Incinerate

by Tessa Teevan

  The entire time he’s talking, Lexi sits quietly in the chair, playing on her phone as she lets us catch up. Every so often I catch her looking at Jace—concerned, I’m guessing, because he’s been standing for a while. Eventually she gets up and drags a chair over to the bed, forcing him to sit down. She leans down and gives him a kiss on the lips, and I look away when he deepens it.

  “I’m going to go grab some coffee. Want anything?” she asks, and Jace shakes his head. “I’d offer to get you something, Knox, but I don’t need any angry nurses biting my head off. I’ll see you guys in a bit.”

  We both watch her leave, and I must have a strange look on my face because when he turns back to me, Jace immediately asks, “What?”

  I raise my eyebrows before responding. “That. Last I heard, you guys were in some weird in between stage, and here she is, sitting on your lap, you doing the PDA thing by my bedside, which, dude, is kinda weird.”

  He shakes his head and laughs. “When I woke up in Germany, she was there. Flew across the ocean to admit that she was in love with me. We’ve been together ever since, and let me tell you, man, there’s nothing better than having the girl I’ve been in love with for nearly half my life finally be all mine.”

  Jesus, he sounds like such a sappy sucker. Women don’t just randomly wake up one day and decide they love you after they’ve been fucking with your heart for months on end. I know it’s an asshole thought, and I won’t say it out loud. Hell, I hope more than anything that this girl really means it, but I won’t hold my breath. As easily as they decide they love you, they can also wake up the next morning and kick you to the curb. Fuck love.

  “So you’re telling me that it took you getting blown up for her to realize she loves you? I don’t know… Sounds convenient—a little too convenient.”

  Sighing, he just stares at me for a moment. “I know that girl messed you up, but one of these days you’re going to meet someone who will make you stop being so damn cynical all the time. I can’t wait for that day to come.”

  “Never gonna happen,” I tell him, because it’s not. I’ve never let anyone in since Megan and I don’t ever plan on doing it again. Suddenly, I recall the way it felt to think I was going to die alone when I was on the brink of unconsciousness, but I quickly push the thought out of my mind before Jace just shakes his head at me again.

  “Famous last words, Knox. Famous last words.”

  “OH, COME on, Charlie, go out with us Friday night. You haven’t gone dancing since you and Drew broke up. It’s about time for you to get off your ass and have some fun again,” my best friend Lucy whines into my ear.

  I shake my head, even though she obviously can’t see me through the phone. She’s right, but I’m finally just starting to get over my jackass professor ex-fiancé. The one I lived with for the past two years since I’d moved from Knoxville to Clarksville with him so he could take a teaching position at Austin Peay State University. The one who proposed last Christmas, even having asked my dad for my hand in marriage. The same one I walked in on two months ago screwing one of the janitorial staff workers on his desk. Yes, you heard me. Not the cliché teaching assistant, not the hot colleague, not the sexy, seductive student looking to get an easy A by being an easy lay. He was fucking the woman who cleaned his office.

  Don’t get me wrong. I respect the profession, and I love the ladies who clean my office, conveniently across campus from his, but it’s not exactly a sexy position, because around here they’re definitely not wearing French maid costumes.

  The worst part was that when I opened the door, he looked up and our eyes locked, his widening at my presence. Instead of pulling out to chase after me and grovel at my feet, begging for forgiveness, he pumped a good two more times before he got off, grunting in the process.

  Lucy’s voice pulls me from my thoughts, and while part of me wants to get out, the winning side of me is satisfied with staying home and drowning my sorrows. “Sorry, Luce, but I can’t. I have a new volunteer assignment starting on Saturday and I have to be there bright and early.”

