6. Charlie
Charlie
Istroll across the grass after getting out of the pool in my backyard and slide the screen door open, dripping wet, as I walk into the house.
I’m instantly covered in goosebumps from the air kicking on.
I grab my phone from the counter to check the time, and see a bunch of missed calls and text messages from Brody.
Brody: I’m sorry. Can we talk about the other night? I haven’t heard from you in two days.
Brody: Hey, what are you doing? You can at least call me back.
Brody: I know you have your phone. Why are you ignoring me??
Brody: Answer your phone.
Brody: We need to talk. I miss you, and I need you.
Brody: I’m sorry, I fucked up, okay. I can fix this. I can’t live without you. You’re my girlfriend. Answer your phone!
Brody: I love you so much!! You know you love me, too. In this world, all I want is you. You’re my everything. I’d be lost without you. If you answer, I promise I can make it better. Don’t do this.
Brody: Answer your phone!
Brody: Why are you doing this to me?
Brody: I’m sorry, babe. Answer your fucking phone!
I’m numb to these types of messages and that’s not something I’m proud of. I know for damn sure I can’t function anymore. So yeah, I haven’t talked to him in two days. He left me on the side of the road, and it was embarrassing enough to call my brother to pick me up.
But if I don’t answer him, he won't stop harassing me like this. I press his name and call him back. The phone rings several times before it goes to voicemail. I hate leaving messages. I never know what to say, and I choke up. I try again, and this time it doesn’t ring even once. It was fully sent to voicemail.
I open up my Instagram and click on his story. It looks like last night he had been drinking. Again. Wow, what a surprise. Not. Loud music, cheering, and he’s standing in someone’s backyard.
It’s his entire night from beginning to end. There’s beer pong, people chanting, chug, chug, chug. He gets more and more intoxicated as the videos progress. Wobbling back and forth, slurring something I can’t understand.
Two blonde chicks I’ve never seen before swarm him. They’re wearing tight body-con dresses with their nipples poking out because bras are so last year. It makes me want to chuck the phone against the wall. But I keep watching, and they hold up their red cups, cheering and kissing him on the cheeks.
These videos are burning under my skin, and I can’t put out the fire.
My heart pounds. My fingers start to shake.
Not a little minor tremor, but full-blown trembling where my phone falls onto the kitchen counter.
I lean against it, swaying back and forth with my palms flat against the granite, watching the story on repeat.
I snatch up my phone, typing with heavy thumbs, each word being written with pure anger coursing through my veins.
Charlie: Looks like you had fun last night.
Brody: Maybe if you didn’t have a little tantrum, I would have invited you.
Charlie: Classic you. If you really want to talk, then you would stop acting like a child and answer your phone.
Brody: I tried calling you for over an hour, and you ignored me.
I call him again and place the phone to my ear. He picks up, grumbling on the other end. “I ain’t acting like a child.”
“Please, I was in the pool with Payton. I’d eventually call you back. You don’t have to start acting possessive.”
“Why the fuck are you hanging out with Trash?”
“Don’t start calling her that! She’s my best friend.”
“She sure does know how to act like trailer trash! We both know she’s only hanging around you because she wants to sit on your brother’s dick. You said it yourself, and then she dumped beer all over me one night. Remember that?”
I glance back outside, watching Payton and Ryder wrestle in the water.
My brother’s face lights up like he’s in heaven when she’s around.
She’s all over him, regardless of him having a girlfriend.
Ever since he gave her a damn football jersey in eighth grade, she’s been hooked.
I’ve been convinced she masturbates with that jersey on.
It bothers me, and Brody is the only one who knows it, but I can’t respond to his remark.
I just spit out, “Why are you hanging out with bitches at a party?”
“They’re my fans. So what?”
“Did you finally get tired of waiting on me and sleep with them?”
The silence and static on the other end are haunting. “I’m not having this conversation with you. You’re always nagging me about something. Let me see your phone, stop drinking, who is messaging you?” He mimics my tone of voice.
“So you won’t give me an answer?” I ask.
“I don’t need to give you one.”
