Table of Contents 16 страница

“The usual.”

“For the sake of argument, let’s say, someone isn’t familiar with ‘the usual.’ Examples?”

Charlotte arches a brow. “Stupid stuff like daring each other to jump off bleachers, sit in the Dumpster for two minutes, or kiss someone everyone knows you have a crush on.” She rests her head back, appraising me. “You never played?”

“No one ever asked me to.”

“Truth or dare?”

My fingers tingle. I’m not sure I want to play this game. “Uh…truth?”

“When did you first know you wanted to ask me out?”

“The moment you didn’t punch me for touching your tattoo at the Krispy Kreme.”

She laughs. “For real?”

I nod.

“Do me.”

“Excuse me?”

Charlotte rolls her eyes. “Say, ‘truth or dare,’ Charlie.”

“Oh.” I grin. “Truth or dare.”

“Dare.”

Crap. Now what? I drum my fingers on the steering wheel, considering. “Are there limits?”

A smile slithers across Charlotte’s face. “What do I have to lose?”

My stomach clenches and I crack my window open to let in a cool breeze. Fast food joints and gas stations begin to dot the landscape as we near another small town. “I think you’re feeling hungry, Charlotte,” I say, my dare taking shape in my mind.

I slow and pull into the drive-through at a Burger King. Charlotte’s wicked smile spreads in anticipation.

“When they ask for your order, you’re going to tell them your name and that I’m the best boyfriend in the world.”

“That’s my dare?” Charlotte leans over me to get closer to the order board. “Rookie,” she whispers in my ear.

“Welcome to Burger King. May I take your order, please?”

“Yes, please. My name is Charlotte Elizabeth Finch and my boyfriend Charles Mortimer Hanson has the prettiest penis in all the land.”

“Charlotte!”

She dissolves in puddle of laughter.

“Uh…w-well, yes…congratulations, but…would you like fries with that?”

“N-n-no thanks,” I splutter before Charlotte’s contagious laughter infects me. I peel out of there like a madman, my window still open, and the cool air whipping Charlotte’s curls into my face. My body is humming. I’ve never felt so alive.

Charlotte grazes my jaw with a kiss. “I kind of cheated,” she says, peppering my neck with kisses. I’m finding it hard to stay in my lane. “Now I owe you a truth.”

It’s my turn to arch a brow at her.

“If I thought there was a chance it’d save me, I’d do that trial just to have more time with you.” She kisses my neck once more before sitting back in her seat and turning up the radio to sing along. Her voice fills the car and rises through the open window. I imagine it reaching all the way to the great infinite those poets write about.

7.0

Lately I get texts from Charlotte in the middle of the night.

Can’t sleep.

The part of me that knows insomnia is a symptom brought on by her growing tumors has a tiny anxiety attack. The rest of me is thankful for the extra time those long nights give us.

On the sleepless nights, we meet on the greenway halfway between our homes and walk for hours, her thumb tracing circles on the back of my hand and making me have to stop every so often and wrap her in my arms. She looks up at me with those eyes of hers, and it takes all my strength to keep standing under their weight. When we kiss, I feel like gravity releases me.

But tonight is different. Tonight is special. Tonight Charlotte is sleeping over. It’s the first time in two months. It’s the first time since the seizure.

Technically, Charlotte’s spending the night with Becca.

I’ve been in my room for eons, waiting for Charlotte. Mom and Dad went to bed hours ago. And the girls turned off the music 17.54 minutes ago. I slip into bed and pull my pillow over my head to drown out the silence. Maybe I misinterpreted. Maybe this is just another sleepover night, like all the others. Becca and Charlotte holed up together—me alone.

“Charlie, you awake?” Charlotte whispers into the darkness.

I don’t see how I’ll ever sleep again now that I’ll forever hold the memory of Charlotte leaning into my bedroom with my name on her lips, wearing short shorts, and an MIT T-shirt I’d given Becca for Christmas this year.

I can hear her footsteps padding across the carpet. I sit up and make room for her on the bed. She weighs so little the bed barely moves under her as she tucks her body beside mine.

Her fingers drum a rhythm on my chest as she hums a familiar tune. Eventually her fingers slow and the tune drifts away. I bury my face in her curls and listen to her steady breathing, feeling the pulse in her carotid artery as it thrums against my shoulder. It feels strong.