  She sighs, annoyed that yet again I’m using my volunteer work as an excuse to be a recluse. As the Veterans’ Affairs liaison at Austin Peay, I’ve met many soldiers from Ft. Campbell and the several National Guard bases located around the state. About a year ago, a young airman brought a flyer to the office with him when he was filling out his paperwork. It was for a local veterans group that was taking volunteers to help out wounded service members. Being an Army brat to a single father, I’ve had random people helping me out in various ways all of my life. I decided that I’d use this as a way to give back and help those who need it, just like so many did for Dad and me. I called the number on the sheet of paper, and since then, I’ve been able to meet and assist some amazing people who just needed a helping hand. Drew always hated it, not so secretly jealous of my spending one-on-one alone time with other men, but I always told him he was being ridiculous. There were women, too, and it’s not like every single soldier is a beefcake.

  “Charlie, you always have another assignment. Throwing yourself into helping solve other people’s problems isn’t going to fix your own.” I know she’s right, but it’s been almost a month since I’ve been assigned a soldier, and I’ve been itching to get my mind off things by doing exactly what she said—ignoring my problems by dealing with someone else’s.

  “It’s been weeks since I volunteered. And this guy sounds like he needs me. From what Cheryl told me, he almost died when a roadside bomb detonated. This one is going to take more time, which is why she asked me. Something about needing the right personality. He has broken bones in his spine and his arm, so he can’t drive and probably can’t do too much else. I’m supposed to be his ‘companion’ of sorts while his brother finishes his finals at UT,” I say, relaying the information the organization coordinator had given me.

  She snickers. “His companion? Hmm, maybe you’ll luck out and he’ll look just like Channing Tatum in G.I. Joe. God, I love a man in uniform. Maybe I need to start volunteering, too.”

  Laughing, I shake my head. “I don’t do it to meet men, Lucy. And I have no interest in having a rebound right now.”

  “Oh, come on. A roll in the hay with a hot soldier is just what you need to get over Drew and his use of the university’s custodial services.”

  I roll my eyes and change the subject as my next appointment arrives. Not wanting to listen to Lucy continue to beg me to join her on Friday, I decide to end the phone call quickly. I give her a maybe, deciding that maybe I will get out finally. The more I stay shut in, the more Drew wins, so perhaps getting all dressed up and going out for drinks and dancing is just what I need.

  I PULL up in my dad’s driveway several hours later, ready to get our Wednesday night dinner ritual over with. I’m in no mood to talk, and Dad’s always a chatterbox. He’s the only parent I’ve ever known, and he’s fulfilled both roles tenfold, but sometimes he can get a little overbearing. I understand it, because I feel the same way towards him. After my mom died in childbirth, it’s just been Dad and me. He rarely dated as he devoted all his time to me, trying his hardest not to make me a tomboy but a well-rounded kid.

  He told me stories about how my mom had wanted to name me Charlotte Rose and he’d fought her every step of the way. He liked Charlotte, but he was opposed to flowery names. When the doctors came out and told him that she’d passed away due to immense blood loss, he couldn’t help but give me that name. However, from the moment I could talk, my daddy called me Charlie. Never Charlotte, never Rose. And definitely never Charlie Rose. The last thing I want is to be compared to an old guy on Sixty Minutes. Nope, I’m just plain old Charlie. And to be honest, I’ve always been okay with it. I was and always have been my daddy’s girl. Being a single parent in the Army, he had a hell of a time raising me, but he made it work. I was always loved, cherished, and protected. I’ll always love my dad for that.

  Putting the car in park, I exit the vehicle and take a de
ep breath, knowing Dad’s going to want to talk about Drew. I think he’s equal parts pissed and disappointed that we were both fooled by his gentlemanly façade. He doesn’t know the full story, just that Drew did something to push me away. I scrounge up the courage to finally make my way to the door, and it swings wide before I can even knock. I’m instantly drawn up into strong arms as I throw my own around Dad, loving his warm embrace.

  He draws back from me and brushes the lone bang out of my face. “Oh, Charlie, it’s been too long since you’ve visited your old man.”

  I smile up at him, shaking my head at his ridiculousness. It’s only been a week since we had our last weekday meal and he knows it, but he still loves me enough to give me shit. We break our embrace and move towards the dining room, where he’s prepared an incredible spread.

