Not Quickly Broken

by Cronk, LN

  It’s nice to have a friend to talk to . . .

  “I . . . I don’t know,” I finally said.

  She stared at me for another moment and then nodded her head.

  “Good night, Jordan,” she said, and she turned and walked up the steps.

  The last soccer game that I had to referee the next day was finished by four-thirty and I raced home to take the quickest shower in recorded history. After I was done I dried off, pulled on some clean clothes, and hightailed it over to Charlotte’s as fast as I could.

  Mrs. White answered the door.

  “Is Charlotte here?”

  “Sure,” she nodded. “Come on in.”

  “I’ll just wait out here,” I said, shaking my head.

  Mrs. White nodded and let the door close as she went to get Charlotte.

  After a moment, Charlotte appeared at the door.

  “Hi,” I said.

  “Hi.”

  “Can you come out here for a minute?” I asked.

  “Just for a minute,” she said, stepping out onto the porch. “Jarrett’s gonna be here pretty quick.”

  “You’re going out with him again?” I asked in disbelief.

  “Of course I’m going out with him,” she said defensively. “He’s my boyfriend.”

  I shook my head at her in disgust.

  “What do you want, Jordan?”

  “I told Tanner,” I said.

  She looked puzzled.

  “About Claire,” I explained. “I went over there this morning before I went to work and I told him that it was all my fault.”

  She looked at me.

  “How did that go?” she finally asked.

  “It went good,” I nodded. “You were right. I feel a lot better.”

  “Good,” she said, smiling slightly.

  “And I think you need to tell your mom what you told me last night.”

  The smile disappeared quickly from her face and she shook her head.

  “No.”

  “It’s not good for you to be keeping something like that inside,” I argued.

  “No,” she said again. “I’m fine. I never should have even told you about it in the first place. I’m fine.”

  I took a small step toward her and lowered my voice. “I’m worried about you, Charlotte . . .”

  “You don’t need to be worried about me,” she said. “It’s not that big of a deal. I just told you about it because you were talking about what happened with Tanner and everything and it made me think about it, that’s all. I hardly ever even think about it.”

  “I don’t believe you,” I said.

  She looked at me as if she were deciding whether or not to argue with me.

  “I have to go now,” she finally said, starting to turn away.

  “Don’t go out with him,” I said quickly.

  “Why not?” she asked, turning back to face me.

  I didn’t answer. She gave me plenty of time, but I still didn’t say anything.

  “That’s what I thought,” she finally said, and she turned around and stepped into her house.

  “Charlotte, wait!” I called after her, but she ignored me and closed the door in my face.

  This time I didn’t hesitate. I banged on door with my fist. She opened it right back up and glared at me.

  “Go, home, Jordan.”

  “No,” I said. “Come back out here and talk to me.”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. “Jarrett’s going to be here any minute.”

  I stuck my foot in the door as she started to close it again.

  “If you don’t come back out here,” I said in a low voice, “I’m going to tell your mom about the lizard.”

  “You wouldn’t dare!” she hissed.

  “Try me.”

  She stared at me for a moment with her mouth slightly open, but finally she stepped out onto the porch.

  “What, Jordan?” She looked as if she was trying not to cry.

  “Don’t go out with him . . .”

  “Why not?” she asked in almost a whisper.

  I stepped toward her. We were almost touching and I looked into her eyes. She looked back, holding my gaze, and I bent my head toward hers.

  I had been right . . . I hardly had to lean down at all.

  At first I barely pressed my lips against hers, kissing her so gently that I almost wasn’t sure if we were touching, but then she kissed me back and I was sure.

  I moved even closer and pulled her to me, but suddenly, she stopped.

  “I can’t do this,” she said, shaking her head and stepping away.

  “Don’t go,” I pleaded.

  “I have to,” she said, refusing to look at me.

  “No, you don’t,” I argued as she turned away and opened the door.

  “Yes, I do,” she said, finally allowing herself to glance at me. Then she slipped inside and this time, I let her go.

  “You know where to find me if you change your mind,” I said, to no one but myself.

  I didn’t even try to work on schoolwork when I got home, but I did sit on the couch for a long time with my head laid back and my eyes closed, listening and waiting.

  “Everything okay?” my mom asked when she passed through the living room.

  I nodded at her and went back to listening.

  It was a little after nine o’clock when I was sure I heard something.

  A faint, tiny knock?

  One slight rap on the door?

  I listened again.

  Nothing.

  I was so sure I’d heard something though, that I got up quietly, walked across the living room, and looked through the peephole.

  Charlotte jumped when I opened the door.

  “May I help you?” I asked.

  “I–”

  “You aren’t selling magazines, are you?” I asked.

  She glared at me.

  “Or giving out those Jehovah’s Witness pamphlets or something,” I went on, “because–”

  “Jordan Clemmons,” she interrupted, narrowing her eyes at me, “don’t you make me sorry that I broke up with him.”

