The Girl

by K Larsen

  I still love you.

  Three measly uninspired sentences. Each one not encompassing what I want to say or how I want to say it. I rip out the page and toss it in the trash can. My phone pings, making me jump. Glancing at the screen I see a text from Aubry.

  It’s hot as balls out. Meet us at the beach house.

  I smile. Nora’s beach house is the perfect place to be on a hot humid day and the distraction is welcome at this point.

  Be there in twenty.

  I toss my notebook aside and rummage through the pile of clothes occupying my reading chair, looking for my bathing suit, happy at the idea of lying on a beach soaking up the sun with women who understand me. I’ve always known I was lucky to have them in my life, but since coming home from our road trip, it’s become even more evident. I know that without them, I’d still be sleeping and crying my days away. They force me to acclimate to this new, cracked heart of mine and still participate in the world. The days are too long and the nights are even worse, but I’m trying. I’m still trying.

  48

  Charlotte

  Dear D,

  Do I follow my heart or give up? Dallas won’t see me. Seven Sunday’s of being ghosted. And now, the eighth. When I checked in at the desk this week, Wanda-with-the-sad-eyes receptionist, looked at me and told me I was no longer on Dallas’s visitor list. It stung in a way that I’d never felt before. Why would he do that to me? I didn’t believe her at first. Or, I didn’t want to. I waited outside the family room for an hour, ignoring Wanda’s sad eyes directed at me.

  It used to be Holden who had a power over me, my dreams and my memories, now it’s Dallas. I could lie and say that’s how I want it, but I won’t. I want to harness my own power. I want to wield it like a warrior in battle. I don’t want to hand it over to anyone ever again. The past is cruel. The what-if’s, the could-have, should-have, would-have’s. They eat at my soul and steal my joy. In a way, I traded one man for another.

  Never again.

  There was a time when I let my heart go. But I’ve watched it burn and crumble into a fraction of what it once was. I’ve lost my soul. He took away everything I thought I knew as truth. His love put the emotions into every love song. It was sunshine on dark days. My brain is a torturous place to reside lately, always wondering useless scenarios; if I ever blow across his mind like a summer breeze, does he hear my voice at night, remember my touch, and miss me. I was too blind to see what was happening. Young and stupid. I don't know how, but I missed all the signs. I wonder if he turns up the radio and sings along every time one of our songs plays now or if he powers off the radio to skip a painful reminder.

  I thought my innocence was gone that night at the cabin. I was wrong. I still had a lot to lose.

  I’ve taken to writing in you, journal, because I think people are getting sick of my sullen brokenhearted ass. So I divulge my hurt and anger and sorrow here, and use my daytime hours for faking it until I make it. And that stupid cliché works. Eventually, you slap a moderate smile on your face enough times, and one day you realize you didn’t have to force it. It’s slow progress but necessary.

  I help Ray three days a week, spend my evenings with Liam, Nora and Emma, or at home with Eve and I’ve been picking up more responsibility at N.E.L. Especially since Nora’s on maternity leave. I’m always accounted for. Always busy. Always moving. Yet, always feel an empty spot inside.

  49

  Charlotte

  Dear D,

  July has bridged into August with warp speed. I’ve been throwing myself into my work at N.E.L. leading groups for the younger kids. Making crafts with them, wiping tears and reveling in the laughter that comes as they make progress and heal. To witness the transformation from sullen and withdrawn to moments of joy and laughter is incredible. It reminds me that my life and happiness are not dependent solely on myself or my love life.

  Ray seems moody lately. Probably because soon, I’ll be leaving so that Dallas can return without having to deal with me being there. It’s clear he doesn’t want anything to do with me, and at an excruciatingly slow pace, I am coming to terms with that fact. I don’t think about him every minute of the day anymore. I’ve stopped harping on the injustice of it all daily. I have more good days than bad. I laugh again—just because.

