18. Charlie #2
“Yeah, sure. I’m tired too.” I slide to the other end of the couch, trying to calm the storm inside my chest while he leans back against the cushions, his lashes falling shut.
He’s asleep within minutes, a faint smile still on his face.
I can’t help but stare, memorizing the curve of his mouth, the way his hair is sprawled out all over the place.
I wonder if he wakes up with terrible knots like mine.
The house emptied rather fast. There are only the crickets outside, and the faint sound of voices from one of the other rooms. I reach for my purse that I hid behind the couch, digging around everything I shoved in there until I find a smooth Sharpie. I twist off the cap, biting back a laugh.
I crawl back over to Noah and lean in close.
The ink glides lightly under my hand as I draw a small mustache just beneath his nose. Just a tiny one with the thinnest lines. He might need to stare long and hard in the mirror to notice it. The second he flinches, my heart starts to beat out of control, but doesn’t wake up.
When I’m done, I cap the marker and sit back, proud of myself.
I gather my things as it’s way past three in the morning, and I already know I’m in deep shit if I don’t sneak back inside the house before mom wakes up.
Noah is really knocked out as he snores.
He doesn’t hear me putting on my shoes, or even knocking over one of the empty beer cans left on the end table.
I tiptoe my way out of the house and head home.
“Where the hell have you been?” Mom paces back and forth as I sit on the edge of my mattress, her feet heavy on the floorboard.
“Who were you with last night? I’m not a goddamn idiot.
Who were you with? Was it Brody? Huh? Answer me!
” Mom runs her hands through her disheveled black hair in a loose bun.
She’s been wearing the same shirt for the past three days straight.
“I called you, I don’t know, over a hundred times! ”
I clear my throat, drop my gaze, and twiddle my fingers. “My phone died.”
“I was up all night! I almost called the cops! Jesus, Charlotte!”
The second I stepped through the door, Mom grabbed me by the ear, tossing me to my room. The door slammed so hard, the entire house rattled.
Acid swims in my stomach, my mouth waters.
My palms become clammy at the thought of this week being excruciatingly awful.
There’s no way in hell I’m telling her I’m hanging out with Noah.
If she even finds out I’m slightly into a guy with tattoos and a love for guitars she's going to go ape shit. I sit in silence, watching Mom’s mouth move, her muscles in her throat straining with the words, her eyebrows crunched so hard together those lines will be stuck there forever.
I’m fairly sure at this point my face is turning pale and green.
I need a trash can, a toilet, anything, and fast. My eyes dart around the room, and the bin is right by my door.
I cup my mouth, making a break for it and hurling straight into it.
I fall to my knees, cradling the trash can like it’s my favorite teddy bear, and lean against the wall.
“You were out drinking, huh?” Mom continues to interrogate me as if I committed murder. I wish this hangover had kicked in earlier, and maybe I would have been able to fight off the dreadful headache. “And what the hell is that?” She pulls my hair away from my neck.
I swat her hand away and yell back, “Yes! Yes! I have a fucking hickey!”
“Who the hell are you hooking up with?”
Noah in the church bathroom. I heave into the trash bin again. There’s nothing in my stomach, just bile and remnants of the whiteclaws I devoured. “He was nice to me.” My lips curl under my teeth, and I pound my head against the wall.
“Yeah, well, Brody was nice to you, too. I’m not going to deal with your bawling on the phone again. You would constantly call Brody when he didn’t give you the time of day. Remember that? Remember me taking your phone for a straight week?”
I slam the back of my head into the wall, blinking my eyes a million times to wash those memories away.
Our first month of dating, I couldn’t sit still.
Brody had a way of sweet-talking me, telling me I was the perfect girl in the entire world for him.
We were going to run away together. That I was the only one who understood him.
Then he’d go dead silent. I’d see the Instagram stories of parties he went to.
I’d call. He’d ignore me. I texted. He didn’t even read them.
My voicemail messages would be a blubbery, slobbery mess, begging him to tell me he wasn’t with someone else. But he was.
“Charlotte!”
“He’s nothing like Brody!”
“I don’t care if you're almost nineteen years old. You're still a child, and you're still living under my roof! Whoever this guy is, if he’s keeping you out this late, you’re not seeing him again.”
