by Drew Elyse
Copyright © 2014 by Drew Elyse
Cover Design by Sarah Hansen, Okay Creations www.okaycreations.com
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduces or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Home - Phillip Phillips
Raindrop Prelude - Frederic Chopin
Hey, Soul Sister - Train
Preaching The End Of The World - Chris Cornell
Details in the Fabric - Jason Mraz
My Skin - Natalie Merchant
1, 2, 3, 4 - Plain White T’s
Falling Slowly - The Frames
Don’t Stop Believin’ - Journey
Make You Feel My Love - Bob Dylan
Overjoyed - Matchbox Twenty
Charlotte Sometimes - The Cure
Bring Your Love To Me - The Avett Brothers
Everybody Talks - Neon Trees
Demons - Imagine Dragons
Look After You - The Fray
Better Man - James Morrison
This is War - Ingrid Michaelson
Head Full of Doubt/Road Full of Promises - The Avett Brothers
Let Your Heart Hold Fast - Fort Atlantic
This One’s for You - Clarensau
Dust to Dust - The Civil Wars
Not With Haste - Mumford & Sons
All of Me - John Legend
For Bill,
I still miss you every day.
May
I woke to the sight of Eli sitting in a ragged-looking chair. God, I missed him. But, wait. That didn’t make sense. He was supposed to be in Seattle. Why was he here? Where was here?
The beeping and smell of antiseptic seeped into my consciousness, and it all started to become clear. I didn’t look around to confirm my suspicion, though. I was trapped by my brother’s haggard appearance. The brown hair that matched mine stood every which way, a line of unkept scruff covered his jaw, his skin was pale, but what stood out most were his eyes. His eyes were bloodshot, puffy, and weighed down by dark circles. The large, strong man he had grown into looked shattered, and it was my fault.
Neither of us spoke for a long time. My older brother, the man who had given up so much to take care of me, was hurting because of me. He was destroyed because I was such a mess.
I wanted to ask so many questions. What had gone wrong? I had not meant to end up in a hospital bed. Who had found me? My friend and neighbor, Julie, had a key. Had I called her or someone else after the alcohol had started to take effect? I didn’t remember calling anyone. I remembered the fear. I remembered the pills. I remembered the burn of the tequila in my throat. Then, nothing.
“What happened, Charlotte?”
I had no answer for him. I never had an answer for him. It was never my intention to hurt him, but the answers I could give were not going to help either of us. I was ruined, he had to know it deep down by now. How I had been broken did not matter.
A subtle shake of my head made me feel desperately sick. Eli shot out of his chair at the agony on my face.
“It’s okay, Charlotte,” he murmured to me. “It’ll be okay.”
I didn’t respond to that, either. It would not be okay. I would never be okay. I accepted that long ago. There was no point in telling him that, though. He was hurting enough, and I knew that those words were not really meant for me. Eli was suffering, and he needed that reassurance for himself.
Who was I to deny him the hope that I so wished I could take comfort in as well?
But, deep down, I knew the truth.
There was no fixing me.
June
In the aftermath of my “episode” – as the hospital-approved shrink I was forced to see in the aftermath called it – there was no avoiding the fact that Eli was going to continue to be a nervous wreck unless we lived closer to each other. The distance from his new life in Seattle to where I had stayed behind in Chicago was too much for his over-protective instincts to handle. His incessant phone calls made that clear enough. I half expected to hear a knock at the door one day and find him and Alex in the hall with all of their stuff, ready to move in and become my own personal psych watch.
Alex, who refused outright to respond to Alexandra, had been my best friend since the end of my junior year of high school. She and Eli had started dating just about a year later. I could not have been happier that the two of them were together. Both of them had wanted to move away, but they had put it off for a while to stay close to me. They had a life in Seattle now, a life that allowed them both to get away from their pasts. I hated the idea of being the thing that dragged them back, so the idea of joining them on the west coast had started to take hold. Frankly, I missed them both, and I knew it would be better for everyone if I could get Eli to calm down about me being alone. Besides, with my graduate work done, I had nothing tying me to Chicago besides a lifetime of difficult memories.
When I told my overbearing big brother of my imminent plans to move west, the joy and relief he felt was palpable, even over the phone. His excitement was enough to shake off my misgivings about the whole plan. That was until two hours later, when he called back to tell me that he had arranged a place for me to live. His best friend, Logan, who I had heard a great deal about over the last few years, apparently had an extra room. I had no intention of having a roommate. I hadn’t lived with someone else since I had moved out of the dorms. On the other hand, I knew Eli would sleep easier when I wasn’t living alone, and the last thing I wanted to do was sign a lease without seeing the place first. I could deal with having a roommate and give him the peace of mind for a while, at least until I found a decent apartment of my own.
Admittedly, I knew that moving in with Logan was more than a temporary situation in Eli’s eyes, but arguing with him about would get me nowhere. He did not want me living alone anymore, which I guess was my own fault, and he thought of this as the perfect arrangement to avoid that. I was even willing to placate him in this respect – for a while – because quite frankly, the constant concerned check-ins were irritating. Eli loves me, but being treated like a child at 24 is frustrating, regardless of how much love is involved.
