in, though his dad had already been mentioning the UB faculty tuition break every other day by that point.
But his mom had just smiled and said she knew he was going to get in somewhere great, and that he’d need a cool poster for his dorm. That was one of the last good days they’d had before she was diagnosed.
When it actually came time to move into his room at UB, Charlie put the poster up himself.
He unpacked his clothes himself, plugged his mini-fridge in himself, and downloaded all the stupid apps himself.
He also met his roommate, wandered through a decently fun freshman orientation street fair, and ended up making friends with a big group of other new freshmen at the pub.
But when he got back to his room—his roommate hadn’t come home yet; good for him—that X-Files poster was still there, and Charlie was alone.
To be fair, his dad had called. The academic conference he’d been booked at that week was too important for him to miss, and besides, Charlie was an adult now, he’d said; he could move himself into college alone.
And he’d still called at the end of the day to hear all about it, about the dorms and new friends and all the exciting new possibilities.
He’d been distracted, though, on the phone—thinking about the conference, maybe; Charlie couldn’t remember. In the months after his mom died, it had been like his dad was still around, but not quite all of him. And how much of him had there been to begin with, really?
Maybe there had always been something missing in his father; but maybe not, Charlie reflected, as he stared at the poor abandoned poster, rolled up now and abandoned in this room.
He knew his mother and father had been good together.
They’d brought out something special in each other.
And he’d seen exactly what was left of his father when that stopped.
If someone can be flawed, and be saved by love, they can also become a hollowed-out shell of a person when that love is gone. Right?
He went downstairs without brushing his teeth and poured some cereal into a bowl, then sat next to his dad, who was reading the paper. He glanced at Charlie’s bowl as he started eating. “Don’t you want milk?”
Charlie shook his head.
Sounding testy, his dad asked, “What are your plans for the day?”
He didn’t answer. His dad sighed and put his paper down. “Charles,” he said. “Do I need to be concerned?”
“Why?”
“Are you . . .”
Charlie looked at him when he trailed off. To his surprise, his dad actually seemed concerned. “Do you want to talk about . . . anything?”
He scoffed. “No.”
“Well, you can’t stay here forever.”
“Why?” he shot back. “You’re gonna kick me out for my own good? I have money. I’m just here because . . .”
His dad raised a bushy eyebrow. “Because . . .?”
He said nothing. His dad didn’t push, and for a while he thought that was the end of it.
After a moment, though, his dad said quietly, “Are you sorry?”
Charlie scraped his spoon against his bowl, taking small, precise bites, keeping his mouth full.
“Did you tell him that?” his dad added.
“Dad,” he snapped, pushing away from the table, “I don’t want to—”
“Fine, okay!” he said, holding his hands up in surrender.
They ate in silence for another moment. “It was a beautiful column,” he said. “The one about—the one about him.”
Charlie shook his head roughly, willing himself to be okay. “I don’t care.”
“You should.”
“I hurt him,” Charlie said. “I betrayed him.”
“Yes, you did,” his dad said, nodding slowly. “But your work was excellent.”
Charlie’s chair scraped as he stood up. “I don’t care,” he spat. “Do you understand? It wasn’t worth it.”
“I understand more than you,” his dad said, looking up at him with cold sincerity, “because I know that you do care. That’s why you did it. And I understand that.” He shook his head, his lips thinning. “I know what it’s like to . . . to not let anything stop you. To be . . . consumed by it.”
Across the kitchen, almost entirely in shadow, Charlie spotted a painting his mom had made.
They’d done one of those guided art classes together years ago, before she got sick.
They’d all been supposed to paint the same sunset scene, but Mom had ignored the directions and tried to paint Patrick from Sponge-Bob, because Charlie had loved him as a kid and she never let him forget it.
It was more an impressionistic red smear than a recognizable starfish, but he loved the painting. He was surprised his dad still had it.
He sat back down slowly. “I know you do, Dad,” he said. “I know.”
His dad reached over and took his hand, and they sat like that for a while, in the quiet, empty house.
Eventually, his dad said, “You should say you’re sorry. Just tell him again. It’ll get through.”
Charlie swallowed back everything bleak and wrong he wanted to say back, and just said, “Thanks.”