by Emerson Rose
With that solid in my mind I turn over and erase Beau from my phone, his number, his text messages, my text messages, pictures of him, everything. We are done and there is no sense holding onto the lie that was our relationship.
I’m going back home tomorrow, staying with Mitch is weirder than I expected. And anyway, there’s no way Beau was actually going to fly to Iowa and camp out in front of my apartment until I came home. Even considering it was absurd, that would mean he cared and he doesn’t.
I’ll walk to class from Mitch’s and grab a bus home later tomorrow afternoon. Then I will resume living my life the way I have for the past four years and the way I will be for the unforeseeable future as a boring, safe, broken hearted, veterinarian hermit.
22
Pink Princess
Beau
My flight was uneventful, just the way I like it. I claimed my rental car in the terminal and drove the forty-five minutes to Ames where Charlotte attends Iowa State University and easily located her apartment.
It’s almost midnight. My original plan was to approach my spooked princess with care and wait until morning but Carmen fucked that right up for me. Who knows what she’s thinking now? I sure as hell don’t because she won’t fucking talk to me, but I plan on finding out right now.
I don’t know what she drives so I can’t tell if she’s home but it’s not a very secure building. There aren’t any codes or locked entrances to the common halls. I can walk right in and straight to her door, which is exactly what I do.
I knock on the door with a big number eight on it and wait. I give her a few minutes to wake up and come to the door. She has a peephole. I hope to god she uses it. I don’t much care for the neighborhood and if she opens the door without checking to see who it is we will be having a talk about that. Right after our talk about why she’s not talking.
I knock again after an adequate amount of time has passed for her to wake, dress and come to the door. I lay my ear on the door but I don’t hear anyone moving around and I would hear someone moving around if they were in there because her door is paper-thin.
I inhale deeply and blow out my breath leaning my forehead on her door. She left, she said she wouldn’t be here and she isn’t. It’s only midnight and if she were any other normal college student I would consider that she might be at a party or a bar with friends.
But Charlotte isn’t a normal college student, she would be home studying or sleeping at midnight on a Sunday, so she must be staying with someone else.
This bothers me immensely because in her state, thinking that I’m fucking around with Carmen again, she might take to seeking revenge by sleeping with someone else. The thought of her in someone else’s arms, anyone else’s arms, ever, makes my blood boil and my chest tighten so much that I feel it necessary to run over the signs and symptoms of a heart attack in my head.
No pain in my left arm, no aching in my jaw, no sweating or nausea, nope this is just panic and jealousy. More Charlotte firsts, I wonder when I’ll get through all the firsts and start to feel comfortable? Hopefully never, I love experiencing firsts with Charlotte, just not ones like panic and jealousy.
I’m not waiting for her out here. If she wants to play games and hide from me so be it but I’m going inside to wait for her. The lock on her door is pathetic, I’m a rancher, I pick locks harder than this one all the time. This one looks so easy I’ll bet the old credit card between the door and the jam will work. I give it a go and I was right, easy in.
That lock will be heavily reinforced tomorrow, in fact I’m getting her a whole new door. Inside I flip on the overhead light and illuminate the entire apartment. The entire efficiency apartment that is microscopically small and compact.
She has a full sized bed in the right corner pushed up against the wall to provide more space to walk. There’s a kitchenette to my right that looks like it would work fine for one person who doesn’t eat too much or cook too often, therefore it’s perfect for Charlotte.
There is no television, no couch, no pretty girly decorations or signs that she has attempted any interior design. Her space is simple and tidy, all except for a rather, large for this space, desk that takes up a majority of the left end of the room. It’s covered with thick books, papers, notebooks, and sticky notes stuck everywhere possible.
She’s been studying hard. I turn to lock the door, for whatever it’s worth since a toddler could pick that lock and I stop to look around at Charlotte’s tiny compact boring life. She needs to get back to ranch living or she’s going to wither up and die here.
