'Along with the photos, we're getting out some little mementos of the cabin. Things that they've bought there over the years. We're going to try our very best to make it feel like she's there.'
'Wow, that's...' I don't know what to say. It seems like a waste of time to me. Putting up photos isn't going to make up for the fact that she can't be there. I know that it would be the wrong thing to say though, 'that's ambitious.' I settle on.
'It's not really that ambitions. It's just putting up some photos and things. Besides, it's the least we can do since she can't go to the lake this year.' Libby starts working through some photos again. 'You could help if you wanted.'
'Oh, I totally would, but I've got my own little project that I'm working on. I'm actually about to go and meet Carly, because we have an end of summer deadline, and summer just seems to be rushing past. It'll be worth it though if we pull it off, which you know me,' I smile, 'I don't give up until I get what I want. So I'll just see you guys later. You're still coming over tonight, right Libby?'
'Yeah.' She nods, 'I'll be there at around eight.'
'Great, ok then.' I smile, 'Bye Charles.' I smile at him.
'Bye Julie.' He looks up from his laptop, smiles, but not in the way he used to and then goes back to working on his project.
I turn away from the room and walk out, heading back down the steps and out of the house. I don't know what's gotten into Charles. He couldn't have moved on from me in such a short time. He's supposed to be pining after me, and instead he seems fine. Normal.
I'll have to fix that.
Thirty Four – Libby
The surprise for Charles' mom went amazingly well. She loved it, her eyes filled with tears and she smiled brighter than I've seen her smile in a really long time. She's sitting on her bed now with all of her kids around her, and I'm feeling a little bit like an intruder. I catch Charles' eye quickly, smile and mouth that I'm going to leave them alone. He slips from his mom's side, giving her a quick kiss and saying he'll be right back, and then he follows me out of the room.
He doesn't say anything until we're out in his front yard, and then he stops me and I turn to face him. Something isn't right.
'Char?'
'The appointment today,' he shakes his head, 'it wasn't what we hoped.'
'Oh Char I'm so sorry.' I sit him down on the front step of his house, sit next to him and wait for him to tell me more. I can tell that he's struggling with this, his hands are clenching and unclenching like he wants to hit something. I don't blame him. She's not even my mom, and I haven't known her all that long, but I frequently want to hit something when I think about what she's had to go through.
'The chemotherapy hasn't shrunk the tumor at all, they can't operate.'
'So what now?' I ask. My hand resting on his forearm until it relaxes under my touch.
'They're doing chemotherapy. They're still hoping that it'll shrink it and they'll be able to operate. My mom's so scared to keep going on the chemotherapy, because it's making her so sick, and...Libs, I don't know how to fix this.'
'You can't.' I say feeling my own tears building up. 'That's one of the worst parts about things like this, you can't fix it because there's no control to be had.'
'I feel like I'm so powerless. No matter how much I look out for her, watch the kids, clean the house. No matter how much I do, none of it will matter because I can't fix her.' He's crying openly now. 'What's the point in taking care of everything? If she doesn't make it, everything is going to fall apart anyway, and there's no way I'll be able to hold it together.'
'Yes, you will.' I say firmly, brushing away my own tears so that I can be strong for him, 'Look at me Char.' I say, he doesn't turn his head, so I crouch in front of him, taking his hands in mine. 'Char, you do make a difference and you will hold it together, because you love your family and they love you and you're not alone.'
'Each time we go to the hospital, we start out so hopeful, and then each time it's no change. I can't deal with no change.'
'Char is it getting worse? Is the tumor any bigger?' I ask him, grabbing onto whatever little shred of hope I can find to pull him back. I see him look up and his eyes meet mine. The hurt in them is almost more than I can take. I swallow down the urge to cry, and keep his eyes locked on mine. 'Char, is it getting worse?'
'It's the same.' He says.
'Then that's good news, it's hope at least. The chemotherapy isn't working to shrink it yet, but that doesn't mean that it won't work. She's strong, and she's got so much to fight for. She has you and your brothers and sisters, and she's not going to give any of that up without a pretty hefty fight. So you can't give up either.' I say it firmly, even though my voice wavers a little in the middle.
'I don't know how I'm supposed to be strong enough.' He says quietly. 'I need my dad to be here.'
'I know.' I hold him tightly. 'I know you do.'
'Why did he have to leave? Why did he have to be such a coward?'
'Sometimes the people we're supposed to trust and rely on the most, are the ones who end up hurting up and letting us down the most.' I shake my head and I am crying now, 'You just have to be strong enough to overcome it.'
'How?'
'By relying on the people who stayed.' I reply. 'You have a support system.' I pull back from him and look him in the eyes, 'you've got so many people who love you.'
'I can do this.' He wipes his eyes and squeezes my arm. 'Thank you.'
'Don't thank me.' I wipe my eyes as well, 'I haven't done anything.'
'You've done everything.' He replies softly, 'I should probably get back inside.'
'Sure.' I nod, 'If you need anything, you know where to find me.'
I wake up the next morning in the spare bed in Julie's bedroom. It's one that drops down out of the wall for whenever she has overnight guests. Even though they have about eight spare rooms, she always likes having her guests in her room.
