“I’m fine, just went for a drive,” I lied. “I’m about to head back to the house now.”
“Oh, okay.” He paused, and guilt flooded me from the inside out, cooling my hot skin in a crashing wave. “Had to get out to clear your head for a while, huh?”
“Yeah…” I didn’t know what else to say. I wondered if he knew I was lying.
I wondered if he cared.
“I’m sorry. I should have skipped the game tonight. I won’t go to the one tomorrow, okay? We can… I don’t know. I’ll make dinner, and we can watch movies or something.”
“I have to go, don’t want to be on the phone while I’m driving,” I said quickly. “I’ll be home soon.”
I hung up before he could respond, the urge to vomit hitting me so strong I scrambled to my feet and ran to Reese’s bathroom. I slammed the door shut behind me, grappling at the toilet with clammy hands, but I only dry heaved.
Nothing came out, my body’s punishment for what I’d done. I’d have to sit with all of it — the guilt, the betrayal, the utter despair of wanting Reese, even still.
He knocked on the bathroom door and I shook my head violently, flushing the toilet even though nothing was in it before I stood and ripped the door open again.
“I have to go.”
“Charlie.”
Reese followed me through the house as I zipped up my pants and pulled my hair into a low bun at the nape of my neck. I swiped my coat off the back of his couch, releasing one corner of our fort in the process. I pulled my coat on hastily, wrapping my scarf without care around my neck and holding my hat in one hand as I ripped one of the sheets from the fort to find Jane’s cage beneath it.
“Please, just wait a second. Talk to me.”
“I can’t. I have to go.” My hand was already on the door knob when Reese slid between me and the exit, bare chest heaving, eyes wild as he forced me to look at him.
“Damn it, Charlie. Don’t do this. Don’t just walk out of here like you regret everything.”
I needed to throw up. I needed to leave.
“I’m married.”
“I know. I know, and I’m sorry, but —”
“This was a mistake, Reese!” I screamed the words louder than I meant to, and I clapped the hand holding my hat hard over my mouth, shaking my head as tears flooded my eyes.
He just watched me, eyes flicking between mine as the pain from what I’d said marred his face.
“You don’t mean that.”
“Please,” I screamed again, the sound of my voice muffled through the tears. “Let me go. Please. I have to go. Let me go.”
I yanked the door knob and Reese stepped aside, letting me through. I didn’t look back. Not when a sob choked through me in his front yard, or when I placed Jane in the passenger seat, or when I slid behind the wheel, swiping at my face frantically and telling myself on repeat to just breathe.
I threw my car into reverse as soon as it started, peeling out of his driveway with my heart pounding against the confines of my rib cage. I could barely see through the tears. I could barely hear myself think.
What have I done?
What have I done?
What have I done?
When I pulled out of Reese’s development, I yanked the car over to the side of the road, shoved my door open, and puked.
Reese
There were only a few nights in my life that I wished for sleep so badly, only because I knew whatever I dreamed would be better than my reality.
One of those nights had been after my family passed, and that constant ache, that persistent desire to be anywhere else and anyone else was exactly what I felt as I laid in the broken-down fort Charlie and I had built.
My eyes lost focus on the ceiling above, the small part of it I could see from where one sheet had fallen down in Charlie’s haste to leave. I’d abandoned the wine and pulled out an old bottle of bourbon, sipping straight from the bottle until almost three in the morning when I realized I needed to try to sober up. I had to teach in four hours.
I had to see her in four hours.
See her, and not touch her. And look into those torturous eyes of hers knowing she regretted kissing me.
I made a pot of coffee somewhere around four and force-fed myself eight pieces of toast in an effort to soak up the night’s damages — both the booze and the energy. I debated calling out, but I couldn’t. Even if I knew it would hurt, I had to see her.
I had to try to talk to her.
My drive to school was slow as I ticked through what I would say to her in my mind. I wanted so desperately to make her understand, to make her open her eyes and see that what she felt with me was real. But it was like trying to solve a math equation with half of the numbers missing — I could argue our points, our history, the chemistry between us, but I couldn’t account for the years she’d given herself to Cameron.
He was the variable, and I didn’t know what weight he truly held.
By the time I made it to Westchester, I was so anxious to see Charlie I practically bolted from my car and sprinted across campus to her room. I didn’t have long before we’d be separated by hallways and students for the rest of the day, and the thought of not being able to talk to her beforehand was enough to drive me mad.
I couldn’t get a grip on any of the thoughts flying through my head. Part of me realized I was being selfish, that I was hurting her by touching her, by opening her up to the possibility of me. She was fine before I showed up in her life again. She was happy.
But the bigger part of me knew that was complete bullshit.
Charlie had been a shell of herself the morning I’d started at Westchester. She hadn’t expected me, just as I hadn’t even thought of the possibility of her coming back into my life again. I’d assumed she was married and moved away, and though one part of that assumption was true, it didn’t change how I felt for her.
With every minute I spent with her, with every passing day, I saw a bit of the old Charlie come back. And maybe it was selfish, maybe it was wrong — but I wanted all of her back again. I wanted all of her to be mine.
