by KL Hughes
“I applied for a year-long internship with the company before I graduated.”
Kari shifts toward her. “Encore Creative? The one you work for now?”
Nodding, Alex picks at the quilt with her fingers and keeps her gaze fixed on the ceiling. “I never thought I’d get it. They were based on the other side of the country, and they only ever took on three new interns a year. It was a long shot, but they were one of the biggest and most successful staffing-and-planning companies in the country. It was an incredible opportunity, so I applied. When I hadn’t heard from them by the time I graduated, I assumed it meant I wouldn’t be hearing from them at all, so I let it go.”
“But you did get the position?”
“I was an alternate,” Alex says, nodding. “They called almost four months after graduation. Charlee had just opened her first gallery space and had taken on a job at a community theater too, with Camila—they both did a lot of work in scene design. You know, building and painting backdrops and props and things like that.”
“Oh, that’s cool.”
“Yeah,” Alex said, releasing a long breath. “She couldn’t uproot and leave, not when things were beginning to take off for her. I wouldn’t ask her to do that, and she wouldn’t ask me to stay for her. We wanted each other to have those opportunities, so we decided that I would go and we’d try long distance until the internship ended.”
Alex’s voice cracks. “It was good for a while, exciting even, but I was so busy. Busier than I was prepared to be. I was always at the office, always at some event. I hardly even saw the inside of my apartment. I basically lived on fast food and energy drinks and the care packages Charlee’s mom sent me every week. I barely had time to live, let alone to spend on the phone or on Skype. It broke us, you know. In that slow kind of way you don’t even realize is happening until it’s too late to do anything about it anymore. Until you don’t really even want to.”
Kari squeezes Alex’s side, drawing up a sigh.
“We tried, though. We hung on for a long time. Charlee just knew we could fix everything when I came home, but…”
Alex covers her burning eyes with her hands. Moisture soaks into her fingertips, and she draws another shaky breath through her lips. Every word that follows is broken, rough like gravel. “At the end of the year, they offered me a full-time position as a junior event director with guaranteed promotion if I brought in new clients. It was an even better opportunity than the internship had been, and I couldn’t say no. I just couldn’t. So I didn’t. Charlee didn’t blame me for that, but it was the last straw. It was too much, you know. Too hard.”
Alex feels Kari shift. When warm lips touch the back of her hands still covering her face, she breaks. She lets it free for a moment, lets herself go, and just cries for only a few painful seconds before she rolls toward her girlfriend.
“I’m sorry,” she says. “I know how this must look for me to be so emotional about this, but you have to understand that after Vinny, Charlee was the first person to ever really love me. The first person since my parents, since my grandma. The first to make me feel it.” She wipes a hand under her nose and blows air up toward her wet cheeks. “She never batted an eye about my past, and she never once made me feel like I was less than her. She wasn’t just my first love. She was my family—her and her parents and Cam and Vinny. They were my family.”
“So you lost a lot more than a girlfriend,” Kari says, and Alex nods against the mattress, wiping almost angrily at new tears popping up until Kari scoots closer and rubs a hand down her back.
Alex hates herself as she imagines Charlee’s arms around her when she sinks into Kari’s embrace.
“It’s okay,” Kari says, and Alex feels a flash of pain between her ribs.
It’s not, she thinks. It’s not okay.
“Charlee, you have to get out of bed.”
“I can’t,” Charlee said, avoiding her mother’s eyes. She remained buried under her covers, the thick blanket drawn up over her nose and eyes so only her forehead was exposed. The bitter smell of her own bad breath assaulted her, but she didn’t move. She hadn’t left her bed, their bed, in days.
“You need to shower and eat.” Standing over the bed with her hands on her hips, Gabrielle Parker stared down at her daughter while Cam, who was plopped next to Charlee, did her best to comfort her. Charlee could feel her mother’s gaze like a laser through the covers. “You’ve visibly lost weight, and you smell.”
Charlee closed her eyes under the covers and tried to block out the world. “I don’t care.”
“Honey, I know it hurts,” Gabby said. “I know what it feels like to lose the person you love, and I’m hurting over this as well. We all are, but I don’t believe this is really the end, and I don’t believe that you believe that either.”
“Yeah, Charlee.” Cam patted Charlee’s blanket-covered thigh. “You might be on a break now, but everybody knows you and Alex will end up together. It’s just the way it’s supposed to be.”
Charlee let out a hard sob, threw back her covers, and sat up in the bed. She could feel how wild her hair was, greasy and sticking up in places. Her mouth was thick with the grime of days without brushing, but she didn’t care. “We’re not on a break,” she snapped at them. “We’re not taking some time apart, okay? We’re done. We’re over. She chose to stay there, and that’s it. That’s the end of it.”
“You still have to live,” Gabby said.
Charlee threw up her hands as fresh tears leaked free. “How am I supposed to do that, Mom? How am I supposed to just go on like we…like we’re not supposed to be…?” Her voice cracked, an awful croak of a sound. “Like any of this is okay?”
