Storm Shells (The Wishes Series #3)

by G. J. Walker-Smith

  He glanced at me only briefly. “Are you asking me because I have a choice?”

  I set my fork down and leaned back, refusing to let him avoid my stare. “Tell me something true, Adam. Tell me anything, as long as it’s true.”

  He locked eyes with me. “I love you, Charlotte.”

  “I know,” I replied flatly. “That’s all I’ve ever known. Tell me something else that’s true.”

  Adam spoke slowly, and very precisely. “We’re not ready for this and I don’t want to drag you back to New York. I don’t want to have a baby. I think going through with it is a mistake.”

  I put great effort into not appearing as gutted as I felt. His way of thinking was completely one track, and it had always been that way.

  “I know it might put a dent in your plans, but –”

  “A baby we’re not ready for isn’t a dent, Charli. It’s a massive crater,” he corrected. “It’s not even about my plans. What about your plans? You still have no idea what you want to do. Having a kid is going to narrow your choices.”

  I leaned forward, gripping the edge of the table with both hands. “Haven’t you ever changed course just a little bit, Adam?”

  “No, Charli,” he said regretfully. “I’ve always manipulated you into changing yours.”

  His sad eyes spoke ten times louder than his voice. It made looking at him difficult. I straightened up and pulled in a long breath. “Well, this honesty thing is a barrel of laughs, isn’t it?”

  He reached for my hand but I pulled away. “You asked me to be honest, Charli.”

  “I did,” I shakily agreed. “What will happen if I decide to keep it?”

  He was quiet for a while but still came up blank, even with the extra thinking time. “I don’t know.”

  “Don’t you think you’d be a good father?”

  “I’m a twenty-three-year-old self important jerk, Charli. I suck as a husband. I’d suck even more as a father. We’re just not ready for this.”

  “You’re not ready for this,” I clarified.

  “And you are?”

  I shrugged apathetically. “I’m adaptable.”

  “Well, we both know I’m not.”

  “Let’s cut to the chase, Adam,” I said coolly. “You want me to end it.”

  He stared at me for a long time, probably trying to come up with a way of softening the blow.

  “Yes, Charlotte. I want you to end it.”

  He failed. And it killed me.

  He reached for my hand again. This time I didn’t pull away. “When we’re ready, we can have plenty of kids.”

  Just not the one we’d already made.

  I don’t know what he said after that. I completely shut down. He was being logical and sensible – because that’s how Adam thinks. The problem was, I didn’t want logical and sensible. I wanted hope and excitement, not damage control. Realising I wasn’t ever going to get it, I stood up, dumped our half-eaten plates in the sink and went to bed.

  January 6

  Adam

  I didn’t know whether to follow her or not – so I didn’t. I cleaned up the kitchen, had a shower and wasted another hour pretending to watch TV. When I was fairly certain she was asleep, I crept into the bedroom.

  I could tell sleep hadn’t come easily. Charli was tangled around the sheets as if she’d been tossing and turning.

  I gently moved the bedding, trying not to wake her as I straightened it up. Barely touching her, I splayed my hand across her bare stomach. Her skin felt so warm lately. Maybe that was another symptom we’d missed. I tried my hardest to feel some connection to the baby growing inside her but couldn’t seem to link my brain to my heart. There just wasn’t any happiness to be found. I said a silent apology to the child I didn’t want, covered Charli over and switched off the light.

  * * *

  Charlotte’s side of the bed was empty next morning. I figured she’d headed to the beach for some time alone.

  I still wasn’t overly concerned when I noticed that my car wasn’t on the driveway, but my calm resolve started to wear thin by late afternoon. I was about to start calling around when she finally walked through the door just after four.

  She looked terrible – pale, and dressed far too warmly for the summer afternoon.

  “Where have you been?” My voice sounded strange so I cleared my throat and repeated the question.

  “Hobart,” she replied.

  “I was worried about you. Is everything alright?”

