Flower

by Shea Olsen

  He touches my face, kissing me on the mouth, and I tilt my head back, my hips shifting up to press against his. Urging him closer.

  And then something shatters the stillness. A ringing. My cell phone.

  I ignore it, kissing Tate again, and eventually the ringing stops. His fingers are at the hem of my underwear. There is almost nothing separating us and my heart trills, wanting to feel all of him against me. But then...the ringing starts again.

  I tilt my head toward the sound.

  It’s probably just Carlos, checking up on me. The ringing stops, then begins almost immediately again. Tate shifts his weight, staring down at me.

  “I just need to check it,” I say, wriggling out from under him. I pull on a robe from the closet and pad out into the open living room. The phone is vibrating on the side table where I left it last night. I pick it up and my stomach sinks. I hit the answer button, clearing my throat and preparing to sound my most casual and composed. “Hey, Grandma,” I say, flashing a look back at Tate, now lying on his back on the bed, watching me.

  “I know you’re not at a UN summit.” The voice on the other end is as angry as I’ve ever heard it. “You’re with him.”

  I’m silent. A knife of fear rises inside me.

  “Charlotte, I can’t—” She chokes on her words. “Lying to me? I can’t believe you, Charlotte...after everything...”

  “Grandma, I...” But I’m not sure what to say. How can I explain myself? I want to tell her it’s not like she thinks, but I don’t want to lie again. “I’m coming home” is all I can muster. My voice so small I think maybe I should repeat it.

  She hangs up before I can say anything else.

  How did she find out? I open up my text messages and see one from Carlos, two hours old. It’s a photo of Tate and me, leaving the pizza place last night. And there’s a caption: TATE COLLINS OUT WITH HIS GIRLFRIEND, CHARLOTTE REED, IN NEW YORK LATE ON FRIDAY. And there’s another text from Carlos a few minutes after the first. Photo is everywhere. Ur grandma called me, she saw image on Mia’s phone. Not good.

  Once again, the world knows we are together. There is no denying it now.

  * * *

  Tate rides with me to the airport, holding my hand in the backseat while Hank maneuvers the black SUV through the crowded streets of Manhattan.

  I’ve been in New York less than twenty-four hours and now I’m going back to LA.

  “We never should have left the room last night,” Tate says. “I’m sorry. I’ve had pretty good luck walking around freely since I’ve been here, but I should have done more to protect you.”

  “It’s not your fault,” I tell him. “And I already told you—I don’t need your protection. I shouldn’t have lied to my grandma. But I shouldn’t have needed to.” I stare out the window at the passing city, cloaked in gray as clouds descend over the highest buildings. “I’m eighteen. She needs to learn to let go a little.”

  Outside the airport, Tate runs his fingers through my hair, kissing me. We both know he can’t get out of the car—can’t risk being seen and photographed again. If my grandma saw us kissing in another tabloid photo, it would only make things worse.

  “When will I see you again?” I ask.

  “I should be back in LA in a couple weeks.” His face has been unreadable since we left the hotel, a hint of tension in his features. I tell myself it’s only because we were forced to stop so close to finally being together.

  He gives up a tiny smile now, kissing me once more before I step from the car.

  This weekend was almost perfect, almost everything I wanted it to be. And now I will pay the price when I get back home.

  * * *

  I arrive back at LAX in a daze. Maybe I should be, but I’m not prepared for the paparazzi waiting for me. As soon as I descend the staircase toward baggage claim, they are there, hovering like vultures. Had they tailed our movements since last night?

  “Charlotte! Charlotte!” they call out. “Where is Tate? How did you meet? Charlotte!”

  I ignore them, holding my arm in front of my face. I press forward, trying to find a way out.

  “Are you still together? Is it true he’s recording a new album? Why did you come back so soon?”

  Cameras flash, bursting and popping. My vision swims. I try to glance up while keeping my head down. My eyes scan the periphery for a place to escape. Ahead, I see a ladies’ room and run.