I whisper into her hair, “You asleep?”

Her pulse flies. “Difficult to sleep with something so stiff in bed with you,” she says.

I can feel my ears flame up.

She giggles. “I didn’t realize my being here would make it so hard for you to relax.”

“You’re an idiot,” I say, but I’m laughing now, too.

“True, but at least I don’t need to bone up on my bedroom etiquette like someone else I know.” She points toward me and dissolves into laughter. Listening to her laugh is like hearing my favorite song playing on the radio as I drive home on Friday afternoon with the windows open. Down-in-your-soul goodness.

Maybe it’s because she’s getting too loud or I’m loopy from the sleep deprivation of late or maybe it’s the song of her laughter in my head, but I let the words fall from my mouth. “I love you.”

She tips her face to mine and I kiss her. Not one of those long, deep, end-of-the-movie type kisses. Just long enough to know I like doing it, and deep enough to know she does, too. So, pretty much, the perfect kiss. When I pull away, I have a goofy just-been-kissed grin on my face, which makes Charlotte start laughing all over. So, I kiss her again. And again.

I get the feeling Charlotte wants to do more —that feeling being her hand working its way into my boxers. The thrill of it makes me do this gasp-groan thing in a not-very-sexy kind of way. Charlotte snickers. I kiss her neck to shut her up, working my way to the top of her collarbone just below the neck her T-shirt. As much as I love seeing her in MIT colors, as soon as she lifts her arms above her head, I lose no time dragging the hem of the shirt up along her stomach, exposing her chest, and finally tossing the shirt off to the side.

This is the first set of breasts I’ve seen in real life. The best part is that they’re Charlotte’s. My breath catches in my stomach. They are beautiful.

A patch of tight, angry, pink skin just under her right collarbone distracts me. My finger caresses the scar. Charlotte’s smile tightens. “What’s this?”

“It’s from my port.” I must look confused because she continues. “Where the chemo drugs go? Or, where they went anyway.”

The scar is all I can see. Everything else becomes a blur. Cancer. It is inside of her, eating her, killing her even as her fingers are brushing against my groin. A better man could ignore the panic and give Charlotte what she wants. All I can think is she can’t be my first while I’m her last.

“We have to slow down,” I say and move away from her enticing fingers. Hands down, hardest thing ever (har har, Charlotte). She looks bewildered. “I mean, Becca is right down the hall. And my parents.”

“Right. Of course.” Charlotte’s whole body has gone rigid.

I try to laugh, but it sounds wrong. “I don’t know if I can be quiet.” Which seems kinder than saying, I can’t have sex with you because you’ll soon be a corpse, which depresses me to the point of flaccidity.

Charlotte doesn’t let me pull too far from her grip. “Charlie, look at me,” she says, catching my face in her hands. “It’s okay. I love you. It’s okay.”

My eyes feel heavy with tears and I don’t want to cry now. Charlotte’s breasts are right there in front of me, and I’m going to have a sobfest? I take a few deep breaths, Charlotte breathing along with me, her hands still holding my face.

“We don’t have to do anything you don’t want—”

I groan. “I want, Charlotte.” Her thumb traces my bottom lip. “I want all of you, but I feel like we’re sprinting through this relationship, racing the clock, and no matter how fast we go, there will never be enough time.”

I pull her close, our skin melding together, and goddamn it feels so good, but it also hurts so much to know it won’t stay like this. I can’t make any of it stay.

“What if I’d like to marry you someday? We’ll never get that chance.”

“Marry me?”

“I know. It’s crazy. This is Charles Mortimer Hanson talking crazy here.”

“Charlie most couples in high school don’t actually get married.”

“Are you trying to be logical with me right now? Did you want to talk statistics?” My voice is verging on cracking as it jumps in octaves.

“No,” Charlotte says, she brushes my hair from my forehead with her fingertips. Holding her this way, lying on our sides with our chests breathing in and out together, her lips are very close to mine. She brushes a kiss over my lips and whispers, “I’d probably marry you, if given the choice.”

I swallow. She’s just said what I was thinking. I don’t know if I’d want to marry her in a few years, but I do know that this stupid, fucking disease is taking that choice away from me. Away from us. And there are so many other choices being stolen. The choice to move in together. The choice to have children together. Big choices, but little ones, too. Like what color should we paint our bedroom? And do we get a dog or a cat?