This isn’t a life for her. She’s a vibrant, sweet, energetic, wide-open spaces, pink mood, kind of woman and this is a tight, tight, brown mood, life she’s living.
After my initial assessment I notice there is one thing here that screams Charlotte. There is a mural painted on the wall that her bed is pushed up against. It takes up every inch of the small-ish wall and the scene is very familiar.
I take five steps from the front door to the wall to examine the mural of a wild black stallion running through the Montana prairie with its tail and mane billowing in the wind. I can tell it’s the Montana prairie because it looks exactly like home, hers and mine, but that’s not what’s familiar. The familiar part is that the horse is my horse King, actually my mother’s horse if you want to get technical and I don’t.
I know it’s not just any black stallion because King has a very specific pattern of small white spots by his ear that aren’t noticeable unless you know they are there. I guess Charlotte knows they are there although I’m not sure how. I never took her riding and I don’t think she’s ever been that close to King.
Never the less, that’s King painted big as life on her wall and down at the bottom in the grass is a signature. I push my knee into the mattress and lean forward to see who the artist is and get another shock. It’s Charlotte she’s a painter. She never told me that.
She never told me a lot of things. She didn’t have time to and then she up and quit communicating all together, so I haven’t learned anything about her in days. Being in her apartment is helping curb my craving for her, not near enough as the real thing but it’s better than nothing and that’s what I was getting at home.
A low bookshelf made out of wooden crates lines one wall. Half of it is full of books about animals and what I imagine are dirty romance novels from their titles. The other half is covered in pictures of Charlotte in another life. A life where she was living and not just existing, back when she was in high school, before she left the ranch that sustained her.
She was a spoiled brat back then, that can’t be denied, but she was also more herself than she is now. She had color in her cheeks, a smile on her lips, sparkle in her eyes, she was alive. She needs to get her degree and go back to Montana before she ends up on life support here in Iowa.
Moving to the kitchenette I open a cupboard and find nothing in it. I open another, more nothing. I yank open the refrigerator and shake my head. Condiments, two cans of diet Coke and a ¾ empty box of pizza dated a week ago, the day she came home. Her kitchen was probably just as empty then as it is today and she had to order out.
God dammit Charlotte. “How do you survive on nothing?” I mumble to no one but myself. All she had to do was ask and I would have helped. I like helping her, I like taking care of her and from the looks of her cupboards she needs taking care of.
I Google grocery stores that deliver, and order her a shit ton of groceries to be sent over first thing in the morning. While I’m at it, I rummage through her bathroom and add anything she is low on to the list, which is everything.
When I’m done I sit down on the edge of her bed as that is the only place to sit other than her desk. I prop my elbows on my knees, bow my head and push my fingers through my hair.
What is going on with this woman? It’s like she left Montana, the lively spirited Charlotte that I am falling in love with, and arrived in Iowa, the closed off hermit she used to be. Why has she been ignorin
g me all week? What spooked my princess?
I take my time perusing her photographs and mentally cataloging her taste in books, authors, art and anything that will tell me more about Charlotte. I sit at her desk and read all of her sticky notes. Most are reminders of tests and study tips others are quotes and lists. One of the quotes catches my eye.
Real courage is when you know you’re licked before you begin, but you begin anyway. Harper Lee.
Damn, is that how she feels? It’s kind of depressing and kind of hopeful at the same time.
I lower my eyes to her computer, it’s powered on but she has a password locking me out, not that I would have gone that far with my snooping anyway. Or who knows? Maybe I would, she makes me do things I don’t usually do and learning about her is fascinating and satisfying in a strange way.
When there is nothing left to look at I lie down on her bed on my back and breath in her familiar scent of coconut and vanilla. It’s almost two a.m. and it’s obvious she isn’t coming home, and like I promised, I am not leaving until she does. I close my eyes and fall asleep surrounded by everything Charlotte, except my Charlotte.
