65. CHARLOTTE
65
S itting on the swinging bench on the front porch, I stare at the pink peonies placed on the table. With pursed lips and arms crossed in front of my chest, I keep flicking my gaze between the flowers and the eight books neatly tucked into a box with the spines up. They are all wrapped in craft paper, each of them showing a letter in the middle.
I am so sorry , it spells.
I’ve been staring at it for ten minutes, contemplating whether to take the gifts or leave them as they are until I get the chance to shove them back in his face.
Finally, I decide to put the decision off until later and grab my laptop from the other side of the bench, then get up to take a seat on the screened porch out back instead. This way, any unwanted guests have to ring the doorbell first.
I’m grateful my mother left me taken care of. When she died, I had no clue how I was going to pay for the mortgage with my bartending job, and because I took care of my mother, I didn’t look for a better job after graduation.
But thankfully, her lawyer quickly informed me that she paid off our house when my grandfather died, had health insurance, so her illness didn’t result in any debts, and also had some stocks that she had liquified the last time she got sick, making sure I could grieve and figure out life for the next few years without worrying about money after she died .
I still work at the bar two nights a week to have a reason to leave the house for anything other than groceries, but I spend most of my days reading and writing.
Or attempting to write. I’ve started numerous stories in the last year, but for some reason, I have a hard time finishing them.
Every time my mind comes up with a new story, I type away as if my life depends on it, before telling myself it’s shit, and throw it all out. If I wrote on a typewriter, there would be wads of paper piling up around me.
“Dang it!” I exclaim, slamming my notebook shut when I delete my words for a second time today. Throwing the device on the chair next to me, I put my arms over each other like a grumpy kid. As expected, my mind wanders off to the person who makes it impossible to concentrate ever since he strolled back into town like he belongs here. He doesn’t. At least not anymore.
Being so close to him yesterday fucked with my ability to sleep, because my mind and my heart keep fighting each other, driving me nuts. “Julie bought you flowers and books?”
I grab my heart as I jolt in my seat, then snap my head toward the door. Ben throws me a devastatingly sweet smile that would’ve melted my iced-out heart six months ago, but now it just irritates me as he closes the door behind him.
I never should’ve given him a key.
“What?” I ask, confused.
“The flowers?” His thumb points over his shoulder. “Out front?”
“Oh, right.” Shit . “Yeah, Julie.”
“That’s sweet of her.” He walks toward me, still wearing his navy-blue coaching outfit as he leans in, planting a kiss on my lips. There was a point in our relationship when I thought I felt butterflies. A tingling feeling when he kissed me. But now?
Nothing.
“Are you okay?” He gives me a pointed look as he takes my laptop and sets it on the table before sitting down.
“Can’t seem to get on with writing today.”
A big, calloused hand lands on my knee. “It’s okay. You’ll get over this, and you’ll get your mojo back.”
I know he means well, trying to support me, but him referring to this as something I’ll get over instantly raises my anger. Like it’s an inconvenience that I need to treat as a hurdle.
My hands start to itch, and I rub them over my black jeans while he lovingly brushes a strand of hair behind my ear, when really, I want to slap his hand out of my face, because in my head, they are the wrong hands.
Damn you, Hunter, for screwing with my head.
“Maybe,” I mumble instead.
“How are you today?”
Keeping quiet for a while, I avoid his gaze that fixates on the side of my face, before I finally shrug my shoulders.
“Fine. I guess.”
“It’s okay to not be okay, Charlotte.”
I can’t help but snort at his yoga-like mantra.
What about contemplating if you should break up with your boyfriend because your ex, correction, best friend , is back in town? Is that also okay?
He brushes his fingers through my hair, and I close my eyes, wondering if we will be one of those couples who will get better out of this? If it will grow us stronger or tear us apart.
Wondering if I’d be as agitated as I am now if it was anyone else saying the same thing.
If anyone else brushed his fingers through my hair. I don’t want to know the answer to that question.
“What did you do yesterday?” he follows up when I don’t reply.
“Spent the day with a friend. ”
“Julie?”
“Actually, no,” I confess.
He raises his eyebrows in question, and a feeling of guilt showers my body as I awkwardly look at him, quickly recalling my day with Hunter.
“So, I used to have a best friend...” I start with a cautious face.
“Other than Julie?” he asks, as I nod in response. “And she’s back in town?”
“ He is.”
He frowns in surprise, then gives me a sweet smile that I wasn’t expecting. “ You had a guy best friend?”
“Yeah, his name is Hunter. We spent most of our senior year together.”
“I’ve never heard you talk about him.” His stance is open, and his face interested, making me a bit unsettled, not knowing how I even want him to respond.
“We kinda drifted when he moved to LA after graduation. He just moved back.”
“That’s nice. Can’t wait to meet him.”
“Right.” I get up, needing some space, though I don’t know why. “I’m going to take a shower.”
“Alright, wanna have dinner tonight?”
“Actually, I think I’m gonna head to bed early, watch a movie.”
He gives me a troubled look, filled with sympathy, pissing me off even more. He’s the perfect boyfriend, supporting his girlfriend after a traumatic event, but I just want him to be angry, mad. I want him to scream with me, but then that’s a lie, because really, I just want to be alone.
“Are you sure you are okay?” He gets up, closing the distance between us, rubbing his hands up and down my arms.
“I need a break.” The words are blurted out before I can even process them.
Dark eyes look at me through thick black lashes. “From us? ”
“From life. But yes, also from us.”
The last few days have been confusing as fuck. I was already feeling like shit, and now Hunter being back in town is fucking with my head, with no way to fix it.
But I don’t want Ben to fix it either. I want to wallow in my misery, with a bowl of ice cream, trying to figure out all the shit going on in my life. I just want to be alone.
“I know you’re going through a rough time…”
“It’s not just that. It’s everything. I just need time. Alone. ”
He wants to argue with me, but I push out the air from my lungs when he nods.
“Okay.” His forehead rests against mine, then he presses a chaste kiss to my lips. I pray for a tingle, a curl of my toes. Anything . But all I get is more doubt when I feel nothing.
“Can I call you?”
“Yeah.”
He stares down at me, his hand softly going through my hair affectionately, the thing I loved about him. We met at the bar, where he came in with his co-worker from one of the local elementary schools a few towns farther away. He’s the baseball coach of the high school, and he looked damn sexy walking in with his black sweats and black t-shirt. His black hair was a little longer on top of his head, and messy from a day on the field.
He instantly caught my eye.
The next day, he took me on a date, and I loved how he kept running his hand through my hair, in the most endearing way, actually asking him to keep going.
Now I just want him to stop.
To stop touching me.
To stop talking to me.
To leave me alone.
“I’ll call you tomorrow.” He presses a kiss against my forehead, his hand resting on my neck. “Get some rest. ”
“I will.” A strained smile lifts the corners of my lips before he disappears into the house. I keep my ears perked, and when I finally hear the sound of an engine, I let out a relieved breath, dropping myself back on the couch with an uneasy feeling flipping my stomach.
What the fuck are you doing, Charlotte?