Charlotte’s face is so…despondent, sorrowful, forlorn…all those words the poets in Ms. Finch’s books like to use. They all mean the same damn thing.

Sad.

I sigh and burrow my face in the crook of her neck. Her fingers trail along my shoulder blades.

Damn it. I want happy. I choose happy.

“There are so many things we’re never going to get to do with each other,” I say and kiss the spot I love behind her ear.

Her breath catches. She slides her hands down my spine.

“We get now,” I murmur in her ear. She shivers beside me. “We get this. ” I lift my head and kiss her tattoo. “I like this.”

I drown myself in the endless sweetness of her mouth.

7.1

Light filters through my blinds as the sun rises in the morning. Charlotte is next to me, one arm flung over my chest and a leg hooked in mine. The first thing I notice is how beautiful she looks, even with her mouth slightly parted and her hair matted. She looks real, so real.

The second thing I notice is my full bladder. I manage to slide like a boneless squid off the edge of my bed without waking her. She shifts onto her belly, her breathing soft and slow.

When I slip back into the room, I take time to notice the way the light plays along her spine. I lie down beside her and let my fingers drift from the small of her back to her neck. She murmurs and stirs, just as everything inside of me stirs to life as well. I trace the lines of her tattoo over and over.

I smile at the memory of our first meeting. So much has changed. I lean in and kiss her neck. She turns her face and catches my mouth with hers, her hands pulling me closer, her leg wrapping around me again.

“Good morning,” she sighs when the kiss ends. She flattens her right hand over the center of my chest, studying her fingers there.

“Tell me about your tattoo, Charlotte.”

She looks up at me, a playful quirk in one eyebrow. “Which one?”

“You’ve got more than one?” My eyes scan her body, looking for something I missed last night. She’s wearing shorts that show most of her legs and nothing else. I can’t find any other tattoos, which means…holy crap—I try to angle my hips away from her.

Charlotte grabs my hips and pulls me back. “Oh, no you don’t,” she says as she laughs. The sound is victorious. She’s got me right where she wants me. “Got my first tat when I was fifteen.” She slides her hands from my hips to cup my butt.

“What did your sister say?” I squeak.

She pulls away, her eyebrows high. “Seriously? You’re thinking of my sister right now?” I groan and she smiles before nipping at my chin. “Jo was thrilled. It’s where they zapped me with the radiation therapy.”

I try not to flinch, but I feel like I’ve been slapped. “Oh.”

She places my hand on the side of her head. “It’s here,” she says, pressing our fingers together over the spot. “I thought I was seriously badass, but when my hair grew back, you couldn’t see it anymore. I figured since the doctors got to pick my first one, I should get to pick one, too.”

I slide my fingers out of her hair to the nape of her neck. “And you chose hope.”

She nods, tears magnifying her eyes.

“What do you hope for, Charlotte?”

She takes a shaky breath and kisses me, like she can press her lips to mine and regain her strength. “I hope Jo learns to relax and take care of herself for a change. I hope Becca continues to have adventures that aren’t confined by the margins of a book.” She tightens her grip around my neck and looks up at me. “And I hope that your life gives you everything you truly need.”

My throat feels bloated, and I have to clear it before I can speak. “What about you? What do you hope for yourself?”

She bites the corner of her bottom lip, her eyes darting up like she’s considering. “I’m kind of hoping that you’ll shut up and kiss me.”

0.0

My phone rings. Bleary-eyed, I look at the screen and see it’s Charlotte. It’s also 4:38 a.m., but that’s not unusual. Charlotte’s insomnia has been out of control the past few weeks. She’s living on catnaps and coffee.

“Hey,” I say, clearing the sleep from my throat. “You okay?”

She doesn’t answer. Not really. All I hear is sobbing.

“Charlotte?”

The sobs build on each other, until they’ve formed a giant wall of sadness. Without thinking, I’m up and pulling on a T-shirt and shoes. “I’m coming.”

I grab my keys from the counter and make it to my car before she’s quieted down enough to speak, but her voice is so raw from all the crying that I can barely make out what she’s saying. I put the keys in the ignition and switch the phone to my other hand. “Charlotte, just breathe. It’ll be okay.”

