CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CONNECTICUT, AGE TWENTY-TWO
Luke’s AA meetings were held in the basement of a church, which was conveniently located just across the street from where I worked at the cemetery.
After breaking Ritchie’s already-crooked nose a second time in a bar fight, Melanie and I had held yet another intervention with my brother, begging him to get his shit together. He accused us of not truly giving a fuck about him and that we only wanted him to clean up his act for our own benefit. And okay, sure, there was some truth to that. Melanie still wanted to marry him for some reason, and I had no desire to bury the last living member of my immediate family.
We loved the hell out of him—there was no denying that, so we didn't even try.
But what we truly wanted, more than anything, was for him to find enough love for himself to get better and not die of alcoholism before the age of thirty.
We wanted him to want to live, and somehow, we were convincing enough for him to give sobriety another shot.
Now, one of the stipulations was that he wasn’t to drive himself anywhere. Not until we all—himself included—could trust that his desire to survive was louder than the beckoning call of his addiction. So, on the days he attended his meetings, Melanie would drop him off, and after work, I’d pick him up.
It was a workable system, one we'd easily slipped into comfortably with surprisingly few complaints from Luke.
That was, until I met Jersey.
***
I left work early one day due to a stupid, minor cut on my hand from the hedge clippers. Marty, my boss, had insisted he could handle things on his own despite being older than the dirt we shoveled, and I'd left reluctantly, only to avoid his crochety attitude.
But there was a half hour to kill before Luke would be done at his meeting, and so I stepped inside the coffee shop next door to the church to grab something quick to drink.
I spotted her stark-white hair the moment I walked in, and I was lured to its light like a moth to a candle’s flame. I didn’t mean to stare as I stuttered stupidly through giving her my order—which should’ve been easy, given I was only getting a small black coffee—but I couldn’t help myself.
I’d never seen someone so stunning before in my life, and all I wanted to do was burn her image to my brain, just so I’d be able to remember her later when I had the chance to bring the tip of my marker to the drawing pad.
But to my surprise, she was also taken by me, and she gave me her number before I could leave.
And in the weeks that followed, Jersey brought out a side of me I’d never known before, and for that, I saw her as a savior.
I fell hard . I fell fast . And so did she.
But the problem was, for me, love always came with the side effect of blindness.
With Amanda, I couldn’t see that my love for her was unrequited.
With Jersey, I simply lost the ability to see anything else but her. And, God, what a sight she was.
Tall, only an inch or two shorter than me, with slender legs that stretched on for miles. Pale, icy-blue eyes that were only ever emphasized by thick black lashes and a clean sweep of blacker eyeliner. Long, voluminous white hair. Manicured fingernails painted a permanent shade of deep, dark blood red—the same signature color as her full lips.
I felt like an imposter with her on my arm. Like at any moment, she’d snap her crystalline eyes open, take one look at me, and wonder how the hell she’d spent three months sleeping naked beside me without ever noticing what a spastic, skinny, socially idiotic ass I was. Because that was exactly what I couldn’t stop thinking anytime I caught a glimpse of her in her bed, in her kitchen, in her shower, in her car …
What the hell is she doing with me?
But also …
God, I fucking love her.
“So, when are you finally going to introduce us to whatever chick has you looking like that all the time?” Luke asked as we sat down to dinner.
Oh, right.
And I had yet to bring Jersey home to meet my brother and his fiancée.
“Huh?” I asked, feigning cluelessness as I reached across the table for the pepper.
“Right?” Luke asked Melanie, gesturing the tines of his fork in my direction. “He always has this dreamy look on his adorable widdle face.”
I glanced at Melanie, who I knew would back me up if Luke was just being a jackass, but she smiled and gave a little shrug.
“You kinda do,” she answered, her eyes glistening with that type of affection I had grown accustomed to over the years.
It was one of the things I missed most about Mom, but I was grateful it hadn’t died with her.
