Chapter 33
CHARLIE
At exactly three in the morning, Charlie finally decided to give up the ruse of falling asleep.
He stared up at the ceiling with a frustrated huff.
He wanted to get up and busy himself with something else, but he couldn’t move.
If Sam hadn’t fallen so peacefully asleep curled into his side, he’d have gone into the other room so as not to disturb her.
Instead, he watched her—her head rising and falling with each breath he took.
Even if things hadn’t worked out the way they did, he wouldn’t trade a single day with her for anything in the world. He loved her. Both now as her friend and her lover.
He flushed at the thought, cursing his body’s instinctual pull toward her. Sam was a drug, and he was already an addict, wanting her with every waking breath even more now than ever before. He’d have to think about something else right now if he didn’t want to pounce on her.
How could he be so lucky? It still felt like a dream—Sam was his girlfriend.
Everything he’d ever wanted since the day he’d met her, finally come true.
He wished they’d had that conversation years ago, so they’d have had more time together, but he also knew that it wouldn’t have mattered in the end.
He would have waited the rest of his life for her.
She looked so peaceful sleeping there, clutching the side of his shirt, as if she were afraid he’d be torn from her. He tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear, smiling when the motion caused her to sigh contentedly in her sleep.
Charlie’s gaze returned back to the ceiling. There was so much to do later that day. So much so that the lack of sleep was frustrating. He would need the energy because, despite his mother relenting on the bachelor auction, he knew something else would inevitably come up.
It was the day he’d been dreading for quite some time. But… it was for Erica.
Despite how much he didn’t want to deal with the circus, it was still all for her at the end of the day.
It was hard to explain to anyone else what it felt like losing a sister, a twin.
Erica had been the better twin; everybody knew it. Everyone liked her more, not that he could blame them. She was smart, cunning, talented at everything she put her mind to, and just overall a more fun person to be around. She was a bright light that had been snuffed out too soon.
The worst part was that he was starting to forget little pieces of her. Lost to the sands of time. The sound of her voice. Her laugh. The feeling of her presence right there next to him.
It was the first time in what felt like far too long that he let his mind wander to her. Shoving her memory aside so he wouldn’t have to think about what he’d done. Or, more apt, what he hadn’t done.
He could have prevented the whole thing. Erica would be alive today if he’d done things differently.
“Charlie?” Sam mumbled sleepily.
Charlie flinched at the suddenness of being pulled from his thoughts, but he recovered quickly and pressed a kiss to Sam’s forehead. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“Are you alright?” she asked, moving to prop herself up.
He was afraid that the sadness lingering from his previous thoughts would be all too apparent, trying to push her to lay back down. “Yeah, don’t worry about it. Just go back to sleep, baby.”
“Were you thinking about Erica?”
He stopped, glancing down at her. “How did you know?”
Sam’s smile softened. “Considering we have to get all dressed up for a charity gala that was planned because of the anniversary of her death? I think I’d be surprised if you weren’t.”
“It’s not a big deal,” he stated quickly.
Sam’s hand came up to cup his cheek, and its softness against his scratchy beard felt far more comforting than it should. He closed his eyes and relaxed into it, holding it there against him with his other hand.
“You know you can talk to me about her, right?” Sam continued. “I don’t ask you about her more because I know it’s not something you like talking about. And I know talking about her with your family is … complicated… but I knew her too.”
A strangled chuckle escaped him, the sound reverberating in his chest with each breath now feeling tight.
He shrugged. “I don’t know. It feels like if I think too much about her, that grief and guilt will eat me alive.”
“Come here, honey,” she whispered, pulling Charlie to lay his head on her chest. He didn’t fight her, adjusting himself so that his arms were curled around her body as his head settled there right above her heart. The steady beating of it thumping beneath his ear.
“You take such good care of everyone you care about,” Sam continued as her fingers began combing through his hair, “but you can’t protect everyone all the time. It was not your fault that she got in that car, Charlie.”
He sighed, wanting to believe her. Wanting to believe what everyone in his family had always told him. But he couldn’t.
“I knew she was sneaking out that night to go to that stupid party,” he whispered, the lump in his throat that had formed keeping his volume low.
Sam continued stroking his hair. “You were just teenagers, honey. And you know how Erica was; you wouldn’t have been able to convince her not to go. She was young and wanted to have fun with her friends.”
“But if I’d pushed harder,” Charlie added, tears already welling in the corners of his eyes, “maybe she wouldn’t have gone.
I had a funny feeling. I knew something bad was gonna happen.
I couldn’t explain it, and she thought I was being dramatic about it.
Yet I knew something felt wrong. But I didn’t push.
She begged me not to tell anyone she was leaving, and I just stood there outside and watched the car drive away. ”
It was his biggest regret in life.
He hadn’t protected his own sister.
How the hell had he expected he could protect anyone else?
What was worse was the fact that not only had his own sister died, but the other two people in that car had as well.
It made it all the more of a slap in the face that the guy driving the other car, drunk out of his mind after a bender at the bar, only got fifteen years of prison time for it. Fifteen years for three lives.
“Charlie, it wasn’t your fault,” Sam whispered, the sound of her voice like a soothing balm to the pain and hurt coursing through his chest. “There was nothing you could do. You’ve got to stop blaming yourself for something that you had no control over, baby.”
The pet name proved to be his undoing for some inexplicable reason.
The tender affection behind it was enough to forcibly snap him in two.
But as he dissolved into tears that had long been trapped, he felt like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders.
For the first time in many long years, he felt free of this weight.
Even if it were only a few minutes, he’d let himself fall apart, knowing Sam would be there to catch him.