Chapter 5 #3
Charlotte closes the door, but doesn’t walk back to her desk. “Why are you here, Riley?”
Riley looks up at her, clearly trying to gauge whether Charlotte will take her seriously or not. She pulls one of the pillows onto her lap for support, and takes a breath.
“I have an issue with someone. Or rather: someone has an issue with me. We’re kind of bound to be in each other’s life though. And the situation as it is now is hurting both of us.”
Charlotte’s jaw tightens, she isn’t sure she’s ready for this game. “And?”
“And… I don’t know how to talk to her. We have a little bit of history and neither of us are particularly well known for our ability to keep our temper. She seems pretty defensive around me.”
“Why would that be?” Charlotte says through gritted teeth. It’s not a question, but Riley answers anyway.
“I think she might be a Taurus, to be completely honest with—”
“I’m failing to see how this is something to discuss with a life coach,” Charlotte interrupts her pointedly.
Riley’s eyes flash back to the plant by the window, considering Charlotte’s words.
“Can I tell you a secret?” she asks softly.
Charlotte doesn’t answer, only slightly raises her eyebrows.
“The woman I’m talking about: it’s you. I’m here because it’s about you,” she whispers theatrically, like it isn’t blatantly obvious. It makes Charlotte roll her eyes, but it also loosens her up a little bit. She walks to a chair across from Riley and takes a seat.
“If you underestimate my ability to read through the lines that badly, I can see why we’re in this situation in the first place.”
Riley looks at her with an unreadable expression on her face, but her grip on the pillow tightens. “Well, I guess I’m just really bad at reading you then.”
Her words carry a weight; a mix of disappointment and shame, and yet they haven’t lost all of Riley’s usual confidence. It causes Charlotte to feel a sharp sting in her chest, right where her heart is.
They stay in silence for a while, letting the words land softly in between them.
It’s the kind of silence that enhances all other sounds: the rain outside, cars driving by, the soft hum of the fluorescent lights.
It’s also the kind of silence that makes both of them realize they are about to reach a pivotal point in their bond, whatever that may look like.
“Scorpio,” Charlotte mutters, barely loud enough for Riley to hear. “Not a Taurus. I’m a Scorpio.”
“Fuck, that makes so much sense,” Riley breathes out. “When’s your birthday?”
“October 31st.”
“Makes even more sense. You carry yourself like a witch.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Riley hums, trying to find the right words. “You radiate a very powerful energy. Graceful, too. You lean into your femininity, and it seems like you’re drawn to other people’s minds. Not only that; you emanate your own emotions very strongly.”
Charlotte lets out a humorless chuckle. “Yeah, you’re not the first person to bring that up.”
“I bet you have a cat, too,” Riley adds.
Charlotte bites the corner of her lip. “A ferret, actually.”
Riley’s jaw slowly drops, like she can’t believe what she’s hearing. “That's insanely cute and never in a million years would I have guessed that. No seriously, that’s adorable.”
The smile that lights up Riley’s entire face makes Charlotte aware of that familiar, unsettling feeling in her stomach.
“Wait here,” she says, holding her hand up while she gets out of the chair.
She walks to the door—not the outside door that clients enter through, but the door behind the desk that connects the office to her house.
She looks around the corner, her eyes scanning the kitchen floor.
Then she walks to the living room and crouches down to look under the couch.
She doesn’t find what she’s looking for until she gets up and spots him by the large floor to ceiling window that looks out on the backyard.
With her black and brown bandit-colored ferret wrapped around her neck like a scarf, she re-enters the office.
She closes the door behind her with her foot and strides over to Riley, who looks completely awestruck.
Her eyebrows knit together and her mouth curves down like she’s about to burst into happy tears.
When Charlotte gently places the ferret on the pillow in Riley’s lap, she looks at him like he’s the most beautiful thing in the entire world.
“What’s his name?” she whispers full of wonder, not wanting to scare him off.
“This is Shaky. Say hello to our guest, Shake,” Charlotte tells him, and takes her seat across from them.
Shaky’s nose is clearly working overtime and he immediately honors his name by wriggling his face into the crook of Riley’s elbow.
“Hola Shaky,” Riley greets him, giggling at the sensation. She pats the spot on top of his little head with two fingers. “Shake; is that short for Shakespeare? Sí te ves muy educado.”
“I’m not sure he speaks Spanish,” Charlotte muses.