Still, everything I thought I knew, everything I thought I’d say slipped from me like sand between my fingers when I rounded the corner into Charlie’s classroom and saw her standing there.
She was looking over a stack of lesson plans in her hands, and she looked up slowly when she noticed me at her door, like she already knew I was coming. Her eyes were even puffier than the day before, all the crying and lack of sleep shading the skin beneath them a dark purple.
She nearly broke at the sight of me, her face crumpling, shoulders slouching forward as if I’d disappointed her by showing up.
“Charlie,” I started, moving into her classroom without a second thought. I rushed straight up to her, my hands reaching for hers, but she stepped back just as quick, nearly falling over the small trashcan next to her desk.
I went to steady her, but she held up her hands to warn me not to touch her.
“Don’t. Reese, damn it, why are you here?”
“We have to talk about last night.”
“No, we don’t,” she argued, slapping the papers down on her desk with a frustrated sigh. “I told you, it was a mistake. I was tired and drunk and—”
“Please, don’t do that.” I shook my head, sniffing back my emotions. “I know you don’t mean it.”
“I do,” she lied, her voice cracking. “I do, okay? Please, you need to go. You have to stay away from me.”
“I can’t. Don’t you see that? I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have…” my voice faded off and my fists tightened at my sides as I tried to find the right words.
What was I sorry for? What did I do that I wouldn’t do again right now, if she just gave me the green light?
“Exactly. You shouldn’t have. We shouldn’t have. Can’t you see that I’m drowning in guilt right now?” Her eyes flooded with tears, but she wouldn’t blink to let them loose. “I’m married, Reese. That’s all there is to i
t. I don’t get to run out on him and find comfort in you, and you don’t get to have me.”
Something about the way she said those words, about the finality of them, about the way she wouldn’t look me in the eyes snapped what little resolve I had left. My desperate need to make her understand went up in smoke, leaving only a charred anger underneath it.
She had kissed me, too. She had touched me, had moaned my name, had pressed her nails into my skin like she wanted to make a permanent mark.
And she had.
She didn’t get to just walk away from me now.
“You know what?” I said, bending to meet her eyes with mine. I pressed my hands flat on her desk, forcing her to look at me. “I’m not sorry. Not even a little bit. I’ve wanted you for years. Decades. And did I ever think I’d have you? No. But then life brought me here, back to you, and you were fucking miserable the day I came back. You still are. You can open that pretty mouth of yours and tell me every lie you’ve told yourself but I’ll never believe them. I see you, Charlie.”
I pushed off the desk to stand again as two tears slipped from her eyes, falling in parallel lines down to her jaw.
“You can push me away, and you can tell yourself you feel nothing for me, but I know it’s bullshit. And you do, too.”
I held her gaze for a moment, hammering that point home before I turned and made my way out the door at the same speed I’d made my way in. My stomach churned, the voice inside me calling me an asshole like I didn’t already know. But I didn’t regret a single thing I’d said.
It was all true — every word of it.
And if I had to lose sleep at night drowning in the truth of it all, then she would, too.
Charlie
The first day of March fell on a Saturday, a little less than a week after my night with Reese. It was that day that we received the first warnings of a possible blizzard that week, of more snow than we’d had all year.
It wasn’t that the forecast calling for snow was a big deal in Pennsylvania — we’d had plenty of it already. Some days it would fall and melt away just as fast, other days it would stick on the ground for a while, but up until that point, we hadn’t had any reason to think we would have any chance at a snow day, much less a blizzard that could close the school for multiple days.
It usually took at least five inches for the school board in the Pittsburgh area to even bat an eye at the possibility, and we hadn’t come close. If the plow trucks could get through and the roads were kept in a drivable condition, there really was no reason to call a snow day.
But that Saturday, they predicted at least eight inches to fall Monday night, and that meant there was a chance.
It was also that Saturday that Cameron decided to make up for our anniversary.
“This is nice,” he said that afternoon when we were cuddled up on the couch under one of my favorite blankets. I was tucked comfortably under his arm, his fingers drawing circles on my shoulder as we settled in for the third movie in our marathon.
He’d made breakfast for us that morning, cinnamon French toast, but for some reason it hadn’t tasted the same to me. The toast had a burnt taste to it, the cinnamon too strong, making my mouth dryer with every bite.
Still, I’d cleaned my plate, and then Cameron had given me a full body massage during our first movie. He’d held me close all day, kissing me sweetly, and for all intents and purposes, it should have felt perfect to me.
But I didn’t feel anything at all.
I was staring at the television screen pretending to watch the movie when he repeated himself.
“Right? This is nice.”
I blinked, snapping myself back into the moment and cuddling closer to him. “Mm-hmm, you know movie days are my favorite.”
“We don’t get to have them very often.”
“That’s why they’re my favorite.”
It was true. There were very few days in the ten years we’d been together that we’d ever had the time to just lounge around and watch movies. We were both always so busy in college, and once we were married, we filled every weekend with house projects, trips, and exploring Pittsburgh. If there ever was a day when I had the time to watch movies, it was usually when Cameron was stuck working in his office.
