by R. R. Banks
"My parents rented a cabin up here for Thanksgiving to spend time with the three of us, my sisters' husbands, and my two nieces. They are both pregnant and it was turning into an actually pretty perfect family holiday when they got over chastising me for not being married or pregnant."
"What happened?"
"Apparently Daniel never really accepted that things are over between us. Because I wouldn't listen to him anymore, though, he went over my head to my parents. He told them how worried he was about me and that my time in college had really changed me. He implied that I was on some sort of dark, self-destructive path and that he just wanted to save me. So, they invited him to the cabin."
"Without telling you?" I asked.
"Apparently they thought it would be an amazing surprise. They just couldn't understand why I was so upset when I saw him. He made it very clear that he expected me to come right back to him like I always had, but I told him that I wasn't. That's when I ran."
"What did he do to you, Charlotte?"
She looked at me and for the first time that evening I saw a flicker of fear in her eyes. It was as if she didn't want to give me all of the details, like she didn't want to admit what she had actually gone through because she was afraid of what I would think of her. Finally, she licked her lips, looked down at the mattress for a second as if to reassure and anchor herself, and then begin to describe the years that she had spent with Daniel.
I couldn't believe what she was telling me. I was more and more horrified with each detail that she gave me. I had hoped for so many years that she had gotten away from that guy. I hoped that seeing someone protect her would show her that she mattered and give her some sort of boost to find a way out of the situation. Knowing that she hadn't brought a painful blend of emotions to my mind into my heart. I was saddened and disappointed, but I also felt pity and even anger. But I felt those things as much for myself as I did for Charlotte. Listening to her brought back all the memories from my childhood and everything that I had gone through with my father, and everything that I had seen my mother suffer and endure at his hands. I felt like Charlotte had been following the same horrible path my mother had. I wondered in that moment if this was inevitable for some people. I wondered if it could be that it was just part of life. Just that thought alone was sickening. I had done everything that I could for my mother and now I would do everything that I could for Charlotte. I wouldn't let her suffer that fate.
"I'm sorry that you had to go through any of that," I said when Charlotte finished. "I know how it feels to be mistreated. It's unfair and there's nothing that you could have done to deserve it."
"It's different for you, though," she said.
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"It was your father. You didn't have a choice. You didn't get to choose who your father was or the fact that he lived in the house with you. There was nothing that you could do. You were a child and you are at his mercy. I chose the path that I took. I chose Daniel. I chose to listen to him. I chose to let him treat me the way that he did. And I chose to stay."
I shook my head.
"It isn't your fault, Charlotte. Nothing that he did is your fault. And you're right, I didn't have a choice about the way that my father treated me. But I do know what it's like to be mistreated by someone who you're supposed to love, and think that you might have a future with."
"What do you mean? " she asked.
I hadn't intended to talk to her about this. I didn't want to tell her. I didn't even want to say the name or go back and experience those emotions again. But I felt like I needed to share this with her. I wanted her to know everything about me.
"The crash with a drunk driver didn't just end my football career, I told her. I was engaged when I was in college. Her name was Helen and she was in the same type of social circle as Daniel. Privilege and conceit all the way. But of course, I didn't see that. I just saw the pretty girl who liked my attention and looked good on my arm. I saw the doors that opened up for me because I was with her. I really did believe that we had a future together. But when I got hurt and wasn't able to play like I used to, things changed. The harder I worked to recover and to rehabilitate, the more time that she was spending away from me. Instead of being there beside me and supporting me as I went through this, she was becoming more and more distant. Then I found out that I would never be able to play again. I hoped that she would be there for me. She felt like the only thing that I had left. Then I found out that she had been sleeping with my best friend. In an instant, she was gone too. Everything I thought. Everything I believe. It was all gone. I didn't have a future anymore. I barely even knew who I was."
"I'm so sorry," she said. She leaned forward then kissed me. "I know who you are."
I kissed her back and felt her ease a little closer to me. She suddenly looked exhausted, as if the conversation had completely drained her. Her eyes fluttered closed and within seconds she had fallen asleep. I felt an even stronger compulsion to protect her now. Night had always been the worst time with my father and even though I knew the dangers that both of us had face were over now, I couldn't bear the thought of anything else happening to her, even if it was just having to be afraid.
Chapter Fourteen
Charlotte
I was sitting in the great room curled up in the corner of the couch when Micah came back inside the next morning. He had been out checking the smoke houses and on a whim, I had picked up my cell phone. I realized that I hadn't touched it since the first night that I was there in the lodge with him. It was the longest that I had gone without using my phone since I had gotten it, and it was an amazing revelation that I had not only been able to get by without it, that I had actually enjoyed not feeling so accessible to everyone. The battery had long since died and I dug through my bag to find the extra charger that I always kept packed. I plugged it in without thinking about its connectivity and was surprised when it turned on and showed that my service has been restored. Now I was sitting with it in my hands, staring down at the screen, trying to decide what to do. I glanced up and saw Micah looking at me questioningly.