“So, what’s her name?” Luke asked, chomping down on the end of a carrot stick like he’d decided to start moonlighting as a Bugs Bunny impersonator.
“Jersey,” I replied, dropping my gaze back to my plate.
“Ooh, Jersey!” he teased, raising his voice a few octaves. “Exotic! What is she, a stripper?”
“Oh Jesus, Luke,” Melanie groaned. “Stop. I like it. Jersey is a cool name.”
“Is she?”
I looked up at my brother, instantly defensive for no fucking reason I could explain. “Is she what ?”
He lifted one side of his mouth in synchronicity with his shoulder. “Is she cool?”
“Cooler than you, dumbass,” I replied.
Luke cackled obnoxiously. “Babe, look at him. He's blushing, and his feathers are all ruffled. Aww …” He folded his arms on the table and grinned, waggling his brows. “So, you really like her, huh?”
“Yes,” I answered simply because it was a lot easier—and less likely to earn me more of Luke’s obnoxious torment—than to say that I was in love with her.
“So, uh, why haven't we met her then? Why don’t you bring her over?”
I sniffed a sardonic laugh and shook my head, avoiding his questions for as long as I could.
The truth was, I wasn’t sure I wanted to bring Jersey into the house I’d grown up in—ever. The house that had once belonged to my parents, the house that still encased their untouched room like a dust-encrusted tomb. The house I shared with my wreck of an older brother and his incredible, saintly girlfriend-now-fiancée, who was more blinded by love than I’d ever been.
There was a lot of baggage there, a lot I wasn’t sure I wanted to unpack when Jersey knew so little about my familial life and the things that had so far formed the foundation I now sat upon.
And, hell, maybe it wasn’t about her at all.
Maybe I just didn’t want to admit that it was my baggage to begin with.
“What, are you ashamed of us?” Luke jabbed, and I looked up to see the hurt darkening his gaze.
“I’m not ashamed ,” I defended myself. “I just don’t know that I’m ready to bring her here.”
“I get it,” Melanie was quick to interject. “You don’t want real life to burst your happy little bubble.”
Exactly .
I offered a small smile her way, but said nothing.
“Bullshit,” Luke replied angrily, shaking his head. “Life is a shit show, Charlie, okay? Don’t pretend like you’ve forgotten that just ‘cause you've been getting your dick wet by some chick you really like. And the sooner you rip off the Band-Aid and show her who you really are, the better. It’ll suck a lot less if she finds out she doesn’t like what she sees.”
He winked and dived back into his dinner. Rotisserie chicken, carrots, mashed potatoes, and gravy. It was one of Melanie’s quick and easy dinners. Everything was either prepackaged or frozen, but it always tasted good, and I never complained.
Tonight, I couldn’t find it in me to eat.
Because what if he was right?
What if I was just prolonging another inevitable heartbreak? What if I’d been spending months thinking I was protecting her from my chaotic life when, really, I'd only been trying to protect myself from being hurt?
I was beside myself with the revelation, and I sat at the table, staring into a puddle of canned gravy as it spread between the island of instant mashed potatoes and pile of canned carrots.
What if I just never tell her? I wondered in foolish desperation. What if she never knows what things look like here?
I glanced up from my plate and looked at the old clock on the wall. At some point, it had stopped ticking. None of us could remember when it had happened, and we would comment on it occasionally, yet none of us seemed to care if it was frozen at 10:22 forever or not. Just like none of us cared enough to do anything about the peeling paint in the living room, or the cracked crown molding around the basement door, or the upstairs bathroom mirror that had been broken since one of Luke’s black-out-drunk nights three years ago.
For fuck’s sake, the carpet in the basement was still stained with the bloody evidence of Luke’s fight with Ritchie the day of my parents’ funeral.
We had allowed the place to go to hell, and why would I want Jersey to bear witness to that when her little apartment was clean and pretty and nice?
