All She Wanted (Letting Go)

by Deese, Nicole

  Briggs.

  My mind screamed at me to remember. Why am I sleeping on a couch in my parent’s house—with Briggs? I pounded my head with my fists. Work. Work. Work.

  It did.

  “No,” I breathed.

  Briggs sat up in that instant, rubbing his eyes.

  “Good morning, Shortcake,” he said, groggily.

  I stood, my stomach knotting as a rush of dizziness came over me. I stared at his face, watching him grow steadily more alert with each passing second. I shook my head.

  “It’s real?” I asked breathlessly.

  “Yes, Charlie. It’s real.”

  I nodded, trying to take in a full breath. My throat was closing in, and my lungs were leaking out bit by bit. Oxygen was scarce.

  I can’t breathe.

  I can’t breathe.

  I can’t breathe.

  “Charlie, sit down!” Briggs demanded.

  I didn’t move. He pulled me down next to him and forced my head between my legs.

  “Breathe. There you go. Just breathe, focus on each exhale,” he said.

  When my panic finally subsided, I sat up and looked at him.

  “I need to go back, my mom needs me.”

  “I know. I have your bag in the truck—Camille packed it for you. Go take a shower and we’ll head back over there together. I’ll make you some breakfast and call your mom.”

  I followed orders, having no desire to argue.

  Briggs

  Charlie didn’t move for the next two days.

  Every time I went to the hospital, which was several times a day, Charlie was sitting in the same chair—the one next to her dad’s hospital bed. Mrs. Julie had been in and out with her sister Jo, and so far, Chief had been in and out of consciousness since surgery, but mostly out. The doctor said his vitals looked good, but his body still needed a lot of rest.

  Charlie talked to her dad as if he was actively listening to her, though he wasn’t, he was sleeping. She told him stories of being on the road during her tour—most of which I had already heard before. She told him about Camille and her funny Irish family. She told him about Professor Wade’s latest muse—an old cast-iron hen, and she told him why she liked Christmastime in Texas.

  All the while, she held his hand in hers.

  Tori and Kai had been up to see the Chief last night. They had brought us all dinner, but Charlie didn’t touch hers. I knew she was trying to be strong, trying to make up for what she felt was an embarrassing display of weakness on that first night in the hospital, but I worried about her.

  Strength she had, but her stubbornness often overruled her common sense.

  I pulled a chair over from the corner of the room to sit next to her. Mrs. Julie and Jo had just gone to get something to eat in the hospital cafeteria. Charlie had refused to leave, of course.

  “You know your body still takes fuel to function, right?” I asked, pushing a lock of strawberry hair off her shoulder.

  She kept her gaze on Chief Max.

  “So you keep telling me, ever so annoyingly I might add,” she said.

  I smiled, at least she wasn’t catatonic anymore, I could work with this side of Charlie.

  “Tell me what sounds good to you and I’ll go get it…even if it’s something crazy like avocado ice-cream or pumpkin pancakes,” I said.

  She looked at me, a soft, tired expression settling into her features. My heart nearly stopped.

  “I don’t want anything, Briggs, but thank you.”

  I searched her face, my eyes landing on her lips. I stared at them. I was desperate to feel them against my own again—desperate. I leaned in by a few inches, tempting myself beyond restraint.

  “You’re so beautiful.”

  She questioned me with her eyes, but didn’t pull away. I brought my hand up to her face, touching her cheek with my thumb.

  “I’ve missed you so much, Charlie. You have no idea what it feels like to be this close to you again…after all this time,” I continued.

  She closed her eyes, leaning into my palm and opened her mouth to speak. But instead of words, the loud shock of beeps and buzzes came from every angle of the room. We jumped to our feet, as two nurses and a doctor rushed into the room, pushing us out into the hallway in the process.

  Mrs. Julie and Jo were there with us before I could blink.

  And then everything happened so fast…

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Charlie

  “Where are you taking him?” I yelled after the pack of white coats that were wheeling my dad away. I ran after them, but to no avail. Briggs was at my back all too soon, pulling me to him. I thrashed against his chest, breaking out of his hold as anger radiated through my body for the first time since I’d been at the hospital.

  “What happened…where are they taking him?”

  My mom was crying again, and Jo was comforting her—a sight I had become way too familiar with over the last seventy-two hours. I was sick of it. I was sick of everything.

  I want answers!

  “The doctor said he’s having a complication from the surgery Charlie, they’re going to try and…”

  I shrugged his hand off my shoulder. I didn’t want to be touched, not right now. The grenade pin had been pulled, and it was just a matter of time before it exploded. I raced down the hall to the stairwell, running down four flights of stairs toward the exit door. I could hear the drumming of feet behind me, but I chose to pretend I didn’t.

  I gasped, the cold, December air filled up my lungs as I paced in the darkness. Two streetlights stood in the distance beyond me, their glow failing to reach the shadow I claimed as my own.

  Until that moment, I hadn’t even realized it was night.

  “Charlie, it’s freezing out here, let’s go back inside,” Briggs said.

  “This can’t be happening!” I threw my hands in the air. “Do you even know the last thing we talked about? The last conversation I had with my father? It was when I told him I wasn’t coming home for Thanksgiving.”

  He looked at me with confusion.

  “But that’s not the worst part…I knew that it made him sad, but I said it anyway—like I didn’t care about his feelings at all,” I said, shaking my head.

  “Charlie, you can’t start blaming yourself for-”

  I whipped my face back toward him, sharply. “You’re absolutely right, Briggs…and I don’t—not solely, anyway. I blame you, too.”

  “Me?” he choked.