“I’ll take it you had your way with them. You were so pushy the other night, and you got drunk again. You know I hate it when you get like that. Let’s not get started on the fact you can’t even acknowledge me as your girlfriend online. Should we start circling back around?”
“Shut the fuck up! What are you gonna do, cry and whine, telling me you’re gonna kill yourself again because you can’t get a grip of your damn emotions?” he asks.
My lips tremble, and I suck in the brittle words of my embarrassing past mistakes. Everyone has a weak moment, and I hate being reminded of mine as he constantly uses it against me. “No!”
“Nothing happened! I’m sorry I want to sleep with my girlfriend.
What’s so wrong with being attracted to you?
You always have some sort of smart-ass remark to make me feel like shit for wanting you.
You should be happy I want you, but you’ve got this stupid-ass rule about waiting a damn year for a guy. ”
Happy? I don’t feel happy. Not one bit.
“Why can’t you just respect that I'm not ready to lose my virginity? I ain’t gonna lose it while you’re shitfaced, and when you can’t show the world I’m your girlfriend.”
“We’ve been together for six months. We do shit all the time. People know we are together. I don’t need to post it online to reassure you of anything.”
“Why can’t you just listen to what I'm saying! You're making me go crazy right now. You don’t even understand.”
“I’m tired of waiting. You either want me or you don’t. Make a choice, otherwise I’m out,” Brody threatens.
“Then I'm not good enough for you, and we should just end things. You always do this to me. You make me feel bad for wanting to wait, and then tell me you can’t do it anymore. I’m fucking done.
Have fun dumping the next girl you’re pissed off at on the side of the road.
” I hang up the phone, trembling as the screen blurs.
I block his number, and find him on Instagram and block him there, too.
I slam it on the counter, sucking in the emotion about to regurgitate.
I take a deep breath, trying to fill my lungs with air, but nothing is getting inside.
I stand in a puddle of pool water dripping from my hair and swimsuit. The screen door opens, and Ryder pushes his wet hair back with a towel around his shoulder. Payton scurries across the kitchen, clutching onto her own towel.
“We are going to watch a movie. Wanna join?” Payton asks.
“Yeah, I’ll make some popcorn.” I grin to mask the conversation that just stole the oxygen from my lungs.
While they both laugh down the hallway, chatting up a storm about different movies, I scrounge around the pantry and find the popcorn box hiding behind a bunch of canned food.
When I head into Ryder’s room, the movie has barely started, and they're both propped up on his bed.
His curtains are drawn closed. His football posters and awards are shadows on display up on the shelves, and his floor is collecting a wonderful pile of dirty clothes.
I place the popcorn between them in hopes it will keep them separated a few inches. But they leave no room for me on the bed. I end up sitting on the floor with my arms folded around my legs.
I don’t even know what’s happening in the movie.
My thoughts spin around Brody and play on repeat.
I did everything to impress him. I made sure I was the prettiest cheerleader on our team.
I’m graduating high school within days and for the longest time I wanted nothing more than to be the cute freshman coming into college that makes everyone jealous because I have the star quarterback.
But now I don’t even know if I want that anymore.
Maybe I'm just in love with the idea of him actually ever loving me the way I want him to. I stare at my phone with the parasite eating away at me for blocking him. I guess I’m used to doing this to him.
I turn to glance at both Ryder and Payton on the bed. The popcorn is devoured until only kernels remain in the bowl. She has a leg perched around his thigh, her head buried in his chest, sound asleep, and he’s dozing off too.
His arm is wrapped around her, brushing her shoulder with a thumb.
He’s dating Brittni, this stupid, annoying blonde chick, but his gaze at Payton screams that he’s fucked up over her too.
Brody’s words cling to me like a bad nightmare.
The fear is stirring up in my stomach that Payton just hangs around me to be with Ryder, and it’s making me sick.
If shit happens between them and it goes south, I’ll lose her too. Just like I’ve lost everyone else.
I uncross my legs and get off the floor, heading to the bathroom.
My damp swimsuit sticks to my butt like glue.
The chlorine makes my skin itch, and I’m dying to shower, to clean the ick out of my hair.
I stare at the moldy bathtub for several long seconds, debating it, and when I reach for the nozzle I hear the faint sound of the front door opening. Heels click down the hallway.