  If there’s one thing Wade Davenport learned as a single dad, it was how to cook. My mouth waters as the Carolina barbeque smell fills my nostrils. We both make ourselves pulled pork sandwiches, me passing on the coleslaw, all the while Dad chuckling at my constant refusal to put the stuff on my pork.

  “Charlie… Drew called me the other night. He’s concerned about you and wanted to know how to reach you,” Dad tells me nonchalantly.

  I gape at him, wondering if he’s gone crazy. “Umm, Dad, I have no desire to see Drew, hear from Drew, or to even speak his name.”

  Sighing, he sets his fork down and looks at me. “You know, if you’d just tell me what happened, maybe I’d understand why you refuse to speak to him. Last I knew, everything was fine and you were planning a wedding. Then all of the sudden you’re calling, asking to borrow my truck so you could move out. Dammit, Charlie, what the hell did he do?”

  My dad’s always been a very actively overprotective father, so when I caught Drew in his…compromising position, I had no desire to tell Dad about it. I knew at the time he’d fly off the handle, and all I wanted was to be moved out before Drew got back to the apartment. Fortunately, I’ve been able to stay with Lucy until I can come up with enough money for my own place. I’ve been living with her for two months now, and it’s taken some getting used to on both our parts. I know her lease is up soon, right before she goes home to work for her parents for the summer, so I’m going to have to figure something else out in the near future.

  Knowing that I might as well finally tell him what happened, I take a drink of the beer he placed in front of me before answering him. “I caught him screwing the maid,” I blurt out, wincing at my bluntness.

  The fork he picked up drops again and the sound clangs throughout the silent room. His hands brace the table as he scoots his chair back, his strong forearms flexing against the hard oak. He meets my gaze and his jaw clenches, twitching slightly in what I’m guessing is anger.

  “You caught him doing what?” he asks gruffly, as if he didn’t hear me correctly the first time.

  Toying with the beer bottle, I drop my eyes to the table before looking up to catch him watching me intently. “You heard me the first time. I walked in on him screwing another woman.”

  “That son of a bitch. I’m going to kill him,” Dad seethes, rising out of his chair. I roll my eyes, having heard the same speech more times than I can count, starting when I was six and the brat next door ripped the heads off of my G.I. Joes.

  His braces himself against the table with his fists, his eyebrow furrowing. “Wait… You don’t have a maid. I know you don’t because he was always complaining about how messy you are.”

  Clarifying, I relay, with little detail, finding Drew with the woman from the custodial staff. I watch as his face turns red—again, not something new when it comes to the disasters of my love life.

  I love my dad. We’re extremely close. But I think he’s been ready to marry me off since I graduated college. It’s his fatherly duty or something like that. Personally, I think he’s using my love life to keep from moving on with his. He’s dated on and off, but he claims he’s never been able to find anyone he loves as much as my mom.

  For a long time, he wouldn’t talk much about her until one evening I found him in his office, clutching a glass of scotch in one hand and a photo of her in the other. He wasn’t crying, but I remember being confused by the pained expression in his eyes. I was only five, so the memories are hazy, but I recall watching him from the doorway before seeing one lone tear fall onto the photograph. I’d never seen him that emotional before, so I entered the room and crawled into his lap. Wiping his cheek with my small thumb, I plucked the picture out of his grasp and set it face down on the desk.

  “Don’t look at things that make you sad, Daddy,” I told him as I wrapped my arms around his neck. At the time, I had no idea what I was saying, but it seemed to help. He held me close for a few moments while we sat in silence.

  Eventually, he pulled me away from him and settled me in on his lap. He picked up the picture and started to speak. “Let me tell you a story,” he said, and I listened intently for the next hour as he told me how they met, how he got her to agree to a first date, and how it was almost love at first sight. Halfway through the story, he carried me into his room, where he pulled out a photo album, one he’d shown me before but never with commentary. After that day, it was like he’d done a one-eighty turn. He started talking more about her, telling me that, although I looked just like him, my personality came from her and that I had her spirit, her heart.

  That comment stuck with me for my entire life as I tried my hardest to live up to the woman I never got to know, wanting to make both her and my dad proud, and I think I’ve done a pretty damn good job at it.