“I know I keep saying it,” he said, sweeping my hair back from my forehead to plant a kiss there. “But I’m truly sorry for missing our anniversary. I hope this helps make up for it a little bit, but I know it doesn’t make everything better.”
“It’s okay.”
Cameron sat up straighter then, pulling me back away from him until our eyes met. “It’s not. Look… I know things have been…” He swallowed. We both knew he didn’t have to finish that sentence for me to know how things had been. “I haven’t been a good husband to you lately, and I’m sorry. You deserve more than that.”
My heart ached so powerfully I pressed a hand to my chest to soothe it. Cameron was looking at me with absolute agony in his eyes, like he was the disappointing one.
It was me who kissed another man less than a week before.
Guilt was eating way at me like a parasite, killing me from the inside. All I wanted was to be able to focus on Cameron, to give him all of me again, but it was too late.
I’d given a part of myself to Reese, a part I didn’t realize still existed. And now I was split into two perfectly even, jagged halves. I wasn’t whole, and therefore I couldn’t feel whole — couldn’t feel complete.
But I had to try.
I’d made a vow to Cameron, one I never intended to break.
“You’re an amazing husband,” I countered, though my voice was soft. “And I love you.”
“I love you, too. More than you know.” He tilted my chin up with his knuckles, kissing me almost as if he knew my lips had belonged to someone else that week. “I hope we get a snow day. It would be nice to just waste a Tuesday away under the covers, wouldn’t it?”
I smiled. “That would be perfect.”
“Well, I’ll pray for it, then.”
We spent the rest of the evening on the couch, too, ordering pizza to be delivered somewhere around six. Later that night, Cameron carried me up the stairs to our bedroom and made love to me softly and sweetly, kissing every inch of my body like he only had his lips and his hands to tell me how much he loved me.
And how sorry he was.
I faked an orgasm early, and once Cameron was sated and falling asleep, I snuck into our bathroom and sobbed.
Reese hadn’t so much as looked at me since the morning after what happened.
He’d been very tactful about avoiding me, staying out of the café around lunch time and steering clear of the kindergarten wing at all costs. He’d even told Mr. Henderson that he didn’t require my help on the spring concert project any longer, which meant there was really no reason for us to see each other at all.
So when I walked into our very loud and lively teachers’ café Monday morning and saw him laughing with Jennifer Stinson in the corner, I stopped dead in my tracks.
“I’m telling you, there is no way we’ll get a snow day tomorrow. Mr. Henderson would rather go on a diet than give us a day off,” Sheldon said, and a few of the teachers laughed and nodded their agreement. “Remember last year? We had seven inches over night and half the students didn’t show, but we still had to be here.”
“Yeah, but they’re calling for eight inches at least tonight,” another teacher said.
“One inch can make quite the difference,” Jennifer chimed in, and the way she looked at Reese when she said it made my fingers curl into fists at my side.
She sipped from the coffee mug in front of her and Reese smiled back, but when his eyes flicked to me, the smile fell.
“I say we take bets,” Sierra said from the table where she was eating a large slice of coffee cake without any coffee to accompany it. “Who thinks we’re going to be here tomorrow?”
Everyone started debating again while Sheldon pulled out a paper and pen to w
rite down bets, but Reese just held me with his gaze, both of us ignoring the fuss and watching each other, instead. After a moment, he murmured something to Jennifer and stood, walking over to the coffee pot at the counter. I followed.
I stood at his side for longer than I should have without saying a single word. I just watched him unscrew the top from his Thermos and refill it.
“What do you think?” I asked after a while. “Snow day or no snow day?”
Reese scoffed, shoving the coffee pot under the faucet to rinse it before refilling it with water. He’d drained the last of it, so he worked on making a fresh pot while I stood there wishing he’d look at me.
“Does it matter? We’ll have to make the day up at the end of the year if they do call it.”
“True,” I whispered. “But, it might be fun to have a day off.”
He shrugged. “I guess. I’d just sit at home, so I’d rather work, to be honest.”
Reese was so cold, so shut off from me, and I realized I’d never been in that position before. I’d always been the one to light him up when I walked into the room, and now I couldn’t even get a smile.
“What is Jennifer doing here?”
“She’s donating some flowers for the concert and asked to meet to talk about it over coffee this morning.” He shoved the pot of water back under the filter and flipped the button to brew, then he finally looked at me. “Is this what you wanted to talk to me about? The possibility of a snow day and Jennifer Stinson?”
I swallowed. “I don’t know, I just wanted to talk to you.”
“Why?”
He hated me, and I couldn’t blame him.
“Because I miss you… I miss my friend.”
Reese stuck his tongue to the inside of his cheek, shaking his head like I’d just said the most offensive word in the English language. “Wow. No.”
“No?”
“No. You don’t get to say that to me. You don’t get to tell me that you miss me, and you definitely do not get to say that it’s our friendship that you miss.”
“But it is,” I tried to argue, but he cut me short.
What He Doesn't Know (What He Doesn't Know Duet Book 1) Page 19
