Chapter 5 Charlotte
Day seven of radio silence, and I'd officially lost my mind.
I knew this because I'd just checked my phone while walking from the living room to the kitchen, a distance of approximately twelve feet, as if Miles might have texted in the four seconds it took to cross my apartment.
He hadn't. Of course, he hadn't. He hadn't texted in seven days, one hundred and sixty-eight hours, approximately ten thousand minutes if I wanted to be dramatic about it.
And I was being dramatic about it.
"It’s fine," I announced to my empty kitchen, because talking to myself was apparently who I was now. "He's just busy. Settling an estate is complicated. Lots of paperwork. Very time-consuming."
My coffee maker gurgled in the background.
"Don't start with me," I told it.
I'd become the kind of woman who argued with appliances.
This was what he had reduced me to in one week.
I even carried my phone in the shower. Not metaphorically, I'd actually brought it into the bathroom yesterday, propped it on the sink, and glanced at it through the steam while conditioning my hair.
The truly pathetic part? I'd sent one text. One. On Sunday evening, after the coffee date that had ended with his walls slamming up so fast I'd felt the distance.
Charlotte
Had a great time today. Hope everything's okay.
Breezy. Casual. Totally normal. Not at all the work of a woman who'd drafted and deleted fourteen versions before settling on something that sounded approximately human.
He hadn't responded.
My phone buzzed, and I nearly knocked my coffee mug off the counter, lunging for it.
Beth
You alive over there?
Not Miles. Of course, it wasn’t Miles. I exhaled slowly, trying to calm myself down.
Charlotte
Technically.
Beth
That's not reassuring. When did you last eat something that wasn't caffeine?
Charlotte
I had a granola bar this morning.
Beth
Charlotte, what is it with you and granola bars? It's 2 PM.
Charlotte
Time is a construct.
Beth
Food is not. Have you heard from him?
I stared at the screen, my thumbs hovering. The honest answer was humiliating. The lie felt worse.
Charlotte
No.
Beth
It's been a week.
Charlotte
I'm aware.
Beth
Have you tried calling him? Texting again?
Charlotte
I sent one message. He didn't respond. That's a pretty clear signal.
Beth
Or he's dealing with something and hasn't gotten back to you yet. Those are two different things.
Charlotte
What if they're not?
Beth
Come to the bookstore tomorrow. We'll talk.
Charlotte
I'm fine.
Beth
You're not fine. You're tripping on anxiety. I can feel it through the phone.
Charlotte
You can’t tell that through a phone speaker.
Beth
I absolutely can. I have a Beth-dar, remember? Tomorrow. Bookstore. Don’t make me go there looking for you, because I will.
I set the phone down and pressed my palms against the cool counter, breathing slowly. Beth was right. I was spiraling. I could feel it, the familiar downward pull, the way my thoughts kept circling the same dark drain.
The theories had started small. Reasonable, even.
"He's busy," I said aloud, testing the words. "He has a lot going on. His parents' estate. The house. Legal complications."
But by Wednesday, the theories had grown teeth.
He'd changed his mind. The coffee date had been a nostalgic mistake, and in the cold light of Monday morning, he'd realized I wasn't worth the complication.
He'd looked at me: thirty-five, divorced, living in a beige apartment near my mother, and seen exactly what I feared I was: mediocre. Faded. The girl from the past, but diminished.
"Or maybe," I continued, now fully committed to this conversation with myself, "he met someone else. Someone in the city. Someone whole, without baggage, without a failed marriage and a history of—"
My phone rang, cutting off that particular trainwreck of thoughts. I grabbed it so fast I almost dropped it.
Not Miles. My mother.
I considered not answering. But Linda Huston had a sixth sense for avoidance, and ignoring her call would only result in her showing up at my apartment with groceries and pointed questions.
"Hi, Mom."
"You sound tired," she said instead of hello. Linda had never believed in small talk.
"I'm fine."
"That word again." I could hear her frown through the phone. "You've been 'fine' for a year now. I'm starting to think you don't know what the word means."
"It means I'm handling things."
"It means you're not sleeping." A pause, weighted with maternal intuition. "Is this about the reunion? Beth mentioned you spent most of the night talking to someone."
Of course, Beth had mentioned it. Small towns had no secrets, and best friends had even fewer.
"It was nothing," I said. "Just catching up with an old friend."
"Miles Cameron isn't just an old friend, Charlotte."