  “You broke up with him?!” I exclaimed.

  “Of course I broke up with him!” she cried. “What did you think I was going to do after you started going on and on about how I should find somebody better and then you started kissing me and everything?!”

  She was practically yelling. I glanced over my shoulder to make sure that Mom hadn’t come back into the living room and then I stepped out onto the porch.

  “Wow!” I said, looking at her after I pulled the door shut. “I can’t believe you broke up with him!”

  She looked at me, worriedly.

  “What do you think about that?” she asked quietly.

  “About you breaking up with him?”

  She nodded.

  “I think I must be a really good kisser.”

  “Jordan,” she pleaded.

  I smiled at her.

  “I think it’s great,” I said seriously.

  “Really?” she asked softly.

  “Yeah,” I nodded. I stepped closer to her and reached a hand under her chin, tipping her face toward mine. “I also think I’d really like to kiss you again.”

  She smiled too and it was nice knowing for sure that this time she was going to kiss me back.

  “You do happen to be a great kisser,” she said after we’d pulled apart.

  I smiled at her some more and looked into her eyes.

  Suddenly the smile dropped off of her face.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Uh,” she said, glancing across the street at David’s house. “Do we really want people knowing about this right now?”

  David was still out of town, but if Laci saw us she’d be sure to tell him, and then Tanner was going to find out. The thought of that made me cringe.

  I shook my head.

  “Do you want to go inside?” she suggested.

  “With my mother?” I asked. “I do
n’t think so.”

  “A walk?”

  “Yeah,” I nodded.

  We headed down the stairs and soon David’s house and my house were out of sight. After a bit I moved a little closer to her as we walked and I reached my hand out, letting the back of it brush against hers. I wrapped mine around hers and gave it a gentle squeeze and she squeezed it back.

  I liked that. I liked walking down the street with Charlotte, holding her hand. I liked knowing that any time I wanted to, I could stop walking and lean over to kiss her.

  I stopped walking, but I didn’t kiss her. Instead I looked at her for a moment in the dim light and then I brought my face to hers so that our foreheads were touching.

  “You have absolutely no idea how incredibly happy I am,” I whispered.

  She smiled up at me.

  “I told you that you needed a girlfriend,” she said.

  I really was incredibly happy . . . I honestly can’t think of a time in my life when I had ever been happier.

  Of course I had no way of knowing at the time that – for over a week – Charlotte had been struggling with a gnawing suspicion that would one day turn into an inescapable reality. I didn’t know that she wanted to be with me so badly that she had finally refused to accept what was an undeniable truth and that, in the end, she simply resolved to ignore the fears that had been welling up inside of her for days.

  At the time I had no way of knowing that Charlotte, was almost six weeks pregnant.

  ~ ~ ~

  IT WAS ONLY a week later that we were at her house, looking through photo albums. We came across pictures of her eighth birthday party and I was surprised to find a picture of myself, standing and watching as she swung, blindfolded, at a piñata.

  “I don’t remember that,” I said.

  “Don’t remember what?”

  “Your party.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean I don’t remember going to your birthday party.”

  She looked at me for a moment.

  “I can’t believe you don’t remember my birthday party,” she finally said, sounding hurt.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, honestly. “If I’d known I was going to fall in love with you I probably would have paid more attention.”

  She stared at me with a slight look of shock on her face.

  “What?” I asked her.

  “You . . . you love me?”

  “Well, yeah,” I said. I reached over and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. Then I ran my finger along her throat, up to her chin, pulling her toward me and starting to lean forward to kiss her. But she pulled away, stopping me.

  She looked at me with her mouth slightly open. I looked right back at her, waiting for her to say something.

  “I love you, too,” she finally said.

  “I know you do,” I smiled.

  “What do you mean, ‘you know I do’?” she asked, pulling further away from me and putting a hand on her hip. “How could you possibly know?”

  “Because I can tell.”

  “How?” she asked, softly.

  I brought my hand back up to her face, cupping her chin and stroking my thumb lightly across her cheek. I pulled her closer to me.

  “Because,” I said quietly, “every time you kiss me, I can tell.”

  A few weeks later, Charlotte and I went to the movies and then stopped by a little ice cream shop before we went home. There were concrete picnic tables outside and we sat down at one of them, sharing a hot fudge sundae.

  I watched Charlotte, twirling her spoon in the corner of the bowl to get some extra fudge. She started to put it in her mouth, but then saw me looking at her and grinned.

  “Want it?” she asked, offering me her spoon.

  “No,” I said. “You can have it.”

  She smiled again and put it in her mouth.

  “Why are you looking at me like that then?” she asked after she’d finished the spoonful.

  “Because I love you so much,” I told her. “You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

  “You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me, too,” she said, looking at me intently.

  I paused.

  “What?” she asked.

  I hesitated for another moment.