  Inside, I press my hands against the sink. I breathe in and out. Tate warned me that fame could be hard, that the paparazzi are intense, but I didn’t realize how vulnerable I would feel when I was by myself. I realize I’m shaking.

  When I look up, I see a familiar face and my breath catches. I’m having déjà vu—I’ve seen her light eyes and freckles before, someplace just like this. For a second, I can’t place it, but then I realize...it’s Goth girl from the Lone Bean. The one who told me to stay away from Tate. I’ve barely given her another thought since then. What’s she doing here? Why do I keep meeting her in bathrooms?

  “You didn’t listen to me,” she says, staring straight at me. Her black hair dye is beginning to wash out. Just as I’d suspected, I can see a hint of red underneath.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t even know—” I start, but she cuts me off.

  “I told you to stay away,” she says before she begins taking swift steps backward. “I told you.”

  Then she turns and pushes past a woman in the doorway, and is gone.

  I look at myself in the mirror, my ponytail a mess from the flight. My green eyes look tired and I realize I look older, somehow—like I know things I hadn’t known before. I’m not sure what to think—about the paparazzi waiting outside the door, or the girl with the dyed black hair and her strange warning. I steel myself. Once I make it out of here, I have to face my grandma, too, and somehow that’s an even more frightening thought.

  * * *

  Grandma is beyond furious.

  I try to avoid seeing her by slipping into the house quietly and sneaking down to my room, but she appears in my bedroom doorway as soon as I drop my suitcase onto the floor. I’m exhausted after evading the paparazzi by cutting through the crowd and boarding a bus—I just want to crawl into bed and hide, but I won’t be so lucky.

  “I don’t even know who you are anymore,” she says quietly, her youthful face flushed.

  I should apologize, I should admit that I made a mistake and promise never to do it again, but I can’t believe what she’s saying. My anger is burning away all rationality.

  “I’m me, Grandma. Nothing is different.”

  “Excuse me?” she says, taking a step over the threshold into my room. “Nothing is different? Charlotte, you’ve been lying to me for months. The Charlotte I knew wanted to go to Stanford and make something of herself. If I’d told you six months ago you’d be sneaking around and letting some boy fly you all over the country, you’d have laughed in my face.”

  “I still want to make something of myself,” I retort. “Just because I flew to New York for one weekend doesn’t mean I’m giving up anything. It’s my life,” I remind her, steeling myself. “And I love him.”

  It’s too much for her. Her eyes widen, her face freezes in place—immobilized in shock. And then she shakes her head, grasping for words. “Don’t be stupid, Charlotte. A boy like that only wants one thing from you. I thought you knew that. I thought you were smarter than this. What happens when he moves on to the next poor, naïve young girl? Your broken heart will be smeared all over every gossip page in the country, right there for everyone to see. Every college professor. Every prospective employer. Can you stand there and tell me that’s really what you want?”

  “He’s not like that,” I say in a burst of fury. “And this isn’t even about me. This is about you. You’re so afraid that I’ll end up like Mia or Mom,
because the truth is, they both ended up just like you. You ruined your life because you got pregnant too young. Well, I’m not going to ruin mine—I’m not like you. And Tate’s not like Grandpa or my dad or Leo’s.”

  “You do not get to speak to me that way,” she snaps back. “And don’t you ever lie to me again, not while you’re living under my roof.” She turns in the doorway and I bite down on all the words crawling up to the surface. I hate her rules, her hypocritical demand for perfection.

  I listen for the sound of her bedroom door slamming shut down the hall, then I yell, “And I got into Stanford, if anyone cares.”

  Leo breaks into a cry behind Mia’s doorway but is quickly soothed—Mia must be standing on the other side of her door, listening to everything. Then the house falls still again.

  I flop onto my bed, pulling the blankets up over my head. When I was little I used to think I’d disappear if I closed my eyes tight enough. I’d imagine myself someplace new, someplace I’d only ever read about.