  “Charlotte Rose Davenport, are you listening to me?” his stern voice asks, breaking through my memories. I glance up at him, giving him a smile as I shrug.

  “What’s done is done, Dad. I can handle a lot, but I won’t tolerate cheating. If he can’t keep it in his pants now, how will I ever be able to trust that he’ll be faithful in a marriage? It’s been two months. I’ve processed it. I’m fine, I promise,” I tell him with fake bravado as if I haven’t spent the last two months crying myself to sleep.

  I don’t even know if it’s that I’m devastated from the loss of Drew or from the shock of it all. Going from living with someone and planning the rest of your lives together to being single and living temporarily with Lucy with nothing but your movie collection to keep you company wreaks havoc on a girl’s emotional state. But for everyone else, I’m fine. I put on the mask of tough Charlie, the hard exterior portraying that all is well with the state of my heart.

  No longer hungry, I get up and take my plate to the counter. Dad comes up behind me, turning me around and pulling me in for a hug. “I’m sorry, Charlie.” I can’t help the giggle that escapes from the phrase he’s loved saying to me over and over through the years. “I always thought those academic types were supposed to be known for their intelligence, but he’s clearly dumber than dirt if he’d step out on you.”

  Smiling, I give him a kiss on his cheek before pulling away so I can finish cleaning up the kitchen. “Definitely not the brightest idea he’s ever had. Maybe he’ll learn his lesson for future relationships, because he’s not getting a second chance from me.”

  He laughs, knowing that I’ve always been a one-strike type of girl. I have an extremely low tolerance for bullshit, and I don’t like to waste my time. Maybe I just haven’t met the right person who’s worth forgiving, and until recently, I thought that person was Drew. I know deep down there are certain things I can get over if I’m really in love, but infidelity isn’t one of them. I’ll admit that late at night, when I’m alone, I miss him. I miss his closeness; I miss our intellectual discussions on today’s writing compared to classical literature. I loved egging him on by comparing new romance novels to his favorites. He almost had a coronary when I admitted that I hadn’t been able to finish Wuthering Heights. And Jane Eyre? Don’t even get me started.

  It’s not completely my fault, and it’s not that I don’t appreciate the love many have
for the classics, but I grew up reading Harlequin romance, so I’ll take a sexy Italian billionaire or a rich cowboy over Dorian Gray any day. In that way we were incompatible, but it ended up becoming a running joke between us. I’d pretend to be interested as he discussed his upcoming lectures with me, and he feigned interest when I detailed super steamy scenes to him, hoping to give him inspiration.

  I shake my head, trying to wipe the thoughts away. Changing the subject, I inform Dad of my new assignment with the veteran’s volunteer program. As an Army doctor, he understands the importance of helping wounded soldiers, and he’s always been proud of me for the work I do.

  “I wonder if it’s anyone I know,” he comments, having seen many wounded soldiers on his operating table since he’s been stationed at Ft. Campbell.

  “It’s possible. They didn’t give me his name yet, but I know he had pretty extensive injuries, though I’m not sure what all they entail. He can’t drive, so that’s one of the things I have to do for him. Take him to appointments, things like that. I’m just glad I finally have another assignment. I’ve been going crazy with all my extra free time. Lucy thinks he’ll be a good distraction, but I have no interest in dating, especially not a soldier.”

  I have nothing against military guys. I swoon right along with Lucy when we’re out and can pick out the Army hotties just from their tattoos and haircuts. The hard, rugged bodies are definitely a turn-on after spending the last three years with Drew’s lean frame, but past experiences have left me avoiding all relationships with a military man. Things usually always go really well until they meet Dad. It’s not like he sits there cleaning his M4 rifle when they pull up in the drive. It’s just that they go all rigid and “Yes, sir,” “No, sir” to the point of annoyance. The thing is, Dad’s not that kind of Army dad. He respects his position but has never used it to intimidate any of my dates, so when a guy’s personality goes cold upon meeting him, I instantly lose attraction.