Chapter 23 #2
And I had spent two days throwing up until there was nothing left but bile.
Bobbie Ann Parker had always made a game of leaving me, but that time, she'd really outdone herself.
She wasn't coming back. I'd known her life was one big walk on the ice pond, and it was only a matter of time before it would crack and she'd fall in.
But when the police had come to our door and given me the news, I'd dropped to the floor, tearless.
Numb. Emptied of all words. My mom had chosen heroin over me.
“You were in Chicago,” I said. “It wasn’t like you were a few hours away.”
“I would’ve traveled across the globe to get to you.”
I swallowed back tears. “I didn’t want to bother you.”
“You didn’t need me.”
“No.” I shook my head, my vision blurring. “I needed you more than I could stand. It was all just too much. My mom, the funeral. . .you.”
“Two a.m., and I’m driving through town, and whose car do I see at the Valiant?” Charlie’s voice tendered. “When I walked inside, I found you sitting in that front row seat, holding your head in your hands.”
I was right back there. Loss. Unbearable loss that I hadn’t expected to feel .
“I could hear you praying.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, desperate to shut off this memory. I never wanted to think about those days again. I tried not to think about her.
I hadn’t shed one tear for my mom. Hadn’t seen her in years, but the guilt had eaten at me all the same. What if I could’ve helped her? And what if I grew up to be her?
I’d sat in the Valiant for hours that night. Alone.
And then Charlie appeared like an angel of mercy.
He’d hugged me, wrapped his arms around me just like he’d done on the plane, covering my body as if to keep away any more harm.
Then I’d lost it.
My heart exploded and I convulsed in sobs, sinking to the floor of the Valiant, taking Charlie with me. Sitting there, he’d held me, murmuring soft words, praying, and giving me moments of silence with my own terrible thoughts.
And saying the one thing I hadn’t been prepared to hear.
“Do you remember what I told you?” Charlie now asked.
“Yes.” He’d said he loved me.
“And what did you do?”
It had been a stupid mistake. I had been young, shattered.
“You pulled away from me,” Charlie said. “Ran out of the theater like I had struck you. And you never looked back. So you want to know why I haven’t said the words, Katie?” His question was a land mine, and I was about to step right on it. “Because I’m afraid you’ll run again. That’s what you do.”
“I’m not running this time.”
“And what if I don’t quit Thrifty Co.? Will you still love me then? Because tonight it seems like it has to be a package deal.”
I wanted both—Charlie and my theater. Was that asking too much? “You’re going to choose this job over us?”
“You don’t know what you’re asking right now.”
“Then tell me!”
“I can’t.”
“If you truly cared for me, you’d do something. Anything to save my Valiant.” I clamped my hands over my mouth, appalled those words had just taken on a life of their own. “I didn’t— ”
“There it is. That condition.” I hated that acidic laugh that came from Charlie’s lips.
“Well, that’s not how love works. It’s not something you earn or work for to keep.
It doesn’t come with conditions and hoops to jump through.
I’m not my dad, and you’re sure not you’re mother.
And I’m not playing this game. But you want the words, Parker?
Because I wouldn’t want to leave you hanging. ”
Suddenly I didn’t think I did. I couldn’t bear to hear his disappointment.
His regret.
“I’m done with conversation,” I said.
But Charlie wasn’t.
“I’ve always loved you.” He said it like the admission was a crime that would lead him to the gallows.
“When I held you the night of your mom’s funeral, I knew that as long as I lived, I would never feel for anyone else what I felt for you.
Whether you’d ever admit it, you needed me.
I wanted to protect you from every hurt, every tear.
And when I saw you in the Houston airport, last month, I think I stopped breathing. ”
His leather dress shoes clicked on the hardwood floor as he walked to the edge of the stage and looked out into rows of empty seats.
“The plane was going down, and I had you beneath me. Safe. Then we hit another air pocket, and I lost my hold. That’s when you were hit.
. .and for a few blinding seconds, I thought you were gone.
You were completely out, and there was all this .
. . blood.” It was an anguished man who turned back to face me.
“We were dropping fast, and it was just chaos. But I grabbed you, pulled you to me. And when I felt your chest rise and fall . . . I started breathing again. Because I didn’t care if we were both going down on that plane, Katie.
” Charlie pressed his hand to his breast pocket, as if the heart beating beneath it ached. “I just didn’t want to go without you.”
For every tear I dashed away, five more took its place.
I wanted out of here now. I had to get out of this building. The urge to run—that black, hissing presence in my head—screamed for me to bolt.
Get out of here.
Leave him .
You will never have what you want.
You’re unsafe here. I’ll keep you sheltered.
But run!
“I know I’m asking for the impossible,” Charlie said.
“I’m asking you to trust me through this buyout.
But I need to know you’re going to be there when the dust settles, no matter what’s left in the end.
I’m asking you to take that risk. Whether it makes sense, whether it looks like you will get your happy ending or not—take that risk. Love me, Katie Parker.”
There weren’t a thousand uncertainties.
Only two.
Either Charlie was enough. . .or he wasn’t.
I could put my hand in his forever and step over that precipice, not knowing where we’d land.
Or I could walk away.
From a man who couldn’t give me any guarantees. Couldn’t even give me all the answers.
And spend the rest of my life searching for someone who could.
On weak, shaking legs, I walked to Charlie, stopping mere inches before him. I took one good hard look at my theater, the place that had been my life support. God’s mercy breathed into every nail and surface.
“I’m sorry.” Reaching out my hand, I caressed his stubbled cheek one final time. “It’s just not enough.”