"Is something wrong?" he asked.
I shook my head.
"No. At least I don't think so. I don't really know. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do."
"What do you mean?"
"My phone has service again. I'm trying to decide if I should call my parents."
"That's up to you," he said.
There was a slight gruffness in his voice and I knew that he was worried about me.
I looked up at him.
"When was the last time that you listened to the radio? When was the last time that you talked to the rangers and found out if anyone have been reported missing?"
"It's been a few days," he admitted.
"So, it's entirely possible that they're looking for me now," I said. "Maybe they have been all along and were just going through different channels. At least I could let them know that I'm alright."
Despite what Micah had told me about my parents not reporting me or Madeline's car missing, I still couldn't wrap my head around the thought that they weren't even wondering what had happened to me. I'd been gone for two weeks. My phone registered several missed calls, but no voicemails and no text messages. They had to be looking for me. Maybe they had even put together a search party. I began to feel somewhat guilty, a feeling that I was not on accustomed to when it came to how my parents viewed my behavior. I felt bad for the people that were trudging through the snow looking for me, wondering if I was alive, when I had been here in the lodge blissfully happy, safe, and warm.
"I think I have to call them," I said. "They're probably worried about me and don't even know what to do. I'll just let them know that I'm fine and that'll be it."
Micah didn't argue with me. He walked out of the room and into the kitchen as I scrolled through my contacts until I found my mother's phone number. It rang several times before she picked it up.
"I was wondering when you would finally get a
round to calling."
No hello. No I was worried about you. Nothing.
"Hello to you, too, mother."
"So, to what do I owe the great honor of you finally getting in touch with me? Have you decided that it's time to apologize?"
I was stunned at the statement.
"Apologize? You expect me to apologize?"
"Of course, I do. I can't believe how you behaved. Do you have any idea how uncomfortable you made the rest of the family, or how much you upset Daniel?"
"You're seriously still stuck on Daniel?" I asked, my voice creeping up louder and more intense. "Haven't you even wondered where I was for the last two weeks?"
"No," my mother said. "It's not like you haven't just stormed off in a tizzy before. All of us just assumed that you were having a temper tantrum and that eventually you would get over it and come back. There's really no point in any of us trying to reason with you when you're acting like that."
"Acting like what exactly, Mom?"
"You know exactly what I mean. You just stomped out of the cabin, stole your sister's car, and drove off into the night without even a word."
"I didn't steal Madeline's car. If you hadn't noticed, she didn't even report it missing. Of course, you didn't report me missing either."
"You weren't missing. You are having a fit and you decided to go off and be by yourself. What point exactly did you think that you were making? What did you think that you were going to accomplish by behaving that way? Daniel had already come all the way out there just for you."
"He didn't come out there for me," I scoffed. "He came out there for you. He came out there to impress you and try to convince you of what a wonderful person he was because he doesn't want you to know who he really is."
"Don't start that again, Charlotte. Don't make up more things about him just because it makes you feel better about yourself and the way that you acted while you were in school. He told us all about it, and frankly I am mortified that you would behave that way. Not just for us, but for Daniel. You should have seen how devastated he was when he was talking about you. He is so incredibly worried about you and wants nothing more than what's best for you. You are luckier than you could possibly imagine to have a man like that love you. You certainly don't deserve it. And you completely ruined Thanksgiving for all of us."
I couldn't even believe what I was hearing. My mother had always been judgmental and put herself before everybody else, being fully willing to ignore things that were inconvenient or unpleasant if she thought that they could benefit her in some way. But she had never been so cold. I wondered what Daniel could have possibly told her that had contorted her view of me so much.
"I'll have you know that you are absolutely right,” I said. “I am luckier than I could possibly imagine to be loved so much by a man like the one who loves me. But it's not Daniel. It has never been Daniel. Daniel loves nothing and no one but himself. The man I love is the one who's been taking care of me for the last two weeks. He's the one who rescued me when I drove through the storm and crashed Madeline's car into a tree. He saved my life."
My mother let out a sigh that sounded as though she were listening to a teenage girl throw a fit because her daddy didn't buy her the right color car.
"Don't be so dramatic, Charlotte. I don't know where you've been or what you've been doing, but all of us have had enough. We've already left the cabin and gone home, and we expect to see you tomorrow. Goodbye."
I let out an infuriated growl and threw my phone across the couch. I curled my knees up to my chest and buried my face in them. The touch of Micah's hand on my back made me jump and I turned around to look at him. I realized with a knot in my stomach that he had been standing there during my conversation.
"How much did you hear?" I asked.
"Enough," he said.
"Look, about what I said. About…"
"About spending the last two weeks with a man who loves you?"