All of that lead up to sitting in a car, riding through the streets of Seattle with my brother behind the wheel. We were headed to an apartment that would be my home, where I’d move in with someone I had never met. In fact, all I knew about him was his name, the fact that he used to be in a band with my brother until Eli quit the music business, and that he had more living space than he occupied.
“Eli,” I broke the not uncomfortable silence between us, “Tell me about Logan.”
“What do you want to know?”
“I don’t know. Anything. I’m going to live with him in a few minutes for Christ’s sake.”
While he thought through what to say, I took him in. His brown hair was getting a bit long, if you ask me. He repeatedly had to shift it away from his eyes. We really always had looked alike, brown hair and eyes, pale skin, and generally soft features, though he’d tried to combat that last detail when he broke his nose in a fight during high school and refused to reset it properly. Ever since then, it had jutted out notice
ably. It admittedly added a stronger quality to his face, but I knew first hand that it also made him snore.
Eli sighed. “Look, Logan is my best friend. I would never have you live with some guy I hardly know. He’s a brilliant musician. He’s got a steady job that he takes seriously. He’s a good guy that’ll respect your personal space. If it weren’t for Alex, I wouldn’t even hesitate sharing a place with him. But, he has some growing up to do,” he explained.
“What do you mean?” I did not sign on to play nanny to some guy that still had not learned to take care of himself.
“It won’t be an issue for you, don’t worry. He’s housebroken. The place is almost always immaculate, and he can take care of himself. It’s mostly just his messy love life.” Eli rolled his eyes and shook his head slightly. He pulled into a turnabout in front of a large building before putting the car in park. “Hopefully, we can get all your stuff upstairs before is starts raining. I still don’t get why you had to ship it to my place. It could all be upstairs waiting for you already.”
“Just because Logan’s letting me live here doesn’t mean he wanted to deal with all my shit. We haven’t even met, I couldn’t have him deal with the boxes,” I explained, again.
“Yeah, instead I got to deal with them,” he laughed. “Ready to go inside?”
“As I’ll ever be,” I muttered.
I looked up at the clouds that grew continually darker above us, waiting for the rain to start. Most people hated Seattle because of the constant wet weather, but it was what I looked forward to the most. I loved the rain.
The first time I ever laid eyes on Charlotte was the day she moved in. I’d spent all morning trying to come up with an even halfway-decent song. It had been two months since I had written anything. The guys were starting to ask when I’d have some new material. But no matter how long I sat at the piano, or plucked away on my acoustic, nothing came to me. There wasn’t a damn creative thought in my head. Instead, my mind kept shifting back to the property acquisition my father had me focusing on at work. That scared the hell out of me. It wasn’t that I hated working for my dad, but I still was not entirely sure I was ready to throw a music career by the wayside.
Dad had been asking about that recently, wondering where I saw myself down the road. Honestly, I just did not have an answer for him. I had never envisioned myself sticking with the company. That had always been my brother, Caleb’s, plan. But after three recording contract offers gone sour, I was starting to wonder if I could really deal with the music industry. Though, I was also certain I would never be able to give my music up either.
I was close to losing it under the stress I was putting on myself to come up with something – anything just to show myself that I still could – when the buzzer sounded from next to the door. Glancing at my phone, I saw that it was 1:24PM. Eli had told me to expect them around 1:30PM. I’ll give the guy this: he can estimate time like no one else I have ever known.
His voice came through the speaker: “Get down here and help us with this stuff before it starts raining.”
I begrudgingly put my acoustic back on the stand, threw on some shoes, and went to give him a hand.
When I emerged in the lobby, I saw Eli fussing with the busted latch on the trunk of his car. Standing beside him was a slight brunette. Charlotte. That was the first time I ever saw her. Sure, I’d taken a glance at the pictures of her that were scattered around Eli’s apartment, noticed that she was cute enough, but I’ll be damned if those photos did her a lick of justice. Seeing her in person, it was obvious from the first glance that she was a hell of a lot better than cute. She stopped me in my tracks, and I’m certain that has never happened to me before. I’m not sure what it was about her that I found so arresting, but I couldn’t look away, much less get my feet to move. She was staring up at the cloud-covered sky, her hand outstretched, reaching for the raindrops that were beginning to dispense from above. There was only a low rumble of warning before the heavens opened up above her.
Eli was already in the doorway when it happened. I looked from him to his sister, who was still standing there, staring up at the clouds that had already drenched her. He glanced over his shoulder at her and shook his head with a mix of exasperation and amusement on his face, but continued to the elevator. “That’s Char for you. Don’t worry about her,” he called back to me.
I couldn’t just leave her standing out there getting soaked. Without really thinking it through, I rushed out into the pouring rain to her.
