Her hair was up, her makeup scrubbed away, and she was barefoot, but she couldn’t have been more beautiful to me. I charged toward her, her eyes growing wider with my every step. I couldn’t wait one more day, or one more minute, or even one more second.
I didn’t have any new answers for how it was going to work.
I didn’t know of any new formulas that would make the distance between us bearable.
I didn’t even know how Charlie would respond to what I was about to unload on her…
But there was nothing that was going to stop me.
“Briggs—are you okay? Is something wrong?” She stood in the driveway, light illuminating her like a spotlight from heaven.
“No, nothing is wrong-”
“Why are you all wet? Is…is that sweat?” She asked, scrunching her face up.
Fifteen feet. She was fifteen feet away.
“I was running.”
“Why were you running? It’s almost midnight…are you sure everything’s okay?”
I closed the gap, my body shaking with adrenaline.
“It is now,” I smiled, taking in each detail of her face. “I need to say some things to you before you leave.”
She nodded, staring at my lips while I spoke. It was everything I could do not pull her to me and kiss her in a way that would make up for every moment I had lost with her during the past few weeks, but I needed to speak first. I had to speak.
“Okay...” she breathed.
I took a breath, my mind trying to catch up to speed with my heart. “I’ve waited…I’ve waited for what feels like forever, Shortcake, and I know that you leave tomorrow for school and I’ll do everything I can to support you in that choice, but you have to know…you must know that my feelings are not-”
“Briggs? Charlie? What’s going on out here? It’s almost midnight.”
I froze.
Charlie froze.
Chief walked over to us both, squinting as he made his way out of the shadows to the well-lit stage where I was about declare my undying love for his daughter. The hot adrenaline surge I had felt only a second earlier, was now a cold, slow molasses, working it’s way out of my veins with each pump of my heart.
He stared at me.
Even in his sleepy state, I saw the question in his eyes.
What are you doing, Briggs?
And then I remembered his words on a Tuesday in his office, not long ago.
“I can’t make you choose to do what’s right for her, Briggs, but I hope you will.”
My body deflated like a popped balloon.
“Briggs was just telling me, goodbye, Daddy. Everything’s fine, really. Sorry the light woke you.”
Chief never broke his gaze from mine.
“Is that all?” Chief asked, knowing I would understand what his question really implied.
I took several seconds before responding, Charlie’s eyes burning into me like fire. “Yes, that’s all, sir.”
“Okay…I’ll leave you to it, then. Goodnight.” The words left his mouth, but his body took longer to catch on to what he had just said. Finally, Chief headed back toward the porch.
We both stood silently, watching him retreat back into the shadows.
My rush was gone; my reality was back.
Charlie stared at me, waiting for me to say something more.
“Charlie, I-” I shook my head, staring at the ground.
“Your feelings are not, what?” Her voice was strained; I couldn’t bear to see her eyes.
I squeezed my hands into fits at my sides.
Say something!
“My feelings for you are not…temporary.”
“What?” she asked.
What? What does that even mean?
“What does that mean, Briggs? I don’t understand.”
I don’t either!
“It means…it means…” I lifted my head, “It means that no matter where you are…you will always have a friend in me.” I scratched my head, willing my brain to think of something platonic to say that didn’t involve the word love. “I need you, Charlie. I need your friendship, your humor, your ability to tell it to me like it is. Tomorrow your life will switch gears again—with school, homework, music, practice, touring…but I will still be here for you. I’m only a call away, a text away, a postcard away…please don’t forget that, please.” My throat grew thick as I said the last word, a rush of emotion threatening to drown me where I stood.
I struggled to keep my head afloat.
Her eyes glistened. “I could never forget you, Briggs. I need you, too. You’re the best friend I’ve ever had.”
My heart ached—no, my heart shattered.
“This isn’t goodbye.”
She shook her head. “No, this isn’t goodbye.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
I stared at her for a few more seconds more before she finally turned and walked back inside. As I heard the front door close, the last fragment of my heart—the only piece that had remained so I could finish out this conversation, fell away.
And for the first time since the night of my sister’s stabbing, tears blurred my eyes, mixing with the sweat on my face as I ran back home.
Home.
Did such a place even exist anymore?
The answer was too unbearable for me to acknowledge.
Charlie
The second I closed the front door, I slid down it into a heap on the floor, my knees finally giving out on me.
No! No! No!
I banged my head against the door, closing my eyes as I felt my heart rate return to a steady rhythm once again.
“I need you, Charlie. I need your friendship, your humor, your ability to tell it to me like it is.”
I sobbed silently into the darkness, his words looping through my mind again and again. He had looked so raw when he said them, so completely vulnerable, yet they were not the words I craved his lips to speak.
“I need you too, Briggs…more than you’ll ever know.”
**********
The next morning when I left for Austin, there was a text waiting for me.
Manny knows best: This isn’t goodbye.
My eyes watered as I smiled. No, this isn’t goodbye, Briggs.