  She walked past me and sat down on the couch. “It is now. Everything’s back to normal.”

  Dread flooded my body in the form of heat. “What did you do?” It came out sounding like I was accusing her of something terrible.

  She slowly shook her head, ignoring the tears that had begun spilling down her pale cheeks. “I did exactly what you wanted me to do.”

  I had no clue what to say. I had no idea what to do.

  “I didn’t want you to go through it alone, Charli. I would’ve come with you.”

  I didn’t even know what it was. Disgracefully, I had no idea what she’d endured that day.

  “Don’t pretend you’re not relieved, Adam,” she muttered.

  I was relieved – and appalled and sad and consumed by self-loathing. Breaking Charli’s heart was the worst kind of pain I could inflict, and despite my promises not to, I did it over and over again.

  “I’m so sorry.” It was the best I could come up with.

  She stared at me, emotionless. Her brown eyes looked wooden, vacant and dead. “Don’t you dare say that to me. You’re not sorry.” She sounded dead too. “You can’t tell me you don’t want to do this and then be sorry that I ended it.” I crouched in front of her, resting my elbows on her knees. I put my hands on hers, taking no solace when she didn’t pull away. “You’re never going to change, Adam,” she whispered. “You’re never going to be able to give me what I want, no matter how much you love me.”

  The lump in my throat was getting harder to swallow away. I dropped my head. “Neither of us know what the future holds, Charli.”

  “Yesterday our future included a family. We were right there, on the very edge of something really special – and you still couldn’t give in and surrender to it.”

  “I can’t –”

  “You can’t. I know,” she said flatly. “You have a plan and you’re sticking to it.”

  The truth hurt, but I wasn’t going to deny it. Denying it would mean lying to her. I’d had my fill of lying to her.

  I lifted my head to look at her. “The timing was terrible, Charli.”

  “I get it, I do,” she uttered. “And now it’s over. Happy days.”

  I tightened my grip on her hands. “Let me go,” she ordered, snatching her hands free. She stood and walked around the couch to get away from me.

  “I love you, Charli.”

  Agony and frustration flashed across her face before she recovered, straightened up and wiped her eyes with the cuff of her sleeves.

  “It doesn’t mean a thing any more. I give up everything for you – even the things I don’t want to. What do you give me?”

  Nothing was the answer. I’d held this girl on an invisible string for a long time. I’d promised her a happy ending a million times, never having a clue how to deliver. There just wasn’t any happy medium for us. We were either supremely happy or painfully miserable – sometimes on the same day. That’s what I gave her.

  I walked around the couch, wanting nothing more than to wrap my arms around her. But I reached for her hands instead, again too tightly.

  “Let me go,” she demanded, trying to pull away.

  “Please, Charli,” I begged. “Just listen.”

  Her hands relaxed, giving me the slightest hope that she was at least prepared to hear me out, but she wasn’t.

  “I want you to let me go, Adam,” she said eerily calmly. “Then I’ll let you go.”

  I knew what was coming. I could feel it. “You should leave.” She p
ulled away and pointed at the door. “Everything ended today.”

  “Charli –”

  “Get out, Adam.”

  “No. I’m not going anywhere.”

  The sound that escaped her lips was nothing I’d heard from her before. It sounded like a humourless laugh caught in a sob. “For how long? You’re leaving tomorrow anyway. Go now.”

  I took a step toward her. She stepped back so I went no further. “No.”

  The stand I was making did me no favours. “Get out!” She yelled. “I don’t want you here!”

  I stayed put, doing nothing to calm her down. She continued screaming at me to leave. The next thing I knew, Flynn Davis was pounding on the screen door, probably thinking I was murdering her.

  “Charli?” he called. “Is everything okay?”

  She rushed to let him in.

  Flynn stalked through the door in full policeman mode. He had the blue uniform and one hand on his holstered gun to prove it.

  “I want him gone,” said Charli. “Make him leave.”

  “Charlotte.” I choked out her name. “Seriously?”