  I was doing okay this week until a picture pulled me back into the past. Stopped me dead in my tracks when it slipped from you, my journal, as I moved you. I'm not afraid to be alone, but I feel lost. My world is such a lonely place without him. His smiling eyes, wide relaxed grin, the way he looked at me and not the camera, it all reeled me in and tangled me up. I managed to not sob reliving that moment at the fair, but that’s about all I managed for the rest of the day.

  It sparked a thought though. The disposable camera from our trip. I was too caught up in the rush of everything to think of it but I haven’t seen it. My backpack is long unpacked. My belongings all accounted for and in their rightful spots again. But not the camera. I haven’t seen it. I swear it was in my pack.

  Eve is in the salty ocean water. The heat wave that won’t let go over the past week has made lives miserable. Our air conditioners never stop grumbling and pumping tepid air in. Nothing feels chilled. Sometimes I think it’s Dallas’s sadness and rage barreling toward us in the form of heat. I try not to think about it, but it’s hard not to count down the days until he’s discharged. Will he come back to town? Work with Ray? Will we run into each other? Can I withstand that?

  “Get innnn,” she yells at me. I turn to her and smile. She’s floating on her back, letting the waves bob her around. “It feels so good.”

  Nora is under an umbrella at the water’s edge with Emma against her chest and one of those corny misting fans hooked around her neck while Aubry runs a can of beer over her belly to cool off as she sunbathes. We’re a strange lot to be hanging out together, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Not even to have Dallas back.

  Wading into the water, I let it lap my legs, then waist, carrying my worries and thoughts out with the tide until I’m fully submerged. I pop up and smooth my hair away from my face.

  “Can you believe summer’s almost over?”

  “If this heat keeps up, they won’t be able to start school. We’d all roast in the classroom. We’ll have heat days instead of snow days,” I groan. Eve chuckles at me.

  I lie back, close my eyes and let the water cradle me.

  “Did you find a disposable camera in my pack when you emptied it?” I ask, as we float next to each other.

  “A what? They still make those?” she laughs to the sky.

  I take that as a ‘no,’ my brow furrowing. Does that mean it was left in the truck? Ray has Dallas’s truck parked at the shop for him, and I could pop over and look, but part of me is scared to do that now that I’m in a better place emotionally.

  “Why’d you ask?”

  “No reason,” I say, closing my eyes against the bright sun beating down on us. Eve’s hand finds mine. Our outstretched hands clasp in the briny water and we float for a good long while tethered together. It reminds me of Nana’s and the summer’s we used to spend there. It re-sparks the magic I remember feeling. Nana’s house, the salt air, the seawater, the summer heat—it felt like an embrace, warm and unassailable, like being in a protective cocoon where real life was suspended for a while.

  “I miss Nana’s house.” My thought bursts from my lips, random and sudden. Eve lets go of my hand. I lift my head to look at her.

  She half tippy-toe stands, half treads water. “I miss Nana,” Eve laments.

  “She’d be happy Nora has this house. It’s not as awesome as Nana’s but...she’d be happy we still ‘hear the call of the ocean.’” Using air quotes, I laugh.

  Eve snorts once, twice. And it makes me start giggling too. “Oh my God, I forgot she used to say that.”

  I move to a spot where I can solidly touch the floor of the sea and crouch forward, cupping one hand behind one ear. “Do you hear that, girls? D
o you hear the call of the ocean?”

  Eve’s face is red, whether from the sun or her laughing so hard, I can’t know. “Every single year when Dad dropped us off that first day.”

  “And then what?” I ask.

  “We hear it!” she squeals, reciting what we’d tell Nana. She sounds exactly how I remember her sounding then, full of wonderment and that squealing preteen pitch.

  She makes a silly face at me and puts her forehead to mine the way Nana did to us.

  “Time to answer the call!” she says enthusiastically.

  My eyes go wide. At Nana’s, this is the part where, as the sun set, one woman, one teen and one little girl, walked to the rocky beach hand in hand, stripped down and hurdled themselves into the water naked. Nana was a true rebel. We never told my parents and we never talked about it. It was just how we greeted the summer. Whooping and splashing and giggling in our birthday suits like renegades in a frigid ocean.