  Now, just when the world is finally opening up to me, I feel more trapped than ever.

  TWENTY-ONE

  FIVE DAYS LATER, THINGS HAVE barely changed at home. I haven’t made up with Grandma, but then, I haven’t seen Tate either—it’s not like I could, with him in New York. So we’re at a standoff.

  I walk quickly through the night air and into the lab at UCLA. Rebecca is already standing at one of the stations, tagging samples. “Hey,” she says. “Um, so...”

  “Thanks for getting started without me.” I smile. “That was really nice of you—I know I’ve been late a lot lately.”

  “No problem. I didn’t realize you were...” She pauses, looking for the right word. “Famous.”

  “Ha!” I can’t help but say. “Hardly.” I smile at her. “Tate’s the famous one. I just got caught in the cross fire.”

  She nods, and I’m grateful when she doesn’t ask any more questions. She’s known longer than anyone that I’m back with Tate Collins—she was there the night he showed up at the lab. So in an odd way, she’s the only person I haven’t lied to. And I barely even know her, beyond our small talk during lab hours. She’s not the chatty type, and right now I’m glad for that.

  At school on Monday, Carlos had wanted to know everything about New York, about Tate, and then what had happened when I got home and had to face Grandma. But as much as I had appreciated his genuine concern, I hadn’t wanted to talk about any of it. Ever since returning from New York, every part of my life has felt constrictive.

  I pull on my lab coat, read the notes from the last two undergrads whose shift ended right before ours, then settle onto a stool to help Rebecca tag and label samples. In an hour we will need to transfer two dozen samples into the refrigerated unit. Right now, an hour feels very far away.

  As we work, I think about Tate. I think about the night we first met and how afraid I was to let myself feel anything for him—how resistant I was at the thought of a single date. My whole life I’ve been afraid. I’ve hardly allowed myself to experience anything. What if I’d grown up in a normal family, I wonder—what then? Would I be here, now, at UCLA, making stupid labels for stupid petri dishes for some stupid project I’m only doing for an application? I stare down at the petri dish in my hand, my fingers trembling slightly. I’ve never really stopped to think if this is what I want. Any of this. I worked so hard to get into Stanford—all the extracurriculars, the straight As, the perfect essays. Now I’m in, and I thought I’d feel elated, thought the euphoria from my acceptance letter would last. I have everything I ever wanted.

  But what if I want something else?

  I look over at Rebecca, methodically sorting through glass dishes, and I realize how unlike her I am. She loves the experiments, the endless studies, the order and precision to it all. But maybe it isn’t me. Maybe this isn’t what I want: this internship, this career path. I’m not sure I want any of it anymore. For the first time, I wonder if this was ever something I wanted for me, or if maybe I didn’t know who I really was. Maybe I’m just learning that now.

  My whole body’s shaking; I set down the petri dish and take a step back, shrugging out of my white lab coat. I feel my legs carry me backward. My purse is sitting on a chair and I scoop it up—silently, robotically.

  “Charlotte?” Rebecca asks, stopping her work to look up at me.

  “I need to go,” I say.

  “Where? We still have to do the swap in less than forty minutes.”

  “I can’t,” I mumble.

  “Why not?”

  I shake my head at her, tears or maybe laughter pushing up to the surface. “I’m sorry, Rebecca. I hate to leave you short-handed again. But I can’t do this anymore.”

  “Do what?”

  “The lab, this internship,” I confess to her, feeling heady and also sharply focused. “I really need to go.”

  And I dart through the lab door, rushing down the hall, desperate suddenly for fresh air. I burst from the science building out into the parking lot and crane my head up, laughing at the sky.

  * * *

  The tarmac is hot at the private airport, heat rising in waves under the late-afternoon sun.

  I watch as Tate’s plane circles, then descends to land. It’s been two weeks since I’ve seen him, two weeks since I left New York. And I haven’t felt like myself since.