  “I want you to get out of my house!” She picked up a cushion and hurled it at me. I blocked it with my arm.

  Flynn looked at me. “You heard her, mate. It’s time to leave.”

  He’d probably been dreaming of a moment like this since he first laid eyes on me. Finally, he had his chance to swoop in and save her.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” I replied.

  “Then I’ll arrest you for trespass,” he said smugly.

  I looked at Charli and was struck by the determination on her face. She was actually prepared to let that happen. I took one more shot at making her see reason.

  “I don’t know how we’d find our way back from there,” I told her. “Please don’t do this.”

  “I’m tired of going back, Adam.” Her face was sad but her voice was calm and the rage had gone. “We only go back because we can’t go forward. Just let me go.”

  “That’s what you want?”

  “Yes,” she replied, choking back a cry.

  I stared at her for a long moment, trying to make sense of the last few days. Charli wasn’t trying to make sense of anything. Charli was done. Charli was long gone.

  “Let’s go, mate,” said Flynn, giving an upward nod.

  “I am not your mate. And I’m not leaving.” I growled, making one final stand. “You’ll have to arrest me.”

  * * *

  Of all the things I’d hoped to achieve in life, being holed up in a foreign jail wasn’t one of them. Not that it was exactly hardcore. It was a windowless room with a cheap desk, a schoolroom chair and an anti-drug poster on the wall.

  “Just cool off in here for a while. Someone will be in shortly,” instructed Flynn, pulling the door closed.

  I couldn’t even be certain that the door was locked. I was just about to stand up and check when it opened and a female officer appeared.

  “Time to go,” she said, way too cheerily.

  I’d only been incarcerated an hour. The Australian legal system obviously worked quickly.

  I remained seated. “What am I being charged with?” I needed to know. It would be the first thing Ryan would ask me when I called him to make bail – after he stopped laughing, of course.

  “No charges,” she said. “You’re free to go. Your ride is here.”

  I expected to see Charli in the reception area. I used the time it took to walk down the corridor to work out what I’d say to her. I wasn’t angry with her, just confused and desperate to make things right.

  Charli wasn’t my ride. I rounded the corner and came face-to-face with Alex.

  “This day just couldn’t get any worse, could it?” I mumbled.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” he replied. “Things can always get worse, Adam.”

  * * *

  Alex didn’t take me back to the cottage. We ended up at his house, on the golf course.

  “I made a brilliant discovery yesterday,” he said, handing me a bucket full of golf balls. “Biodegradable golf balls,” he announced. “So it doesn’t matter if we lose them.”

  I couldn’t have cared less about losing golf balls. I was in the midst of losing something much more important.

  “I’m not really up for it today,” I muttered, setting the bucket on the ground.

  “Today is a great day for golf, Adam. There’s nothing like beating the crap out of something when you’re pissed.” He handed me a club. “And considering I just picked you up from the lockup, I imagine you’re pissed.”

  It didn’t take me long to work out that Alex was absolutely clueless when it came to the events of that day. Charli had called him to bail me out and told him nothing else. If she had, he would’ve been beating the crap out of me.

  “Not a touchy feely person, are you, Alex? Most people like to talk about their problems.”

  He picked up his club. “Not me. Especially when the problems involve Charli. I just hit things – wood, golf balls, the ocean. I’m not fussy.”

  He sounded collected, but the curiosity must’ve been killing him.

  I knew I had to tell him everything. I was selfish but not a selfish coward. “I have to tell you something,” I said gravely.

  He lined up a ball on the platform. “I’m listening.”

  I took a long moment to plan the conversation in my head. Trying to explain that his twenty-year-old daughter had just had an abortion at my insistence was like trying to put a positive spin on a fatal car crash.

  After hearing the details, he didn’t say anything for a long time – but the next three golf balls were smashed down into the field with sickening force.

  “Do you two have to attend every act of stupidity that you’re invited to?” he asked finally.

  “Apparently.”