In the morning I wake stiff and achy. Her bed is incredibly uncomfortable, lumpy and much too soft. I’m going to have a backache for a month. Note to self; order her a new fucking bed. I don’t care if she’s only going to be here a few more weeks it’ll do her good to sleep on a descent mattress.
It’s still dark outside. My body’s alarm clock wakes me up at five a.m. no matter what day it is and seeing as this is Monday, normally a work day, there is no trying to go back to sleep.
I’d make some coffee and read the news on my phone if Charlotte had coffee but she doesn’t. She will in a few hours though, when the grocery store delivers my order and if she’s not home yet I’ll drink a whole pot by myself and cook a big breakfast while I wait for her.
That order better be on time, I can tell my blood sugar is low and there’s no way I’m leaving this apartment to get food. The second I do that she’ll come home and I’ll miss my chance to find out what the hell is going on.
I need a shower. It was a long flight yesterday followed by an hour drive followed by sleep that was interrupted constantly by a lumpy ass mattress and loud as fuck, drunk neighbors.
I open my suitcase and grab clean clothes and head into the bathroom to clean up. I swipe the baseball bat she has by the front door, smart girl, and take it with me into the bathroom in the event Charlotte comes home while I’m in there. I don’t need her mistaking me for an intruder and knocking me out in this tiny shower that I can hardly turn around in.
Just like everything in her apartment her shower is small and compact, also like Charlotte herself, small and compact. I consider this while I wash my hair and bend my knees so that the stream of lukewarm water spraying from the, too low showerhead, will rinse the shampoo from my hair. I feel like the giant Ken doll my cousin Madison used to play with in her dollhouse made for tiny dolls.
When I get out and towel off my insulin pump alarms, telling me that my insulin is too low and I need to eat. Fuck.
I pull on a clean t-shirt and jeans and go to her refrigerator and gag down a tablespoon of ketchup. That should bring it back up a little while I wait for the groceries. I lay back down on lumpy and check out the news on my phone, nothing good happening in the world today, as usual.
I tuck my hands behind my head and watch the sun come up through her dollhouse-sized window on the far side of her room. It’s a sunny day but the apartment stays dim due to the window’s lovely view of the wall of a parking garage. God this place is awful; I can’t wait to get her out of here.
The stress of the past few days combined with traveling and last night’s crappy sleep is affecting me more than usual. My head aches and I feel weak, so much so that I can’t help but take a nap. Problem with that is, diabetics wearing an insulin pump who haven’t eaten and are alone shouldn’t go to sleep.
It’s a rookie mistake that I never would have made under normal circumstances but these are not normal circumstances and I made that mistake.
Being distracted can get you killed, and I’ve never been more fucking distracted in my life. When I close my eyes visions of Charlotte riding a black stallion bareback wearing her daisy dukes and a pink shirt fill my mind for a while, and then nothing fills my mind at all because everything is black.
Black is the opposite of pink and black is far, far away from my pink princess.
23
Sixth Sense
Charlotte
I have a sixth sense, always have, and all morning it’s been nagging the shit out of me. Something isn’t right, but that’s the sucky thing about a sixth sense, you never know exactly what it’s telling you.
I thanked Mitch for his “hospitality” when I left for class earlier and told him the exterminating was canceled due to lack of bugs. Stupid, I know, but it’s what came out of my mouth when I opened it to lie and it worked so, whatever.
Now I’m sitting in a boring lecture that I have no interest in, worrying about something that is nothing yet, because I don’t know what the hell I’m worrying about.
Maybe it’s just Beau’s text yesterday promising to come here and talk to me in person. Maybe it’s because I didn’t go home last night. I don’t like leaving my apartment sitting empty at night with all of my shady ass neighbors. Although I have to admit it was nice to sleep in peace and quiet for a change.
Half way through the monotone dull lecture I can’t stand it anymore and I gather my notes that I’m not taking anyway and leave.