But maybe Luke’s right , I thought, rolling my lips between my teeth, while he and Melanie jumped into a conversation about her father’s auto shop and how Luke’s work schedule conflicted with his next AA meeting. Maybe I should just call her up, invite her over here, and rip off that crusty, old Band-Aid.
So, that was exactly what I did.
I left the table without ceremony and hurried through the living room and out the front door with determination. The moment I was standing on the stoop, I pulled my phone out and dialed Jersey's number.
She let it ring twice before she answered. “Hey, babe!”
She always sounded happy to hear from me. I closed my eyes and pictured her contagious smile. The way her crystal blues twinkled with joy. The way her lips curled upward, as if attempting to reach the crinkles at the corners of her eyes.
I inhaled deeply, wistfully, at the ache pulsing through my chest, spreading outward through my limbs and anchoring in my gut.
When it came to Jersey, I was completely fucked. Both literally and figuratively. And how I was supposed to survive the wreck she'd undoubtedly leave in her wake, I had absolutely no clue.
“Charlie?”
“Y-yeah, hey,” I stammered, pulling myself away from thoughts of a breakup that hadn't even happened yet. “Sorry. Hi.”
She giggled. She always laughed whenever I sounded nervous and stupid, as if I'd done it to be cute or something. “What's up?”
“I, uh …” God, just fucking say it. It's not a big deal. Invite her over and get it over with . “I was just thinking, um … you've never been to my house, so …”
“Babe, are you finally asking me to meet the family?” she teased, that smile still evident in her voice.
“It's just my brother and his fiancée.”
“Yeah, and? Are they not your family?”
I pushed the hair off my forehead, raking my fingers through it. “Well, I mean, yeah. I just, you know, don't want you thinking it's a crazy-big deal or something. It's just … Luke and Melanie.”
Jersey came from an enormous family. Happily married, living parents. Two sets of grandparents and a great-grandmother. Three sisters, two brothers. Nieces, nephews, cousins. Eight sets of aunts and uncles.
My family wasn't as grand or as wonderful.
No parents. No other siblings. No grandparents.
Just … Luke and Melanie.
“Well, you love them, don't you?”
I swallowed and ran my fingers down the length of my face. “Yeah, of course, but—”
“Then, that's all I need to know. When do you want me to come over?”
“Um …” Oh God, this is a mistake . “This Friday okay for you?”
“Actually, Friday …” She was quiet as she considered it, then said, “Yeah, this Friday isn't good. I have Mia's birthday party. But Saturday is okay for me, if you're not working too late.”
“Saturday's fine,” I replied quickly.
“Oh my God, okay. I'm so excited,” Jersey said, and I truly believed she was. “What should I bring? Wine or—”
“No,” I cut her off with a harsh bite. “No wine.”
“O-kay,” she slowly drawled, both startled and mildly amused. “Your family aren't wine people. Noted. What about a six-pack of b—”
“No alcohol, period.”
She giggled again. “Are they, like, crazy religious or something?”
Fucking hell.
I had hoped I'd never have to divulge the information about my brother's alcoholism. I hoped he'd never quit his AA meetings and that it was all behind us, like we could just continue with our lives and look back on that time with awkward laughter and comments like, Well, thank God that shit's over, right?
But I couldn't avoid this.
“My brother goes to AA meetings,” I confessed, keeping my voice low and hoping Luke couldn't hear me talking about him.
“Oh God! Charlie, why didn't you tell me? I feel like such an asshole now!”
No judgment. No cruel commentary. Just sweet acceptance.
How could I have expected anything less?
“You're not an asshole,” I assured her, wishing we were together to make out and make love and pretend that the outside world didn't exist. “I should've said something a while ago. I'm sorry I didn’t.”
“No more secrets, babe. Okay?”
I breathed out a sigh of the most incredible relief and nodded as I pinched the bridge of my nose and closed my eyes. “Okay.”
“I love you, Charlie, and I cannot wait to meet Luke and Melanie.”