“Hanson…”

Not Charlotte.

“Charlotte is—” The rest is washed away with a wave of fresh sobs.

I hang up the phone.

This is my absolute zero.

I. Am. Nothing.

I am without Charlotte.

0.1

I now understand the expression, That’s when the bottom drops out. As a general rule, idioms are stupid, but this one, the bottom drops out, this one I totally get.

Gravity is a constant force in all of our lives, pulling us at 9.80665 m/s2 to be exact. But, I swear, when the bottom drops out, gravity pulls at me much faster than is physically possible. There’s no hope. The force of my landing will annihilate me.

I drive to Charlotte’s house. Every muscle in my body feels like lead, so I’m driving fast, the wheels screeching as my heavy arms struggle to make the turns.

Be there. Be okay. Be there. Be okay. Be there. Be okay. My mind can’t move beyond these two phrases. They are the parachute I pull during free fall.

Ms. Finch is waiting for me. Her long hair is pulled into a messy ponytail that makes her look younger than she is. But the redness around her eyes and the emptiness within them give the impression of too many years.

“She’s gone,” Ms. Finch says. These words, too, are made of the heaviest elements. They clatter at our feet.

I push past her, taking the stairs two at a time, Luna loping after me, beating me to the top. Ms. Finch calls out, “She’s not here. She’s gone.”

Be there. Be okay. Be there. Be okay. Be there. Be okay. I will get to Charlotte’s room and she will be there. She will be okay. It’s the only reality that makes sense. When I lift the lid, the cat will be alive. The cat has to be alive.

I’m about to charge into Charlotte’s room when I suddenly panic. What if she’s sleeping? I’d feel like a shit if I woke her. I whisper for Luna to stay. She sits on her haunches and whines. “Shh,” I say, holding a finger to my lips. Luna’s ears flick backward.

The blinds are open so moonlight pools into the room. I creep toward her bed, stepping carefully to avoid tripping over the debris on her floor. I place my hand on the end of her bed, sliding myself forward, lowering my face. My eyes adjust to the empty darkness.

Fucking cat.

I can’t be here. I can’t be in this room. I can’t be where she was. I want to be where she is.

Luna follows me to the kitchen where we find Ms. Finch sitting at the counter staring at an empty coffee mug. Her hands are wrapped around it in a stranglehold. Tears follow the canyons carved down her face from earlier tears.

I envy her. I envy her sadness. I feel nothing right now, which some might think is a blessing, except I can’t even feel the good stuff, like the love I know I have for Charlotte. It’s buried, too. I can’t reach it, so I sit like a stone and watch Ms. Finch grieve instead.

Those websites I found for teens with cancer also had sections for parents and friends. The stages of grief were outlined very clearly: Denial and isolation, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. According to the testimonies I read from grieving parents, the stages don’t always happen in order and often you move from one to another only to cycle right back where you started. It sounds horrible, unpredictable, and completely unavoidable.

Ms. Finch is currently at stage two.

“She’s gone. She left us.” She spits the words. “She’s somewhere else and we’re left here. Alone.” She stands, her arms shaky as she braces them on the counter. Then her right arm is a blur, and she’s hurling the coffee mug as hard as she can at the refrigerator. It hits the metal, a loud crack piercing the air, and shatters as it falls to the floor. Luna skitters back, watching Ms. Finch intently.

“They took her away in the ambulance,” she hiccups, trying to regain control. “When we got to the hospital, a doctor told me she’d had a stroke—bleeding from the tumors.” She’s yelling and her voice has gone all raspy. It makes my whole body ache to hear her. “He said it was quick. She wouldn’t have felt any pain. He said it like it matters. Like anything matters now.”

I’m not sure why I’m here. I knew from the moment I heard Ms. Finch say, “Hanson,” that Charlotte was gone. Why did I come? But now that I’m sitting here, looking at the couch where I held Charlotte’s head in my lap as we watched her favorite movies, I can’t leave. Except Charlotte isn’t on the couch.

Once again, I’m left with the wrong Finch.

“It should have been me.”

I’m brought back from my thoughts—scared I may have said that last bit out loud.

“From the moment she was diagnosed, I believed someone had made a grave mistake,” Ms. Finch says. “If one of us had to go, it should have been me.”