I felt heat burning across my cheeks and wanted to curl up and disappear.
"My mother was talking about Daniel and saying how lucky I was to have a man like him love me," I said. "I just said that to try to…"
"It doesn't matter," he said. My heart sank, but then he walked around in front of the couch and crouched down to look at me. "It doesn't matter why you said it. It's true."
"It is?" I asked breathlessly.
"Yes," Micah said. "I love you, Charlotte. I have for so long, but it's only since seeing each other again that I really let myself feel it. I might not come from the best family and there might be a lot of things in my past that I'm not proud of, but what I can tell you is that I love you with every fiber of my being and with every beat of my heart. I love you more than my next breath and there is nothing that you could ever do or that could ever happen that would change that or that would make me let you get hurt."
My breath was caught in my throat and tears stung in my eyes.
"Micah," I started.
He reached out and took both of my hands in his. He brought them up to his mouth and kissed them then brought them to his chest and pressed them to his heart.
"You said that you spent two weeks with the man you love."
"I did," I said. "And I meant it. I love you, Micah. I don't care what kind of family you come from. I don't care what your last name is or what you've gone through. I don't care about anything in your past except for me. You have always been there. Even when neither of us realized it. You protected me, and even though I couldn't protect myself, I never forgot that. That was a moment that was more precious to me then I could ever tell you because it was a moment when I realized that I could be worth more than what Daniel told me I was. I don't know what I did to deserve it, and there's probably nothing that I could have done to deserve it, but you have rescued me again and again. But that's not the only reason that I love you. I love you because of who you are, who you have always been, and who you will be. And I can only hope that I will know that man, too."
"I want you to know every bit of me now and whoever I become. But I understand if you don't want to stay here. I know that this isn't your world. It isn't your life. I would understand if you wanted to go back."
"Going back to them is the last thing that I want to do. I want to be here with you, if you'll have me. You told me that I wasn't being held captive, but I am. I'm yours, and nothing will change that. I can still see my sisters. I can still live my life. But I want to live it here with you."
Just then, Scout walked into the room and came up to me. He dropped his head onto my lap and looked up at me with his soulful eyes. I laughed, rubbing him on the head.
"And you too, of course, Scout. You saved me, too."
I looked back at Micah and found him staring at me. His eyes, those eyes that seems to have stared back at me through years, were filled with an emotion that I couldn't touch, but one that I knew I would always remember.
"From the first moment that I brought you here," he said, "I've been waiting for the moment when you would leave. I knew that I was only borrowing my time with you and I was determined to make the most of every day, every hour, every second that I had. It was like I was given another chance and even if that chance was only that I would get to talk to you and to spend time with you, I was going to be grateful for that chance and I was going to take advantage of it as much as possible. I don't want that anymore. I want to know what else this could be, because I think it could be something amazing."
"I do, too. I love you."
"I love you."
The next day came and went. I didn't even bother to call my parents to let them know that I wasn't coming back. I was still fuming from the conversation that we had the day before and I didn't think that I had enough control over my thoughts or emotions to have a conversation with them that I wouldn't one day regret. As much as they had hurt me and as much as they continue to hurt me, they were my parents. I had to believe that somewhere, deep in their hearts, they truly did want what was best for me a
nd thought that they we're giving that to me. Maybe someday we would talk about it again, but for now all I wanted to do was lose myself in Micah. Things had changed. Our reality was different now. We weren't together there in his lodge because we had to be. We were together because it was all that either of us wanted. I felt like I could have remained that way forever, but two days later it would all change.
"Is he alright?" I asked into the phone.
I was gripping it as hard as I could as if somehow that would bring me closer, make me feel less like I was helpless and out of control.
"He's alive," my mother said. "But that's really all that we can say for now. The doctors don't know what's happening or how his body is going to react to this. You know how much trouble your father has had with his heart, Charlotte. There's no way to tell if he's going to be able to recover from this."
Tears slipped down my cheeks and I felt my hands shaking.
"What do you want me to do?" I asked.
"I think that you should come home," Violet said. "Having you gone has put a tremendous strain on him, and I know that it would do him good to have you here. If we don't know how much longer he's going to be here, then you really should be with your family."
I nodded even though I knew she couldn't see me. She was asking me to make an excruciating choice, but one that I knew I had to make.
"I'll get there as fast as I can," I said.
I was dropping the phone to the cushion beside me when Micah walked in the room.
"You'll be where as fast as you can?" he asked.
I stood up and faced him.
"My father is sick," I told him. "He's had a heart problem for a really long time and the doctors think that this last sickness weakened his heart. They don't know really how much damage has been done or if he's even going to be able to recover."
"I'm so sorry," he said.
"I need to get home," I said. "I need to get to him."
Micah nodded, though I could see the pain in his eyes.
"I know you do," he said.