I roll over and look out of the doors towards the ocean. I wonder what it would be like to wake up to that every morning? I wonder if I'd ever get tired of it? I know that in all the times I've stayed here, which is quite a few since I met her, I haven't gotten bored of it yet.
The view is spectacular, and she has it every single morning when she wakes up.
I sit up in bed and do the next thing I do whenever I wake up at Julie's house. I reach for my phone and check my messages.
There's one from my mom saying good morning. I send a quick one back with a good morning. Then there's one from Charles.
Thank you for last night. I needed it.
I smile down at the message. If I can make any small amount of difference, then I'm pleased. I don't want him to have to feel like he's alone in this. He has his family, but his mom is so ill, and his siblings are all younger and rely on him for so much. He feels like he can't rely on any of them, because he doesn't want to dump his concerns on them.
I'm just glad that Katie is taking on more responsibility at the house. She's actually a really good cook. I've been teaching her most nights, and she's doing really well.
'What are you smiling at?' Julie asks, coming into the room carrying mugs. One filled with coffee for me, and the other filled with a herbal tea.
She sits next to me on the bed and looks at my phone. 'What did you do for Charles last night?' She asks, her eyes narrowing just slightly.
'He needed someone to talk to, I listened.' I shrug. 'Things aren't great for his mom at the moment.' I'm not sure how much Charles will want me to tell her. Things with them haven't been awful since the breakup, and he definitely seems to be getting over her, but it's not like it was before. They're not as close as they were, it's not even like it was before they started dating. They're more distant.
'Oh.' Julie nods her head and then takes a small sip of her drink. 'I've been thinking a lot about Charles.'
'Yeah?'
'Yeah,' she nods her head again, 'I thought that breaking up would be good for us, but the thing is, now I'm going to all the
parties alone, and there's nobody to take me to dinner ever, and...I don't know, I guess I miss him.'
'You miss him or you miss having a boyfriend?' I ask her. I can never tell with Julie what she's thinking. She's a master at hiding her true feelings, so as I look at her, I have no idea if she genuinely misses him, or if she just doesn't like that he's now moving on.
'Same thing.' She shrugs, which gives me about as much answer as I need. She doesn't care about him as much as she cares about having a boyfriend.
'It's not the same thing.' I reply.
'Still,' she shrugs, 'I've been thinking that I'll just take him back. At least until the end of summer when I leave for France.'
'And,' I pause, I can't tell her that he's not interested any more, because what if he is? If she went to him and said she wanted to get back together, would he say yes? I can't say for sure that he wouldn't, so I can't tell her. Even though at this moment I'd like nothing more than to shout at her that he's done with her, that she can't get what she wants this time. The thought of them getting back together, makes my head hurt. 'What if he doesn't want to get back together? What if he's moving on?'
'Please,' she rolls her eyes in an infuriating way, 'he loves me, remember, you're the one who kept telling me that.'
'Yeah, but you broke up with him. You told him that you were done, that you didn't love him.' I say. I watch her carefully. I don't like the idea of them being back together. I don't like how she treats him, but I have to know something first, 'Julie, do you love him?'
'Well...not as such, but that doesn't mean that I don't want him back.'
'Did you ever love him?' I demand.
'What does it matter?' She shrugs, 'The point is, I think I want to start seeing him again, because I don't want to spend the rest of my summer without a boyfriend.'
'So you'd use him simply because you want someone to take you to parties?' I'm close to snapping at her, but I can't help it. She's going to hurt Charles again, and I don't want that to happen. He deserves to be with someone who can really love him. Who will treat him right, and be there for him, who will listen to him when he needs to talk. Not someone who will use him as an accessory.
'No.' She looks annoyed now, but not half as annoyed as I'm feeling. 'No, that's not it, you don't have to make it sound quite so shallow.'
I'm on the brink of fully snapping at her that she shouldn't act so shallow, if she doesn't want people to see her that way, but I bite my tongue and wait for her to say something else. She takes a few more sips of tea, and I can see her thinking hard. I wonder if she's trying to find the words to make this sound better than it does.
'I want him back because I think maybe I gave up on us too quickly.' She replies.
'Do you really mean that Julie, or is this just some game to you?' I ask her, 'Because I don't want to see him getting hurt.'
'What about me?' She snaps, 'You don't mind if I get hurt?'
'Of course I do.' I sigh, 'But in this situation, you're the one who broke his heart. You walked away from the relationship, and you did it because you were bored. Now you want him back because you say you miss him. You want him back, but only until the end of summer. If you go to him, you have to make sure he knows that.'
'That's ridiculous. If I tell him that I'm going to end things again in a few weeks, then there's no way he'll jump back into our relationship.'
'Then maybe you shouldn't be jumping back into your relationship.' I advise her. 'He's getting over you Julie, please think about what you're doing.'
'I am thinking about it. I've been thinking about it, and I know what I want.'
'What about what he wants?' I ask.
'He wants to be with me.' She says with a roll of her eyes, 'He came to me when I broke up with him, and he told me that he loved me and he was going to fight for me.'
'That was weeks ago, and he's had time and space to think...I don't want you to get your hopes up.'