I should tell her she’s wrong. But I can’t. If it could have been anyone else, I wish it had been me.

Welcome to phase three.

0.2

I don’t remember driving home, but sure enough, here I am. Mom and Dad have already left for school. Hearing the car pull up, Becca bounds out the front door. Too late, I glance at the clock in the dashboard and realize this is when Charlotte should be picking Becca up for school.

Becca freezes mid-step when she sees me. She knows. Before I can say anything, she charges back through the front door. I race inside after her, but I hear her bedroom door slam as I hit the bottom step.

“Becca?” I knock.

No response. Becca has chosen to dive right into stage one.

Isolation.

“Becca, please don’t make me do this from the other side of a door.” I try the knob, but it’s locked. I slide down, making a puddle of myself on the carpet in the hall.

Melting this way makes it easier to ignore the feeling that my chest is caving in. I feel like my whole body will become a black hole of pain. For the life of me, I cannot imagine why people want to fall in love when it will inevitably end like this. If I can survive this, I swear, I’ll never do anything so stupid again.

I hear movement behind the door. “Bec?” A muffled thud and the breeze-like sound of pages being fanned is her only reply. Is she reading? Now? I’ll never be able to drag her out from her stories.

“I’m so sorry, Bec.” There’s more I need to say, but the silence buries me.

0.3

“Chuck?” Greta’s voice calls from downstairs.

I hear two sets of feet. I consider counting the footfalls, but fuck it.

“Chuck!” Greta rushes over, pulling me up into a hug before holding me at arm’s length to examine me. “There’s a substitute in English. What happened?”

“Charlotte—” Nope. I can’t say it. How did I think I could tell Becca when I can’t even tell Greta? Hello, Denial. Why don’t you go fuck yourself and your little friend Anger?

“Oh, Chuck, I’m so sorry.” Greta’s face crumples. Somehow, I feel like slapping her. Like her grief takes away from mine. And I want all of mine. I want it to crush me into oblivion.

When I speak, the words taste like nails in my mouth. “Don’t. Please.”

James stoops beside Greta. “How’s Becca?”

I look away from the two of them. “Dunno. She won’t open the door.”

James nods. “I can fix that,” he says, reaching into Greta’s hair and extracting a bobby pin. He straightens it and pokes it into the little hole in the knob, and then jiggles it until we hear a click.

Greta looks impressed and outraged.

“I live with a house full of drama queens,” he says, shrugging.

I open the door, calling, “Bec?” I expect to see her in her nest with a book, but what I find is unbearable.

She’s taken every book in her room and laid them like bricks in a circle around her. Crazy part is the books aren’t all closed, most are open to random pages then stacked, like she was looking for something in them and the resulting wall was an accident as she tossed them aside and grabbed a new book.

My throat feels full. My hands fall away from where I’d been gripping the doorframe and rest limply at my sides.

“Oh, Bec.” I circle the wall. “Don’t disappear on me, too.” It’s only a whisper.

I drag the wooden desk chair across the carpet toward the book wall and hop up so I can look down to see Becca inside. She looks so small, buried under all those stories. “Hey.”

She flinches and burrows deeper in her nest at the heart of the fortress.

“Bec—” But I stop myself. I was about to tell her about the stroke and how Charlotte died so quickly she didn’t even know it. How in the hell is that supposed to make anyone feel better? I’d like to drive to the hospital and slug a doctor—any doctor will do.

Becca’s shoulders slump forward even further, like she’s a mountain caving in under the weight of my stare. I sit down in the chair, and all I can see are the books. I sigh. “Dammit, Bec.”

No response.

From my seat, I notice a chink in the wall. It’s a space in which there is an absence of a book more than anything else. I whisper into the space, “I’m sorry. I know it’s not enough, but I love you.”

I stand to put the chair away, managing to knock its legs into the desk and tip over a picture frame. I pick it up and am blinded by instant tears that refuse to fall. Smiling back at me is Charlotte, one arm wrapped around Becca and the other around me. The picture is from Becca’s sixteenth birthday dinner, the first and only one to which she invited a friend.

Bringing it back to the wall, I nudge it into the place that is not a book. “When you’re ready to come out, I’m here. I can wait.”

Greta shifts next to me. I’d forgotten she and James were here. I stub out my tears with the backs of my wrists and offer a weak smile. It feels awful, so I let it slide away. “I need to get out of here.”