I wouldn’t have been able to leave if it had meant saying a real one.
I drove to school in the sunshine, convincing myself not to stop until I arrived. I needed the distraction of new compositions and tour performances and Professor Wade to help me remember why I had fallen in love with music in the first place.
Because maybe in that, I could uncover the secret of how to fall out of love with Briggs.
**********
One week later, I loaded into a charter bus with twelve other seniors, and hit the road.
Chapter Thirty-One
Briggs
“Got another one, Briggs,” Evan said while holding a stack of mail and walking through the dining hall.
I couldn’t help but smile.
True to her word, Charlie had not only sent me a postcard from every state she had been in, but every city as well. And true to Charlie, all were some obscure and usually hilarious representation of said location. I had kept them to myself at first, pinning them to the inside of my locker, but after about number fifteen, I decided I would share them. She never wrote anything too personal on the back, so I felt okay about tacking them up to the bulletin board in the hallway. The Charlie shrine had become quite a spectacle—the guys loved them, almost as much I loved getting them.
She was on her last week of tour, heading back down to the southern east coastline toward Austin. I busted out loud when Evan handed me this latest post card. On the front of the postcard was a picture of a billboard—one that stood next to an old, beat-up highway, farmland all around it.
The words on the billboard read:
Please…Neuter your pets
&
Your weird friends and relatives, too!
Evan laughed
with me as I tacked it up next to the rest of them. She would be in Atlanta one more night before moving into Alabama tomorrow. We usually texted numerous times a day, talking on the phone whenever possible, even if that was only for a few minutes. I couldn’t describe what hearing her voice did to me, but it was almost enough to squelch the pain that was now a constant part of my reality, almost. Living on a charter bus, however, had left little to no privacy for Charlie in the evenings, so we often resorted solely to texting.
Eight weeks had passed since I last saw her. Eight. Long. Weeks.
At first I had tried to pretend that time might somehow make missing her more bearable, but that, in short, was a load of crap. There was nothing bearable about not being with Charlie. I had learned a few new tricks since that first awful month without her. I might never be able to lessen the sting of her absence, but I could at least try to manage it.
The pain at first had been a sharp and twisted kind of torture. The kind that made me lose sleep, pacing while others slept peacefully in their beds, the kind that spurred on seemingly endless workouts, and created a perpetual state of adrenaline (otherwise known as appetite suppression).
It was that same pain that served as my daily reminder: I had willingly watched the love of my life walk away from me. It went against my nature. I was not the type of man to surrender; I was a fighter.
But not this time. Not with Charlie.
I’d been in the midst of a downward spiral of self-pity and depression when Kai decided he was done watching my misery unfold. I couldn’t really blame him. Being miserable and watching someone be miserable were fairly close to each other on the scale of awful.
He had been right; it was time.
I had to find a way to manage without her.
Managing, as it turned out, looked a lot like being an anal-retentive busybody. But hey, it worked. I kept myself on a tight schedule, no longer living the life of spontaneity I had once loved. Unaccounted hours didn’t serve me well. In addition to keeping active in the gym, I taught classes at the Women’s University twice a week, along with finding odd jobs to do around the station when I wasn’t on rotation.
And I watched a lot of sunrises at the dog park.
Charlie
Just three more days…
Whoever said that life on a tour bus was glamorous, was probably the same person who thought Spam was a good idea. Apart from having no privacy—something I didn’t know I was privy to before this little adventure began—it was also uber-claustrophobic. Because there were twelve of us on board, we were usually allowed a night in a hotel room twice a week. We also stopped for daily showers at different locations on our route since the cramped on-board bathroom couldn’t accommodate our incessant demands. If it wasn’t a hotel night, we slept in our tiny bunk bed compartments. There were fifteen of those compartments in total, and nothing but a five-foot sliding curtain separated one sleeping pod from the next.
I would never again complain about sharing a dorm room—ever.
The music part of the tour had helped make up for some of the more annoying aspects of the six-week trek across the U.S., and overall, I was grateful for being chosen to participate. I had made some good friends—one in particular I had felt an instant connection with, Camille Thompson. I had recognized her from around campus.
Camille was an exceptional violinist; she was also a pretty amazing person. While the others went out and partied in the evenings, we had decided to find alternative methods of entertainment. Sometimes her boyfriend, Trey, would come with us, too. He was a pretty fun guy to have around, though definitely the nerdy-poet type. They were a great match.
Though I missed the dancing, I no longer felt the need to escape inside a club. I was pretty much over that whole scene. There was also the fact that I would get yet another safety lecture about the dangers of booty-call clubs from Briggs if I went. In the end, it just wasn’t worth it. I could hear that lecture in my sleep now.
Camille had been talking to her mom on the phone outside when I got a text from Briggs.
Manny knows best: So, what’s going on tonight…you’re still in Atlanta, right?
Me: Yes. Camille and I are going to go to a coffee house, I think. Live Jazz…should be pretty sweet.
