Chapter 26 Charlie
CHARLIE
Charlie tossed and turned all night, his sleep perpetually disturbed by vivid nightmares, which he’s used to.
But it seemed that last night only served to feed his brain’s default network, interweaving autobiographical episodes with past memories, creating an emotional response that he couldn’t switch off from.
Every time he closed his eyes, he saw Marcus Harding coming for him in his dreams, intent on retribution, and every time he opened them, he was besieged by Tess’s twisted features, threatening to do her worst. His two parallel worlds, each as deeply troubling as the other, that he’s seemingly trapped between.
He catches himself in the bathroom mirror as he splashes cold water onto his face and is shocked by his reflection. With sunken eyes and a sallow complexion, he looks a shadow of his former self. The stress of what life may be about to throw at him next etched into the crevices between his brows.
Opening the bathroom cabinet, he takes out the pill box and counts them.
There’s two more than there should be, but that’s to be expected with Freya being away.
Maybe he’ll give her both once she’s home, though he’s painfully aware he needs to be careful because it will only take a moment’s lapse for it all to go terribly wrong.
The house is unusually quiet, devoid of Freya’s presence, and Charlie wonders how he would feel if it was like this all the time.
He looks at her coat, thrown carelessly over the banister, her boots lying on their side by the front door, just where she’d kicked them off, her favorite mug ever ready on the counter.
He tells himself that it’s not too late.
That he can still save his marriage, save her.
But can he? Even if he wanted to? If you’d asked him a year ago, he would have fought tooth and nail to hold on to what they had.
But the monster became bigger than he ever thought possible.
Though even then, he na?vely thought their love was greater than the consequences of that night.
That they would be able to forgive each other’s mistakes, but it seems that no matter how deep you bury them, they’ll always resurface when the foundations are rocky.
Freya’s perfume still hangs in the air as he sits at the dining table and pulls out the insurance forms she’d signed. This wasn’t the plan—at least not yet—but things had taken an unexpected turn and he has to reimagine a way out, identify where he’s most exposed and who presents the most danger.
He sips his coffee, pretending it’s just a normal day, as he reads the small print of the policy, knowing they’ll catch him out in any way they can. But he’ll find a way around it—he has to—because seeing this through is even more important now than it was before.