I grinned, my heart thumping the syllables of her name. “I love you too.”
***
After I left work on Friday evening, I headed to the grocery store to grab what I needed to make one of Jersey’s favorite dishes—lemon chicken and rice.
With a smile on my face, I shopped and gave myself permission to buy the name-brand stuff, even if it did make me wince at the cost at checkout. Then, I drove home, grinning like a lovesick fool as I tapped my fingers against the steering wheel and ironically hummed along to The Cure’s “Friday I’m in Love” playing on the car speakers.
Since inviting her over, I’d managed to crawl away from my pit of anxiety and held tight to something daringly close to excitement. I wanted so, so, so badly for Jersey to love Luke and Melanie. I imagined future double dates and movie nights, and maybe, if we could climb out of our collective financial hole, we could even take a trip together at some point. Not anywhere crazy. Boston perhaps or maybe Salem. I’d always wanted to go, and I’d bet anything that Jersey would be into it too. Maybe Luke and Melanie would be down for it also. Maybe …
I narrowed my eyes as I slowly pulled into the driveway, feeling like I was suddenly moving in slow motion as recollection cleared my mind of the dense cloud it’d been living in.
Luke .
I gasped, staring wide-eyed at the garage door. “ Fuck ,” was the only word I could utter as my hands gripped the wheel tighter.
I had forgotten Luke.
Shit, shit, shit .
I was supposed to pick him up after work. He was supposed to go grocery shopping with me. We were supposed to come home together to make dinner for Melanie. She was working late, and we were supposed to do all this shit together so she didn't have to worry about it, and—
Dammit!
I had forgotten him, and all because my mind had been too fixated on Jersey and forever and the chicken I was surely going to blow her mind with at Saturday’s dinner.
Fuck, how did I forget Luke?!
I sucked in a deep breath and exhaled, trying to push myself closer to a level of calm.
Okay , I coached myself as I shot off a quick text to my brother, letting him know I was on my way. It’s only been an hour. He’s probably chatting with a couple of guys from the meeting. No big deal. It’s fine. It’s not a problem. It’s fine.
But as I drove, the heavy weight in my gut told me it wasn’t fine. And when I reached the church, only to find the door leading to the basement locked, I was even more aware of just how not fine the situation was.
“Fuck,” I whispered, my voice taking on a higher pitch as I fumbled with my phone and dialed Luke’s number.
Ring.
Ring.
Ring.
Ring.
“Hey, it’s Luke. Obviously, I can’t answer the phone, so leave …”
“Dammit!” I dropped my phone to the center console and pushed my hand over my forehead and into my hair, pulled into a short, low ponytail at the base of my neck.
I swept my gaze across the parking lot and around the sidewalk. He might've taken a walk. Maybe he'd taken to pacing, allowing his anger toward me to grow, knowing damn well I'd forgotten all about him, like a dad who'd forgotten his kid at school.
But he wasn’t anywhere to be found in the nearby vicinity.
“ Fuck !” I smacked my hand against the steering wheel.
Okay. Think. I gritted my teeth at the silent command as The Cure began to sing “Cut Here.” What’s around here? Where would Luke go?
There was Jersey’s coffee shop, but unlike me, Luke was more of a tea guy.
There was a discount card shop, an abandoned shell of a building that had once been a 7-Eleven, and a thrift store that seemed to specialize in ugly clothing nobody but the confident eccentric and the blind would wear.
And then there was the bar. Not Tony’s, but a bar nonetheless.
A harrowing feeling of dread corroded the lining of my gut as I stared across the street at that bar with its tinted windows and blinking neon advertisements.
Goddammit, Luke. Please, please, please don’t be in there.
The thought was on repeat as I got out of the car and crossed the street. My hand clenched around my keys, the metal digging into my palm as fear built higher and higher and higher. By the time I reached the door, my teeth were chattering, and my lungs were stuttering, barely able to hold on to a single breath of air.