Without missing a beat, Riley replies: “Yes he does. ?Verdad, Shakespeare?”
Like he indeed understands her, Shaky presses himself even closer to Riley and flops onto his belly to enjoy her body heat and generous pets.
“I see how it is.” Charlotte crosses her arms, faking betrayal. “Teaming up on me.”
Riley, who is still entirely enamored with him, mutters: “He’s so… soft.”
Charlotte nods. “He actually works for me, sometimes,” she tells her like it’s the most normal thing in the world. “I like my clients to feel safe and calm when they come here. Some of them feel completely at ease when they get to cuddle him. And he’s good at it, too.”
“You’re an emotional support ferret?” Riley coos, carefully pinching one of his miniature pointy ears between two fingers.
During that moment, having Riley in front of her with her defenses all the way down, Charlotte feels the inevitability of the situation.
The pair of them look so disturbingly disarming that her own guard threatens to falter.
She’s never seen Riley like this—so soft, so open, so…
painstakingly beautiful. It’s such a strong feeling, it slaps her in the face and embraces her like a blanket all at the same time.
It doesn’t just mess with her head or her stomach anymore, but with her entire being. Most of all: it scares her.
Charlotte inhales deeply. “Yes, and as of now, he’s also a great conductor for my feelings, as I am in no way capable of yelling at you with him on your lap while we’re going to have this conversation,” she rattles in one breath.
Riley looks up, the endearment in her eyes slowly making way for worry. But she nods, she knows this is why she came here in the first place. She positions her arms for Shaky to make a little nest as Charlotte continues, her eyes fixed on the ferret.
“I take it that Gabi spoke to Lou, and Lou spoke to you?” she inquires, needing a ramp to launch herself into the depths of what the next few minutes are going to unravel. “About my text? And about what happened at Lou’s party?”
“Yeah,” Riley answers truthfully. “Not everything though. Gabi’s still very protective of you, even when she has half a mind to sell you to the highest bidder on the black market.”
One side of Charlotte’s mouth curls up. Then, the weight of the situation lands on her chest again.
“So… I guess I should apologize,” Charlotte confesses. When Riley doesn’t respond, she looks up at her for confirmation.
“Hm? Yeah, so go ahead,” Riley encourages her.
“You... ah.” Charlotte sighs in frustration. “Usually, saying that counts as the apology,” she mutters.
Riley shakes her head patiently. “I’d like you to tell me what you’re apologizing for. And then I’ll own up, too.”
When Charlotte catches herself picking at her own fingernails, she grabs a blanket off the floor to fiddle with.
“I am sorry for… being a dick,” she states, praying that would be enough.
She knows it isn’t. “For leading you on.” Riley’s expression turns displeased and she corrects herself quickly.
“No, that’s not what I mean. Uhm, look, Riley, I’ve made some bad decisions.
I obviously shouldn’t have sent you that stupid condescending text and I shouldn’t have provoked you.
Maybe… maybe I shouldn’t have kissed you in the first place. That’s when all of this went downhill.”
“Do you regret it?” Riley asks earnestly.
Yes. Yes she does. It had made her feel all kinds of things she didn’t want to think about. “No.”
“Then please don’t apologize for it.”
Charlotte opens her mouth to say something, but then closes it again. She doesn’t know how to continue.
“May I?” Riley suggests.
“Please.”
“I’m sorry for enabling you to do things you weren’t ready for.
And I’m sorry for letting you navigate that alone.
I should’ve reached out earlier to check in with you.
I guess I was just mad at you for how you’d been treating me.
Lou brought some sense into me by telling me…
well, that there’s way more nuance to your side of the story too. ”
Riley gently strokes Shaky’s spine to distract herself.
The knot in Charlotte’s stomach starts throbbing painfully and her whole body yells at her to start thrashing, to do whatever it takes to avoid that sickening feeling, to stop Riley’s words from reaching the innermost part of her soul.
Her body wins the battle over her mind, and her defenses slide back into place.
“Things I wasn’t ready for? I’m perfectly capable of thinking for myself, thank you. A tipsy bathroom makeout session doesn’t exactly constitute a 'major event in my life',” she spits, adding air quotes for emphasis. “So no need to tiptoe around me because I kissed a woman once.”
Riley’s composure drops into hurt. “Please don’t do this,” she pleads. “I’m really trying to reach out here. I’m only saying this because you lashed out. Which led me to believe I pressured you into doing something you didn’t want to.”