'He won't turn me down.' She smiles, 'It's sweet of you to worry, but he won't turn me down.'
'I don't like this,' I get up out of bed and reach for my overnight bag, 'you're going to start seeing him again, just to end things all over again at the end of August. It's not right.'
'Don't get all protective of him Libby, he's a big boy and he can decide on his own if he wants to get back together with me.'
'Yeah, you're right.' I storm off into the bathroom and change quickly. I don't bother with a shower, or even running a brush through my hair. I even forget to brush my teeth in my hurry. I just pull on my black shorts, a baggy white top and slide my feet into my sandals.
When I return to her room, Julie is lying back on her own bed, and she's looking over at me with an annoyed expression.
'You really do think he's a better friend than me, don't you?'
'Sometimes,' I say, hauling my bag over my shoulder, 'yes I really do.'
'You can't tell him that I'm planning on taking him back. You're still my friend, and if you went behind my back and told him, that would be a betrayal.' She says and I know that she's right. She is my friend, even if she's making me angry so often this summer.
'I won't tell him.' I say reluctantly, because it's killing me that I have to keep it from him. It's killing me that he may take her back, because I don't want to see him getting hurt again.
Thirty Five – Charles
Libby and I are up on the roof. She came over here when she got back from Julie's this morning, and we've been sitting up here for the past twenty minutes. I know that something is bothering her, because the bowl of ice cream that she brought up here, has been left to melt in the hot sun.
She's lying on her back, with her eyes closed and her hands folded over her stomach. The gentle rise and fall of her breathing is slow but not in a rhythm that would tell me she's asleep. She's awake, but something isn't quite right.
Suddenly her eyes fly open and she sees me watching her. A warm blush creeps over her cheeks, and she sits up and hugs her knees to her chest.
'I've been thinking,' she says quickly, 'if Julie decided she wanted you back, what would you do?'
'That was a little random.' I say, trying to catch her eye, but she won't look at me. I wonder if Julie said something this morning. Could it be possible that Julie's decided she's not over me?
'It was just a thought.' She replies, but she still won't look at me. Instead, she's looking at the melted ice cream. Lifting the spoon up and letting the liquid run back down into the bowl. 'Would you take her back?'
'I...' I look out towards the water, 'if you'd asked me that a couple weeks ago, I would have said yes.'
'Now?' She looks at me now.
'Now,' I say slowly, 'I don't think I could go back to that.'
'You don't?'
'I loved her, I really did.' I reply, 'But now that I've been apart from her, I can see things as they really were, and she didn't love me.'
'Char she...'
'No, it's ok, I know it and you know it, and I think everyone around us knew it. She didn't love me, she just...I don't know, she loved that I loved her.'
'Are you ok?'
'Oddly, yes.' I nod. 'I'm glad that I can see now that it wasn't a good relationship. I'm grateful to her for ending things, because otherwise I would have spent far too long with the wrong person, trying to make it work. I think for a while now, I wasn't really in love with her, but I didn't realize it until things ended. Now I can see how much she tried to change me, how much she didn't believe I was enough for her. I can see that she's not the kind of person I could ever be with again.'
'So I guess that in a way it's a good thing that she broke your heart.' Libby says quietly, a small smile forming.
'In a weird way, yes.' I laugh.
'Well then I'm happy for you.'
'Thank you.' I smile, 'So are you going to tell me what made you suddenly ask me that?'
'I can't.' She replies, 'I shouldn't have even said this much.'
'Then why did you?' I ask. She catches m
y eye and smiles.
'Because you're my best friend, and I really didn't want to see you get hurt again.' She replies, 'You've got enough going on, so I just wanted to make sure that if she comes to you...I wanted to make sure she wasn't going to mess with your head.'
'You think she would?' I ask.
'I don't know what to think any more. Sometimes it feels like I don't know a thing about her.' Libby lays back down. 'I keep trying to see the good side of her, but more and more this summer, I'm starting to wonder if it's even there anymore.'
'She's used to getting her own way,' I reply, 'I think that's made her feel like she doesn't have to care about how she gets things, or who she hurts.'
'Yeah.' Libby says quietly.
'She brought you home this summer, and she's hardly spent any time with you.'
'Yeah, she's been so tied up with this project with Carly.' Libby closes her eyes again, 'The thing is, I don't actually mind. Every time I was with her recently, I've ended up getting annoyed, or angry, or upset, or frustrated.'
'Yeah,' I nod, 'I know what you mean.'
'Have we both just been really blind this whole time? Has she always been this selfish and manipulative?'
'I don't know.' I shrug, 'I loved her, and I've known her my whole life. I think at some point she was...nicer.'
'Yeah.' Libby shakes her head, 'I feel bad talking about her like this. She's still our friend, right?'
'Right.' I nod, but more and more I'm starting to wonder if I can ever be close with Julie again.
Libby didn't come out in so many words that Julie had mentioned wanting to get back together with me, but she said enough, that I know what to expect when Julie shows up at my house later that day.
She's all dressed up in a sparkly frilled dress with strings of pearls weaved into her hair.
'Hi,' she smiles at me widely, 'how are you?'
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