I closed my eyes. "Mom—"
"I'm not trying to interfere. I just don't want to see you get hurt again." Her voice softened with something that might have been regret. "Some patterns are hard to break, honey. That's all I'm saying."
The words landed exactly where she'd aimed them—the soft, unprotected place where my fear lived.
"I know," I managed. "I have to go. Work stuff."
"Charlotte—"
"I'll call you later, Mom. I promise."
I hung up before she could say anything else. I knew she was partly right and really wished she wasn’t.
Some patterns are hard to break.
The pattern was simple: I attracted men who left. Drew had left when I couldn't give him children. Miles had left fifteen years ago when his future didn't have room for me. The common denominator in both equations was me.
"Stop it," I said firmly to the empty room. "You're being ridiculous."
But the anxiety-fueled thoughts didn’t listen. They never did.
By Friday, I'd convinced myself of the worst theory of all: Miles was leaving. Packing up his parents' house, listing it with a realtor, driving out of Riverside without a backward glance. Our coffee date had been his goodbye, a final, cowardly farewell he hadn't had the decency to name.
He was abandoning me. Again.
Just like before. Just like always.
I hated myself for thinking it. For falling back into the same mental trap, for proving my mother right with every anxious glance at my phone.
I was a competent ER nurse. I held lives in my hands and made split-second decisions that mattered.
I comforted grieving families and steadied shaking hands.
And here I was, completely unraveled by a man who hadn't sent a text message.
"Pathetic," I muttered, dropping onto my couch. "Truly, genuinely pathetic."
The rational part of my brain was screaming at me to stop. To breathe. To consider other explanations.
But the irrational part, the part that had apparently been running the show for seven days now, just kept replaying that coffee date.
The way he'd pulled his hand away when the phone rang.
The shuttered look in his eyes when he came back inside.
The deliberate step backward in the parking lot, like he was forcing distance between us.
I'll call you, he'd said.
He hadn't.
Saturday morning arrived gray and damp, matching my mood perfectly. I'd slept maybe four hours, my dreams full of ringing phones and doors closing. I couldn't stand my own company anymore. I needed intervention. I needed perspective.
I needed Beth.
The bell above the door of Montgomery's Books jingled its familiar welcome. The smell hit me immediately: Old paper, new ink, and Beth's perpetually brewing coffee. It was the scent of every good memory I had of this town.
Beth emerged from behind a towering stack of new arrivals, reading glasses perched on her head. She took one look at my face and set down her books with a decisive thump.
"Okay," she said. "You look like you've been fighting a ghost and losing. Back room. Now."
I followed her past the fantasy section, through the beaded curtain, into the cluttered sanctuary she called an office. Two worn armchairs, a desk buried in invoices, and a space heater that had seen better decades. She poured two mugs of coffee and pressed one into my hands.
"Sit," she commanded. "Spill."
I sank into the armchair, the familiar warmth seeping into my cold fingers. For a moment, I just stared into the dark liquid, gathering the scattered pieces of my humiliation.
"It's Miles," I finally said.
"I figured." Beth settled into the opposite chair, tucking her feet underneath her. "Start from the beginning. The reunion. Tell me everything."
So I did. I told her about every little detail; the way our eyes met across the gymnasium, the hours of conversation that felt like minutes, the cold bleachers and warm memories. The coffee date that started perfectly and ended with walls.
"It felt like coming home," I said, my voice cracking slightly. "To a home I didn't know I was missing."
Beth nodded slowly. "I saw you two at the reunion. It was like the rest of the gym ceased to exist. Kind of beautiful, in a gross romantic way."
"Then why hasn't he called?" The question came out sharper than I intended. "It's been a week, Beth. A whole week. Nothing. Not even a text saying 'hey, busy, talk soon.' Just... silence."
"What do you think it means?"
"I think—" I stopped, swallowed. "I think he changed his mind. Realized I wasn't worth the complication. Or he met someone else. Or he's leaving town, and our coffee was his pathetic way of saying goodbye without actually saying it."
"Or?"
"Or he's doing what they all do." My voice dropped to barely a whisper. "Leaving. Because I'm not enough to—."
Beth's expression shifted from sympathetic to something harder. "Don't you dare finish that thought."
"It's true—"
"It's Drew's garbage, Charlotte. And you've been carrying it around like it belongs to you." She leaned forward, coffee cup forgotten. "You are enough. That man broke your heart because he was selfish and weak, not because of anything lacking in you."
Tears pricked at my eyes. I blinked them back furiously.