Then, as I opened the door, I saw him.
Hunched over the bar. His hands in his hair. A half-empty glass in front of him.
Tears and disappointment bit angrily at the back of my eyes as I cursed for the hundredth time through gritted teeth and took the first step toward him.
The bartender—a middle-aged guy wearing a vest and more gold chains than a Mafia boss—nodded his chin in my direction.
“What can I get ya, boss?” he asked in a thick Brooklyn accent.
“My fucking brother,” I replied, mad, but not at him, as my hand landed heavily on Luke’s shoulder.
He was surprised to see me, his eyes rounded and his mouth open. “Charlie, I—”
I shoved at the shoulder in my hand. “Are you fucking kidding me, Luke?!”
The bartender’s brow crumpled with agitation. “Hey, man, if yous wanna fight, I don’t give a shit, but you’re not gonna do it in here.”
Luke looked back at him. “We’re not fighting.”
“The hell we aren’t!” I shouted, struggling to maintain control over my emotions and fists. “Jesus Christ, what do we have to—”
“Charlie, will you just fucking listen to me? I’m not drinking .”
I guffawed and thrust my hand toward the glass on the bar. “What the hell do you call that then?”
“Yo! Guys!” the bartender cut in, smacking his hand on the bar to get our attention. “I don’t fuckin' care if yous wanna kill each other. Just—”
Luke lifted the glass from the bar and shook it in my face. “It's fucking water, okay?”
I didn’t believe him. I wanted to—God, I did. But I didn’t . How could I? His track record was piss-poor, and he had to understand that it was going to take time for that trust to rebuild—if ever. For crying out loud, Luke had barely been sober— again —for six months, and here he was, sitting in a bar with a half-empty glass in front of him.
I grabbed it from his hand and sniffed the liquid inside.
It smelled like nothing.
“You didn’t show up,” he said quietly. “I thought you were just late, finishing up at work or something. So, I waited.”
I took the tiniest sip from the glass. The cool liquid evaporated on my tongue. No flavor. No burn.
Water .
He was telling the truth.
I hung my head as I slid the glass back onto the bar.
“After a while, I got bored, just sitting in the parking lot, so I came in here. I thought about going to that coffee shop, but …” He spun the glass in a puddle of condensation. “I wanted to see if I could do it.”
I didn’t ask him to elaborate.
I knew what he’d meant.
“And you did it?” I offered, and he only shrugged.
“It’s so fuckin' hard, Charlie,” he admitted in a weak whisper.
The bartender was silent as he walked away to busy himself with drying glasses at the other side of the empty bar. Satisfied that there wouldn’t be bloodshed in his bar today.
“I know,” I said.
Luke closed his eyes and shook his head. “No, you don’t. You have no idea how hard it is. It’s like having a devil on your shoulder every second of every fucking day, always fucking talking to you. Just yammering on and on and on and on . Saying your name, daring you to just do it, giving you every reason on the goddamn planet to just say fuck it all.”
I felt sick, listening to him talk, witnessing for maybe the first time how unbelievably vulnerable and defeated he felt against the substance that held the leash tied to the collar around his neck. All this time, I’d thought he was just an asshole, stubborn and only focused on himself. But that wasn’t the case at all.
Luke had lost his power somewhere along the way.
He had given it all away to an illness he’d never asked to have.
“So, why don’t you?” I asked, not intending to sound so snarky, but genuinely curious. “If everything is so difficult, why don’t you just give in?”
He sighed and lifted one shoulder in a limp shrug. “Because she’d leave, Charlie. And I don’t know what the fuck I would do without her.”
He was talking about Melanie, of course, but as he spoke the words, I thought about Jersey. Because, holy shit, I loved her, and I did so with such a force that I had to slump onto the stool beside my brother and stare ahead at the shelves of multicolored liquor bottles behind the bar.
What would I do if Jersey left me?