  “Whenever I tell you something like that,” I finally said, “you always tell me that you feel the same way.”

  “That’s because I do feel the same way,” she said.

  “I know you do,” I agreed, “but you never tell me anything on your own.”

  I love you with all my heart . . .

  I love you with all my heart too.

  I don’t know what I’d do without you . . .

  I don’t know what I’d do without you, either.

  I wish I could hold you all night . . .

  I wish you could hold me all night, too.

  She dropped her eyes down to the ice cream as I went on.

  “You won’t tell me anything unless I tell you first,” I said, lifting her chin gently. “It’s almost like you’re afraid to tell me how you feel or something.”

  “I am afraid,” she said, finally bringing herself to look at me.

  “Of what?”

  She hesitated for a moment.

  “I’m afraid that if I tell you how I feel,” she said quietly, “I’m going to scare you off.”

  “You’re not going to scare me off,” I promised, shaking my head. “There’s nothing you can say that would scare me off.”

  She looked at me uncertainly.

  “I love you, Charlotte,” I said, moving my face closer to hers. I leaned over and kissed her (another thing she never did unless I did it first). “I’m not going anywhere,” I promised.

  She looked at me for the longest moment and then gave me the tiniest of nods.

  “Okay,” she said. She swallowed hard and looked right into my eyes and I knew she’d made up her mind not to be afraid any more.

  “I didn’t know it was possible,” she began, “to love somebody as much as I love you. I think about you constantly . . . all the time. I’m probably going to fail all of my exams because I can’t even pay attention in class anymore.”

  I bit my lip, trying unsuccessfully not to smile.

  “I love you so much that it hurts,” she said, seriously. She reached up and ran her fingers along the side of my face. “And I can’t believe that someone as wonderful and as perfect and as sweet as you are actually loves me back. Whenever I think about losing you I make myself cry . . .”

  I shook my head at her.

  “And,” she went on, “no matter how much time we spend together or how close you hold me, I feel like I can’t get enough of you. And sometimes I’m afraid that if I start kissing you, I’m not going to be able to stop.”

  She looked almost upset, like she really was afraid she was going to scare me off or something. I smiled at her and cupped her face in my hands, and then I leaned over to kiss her once again. It might have been me who initiated that one too, but from then on, nothing held Charlotte back.

  Not too long after that, we had an eleven-thirty dismissal from school, so Charlotte and I drove to a lake that was about an hour away and went out on the bass boat that Tanner sometimes left at a marina there.

  “I can’t believe you talked him into letting us use his boat,” Charlotte said after we were out on the water.

  “Who said I talked him into it?”

  “You didn’t tell him?” she asked, her mouth dropping open.

  “I figure what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him,” I shrugged.

  “But what if he shows up looking for his boat?”

  “All the teachers have to go to that workshop,” I reminded her. “That’s why we got out early.”

  “Oh, right,” she said sarcastically. “Because Tanner would never do anything like blow off a workshop.”

  She actually had a good point. It was one of the nicest days we’d had all spring and, now that she mentione
d it, I realized that there was probably about a fifty-fifty chance that I was going to have one very angry brother on my hands by evening.

  “Oh well,” I shrugged. “It’ll be worth it to have you all to myself for an afternoon.”

  “I cannot believe how bad you’re being,” she teased.

  “What can I say, Charlotte? You’re corrupting me.”

  The expression on her face changed.

  “I don’t want to be responsible for corrupting you!” she cried, suddenly no longer teasing.

  “I’m kidding,” I said when I saw how upset she was getting. I reached over and pulled her to me.

  “I’m serious,” she said. “I don’t want you to change because of me.”

  “I’ve already changed because of you,” I said.

  “We should go back,” she said, now almost in tears.

  “Charlotte,” I said, reaching out and catching one of her hands. “Calm down. If Tanner comes looking for his boat he’ll see your car out there in the parking lot and figure it out. He’ll call me and I’ll bring it back to him. It’s not that big of a deal.”

  I could tell she was still upset.

  “But if it’ll make you feel better,” I said, “I’ll confess everything to him when we get home.”

  She looked at me uncertainly.

  “I’ll tell him that we came up here and stole his boat and then we kissed passionately over the live well.”

  She laughed.

  “But we didn’t kiss passionately over the live well,” she pointed out.

  “We’re going to . . .”

  “Oh, you think so, huh?” she asked, smiling.

  “Oh, I know so,” I said and she laughed again.

  On the way home our conversation turned to the upcoming prom. I had absolutely zero desire to go to it, but I knew that Charlotte really wanted to buy a pretty dress and show it off to all of our friends.

  Correction . . . she wanted to show it off to all of her friends.

  Charlotte’s circle of friends was completely different from my circle of friends. I guess if I was honest, I’d have to say that I didn’t really have a circle . . . I was more like a dot. Before we’d started dating, Charlotte had said that I didn’t have any friends – and in a way – she was right.