The mattress dipped as Gabby settled down beside Charlee and wrapped her up in her arms. She kissed Charlee’s wet cheeks and rocked her back and forth as she cried. “You just do, baby.”
“I want to die.”
“Stop,” Cam says, kicking Charlee’s foot with her own as they lie together in Cam’s bed and stare up at the ceiling.
“Did you see her, Cam?” Charlee’s vision blurs a bit as she stares upward. The six shots of vodka are really starting to get to her now. Her head’s fuzzy, and a pleasant warmth floods her body and flushes her cheeks. She feels good. A far cry from how she felt earlier. “We didn’t even speak to each other, but did you see the way she looked at me?”
“Like she just found her purpose in life again?” Cam turns her head to smirk at Charlee. Her speech slurs. “Yeah, I saw that.”
“She did not.”
“Did too.”
“God, she’s beautiful.”
“You have a boyfriend.”
“I know.”
Cam rolls over to fully face her, propping up on her elbow. “You know he doesn’t stand a chance, right?”
“Who?” Charlee rolls to face Cam as well. “Chris?”
“He was a goner the second Alex walked into that gallery.”
“No,” Charlee says, though it doesn’t sound defiant. It doesn’t hold any strength. In fact, it sounds more hopeful than anything else, even to Charlee’s own ears. Maybe that’s just the alcohol. “It’s not the same anymore.” Her hair making a swishing sound against the pillow sounds thunderous to Charlee’s ears. “We’re not the same. Me and Alex. It’s over. It’s been over for a long time.”
Cam sighs, and her eyes droop tiredly. “It was never over, and you know it.”
“I know.”
“And you don’t want to die,” Cam says, laying an arm over Charlee’s stomach and holding her close in a sloppy side embrace. “I think, for the first time in a long time, you really want to live.”
Chapter 4
Great Grounds makes an excellent caramel macchiato and an even better vanilla bean scone; or at least they used to. That’s why she’s going twenty minutes out of her way. She is not deliberately going on
the off-chance she might bump into Charlee. No. And she definitely is not going because it used to be Charlee’s favorite coffee shop. No way.
She has a craving. That’s it. That’s all it is.
The fact that the place is on the other side of the city—a twenty-minute freezing walk out of the way from her new office—is completely irrelevant. The fact that it’s Alex’s lunch break and that Charlee always used to get her coffee at noon instead of first thing in the morning is also totally irrelevant. The fact that Alex’s stomach hasn’t stopped flipping since she left work…
Alex walks through the door to find her ex standing in line, swaying in place to the music overhead. And suddenly, all those irrelevant things feel terribly relevant.
The bell chimes with Alex’s entrance, and Charlee turns, almost as if she expects Alex to be there. Their eyes meet. It’s automatic, magnetic, and it isn’t the first time. In fact, since their awful, awkward reunion at Charlee’s gallery, it’s the third time in ten days that they’ve bumped into one another.
The first was at the corner convenience store downtown where they used to go to buy cases of ramen noodles for three dollars. It’s a crappy little store, cluttered and not exactly clean, but convenient. One of few places that stocks classic candies that have otherwise become difficult to find.
They bumped into one another at the entrance, Charlee leaving and Alex arriving, and there had been a moment, of course. They stopped, door propped open on Charlee’s elbow and the universe screeching to a near-violent halt, but neither of them said a word. It was like they’d forgotten how to speak. Instead, they just stared at each other. Then Charlee gave the smallest hint of a smile and walked off.
The second time, they simply passed by one another on the sidewalk. Just outside a strip of shops and an old café they used to frequent with Charlee’s mother. Alex tried not to turn, tried not to look back after Charlee passed, but she couldn’t help herself. When she glanced over her shoulder, Charlee was looking back at her too. The words jumped from Alex’s lips before she could stop them.
“It’s cold,” she called over her shoulder, hoping Charlee wouldn’t let the moment die on the wind. Her chapped lips nearly split with her smile when Charlee called back to her.
“It’s beautiful!”
Alex tells herself the meetings are only coincidence, that she’s just falling back into old habits and routines from the years she lived here before. Part of her knows, though, knows what she’s really doing—seeking out the one person she shouldn’t. Some part of her knows she should feel guilty, but she doesn’t. Seeing Charlee, being near her, feels too good—too right to be wrong.
The line at the counter is long, and once Alex takes her place at the end, Charlee turns to face the front again. Several people fill the space between them, but it somehow feels like they’re the only two there. The air thickens as Alex stares at the back of Charlee’s head, at her windblown hair. She can practically feel it running through her fingers, just like it used to. She scans down the curving lines of her body, over her soft shoulders and full hips. Thick thighs. Alex’s fingertips twitch. She once mapped every inch.
Charlee’s name is called before Alex ever even places her own order, and their eyes meet for a moment—just a fraction of a second—when Charlee retrieves her drink. Alex thinks this is it. They’ll share this one look, this one look she definitely didn’t walk twenty minutes for, and then Charlee will go. They’ll return to their separate days. Their separate lives.
When Alex retrieves her drink and scone and turns to leave, however, Charlee is seated at a small two-person table near the door, her back to Alex. Alex’s heart kicks into overdrive, her insides twisting in turmoil. Does Charlee want her to sit down? Is this a sign that she wants to interact?