Sure, it had only been a few months, and, sure, I knew we were both fairly young without a whole lot of experience under our belts. But I’d always heard that when you knew you had found the coveted one , you simply knew , and did the amount of time and experience really matter in that equation?
“Luke.”
He glanced at me, looking like a lost, sad dog. “What?”
“How did you know Melanie was it for you?”
His dark, thick brows lowered over his eyes as he studied me for a moment. Staring in an intense, indecipherable way that made me feel defensive and embarrassed at the same time. Suddenly, I wished I had never asked, and I swallowed, ready to run away when his lips slowly spread in a big, stupid grin.
“Ho-ly shit ,” he drawled. “Charlie, are you telling me I’m about to meet the girl of your dreams?”
I began to backpedal. “No. I—”
“Does she make your creepy little black heart go pitter-patter?”
Groaning, I slid off the stool. “Oh, for fuck’s sake. Forget I said anything.”
“Wait, wait, wait. Am I about to meet my future sister-in-law? Because, dude, if I am, maybe I should actually try to make a good impression.”
“I hate you,” I grumbled, shaking my head and turning to head toward the door.
Luke was chuckling, enjoying himself too much as I blushed and wished I had seen this coming before opening my stupid mouth. We made our way to the door and crossed the street together to the car, all while Luke giggled to himself and I wondered if it was too late to back out of this dinner altogether.
It wasn’t until I started the car and began to drive that Luke sighed away the remainder of his laughter. He reached over to jab at the radio buttons, ditching The Cure's album of hits to scan the stations for something to listen to until finally settling on something I wasn’t sure either of us knew.
Then, he scrubbed his palm over his mouth and said, “It was when I realized my life would be nothing without her in it.”
I remained silent as I turned to glance at him.
“That’s how I knew,” he said, his voice low and gruff, like he was ashamed to speak the words out loud. “Is, uh, is that how you feel about, um …”
“Jersey,” I offered.
“Right.” He nodded, patting his hand against his thigh. “Jersey. You love her?”
“Yeah,” I admitted. “I really do.”
“Then, do yourself a favor and hold on to her. Do whatever you gotta do. Just don’t let her go,” he said, nodding affirmatively, like he knew best.
And, hell, for all I knew, he did.
“Okay.”
He clapped his hand against my shoulder and squeezed, and I couldn’t help but smile. It was moments like this that I missed most of all, and even as it passed, I was aware of how precious and fleeting it was.
“Hey, Charlie.”
“Yeah?” I asked, all too mindful of how much I had grown to miss my brother, even while living under the same roof.
“Don’t tell Melanie you found me at the bar.”
I locked my jaw tight, clenching my teeth and biting back my protest. Melanie never lied to me, so I made it a point to never lie to her, and come to think of it, I could say the same for Luke—not recently at least. The idea of lying to her now and about something as serious as this settled in my gut like a three-ton brick.
“I didn't drink,” he pointed out, staring at the side of my face with his plea written in every line around his eyes and the downturned tip of his brows.
“Luke …” I rubbed at my chin, shaking my head.
“Fucking hell, Charlie. I'm not asking you to lie ,” he said, raising his voice and sounding desperate. “I'm just asking you to not tell her. If she fucking asks , then go ahead, spill your guts. Just don't go running to her as soon as we walk through the door, okay? Can you do that?”
I gripped the wheel, still unsure. It didn't feel right; that was what my intuition was saying. It wasn't good. But Luke's panic was clear, and I knew that if Melanie were to ever know where I'd found him, she'd never find trust in him again. I wasn't even sure if it had ever been rebuilt to begin with, but this would surely be another nail in the coffin.
Hell, maybe even the last.
“Come on, man. Please ,” he begged, and finally, I nodded.
“I won't say anything,” I muttered. “But if she asks …”
He breathed out with relief and nodded, settling back in his seat and returning to the radio buttons.
“Right, yeah,” he replied. “If she asks.”