“Ryder, baby!” My eyes widened at the sound of Brittni’s voice echoing down the hallway. I mouth a curse. Payton and Ryder practically look like they just had sex. “What the fuck!” She screams, kicks in the bedroom door, and slams it closed. “Get the fuck off him, you bitch!”
I did it. I walked across the stage to receive my high school diploma and took a million pictures.
After being in this gown for hours, I never felt better than I did ripping it off and chucking it onto my bed.
I’m still itchy as hell, and scratching spots on my arms that still prickle from the fabric.
When kicking off my heels, there are outlines of dirt on them and dirt caked on my feet from walking on the field.
Payton slips through the bedroom door, unzipping her gown.
“You seem so glum tonight,” Payton says.
“I’m fine.”
“I know what’s wrong... You blocked Brody and then unblocked him, didn’t you?” Payton asks as she sits on the edge of my mattress, rubbing her feet.
Last night we had a long conversation about Brody not being right for me. It seems to be the only topic that comes out of her mouth these days.
“I should've kept him blocked, and maybe I wouldn’t sound so desperate, telling him I wanted him to show up.” I plop down onto the mattress with the desire to shower and reapply my makeup taking a backseat to my exhaustion, even though my skin feels sticky and gross.
“When has he ever shown up for you? Especially when you needed him to?”
“I already feel like shit, Payt.”
“Do you feel butterflies with him? Hmm...” She’s glaring right into my soul.
“This isn’t a cheesy third-grade crush.”
“Then keep him blocked and break it off with him. He’s never respected your boundaries, and you only graduate high school once, and he didn’t show.”
“Just put yourself in my shoes.”
“I have, and it’s painful! Your Instagram is pathetic. You post all the pictures of the two of you, and he posts none. He even untags himself. He’s never acknowledged you were exclusive.”
I cough up a laugh just to drown out the words I’m not sure I want to hear. Especially from her. It’s like swallowing glass, but insisting it was sugar.
“I’m going to shower.” I snatch my phone and push myself off the bed, grabbing the towel I hung over the vanity stool, and head out into the hallway.
Within seconds, I shut the bathroom door and lock it behind me. It sucks staring at myself in a toothpaste-stained mirror, wondering what’s so bad about me that I can’t find a guy who wants more than just to claim my underwear.
What does Payton know about dating? She hasn’t had one boyfriend, and that’s not going to change unless she gets over her little crush on my brother. He’s so invested playing college football he doesn’t even see it. But whatever, she wants to lecture me.
Brody chased me around to get my attention when we met. He would drop everything he was doing just to talk to me on the phone, even if it was only for five minutes.
Months ago, he was the kind of guy who drove to my house at midnight with an old-school stereo, and he’d blast some cheesy love song.
He’d take me out to eat. He’d tell me the funniest jokes.
We’d go swimming at the beach, and he’d sneak me out of my room in the middle of the night to smoke cigarettes and look at the stars.
I haven’t been able to get the guy I met before back.
There are no more butterflies in my stomach, but a million razor blades I somehow ingested.
The sweet cheerleader-quarterback romance morphed into a horror movie I can’t escape.
I’m always crying and staring out the window on the journey home with him because something I said upset him, or I embarrassed him, or I’m just too clingy and jealous.
I stare at the time on my phone and swipe a thumb across the screen. I lean against the counter and call Brody, listening to the persistent ringing. Come on. I tap my fingers on the phone, and just when I think it’s the voicemail picking up, I hear some shuffling on the other end.
“Baby?” he asks, out of breath. “Are you coming to the party later?”
“Yeah... I’m going to shower and get ready,” I say and turn around where I’m facing the dirty mirror. “You didn’t answer me earlier...”
“Oh, yeah, I got caught up with something...” he pants on the other end of the phone. “...fuck yeah... you know, just drinking some beers with the team... oh fuck, you like that.”
My heart heats up, but it doesn’t speed up. It just sinks so low into my stomach it might never find its way back up. “Are you okay?” I ask.
“We’ll talk later...” He groans. “Oh, fuck...” the phone call drops.