They’ve seen each other four times, including the night at the gallery, and only once have they actually exchanged words. Out loud. With one another. They haven’t connected or caught up, haven’t touched or embraced in any way. It’s like they are tiptoeing around some invisible line that they’re too afraid to touch, despite how desperately they both want to cross it.
Am I foolish to think Charlee might want to interact with me? Maybe she’s simply resting, enjoying the cold afternoon at a favorite spot of hers. Maybe she’s perfectly fine with staying on her side of the invisible line.
It takes all of seven seconds for Alex to convince herself and decide to make as swift an exit as possible without actually sprinting past Charlee and crashing through the glass door. Her body apparently has different plans. Three steps into her confident exit, she finds herself dropping into the empty seat.
Charlee’s eyes lock on to her when she sits, and for a brief moment, Alex is sure she got it wrong. Charlee doesn’t want her company, and she’s going to ask her to leave. But then she smiles. She smiles like it’s exactly what she wants, and a relieved sigh rushes from Alex’s lips before she can stop it. It draws a laugh from Charlee, and before Alex even realizes what is happening, the sound bubbles up from inside her, and they’re both laughing.
Softly, their melodies synchronize, and they fall into the rhythm of the moment, enjoying it. It ends in a gentle sigh from Charlee as she rests her chin in her hand, her elbow propped on the table, and gives Alex a once-over.
“You look good,” she says, the words barely audible, like she didn’t mean to say them out loud.
Alex’s lips tug up with a smile as she looks over Charlee’s face, takes in every familiar detail. Her button nose. The small cleft in her chin. Thin, dark blonde brows to match her tousled hair. Soft, slightly rounded cheeks. One shallow dimple dots the left. Alex has always loved that dimple. “You too, Charlee.”
They stop at that, at the way Alex’s voice wraps around Charlee’s name like an old, favorite sweater—warm and gentle in its caress, familiar. She hears it on her own tongue and revels in the way it causes Charlee to briefly close her eyes.
“It’s strange, you living here again,” Charlee says after a moment.
Alex hums, fingers rubbing along the outside of her warm coffee cup. “Surreal.”
“Are you happy?”
“Are you?”
They stare at one another, both slipping back into silence, and then Charlee lets out another quiet laugh and shakes her head. “I’ve missed you.”
It’s enough to make Alex’s head spin. Enough to make her heart race. It is enough to remind her of all the ways they fit together and of why she should feel guilty for this—for the twenty-minute walk she took to be here and the hope that sparked in her heart every step of the way. Guilt should plague her for the way Charlee’s laughter makes her want to waste her day away in this chair, at this coffee shop, across from the person who used to be her everything.
Clearing her throat, Alex resituates herself. She can’t quite meet Charlee’s gaze when she says, “I was afraid you’d hate me.”
“For what?”
“The way things ended.” Her voice strains. “The fact that I didn’t come home.”
“Ah.” Charlee nods but says nothing else of it, and Alex can’t help but feel like that might be a bad sign. “So, dinner next week.”
Alex groans, not sure what to make of the subject change, but she goes with it. “I told Kari a double-date was a bad idea after we left the gallery. Feel free to cancel. I’ll even create an excuse for you, if you want.”
“I think I can handle it, but thank you,” Charlee says with a smile. She shifts in her seat. “Speaking of my gallery, though, why were you there? Did you not think that might be a difficult situation, or an awkward one at least?”
Alex’s stomach rolls, uneasy. “I’m sorry about that. I honestly didn’t know it was your gallery. Had I known, I wouldn’t have—I didn’t mean to just spring my presence on you like that. Kari found a flyer and asked me to take her. I didn’t read it. I didn’t even look at the name on the building.
I…” She hesitates. “I went by your old gallery, a few days after I was back in the city.”
Understanding dawns on Charlee’s face. “Oh.”
“I thought you were gone.”
Charlee glances down at the table, takes a deep breath, and lets it out in a slow release. When she looks back up at Alex, she shrugs. “Well, I guess a little awkward never killed anyone.”
“It could’ve been worse,” Alex says, relief flooding her gut. A smile works its way over her lips. “You could’ve had an enormous painting of your bare ass hanging behind you.”
Charlee’s cheeks flush a light pink that looks lovely on her pale skin. “At least it’s a nice ass,” she says, and Alex can’t help but laugh. It jumps out of her like it demands to be free, and she’s thankful for it. The sound saps the tension right out of the air, and for just a moment, they’re back to being who they once were.
The vibrating buzz of Charlee’s phone effectively kills it, though, and she glances down at it and sighs. “I need to go. I have a private showing with a collector in an hour.”
Alex’s laughter dissipates, but her smile remains. “I told you, Charlee.”
“Told me what?”
“That you’d be somebody.”
Charlee stares at her through one long, breathless beat of silence. Her gaze flits up toward the ceiling, eyes wet, and she lets out a tiny huff of air. With one hard nod, she rises from her seat. “I’ll see you at dinner next week.”