  “What the hell are you two laughing about?” Aubry asks, as she wades out to us. Her arms are up and she’s walking like she has to pee because the water’s too cold against her skin.

  Eve catches her breath and splashes Aubry, making her howl. I latch onto Aubry’s shoulders and mold myself around her until she has no choice but to dunk to extricate herself from me. Her head pops up, face in a scowl.

  “Every time. Every time with you two.”

  “Your reaction’s too good to pass up,” Eve laughs.

  “I wasn’t planning on washing my hair today,” Aubry states, pointing to her now ruined mane.

  “I think it’s a good thing. It looked like it needed a good shampoo,” I tease.

  Aubry leaps up, her hands plant on my shoulders and she dunks me too. Sputtering as I break the surface, the sound of her and Eve’s laughter makes my heart pound in my chest. Another true platitude, laughter makes the heart grow fonder. I might have snapped at Dr. Richardson a little too harshly in my rejection of her silly sayings.

  “Seriously though, you two were cracking up out here. I legit have FOMO, you know that, don’t hold out on me. What was so funny?” she pleads, not wanting to miss out. Aubry looks dead serious, and it only makes Eve and I start cracking up all over again.

  50

  Charlotte

  Are you sure you don’t want to take today off? Stay home? Maybe go stay with Emma for the day so Nora can get some stuff done around the house,” Eve suggests.

  I roll my eyes at her and groan dramatically. “I am fine. I told you that.”

  She scoops her sneakers from the floor and sits on the couch to put them on.

  “I know what fine means. I have a vagina too, if you recall.”

  I swat her arm as I do the same. “Gross! Okay, I’m… satisfactory. Better?” I snort out.

  Eve reaches out while studying my face and pushes my braid over my shoulder. “It’s okay to take a mental health day today. We’d all understand.”

  I roll my eyes at her, but smile as well. “I swear. Going to work will be better than wallowing around the house alone.”

  “Alrighty then. Car leaves in twenty,” she says.

  The calendar hanging on the wall has a small red dot on it. It’s the ninety-day dot. Dallas is discharged today, and honestly, I don’t know how I feel about it. There is no guarantee that he ends up back in town. Ray never said one way or the other what his plan was. But the fact that I could see him, run into him in the park or at the store—turns my stomach with nerves. Part of me wants it to happen, but the other part knows that if I saw anything but love in his eyes when he looked at me—I’d crumble all over again. It has taken me the past ninety days to get here. To wake up and not immediately feel the devastation of heartbreak. To get through my day without crying at least once. Taking a step backward now would be detrimental. And what if the rage reared its ugly head if I saw him and I unleashed it on him? Would that set him back? No matter how bitter I am over how things ended, I most certainly don’t want him to endure another ninety days in that sterile brick place. I want him to be happy. To be healthy. To be okay. I guess that’s the thing about love, as much as it can turn you into a bitter hateful mess, it can bring out the best in you simultaneously. As much as I want to yell and scream at him, I want him to be happy and find peace. It’s rather confusing, actually.

  I’m driving.

  Me.

  I have my driver’s test tomorrow and Eve has been making me practice every day on our way to and from work. ‘You’re basically seventeen, Lotte. You’re going to have to get your license at some point.’ And after having Dallas sort of show me the basics, I’m less opposed to the idea, so I gave in and set up the appointments to take the written and driving tests. It stings a little though. The whole situation. I miss Dallas. I miss my only friend. My best friend. Heartbreak is hard enough, but toss in a side of losing your only and best friend and the whole deal gets rotten real quick. My birthday is in one week. I’ll hopefully be a licensed driver then too. And both milestones seem less without Dallas to share them with.

  At N.E.L. Liam stops by at lunch and takes me to an abandoned parking lot to help me master parallel parking. I prefer his car, its clean lines and smooth leather are a giant leap from Eve’s old-as-dirt sedan.

  “Don’t forget to come to a full stop. They watch for that,” Eve says, like a know-it-all.

  Glancing at her, I give her a pointed look as I stop fully at the stop sign.