“Charlotte,” I called, but she didn’t seem to notice me until I reached her side and placed my hand on her arm. The contact startled her from her thoughts. She looked up at me, her auburn hair a soaked veil around her face. That’s when her eyes caught my attention. I know you rarely hear poets rattle on about brown eyes. Romantics always love the blue that look like water or the emerald greens. After looking into Charlotte’s eyes, I knew they could keep their poetic crap. Her eyes were big and bright, chocolate brown flecked with amber and pure gold. I had never seen eyes as astounding as hers. Visions of them staring up at me, full of ecstasy, made me want her right then and there, rain be damned.
It took all of my willpower to stay focused on the task before me. I grabbed onto her hand, momentarily startled by how small and fragile it seemed, and pulled her towards the building. She was wearing a blue dress that now clung to every contour her body, accentuating her supple curves to a degree that I was helpless to ignore. When she dragged her other hand through her soaked hair, pulling it away from her face, I tried to pull my attention to anything about her that didn’t raise my blood pressure – Eli’s warning to keep my hands off running through my mind – but was hindered by my sudden lack of willpower. It was then, as I forced my eyes away, that I noticed the backpack and duffel bag slung across her shoulders.
“Here, let me take those,” I offered.
A small smile played at her lips as she handed the bags to me. “Thanks,” she said. Her voice was quiet and had a melodic quality to it. Eli had told me she could sing. Actually, to hear him tell it, she sang like a goddess. While he was never one to judge musicians lightly, I had still held onto some doubt. Love can make people deaf, dumb and blind after all, and I would never have doubted for a second how deeply Eli loved his sister. But after hearing her voice, I wondered if maybe he hadn’t been exaggerating at all.
“The elevator is over here,” I directed her. “We’re up on the fifth floor.”
Hauling in all of Charlotte's stuff was put on hold for a while. No one particularly fancied making repeated trips out into the rain. After showing her to her room, I left Charlotte to dry off and change. In the living room, Eli had taken no time making himself comfortable on my couch. Ripping off my soaked t-shirt, I turned to him. "Your sister's a looker," I jested. Well, I mostly jested; every word was, in fact, true.
"So help me God, jackass, you touch her and I’ll rip your arms off."
"I'm just fucking with you, man. I get it. Look, don't touch."
Eli looked borderline murderous. "Don't look either. I don't need to worry about what the hell you're doing to her in that fucked up head of yours," he cringed.
"Hey, I can't help seeing. But I'll try not to let things get too wild upstairs,” I continued to egg him on. Normally, I’d never keep pushing the issue, but Eli was always so sensitive when it came to Charlotte. It was hard not to push his buttons.
He just shook his head, exasperated. "You’re going to do this constantly, aren’t you?” When I did not even consider denying it, he sighed, “This was a mistake."
Just then, Charlotte appeared from the hall. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and she was wearing a tank-top and sweatpants. I have no idea how, but she looked better in those than the dress she arrived in.
"What's a mistake?" She asked.
"Apparently, letting you out when it's going to rain." She blushed, ducking her head to avoid my eyes, and suddenly I felt like a complete asshole. I cleared my throat and
tried to think of something else to say. Being tongue tied was not a sensation I was familiar with. "My room is just down the hall from yours. Then there’s the kitchen, dining room, sitting area," I was babbling, pointing at all of the things she could clearly see around us. It’s not as if my apartment was the damn Taj Mahal, she could find her way around just fine. She just made me nervous. I was used to having the reverse effect on woman, used to having the upper hand. Charlotte, however, seemed to be immune to my charms. Or perhaps the problem was that my charms seemed to have deserted me in her presence.
Taking a breath to get myself back in order, I announced: "I'm going to go get out of these wet pants."
It was then that I saw her eyes travel the length of my body. She was checking me out, though her expression remained blank. Her wandering eyes rested a little longer on my tattoos, and in that moment, I was glad that I had taken my shirt off already.
Turning to leave, I looked at Eli, who hadn't missed his little sister's inspection. His expression was clear: Put a goddamn shirt on! If it was anyone but Eli, I probably would have drawn it out just to get a rise out of him, but I knew it would be pushing his limit.
When I returned to the living room, I half expected Eli to be lecturing Charlotte about staying away from me. Instead, I found Charlotte in the corner of the room that housed my music equipment. She was running her fingertips gently across the lid of my baby grand piano, inspecting the stings inside with a discerning eye.
"This is quite an instrument," she said with a clear tone of reverence in her voice.
"Help yourself," I responded automatically. Eli's eyebrows shot up, knowing how protective I am of my instruments.
I didn't regret my words for a second though when her eyes immediately began to sparkle. You would have thought I had offered her a sip from the Holy Grail. With the grace of someone who had sat in front of a piano for years, she moved to the bench. Her fingers gently grazed over the keys, feeling them beneath her before she began to play. It took me a minute to recognize the piece: Chopin's "Raindrop Prelude." An odd choice, I thought at first. Looking out of the window behind her where the rain had already stopped though, I wondered if she had been hearing the song in her head since the first raindrop fell into her hand. Across the room, Eli had a smirk on his face.