“Where do you want to go?” James asks.

“No. By myself.”

“That’s maybe not a good idea, Chuck.”

“I’m not asking for permission.” Greta flinches, and I feel like a schmuck for being so angry, but I don’t want any part of either of them right now. It’s like I’m pissed at them for having heartbeats and brain waves and circulatory systems that are still up and running.

And while I know this is normal, this is the way the human psyche has evolved over the ages to survive loss, the knowing doesn’t make it feel any better, which is a first. Knowing is always better than not knowing. Or at least, it was.

I push past them and take the stairs in great leaps to get away faster. I climb in my car, hoping to drive away from the large crater in my chest where goodness and hope and Charlotte used to be.

0.4

I drive without knowing where I’m going. I’m out in the farmland that surrounds the suburbs. My phone rings, but I don’t answer. James texts me once.

Dude?

Greta sends three.

Where are you?

Are you ok in there?

Don’t be stupid.

Oh, I’m well past stupid. I left stupid in the dust when I thought I could handle a serious relationship with a terminally ill girl. A gorgeous, talented, funny, and most awesomest girl in the world. But still, a girl destined to leave me.

I scan the horizon. Soybeans and tobacco as far as the eye can see. The road curves and I follow it. On the horizon is a dilapidated structure practically falling in on itself. The physics involved in holding its shape are beyond my scope. It’s the ghost of a barn.

I’m reminded of Charlotte’s painting. I am. The barn. Part of me wants to pull a fast U-turn and haul balls home. The part in control of the car slows down and pulls onto the dusty shoulder.

I march through high grass, crickets rising like popcorn kernels in hot oil with each step. The early spring sun is still hot even though it is sinking lower in the sky.

When I reach the barn, I place a hand on the worn wood, feeling the sun’s heat there. I let myself remember Charlotte and the warm smell of her skin. Charlotte always smelled like vanilla, like sugar cookies just out of the oven.

I think of the Harvest Moon and how it reminded Mrs. Dunwitty of her youth, even when she was so far away from it. But the memory of Charlotte is painful. Whenever I get a whiff of a bakery, will I feel like shit? Even when I’m eighty? I need to tell Becca no cookies can be served in whatever old folks’ home she dumps me in. The more sterile the better. I can’t think of any memories involving industrial cleaning products.

I don’t know when the madness slips in, but I start talking to the barn like it’s Charlotte. At first, I’m moaning stuff like, “How am I supposed to go on without you?” Melodramatic crap. Soon though, I’m telling her all the things I should have said, but never did. Things like, “I love the way your nose wrinkles when you smile.”

I wonder if I can stay here. The thought of going back and facing my friends and family and Ms. Finch and school and all the dumb expectations I had for my life feels overwhelming. Definitely unappealing. I could hide in this barn, this falling down wreck of a barn, until everyone forgets about me. I could hide here with nothing but Charlotte in my mind.

I don’t want to go back because as soon as I do, everyone will try to help me forget her. I promised I wouldn’t forget, and if that means hanging on to this pain until I die, then that’s what I will do.

I lie down on the warm earth and shut my eyes, willing Charlotte to me. She’s tilting her head back and closing her eyes, too. Our fingers are tangled together, so it’s hard to tell which are mine and which are hers. She’s so beautiful and so alive—if only for that one moment.

I don’t know what step on the whole grieving process this is, but man does it hurt. Tears leak out in streams that run down the sides of my face, dripping along my ears, and pooling in the dry dirt.

0.5

I walk into a maelstrom of activity when I get back. Dad is staring into a huge pot of soup on the stove even though it’s one of those classic southern spring-is-for-wussies-so-how’s-about-we-jump-straight-to-90-degrees days. Mom is upstairs, and I can hear her pleading with Becca to come down. Greta is pacing the kitchen, gnawing on her fingernails, as James plows through the last of the chips in a jumbo-sized bag.

I freeze in the entryway enjoying the last few seconds of anonymity before they notice me. Then I’ll be the guy with the dead girlfriend and everyone will examine me like I’m a time bomb. I understand now how Charlotte must have felt trapped inside her cancer with no way to escape it while we stood around watching her like she was a caged bird.

Дата добавления: 2014-12-24