Chapter 9 Charlie #2
I duck my head, feeling too exposed and vulnerable, the words spilling from me in a rush, all my pain being dragged out into the light. “My mother was the main one, I guess,” I croak. “I wasn’t exactly what she imagined in a daughter, but gotta say, she’s not what I pictured as a mother.”
The humor lands flat, the silence feeling like ice pricking at exposed skin.
I peek at Marisa through my lashes, finding her eyes wide and brows high on her forehead.
Her mouth has dropped open, but she snaps it shut, rearranging her expression into something neutral as she reaches out to grab my hand.
I’m expecting pity-filled questions, but she just squeezes her fingers around mine.
“I’m sorry,” she says with feeling.
“So much for unconditional love, huh?” I murmur back, attention dropping to her hands on mine—the blunt edges of her neatly-shaped nails. It always surprises me that she keeps them bare and trimmed short. She once told me that it was just easier for her job.
“We don’t know each other that well”—Marisa squeezes my fingers—“but I wanted to talk to you about Friday night. You didn’t deserve anything that was said, and I wanted you to know that Dillon—”
“We’re not together anymore,” I cut her off. “We broke up.”
Her expression goes slack as she slumps against her chair, face paling. “What?” she breathes. “Because of—”
“Not just that,” I say quickly, turning my gaze out the window, tucking my hands into my lap. “I confronted Dillon about everything.”
Marisa doesn’t answer immediately. I can see her sipping her coffee in the reflection of the glass, her brows knitted together. When she sets the cup back down, she asks carefully, “Everything?”
“I heard everything Bliss said on Friday night, including her thinking that Dillon was in love with you.”
She sucks in a sharp breath. “Charlie—”
“Did you know that Dillon hadn’t told me?” I face Marisa, spearing her with a look, daring her to keep lying to me.
She doesn’t answer straight away, her mind working furiously behind her blue eyes, but then, her shoulders slump. “I thought you knew,” she whispers. “I thought he would have told you, and you were fine with it because it was history. You didn’t know?”
“Nope,” I say shortly. “I did not know that you and my boyfriend have slept together.” She flinches, looking around to make sure no one else overheard, and shame fills my chest, my shoulders curling inward. “Sorry, Marisa,” I mumble. “That was uncalled for.”
“No, it’s fine,” she says weakly. “If the roles were reversed, I would feel a type of way, too. Charlie, I swear, I thought you knew.”
We fall quiet, finishing our drinks, shaking our heads when the server sidles back over to ask if we want anything else, her eyes dipping shyly. Once she’s gone, Marisa turns back to me.
“Are you and Dillon over over?”
I hesitate, debating internally with just how much to tell her. At the end of the day, she’s his friend, not mine, and her loyalty will always lie with him. But something in me demands honesty, especially when she sought me out to give me the truth about Friday night—even when she didn’t have to.
Marisa senses my reluctance because she leans forward, her voice earnest. “Dillon’s still growing, Charlie.
A man-child playing at being a grown-up.
Same as Jack.” She pauses, her face sincere.
“He loves you, though. I think…I think he’s scared of what being in a real relationship means.
He’s never had one before you. Not anything that lasted.
And you’ve met his parents.” We share a wince at that, because I have, and they’re in anything but a healthy marriage.
“Dillon clings to his friends like a safety net, even when he shouldn’t. ”
I slick my tongue over my teeth. “Dillon told me I was overreacting.”
Marisa goes still, her lashes lowering in a slow blink. “What?”
“He said I was overreacting, and then he told me that me giving up on us says a lot more about me than him. Because that’s what happens when you’re”—my voice cracks, the emotion bleeding through as I hear his words all over again—“nothing to everyone.”
A sharp gasp whistles through Marisa’s teeth. “He said what?” Her blue eyes fill with unadulterated rage, each word trembling with emotion. “That…that…that—” She slaps a hand against the table, rattling our empty mugs. “I don’t even know what to call him!”
“I’ve been trialing a few different things,” I murmur, mouth twitching. “What about dickwaffle?”
Marisa lets out a muffled snort. “It’ll do for now.” She watches me carefully, her expression torn. “So you’re over, then.”
“I wish I could say a firm yes and just close that door, pretend it never happened. But—” I rub a hand over my chest, hating the ache that lingers there, but reminding myself that it’s only been three days.
“Feelings don’t work like that,” she finishes for me.
I nod. “I think I need to know why, and I hate myself for that,” I whisper, not quite sure why I’m telling Marisa all this. She’s easy to talk to and, instinctively, I believe she won’t run to Dillon the minute we part ways.
But I’ve been seriously wrong about people before, proof right in the embers and ashes of my relationship.
“He doesn’t deserve to explain when what he did was inexcusable,” I continue.
“Who sits there and lets someone say such disgusting things about someone he loves? I would never…” I suck in a calming breath, trying to convince my heart to stick to a normal rhythm.
“I would never just sit by while someone talked about him like that, especially when he knows about my history. My family. He knows how that would hurt me.”
“He didn’t know you’d hear it, though.”
“Do you think that matters?” I ask quietly, and she looks away, mouth downturned.
“Should I stick it out with him, always wondering what he might be saying about me when I’m not there?
I’d wonder whether that’s how he truly felt about me, never sure which Dillon is the real one.
I’d always think he was lying to me.” I look at her pointedly, and Marisa’s face falls.
“I want you to know that I never, not even for a second, harbored feelings for Dillon. And he doesn’t for me, either. That doesn’t excuse him not telling you about our history, but he wasn’t settling for you, Charlie.”
“I wish I could believe that,” I say quietly. “How am I supposed to trust him now?”
She opens her mouth, closes it, and then looks away, and I nod, knowing she doesn’t have an answer for me either.