  “I swear, you make me ten times more nervous when I drive,” I tell her. “You’re worse than a mother. You’re supposed to be the cool big sister not the white-knuckled helicopter parent.” Eve snorts and lets go of the ‘oh-shit’ handle mounted above the passenger window.

  51

  Charlotte

  My heart pounds in my chest and tears prick at my eyes as I stop at the sign in front of Ray’s Auto Body. He’s home and he looks so good. So different from the last time I saw him. Dallas grins and nods at Ray, then bends over the engine of a car, inspecting something. That smile. Muscle memory threatens to kick in. I’m tempted to throw the car in park, leap out of my seat and sprint into Dallas’s arms. I know, I know. Pathetic. I can’t tear my eyes from his form. I didn’t know the driver’s test route came this way. I’m not prepared for this. I’ve been avoiding this part of town. He looks better than I remember. My throat grows tighter. Smaller. Air barely able to make it through to my lungs. My hands grow sweaty.

  “Okay, Charlotte, just make a right here and head back to the DMV.” I blink a few times to regain my faculties. The words seem to roll and stretch in the air, leaving a heartbeat’s pause before they settle into words that make sense. “Charlotte?” the instructor asks.

  With a sniffle, I take my foot off the brake and proceed. “Yeah, okay,” I say.

  When we pull into the parking space at the Department of Motor Vehicles, I’m so stiff from holding back my reaction that I barely hear anything but the click of the gear shift as I put it into Park. My forehead hits the steering wheel with enough force that I know I’ll have a strange mark later as tears, silent and hot, tumble down my cheeks.

  “Uh, usually I get a better reaction than this. I’ll just grab your mom inside.” The instructor pats my right shoulder blade. The passenger door opens and closes. Being alone in the car makes everything worse for some reason. I can’t stop sobbing. Why can’t I stop? I haven’t cried this hard in so long. I’m embarrassed and angry that one sighting of him has turned me into a sniveling mess.

  Suddenly, arms are around me. My head presses against a warm chest. I clutch at the fabric of Eve’s shirt.

  “Ray’s. Dallas.” Are the only words I can eke out in the moment.

  “Shhh. It’s okay,” Eve soothes while stroking my hair. “And hey—you passed!”

  I sob harder. This moment is big for me. This would have made Dallas so proud. I bet he would have been the one to take me. He’d be the one waiting for me to get back and let me know if I passed.

  “Just breathe, Lotte
. Keep breathing,” Eve murmurs.

  “Wait, the dude told you you passed, and you burst into tears?” Mike, Aubry’s boyfriend, clarifies.

  I glare at him while Aubry bursts out laughing. We’re at my favorite restaurant celebrating. We took Mike’s giant SUV. He made me drive. Well, Nora refused, saying she’d take Emma and meet us there. So I drove Eve, Mike, Aubry and Liam. I’ve never seen a group of late twenty-somethings look as terrified riding in a car as they did on the six-minute drive here. Mike actually petted the hood of his fancy SUV on his way into the restaurant and apologized to it. Cue eye roll.

  “Yes. It was pathetic. Also, he made a comment about it. Which made it even worse,” I whine.

  “Stop. Give yourself a little break here, Lotte,” Nora says.

  “What did he say?” Liam asks.

  “He said, ‘Uh, usually I get a better reaction than this. I’ll just grab your mom inside.’” I imitate the instructor as best I can.

  Liam and Mike break out in belly laughs, while Eve stares wide-eyed at me.

  “He thought I was your mom? The dude was my age! He thought I was old enough to be your actual mother?” The way she draws out the word mother has the rest of us rolling in laughter. Oh, the horror. I do feel a little bad for her though.

  Especially since she let me cry in her arms for God knows how long. When I’d finally pulled myself together and sat up in my seat, the silk blouse she was wearing was stained from my runny nose and tears. Silk. And it was one of her favorite work shirts. But she didn’t mention it. She made no comment at all. She let me cry—hard—for as long as I needed, and then helped me wipe my tears away and straighten up.