“Just get out of my room!” Now I’m hitching a sob. Gosh, she makes me feel like a complete idiot for even existing. Ryder can have the loudest, grossest sex in the next room, but I can’t even see a boy. “Get out!” I stomp my feet and bang my head against the wall, and slobber coats my lips. “Out!”
“You’re not leaving this house tonight! Understand?” She’s firm with me, with her eyebrows scrunched together.
“Can Payton come over?”
“Oh, for the love of God, Charlie!”
“Please! I’ll stay home!”
“If it will make you stop crying! Now go clean yourself up.” She points to the bedroom door. I pick myself up and carry my trash bin filled with vomit to the bathroom.
It’s such an odd, looming feeling, crying and dumping my vomit into the toilet, and flushing it. Then I’m on my knees rinsing out the bin in the bathtub, making sure all the little gunky pieces go down the drain. My cheeks burn by the time I stop crying.
I took a longer shower than needed and ended up sitting on the bathtub floor.
Steam builds up fast, and I’m surrounded by it swirling around me.
Boiling hot water runs down my back as I take the loofah and lather myself with strawberry body wash.
A tiny ache in my chest wishes the warm, spicy and slightly sweet scent of Noah would stay with me a bit longer, but it’s gone.
Brody: Hey baby. I miss you.
Charlie: I’m not falling for this.
Brody: Do you think your brother scares me? You’re playing Roulette whether you want to or not.
Charlie: You're insane. You realize that, right?
Brody: You can just take me back. Let me fuck you in my bed whenever I want.
Charlie: I’m not sleeping with you. We aren’t together anymore. Now leave me alone.
Brody: Make me, because you’re always going to be mine.
I stop responding to him and turn my phone over on the nightstand.
I grasp one of my pink fluffy fur pillows, clinging to it to my chest as my bedroom door opens.
My mother wears a silky black dress, with red hooker heels screaming Fuck me hard, and her hair runs down her shoulders in tight black curls.
“Hey, I’m going out.” Her eyes point out into the hallway. “My date is here to pick me up.”
“Okay,” I mumble into my pillow, tapping my feet onto my cold sheets.
“Don’t wait up for me. I’ll be out pretty late.”
“Go get some good dick.”
“Charlotte!” She drops her purse from her shoulder to her hands.
“Bye!” I throw the pillow toward the door as she closes it right before it can hit her.
My phone goes off again, and I sigh, about to lose my damn mind if it’s Brody again. This time it’s Payton.
Payton: Mum said I spent too many days over there, and thinks I need a break. So I can’t come over tonight.
Charlie: It was just two nights in a row. We are legally adults, she can’t tell you no.
Payton: Sorry xoxo
Great. Payton isn’t allowed to come over tonight. Ryder is out delivering pizza until midnight, and knowing him, he’s going to the bar afterward. His new best friend is drinking Hennessy and sleeping all summer.
There are no good movies on Netflix since I binged all the new releases. The only suggestions are movies in French because the app tricked me into starting a foreign film.
I want to hightail it out of this house and go find Noah.
Come up with a good reason to hang out. I collapse into my sheets, staring at the ceiling fan spinning its blades, with my thighs burning.
Noah is still in my lungs, the crispness of clean clothes, the spicy cedar aroma in his hair.
His lips are peppermint, soft and cold. Just thinking about kissing him makes me want more.
The seconds his lips were on mine, it was as if there was something deep down inside him missing that he was trying to find. Like he’s longing for a feeling he can’t reach. I loved how he tested the waters to see how hard he could bite my neck. And how far he could go touching every inch of me.
I can only daydream about how he really is with a girl.
I threw half a bottle of foundation on my hickey to hide it from Mom’s memory.
I only came out of the room when absolutely necessary, and if she popped into the kitchen, I ran back to my room.
If I lived on my own, I’d show it off with pleasure.
I grab my phone, swiping left to delete Brody’s messages and finding Noah’s name.
It’s been a couple of days, and I haven’t messaged him since the party.
It left thorns in my stomach thinking he might only want one night stands or innocent flings.
Who knows, maybe he doesn’t get serious because he plays music.
Everyone knows that rock stars only like to get trashed and fool around.
Even seeing him with that one chick in the bathroom, it leads me to think someone else is in his sheets.
He’s fucking a stranger until he breaks the headboard.
I wipe my face, shaking my head to get rid of the idea in my head, and type up a message.
Charlie: Hey.
Noah: Hey. What kind of trouble are we getting into today?
Charlie: Wanna know my address?