  “You’re supposed to be smart, Adam.” He tapped his temple. “That’s why we call you Boy Wonder.” He still sounded perfectly calm, which confused me. If ever he had reason to tear me apart, this was it.

  “I’m not smart where Charli’s concerned.”

  “You dumb each other down.” He took another swing, sending the ball so far into the field that I didn’t see where it landed. “I raised a strong, independent kid. The girl who came home was neither of those things.” He pointed the club at me. “That’s the effect you have on her.”

  “I know,” I said regretfully.

  “I thought the worst I was going to have to deal with was you showing up and convincing her to go back to New York.”

  “I told you I wouldn’t do that.”

  I held off telling him she’d suggested it anyway. He had a golf club in his hand.

  “Yeah, you did. You just convinced her to do something much worse instead.”

  “Charli made up her own mind.”

  “I’m having trouble believing she got there on her own,” he replied, shaking his head. “It doesn’t really seem like Charli’s style.”

  I’d had the same ugly thought more than once in the last few hours. As much as I believed ending it was the right decision, I’d pressured her into it and I knew it. I took a shot at defending myself anyway. “She didn’t even tell me until it was over and done with. I would never have let her go through that alone.”

  He lined up another ball. “Yeah, you’re a real stand-up bloke.”

  I waited until he swung before speaking again. “I love her, Alex. I could’ve left town tomorrow without telling you any of this, but I didn’t. I’m worried about her and I wanted you to know everything.”

  “You don’t need to worry about Charli,” muttered Alex. “I’ll take care of Charli.”

  It brought no comfort. I wanted to be the one to take care of her. I just had no idea how. I doubt I ever did.

  “She’s done with me,” I told him.

  “I wish I could be certain of that.”

  “She had me arrested to get me out of the house,” I said bitterly. “Trust me, she’s done.”<
br />
  He looked straight at me. “Eventually she’s going to get over you, Adam.”

  I nodded. “I want her to be happy.”

  “Look,” he said, showing a hint of empathy. “I’m not going to give you a pep talk. I can’t parent you. At times like this, I’m not old enough to parent my own kid. But I want you to both find what you’re looking for. You just need to learn how to leave each other alone.”

  * * *

  I spent my last miserable night in town at Alex and Gabrielle’s house. Gabi didn’t ask why I was there and I didn’t tell her. Considering her current frame of mind, that was a task best left to Alex.

  We spent the evening dodging the huge elephant in the room. Gabrielle was a smart woman. She knew something major had happened, and I didn’t want to be in the same country as her when she found out what it was. Gabrielle wouldn’t take too kindly to the news that we’d ended the one thing she was desperately hoping for.

  By morning I was anxious to get out of there. I made one last trip to the cottage on my way out of town. The time I spent planning what I’d say to Charli during the drive there was all for nothing.

  She wasn’t there.

  If that wasn’t a strong indication that she was firm in her decision to cut me loose, the fact that my luggage was sitting on the porch was. I walked slowly to the car, hopeful that she’d come bursting out of the door at the last second, but it didn’t happen.

  Ryan had said it best. Charli was much smarter than me. She’d finally woken up to the fact that she deserved better than anything I had to offer.

  January 7

  Charli

  An expression of relief is as easy to read as a smile or a frown. And when I saw relief flash across Adam’s face when I told him he was off the hook, I knew letting him go was the right decision.

  Unlike relief, deception can be carried out with a completely straight face. Perhaps that’s why he didn’t pick up on the fact that I was lying through my teeth when I told him I’d ended the pregnancy. In truth, the only thing I’d terminated was us.

  I knew from the beginning that deciding to keep the baby would mean losing Adam. He’d been devastatingly honest with me. A child was something he wasn’t ready for. He was stubborn, selfish and one-track, but I could accept it because hidden behind his relief was sadness in its purest form. It gave me hope that one day, he’d figure out why he felt that way. I would never give up on him. But for now, I was on my own.