Manny knows best: Is Trey going with you girls?
I rolled my eyes.
Me: No. We are taking a cab. Stop worrying, Grandma.
Manny knows best: Ha…never gonna happen. How’d your show go this afternoon?
Me: Was actually pretty great, made a few new contacts. There was a ton of potential students that came from the local high schools too. Professor Wade loved that.
Manny knows best: Cool. I gotta run, have a call. I’m at the station tonight, I’ll check in with you later. Don’t do anything stupid, and wear pants—my definition.
He almost always ended with those same closing words.
Me: Ditto.
Manny knows best: Don’t be cheeky. I’m serious.
Me: Me too J
I stared at the screen for several minutes after his last text had come through, pushing down the feeling I always had when our communication was over. I missed him more than I had ever missed anyone, and every day I wished the ache would cease. I sighed and slid my phone back into my pocket.
“What time do you want to catch the cab? I think the show starts at eight,” Camille asked, practically skipping over to me. Her short auburn hair was cut in a pixie-style, which accented her giant blue eyes. She was actually pretty stinkin’ adorable, but the best part about Camille was that she was almost as short as I was.
“Maybe seven would be good, then,” I said absently.
She put her hand on her hip, tilting her head as she scrutinized me.
“Were you just out here texting with your non-boyfriend, again?”
Her tone was full of teasing, but I still stiffened at her word choice. “Why do you ask?” I deflected, like usual.
“Because every time you’re done talking with him—either via text or call—you look like someone just stole your favorite toy and set it on fire in front of you.”
There was probably some truth to that statement, not that I would ever agree out loud.
“Don’t be ridiculous. He was just asking about our show today.”
She smiled, “Whatever you say, Charlie. I’m no fool to the look of love…I denied it with Trey for nearly two years. I feel ya sister, I really do.”
With that, she walked back onto the bus to grab her purse. We had gone round and round with this conversation over the past six weeks, and I had grown weary of explaining how things were between Briggs and I. My friend argument was getting as hard for me to say as it was for my heart to believe. Still though, I pushed it all down.
I knew I was actively living in bull-face denial, but what were my options, really?
It was either be happy with the way we had it…or don’t have it at all.
The latter I simply refused to accept.
**********
The coffee house, Black Diamond, was located in the heart of historic downtown Atlanta. It was a beautiful three-story vintage colonial with small white lights illuminating its perimeter. Camille and I both wore summer dresses and heels, which were a far cry from the University’s polo and khaki uniform we wore at every tour venue we had played at. It felt good to look feminine again—it had been a while.
My eyes took a bit to adjust to the dim atmosphere inside, but the jazz band was out of this world. It was no wonder the place was completely packed. We managed to snag a small table in the very back, but figured out real quick that we wouldn’t be able to have much of a conversation; it was too loud.
About an hour into the evening, after downing two large coffees, the band took a fifteen-minute intermission.
I was on my way back to use the ladies room when I heard it: A voice from my past; the one I wished I could delete from my mind.
But there it was…calling my name.
I turned,
all the blood draining from my face when I saw him. My head felt like I was on the tilt-o-whirl ride at the fair. I wanted to cry and vomit, all at the same time.
“Alex?”
Oh my…
His grin was exactly as I had remembered it—maybe with a dash more predator than polish. He swore under his breath as his eyes roamed my body. “Charlie? I can’t believe it—it is you. You look amazing,” he said smoothly, tucking a piece of his jet-black hair behind his ear casually. He leaned against the wall in the hallway, as if this were the most natural place in the world to have a post-breakup run-in.
I want to punch your smug face.
“Me neither,” I said, searching for words. What did I just say? Does that even make sense?
He smiled, as if he knew the internal warfare going on inside my head. I looked away from his eyes. He was like Medusa’s male equivalent.
“Why are you in Atlanta, Charlie? Not that I’m complaining…time’s been nothing but good to you darlin’.” I could feel his eyes perusing my body again. I felt sick.
I swallowed hard, trying to remember how to speak.
What did he just ask me?
“Uh…I’m here on a summer music tour—with the University.”
He nodded, and then he reached out and touched my bare shoulder. His touch, as nauseating as it was, caused my mind to re-focus. In that brief second, I felt myself stand-up straighter as I held his gaze for the first time. I crossed my arms in front of me.
A look of surprise passed over his face, he seemed to smile at me with amusement.
I’m not your pet anymore, Alex.
“I always knew you were good enough for the big stage, Charlie. I hope you don’t hold any hard feelings about how things ended between us. You must know I was right, though, don’t ya darlin’? We were both meant to stand out…on our own.”
His thumb had rubbed a blazing circle of fire into my shoulder before I shrugged off his entire arm at once. He laughed, but kept his hands to himself.
“Don’t touch me.” I scowled at him. “You were right, Alex. Thank you for saving me from making the biggest mistake of my life.” The words dripped with every ounce of animosity I had felt toward him for the past seven months.
All She Wanted (Letting Go) Page 23