It’s a beautiful spring day. The campus is alive and buzzing with activity as students walk to and from classes. There are the mothers pushing their little kids around in strollers providing them with spring’s much needed fresh air after a long cold winter. And the athletic types, that make me feel like shit for not working out regularly, are running all over the place being healthy.
All of this activity usually makes me smile because I don’t get out much and it’s my only glimpse into the real world. But today it’s agitating me to no end.
I need to go home. I don’t know why, but I do. I don’t have my car so I have to walk to a bus stop and wait. I don’t know the bus schedule for this time of day. I’m usually in class right now and should I want to leave, I have my car parked somewhere on the outskirts of campus so I can.
I hug my overnight bag to my chest and sway side to side at the bus stop waiting for the next pickup that will take me close to home, whenever that will be. Two busses have gone by that were going in the opposite direction of my apartment and I’m considering a very long walk home when another pulls up.
“Going anywhere near eleventh and Maple?” I ask the driver when he pushes open the doors.
“Yeah, hop in.” Yes, it’s about time.
I show him my bus pass and move to an empty seat half way back and sit down but that anxious feeling doesn’t fade. If anything it intensifies and I commence bouncing my knee up and down and biting my nails, which I haven’t done since the fourth grade.
This is ridiculous, I have three classes this morning and I’m going home because my sixth sense is making me jumpier than a virgin at a prison rodeo and that’s pretty damn jumpy. What am I doing? I’m going to get home and have to get in my car and come right back to school, this is crazy.
Fifteen minutes later I step off the bus, thank the driver and walk two blocks to my apartment. Everything looks fine outside and I curse my damn sixth sense for making me waste my time coming all the way home.
When I turn the corner and look down the hall to my apartment there are tons of white plastic grocery bags sitting outside my door. What the hell?
I hurry down the hall looking around to see if anybody is watching me. I really need groceries and I’m half tempted to take them inside knowing damn good and well that I didn’t order them but somebody did and deep down inside I’m not a thief.
I step over the bags and slide my key into the
lock, turn it and bend to rummage around in the sacks for a receipt. Nothing. Is this why I’m home? My sixth sense sensed groceries at my door and wanted me to come home and nab them? Surly not.
With my back to the door I push it open with my ass, drop my backpack and my overnight bag just inside the door and start pulling the grocery sacks into my apartment. I’ll call the store and see who they were supposed to be delivered to, but in the meantime I think I should watch over them. And while I’m watching over them, as payment for being such an honest Joe, I’ll have a cookie or two, if there are any, god I hope there are.
When I’ve got everything inside, all nineteen bags, I close the door and turn around. I smell Beau’s musky masculine scent hanging heavy in the air before I see him. Then I spot him sleeping on my bed and gasp, not because he isn’t supposed to be here or because he is sleeping in my bed, but because he is covered in sweat and his coloring is bad. And I mean bad.
“Beau, Beau, can you hear me?” I say as I move to the side of the bed. When he doesn’t answer I sit down next to him and place my hand on his arm, he’s freezing. Oh my god, he’s diabetic and asleep and I have absolutely no food in my kitchen.
I come to this realization quicker than your average person due to my medical training as a veterinarian and for that I am thankful. I feel for a pulse, it’s weak and thready, and he is completely unresponsive.
My phone, I need my damn phone to call 911. It’s somewhere in one of my bags and time is of the utmost essence. Then I spot his phone in his hand and grab it dialing the three simple numbers with shaky fingers.
The operator says 911 what is your emergency and I rattle off a string of symptoms and give her my address telling her multiple times to hurry. I don’t have any idea how long he’s been here like this. God why didn’t I come home?
He really did come all the way to Iowa to talk to me, he wasn’t lying, and on top of all that I think he bought me groceries. The groceries, he didn’t answer the door when they were delivered and I happen to know that the store on the plastic bags doesn’t deliver until nine o’clock on weekdays. It’s ten thirty he’s been out for at least an hour and a half. Shit, that’s a long time, why didn’t he go get something to eat?