“I didn’t lash out,” Charlotte counters, but there’s no weight to it.
“And I did want to do it, at the time. But not like—not like it meant something.” At this point, she’s only shooting blanks, just firing everything back at Riley so it can’t reach her.
“You got way too personal and so I nipped things in the bud.”
“Too personal? When? Why?” Riley genuinely wants to know.
“You texted me first. When I was sick. You crossed a boundary.”
“Are you… Charlotte, are you talking about me telling you to feel better soon? Because if that’s what you’re calling too personal, then I…
” Riley’s at a loss for words, and wraps her hands around Shaky’s lanky body, holding him to her chest. “No, actually, that’s okay.
I crossed a boundary. Okay. If that’s your boundary, I should respect that.
And I will. No more texts unless absolutely necessary. ”
Shaky starts climbing up, snuggling Riley’s collarbone, and she mindlessly presses her face into his fur.
Charlotte’s heart shatters into a million pieces. Tears well up in her eyes, but her defense mechanisms don’t go down without a fight.
“Don’t. Fucking. Patronize me,” she hisses, straining to keep her voice low. “It’s not like that, I don’t want it to be like that. 'Let’s all be careful around Charlotte, she can’t handle the queer talk',” she says in a mocking voice, but a tear drips over her waterline. “No.”
“Then what do you want?” Riley asks, trying hard to stay calm with the ferret so close to her face. “I’m not allowed to bring up your sexuality, but I’m also not allowed to not bring it up. Help me out here Charlotte, because I’m lost.”
“Just—” Charlotte’s hands turn into fists, squeezing the life out of the blanket. “Just be… normal. Just act fucking normal. For the last time, it was just a goddamn kiss! There’s literally nothing going on and you keep turning it into this big problem!”
While Charlotte talks, Riley carefully puts Shaky down on the floor. He happily scurries towards a small round toy on the floor and starts pawing at it.
“Fucking normal?” Riley growls, her eyes spitting fire.
When she continues, she can’t keep her voice down anymore.
“You have a problem Charlotte, for fuck’s sake, you!
I was hoping at some point during these last few months you’d engage your critical thinking skills, but you act like I’ve been tearing your closet door off the hinges to ask you to move in with me. ”
“There is no fucking closet!” Charlotte shouts at the top of her lungs, not able to contain her tears anymore. They trickle down her face while she yells at Riley. “And even if there was, you have no fucking right—it has nothing to do with you! It’s my business, not yours!”
Riley seems to be putting a lot of effort into keeping her own breathing steady, but her eyes also glaze over.
“You’re almost right,” she says, her voice trembling. “Almost. Your sexuality is your business, yes. But when your sexuality started involving me, it turned into mine too.”
Charlotte scoffs and opens her mouth, but Riley is not done yet.
“Do you want to know why, Charlotte? It's because I’m human too. Because I have feelings too. This is not about that fucking kiss. This is about you assuming things about me and then blaming me for it. And it hurts me.” Riley pauses briefly to see if her words land.
“Look, if you need me to be patient, I can wait. If you need me to vent, I will listen. If you need advice, I will talk to you for as long as you need. And if you need me to step away, to never bring it up again, I will even do that. But I will not allow you to talk me down like you did and project your own feelings onto me. That’s my boundary. That is where I draw the line.”
Charlotte blinks. She’s at loss for words and for maybe the first time in her life, her feelings are stronger than her thoughts.
They swirl around in her body like a devastating whirlpool, forcing her to let go of every ounce of control she has.
She’s angry, furious even, at the things Riley is insinuating, but she’s also deeply hurt by the woman in front of her breaking down like this.
She is the one doing this; she’s hurting her.
Riley is showing her vulnerability, and in return Charlotte is spewing her bile.
All because things are getting way too close for comfort.
But it’s right there, right beneath the surface, the thing she’s trying to protect.
The thing she has always held on to, the thing that’s been her solid foundation, the thing that’s slithering from her grip now.
It’s getting loose, and the harder she tries to pull it back, the faster it escapes her grasp. She can’t hold on to it much longer.
“Why…” Riley gulps, and suppresses a sob. “Why is it… so hard for you? Why is this so sensitive?” Riley asks, her voice barely more than a whisper.
And Charlotte lets go. She surrenders and whispers: “Because I’m fucking terrified.”