  As Tate’s plane rolls to a stop and the door opens, a rush of excitement overcomes me. He appears in the doorway, a hand over his eyes, wearing a green flannel shirt and dark jeans. When he moves down the steps, I run to him. He scoops me up in his arms, his strong hands wrapped around my thighs, and I bury my face in his neck.

  I had considered telling him everything when he returned home—ditching out on the lab, the paparazzi that show up outside school sometimes, the Goth girl I’ve now seen in not one bathroom, but two—but now, seeing him, I don’t want to ruin this moment. None of it feels important.

  The only thing that matters is us.

  “You smell so good,” he says against my ear.

  “I missed you.”

  He sets me down on the pavement, his hands still gripping my waist, and Hank moves past us, winking at me as he piles luggage into the Escalade waiting for Tate.

  I turn and tug him toward the car, but he stops me before we get inside. “Charlotte. There’s something I have to tell you.”

  The way his tone changes sends a shiver through me. “What is it?”

  He glances across the tarmac where another plane glides to a stop on the runway. “I’m going back on tour, to promote the new album. It’ll be small to start—just a few pop-up shows—but we’re working on a European tour after that.”

  “What? When?”

  “My manager pulled some strings, I’m going to do a surprise gig tonight, opening for December Valentine at the Staples Center.”

  “Tonight? But...” I look away from him, trying not to let my disappointment show. I know he’s worked hard for this, and he deserves to be back onstage, especially after the past year. But I didn’t think things would happen so quickly. And a small, selfish part of me wants him all to myself—just for a little longer.

  “I know it’s fast. But they want to create some buzz about the new album release in a few months. And it’s just one show—I won’t have to leave right away after that.”

  “So—when?” I ask.

  “I leave next week for a show in Sacramento. And then Seattle a few days later.” Tate presses me against the side of the car, smoothing my hair back from my face, but it does nothing to soothe the frustration that builds in my chest. “This is because of you, Charlotte. I don’t think I could’ve picked up the pieces of my life without you. Or faced more crowded arenas without you telling me it was time to forgive myself.”

  I know this is what he wants; I can s
ee it in his eyes. But the irony of it kills me. I’ve inspired him to leave, when all I want him to do is stay. “How long will you be on tour?”

  “A year...probably.” He pauses, releasing my hair. “This isn’t going to be easy. I know you have Stanford next year, and I’ll be on the road, but I want to be with you. We’ll make it work.”

  I turn away from him, toward the window. I can’t help it, I think about what he told me about his last tour—the partying, the drinking, the girls. You can’t even imagine what that feels like, that type of fame... Like you can get away with anything. His words ring through my mind.

  “I don’t know, Tate.” I’m still facing the window. “A year is a long time.” Especially when his life will be so extreme on tour—so many temptations, so many things to pull him back into his old habits. Will I be able to trust him? Could we survive a year long-distance—it seems almost impossible with so many forces working against us.

  “It’ll be hard,” he admits. He touches my arm and turns my chin to face him. His mouth is warm, soft and reassuring as he tries to kiss away my doubt. I run my hands over his scalp, touching him, wanting to remember the way he feels, the way he tastes against my lips, the way his hands move easily across my shoulders and down my arms. He’s only just back and now our days are numbered again.

  “We’ll still see each other,” he says. “Just not as often. You’ll have school breaks and weekends, and I’ll have the jet.” But my mind is already whirling forward, picturing the next year of my life without him: alone at Stanford—studying, sleepless—while he travels the world, girls sneaking backstage, wanting him, begging for him.

  “What if we could be together?” I ask.

  He leans back to study me. “Charlotte...what are you talking about?”

  The idea had already been taking shape inside my mind, ever since I had stood up and walked out on my internship at the lab. Professor Webb had called and left me messages, but I hadn’t called him back. I hadn’t known what to say, how to explain that I have been living the wrong life. How to explain that the internship, the lab—it’s not what I want. “What if I didn’t go to Stanford,” I say.