  I walked closer to where he stood, pointing my finger at him, feeling a rage inside me that was fighting for release.

  “You are the reason I didn’t come home, Briggs. You! Whatever this is,” I said, pointing between him and me, “It’s over. I can’t do it anymore! I can’t be your friend…it’s too exhausting. I don’t have the energy to worry about one more thing, so I’m finished—done!”

  His eyes grew huge as I stared at him mercilessly.

  I continued, undeterred, “I knew if I came home at Thanksgiving, I’d be forced to deal with some things I wasn’t quite ready to let go of—primarily you, and because of that, I don’t have a goodbye memory with my dad. I don’t have a last hug, or a last kiss. The only thing I do have, is the memory of his disappointment after I told him that I wasn’t going to come home and see him…because of you!” I shook my head, my voice calming momentarily. “I let you steal those moments from me once, and I won’t give you any more.”

  A tearless sob rolled off me as I crossed my arms over my chest.

  He took a step toward me, his hand outstretched. “Charlie, I know you’re upset right now, you have every right to be, but you don’t mean those things,” he said.

  My head snapped up in attention, “I have never meant anything more in all my life. Do not follow me, Briggs. Do not call me, do not text me…I don’t need you!”

  I stalked back into the building, and this time no one followed me.

  Briggs

  Truth be told, I had taken many blows
in my life.

  I’d taken hits that had knocked me unconscious, hits that had left me crumpled in a pile of blood and broken bones, hits that had taken me weeks to recover from. But none of those came close to the level of power that Charlie had packed into her punch. The girl knew how to fight.

  As I stared at the backside of the hospital, watching her leave, I told myself she didn’t mean it.

  I told myself that she was tired, hungry, stressed, and scared. I told myself that if not for the man lying on an operating table for the second time this week, I would have ignored her outburst and ran after her. But there was a shred of truth in her argument, and that’s what stopped me. There had been too many missed opportunities in the past, too many unspoken words and moments. I understood that concept more than anyone.

  This night was bigger than me, or her, or even us.

  Charlie needed to focus on her dad, and I needed to let her do that.

  Charlie

  My dad always said that pride was the ugliest part of humanity.

  Not only did it aid us in hurting those we loved, it told us we were right, justified in our hurts. It kept us from saying sorry. It kept us from offering forgiveness. It kept us isolated and alone. Pride was ugly.

  When my dad woke up from his complication—also known as a life-threating pulmonary embolism—I was there, sitting in the chair by his bedside. The days following were painful to watch as he struggled to talk or move, but the nurses assured us that his responses were normal.

  Normal.

  Would anything ever be normal again?

  The men from the station had staggered their visits over the last few days, and though I had seen Briggs several times in passing, we had not spoken a word to each other.

  The guilt I felt was nearly unbearable.

  I had felt so much anger that awful night, but as my therapist would say, “anger is only a surface emotion”. Underneath my anger was fear; I had been scared out of my mind. My frustration over my ever-shifting relationship with Briggs had been the big, blinking target.

  I had shot to kill.

  I cringed thinking of the things I had yelled at Briggs—horrible things, maybe even unforgiveable things. Sorry wasn’t enough, but what else was there?

  The dust may have been settling on my dad’s medical drama, but I knew that I couldn’t go back to being just friends with Briggs. As much as the thought of life without him caused me physical pain, I couldn’t keep doing life with him either, not the way we had been doing it. I couldn’t sit back and watch him date or marry someone else while I was off on tour abroad—alone.

  Neither of us could move on with our futures if we didn’t let go of each other now.

  I hated that my rational mind was back; I almost preferred crazy on days like today.

  **********

  “Go home Charlie, you need to sleep in a real bed and eat a real meal. Mom’s here, and I have several of my guys coming here soon, anyway,” dad said.

  I rolled my eyes. This argument of his was wearing me down, and he knew it. It was hard to fight a man in a hospital gown.

  “You know I’ll go and then just come right back, Dad. I can’t just sit at home when I could be here, with you,” I replied.

  “Charlie, it would be good for you to go stretch your legs. Go for a walk, shower, eat, take a nap, and then you can come back, okay?” My dad leaned over, whispering, “Maybe you can even slip a coke in your bag for me.”

  “I heard that, Maxwell.” My mom scolded.

  “No caffeine,” I repeated.

  “You girls are going to be the death of me.”

  “Better us than another heart attack, right?”

  “Funny…now get out of here before I call security,” he said.

  “Fine, but I won’t be gone too long.”

  “Well, you’re not getting back in here for at least four hours. I’ll post a guard if I have to.”

  I stared at him, but he was always better at these staring contests than I was. I may have learned from the best, but my talent was still not equal to his. I threw him a smile before exiting the room. I could hear him laugh as I closed the door behind me.

  Briggs was waiting on the other side.

  My throat was suddenly void of all moisture.

  “Hi, Charlie.”

  “Hey,” I managed to croak out.

  He placed his hand on the door handle as I scooted around him. I could hear the words screaming like a siren in my head, they were begging for release.

  Say it, just say it!

  I’M SORRY!

  I’M S-O-R-R-Y!

  He pushed the knob, knocking twice as he entered. The sadness in his eyes had held me prisoner as I watched him disappear behind he door.

  It was true: Pride was an ugly, ugly thing.

  Briggs

  “Briggs, it’s nice to see you, son,” Chief said, pointing to the chair that Charlie usually occupied. I sat down. He had texted me an hour ago asking me to come, telling me he was going to make Charlie take a break. If I hadn’t just seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn’t have thought it possible.

  “I think I’ll go get some coffee…do you need anything Max?” Mrs. Julie asked.

  “A Coke?” Chief asked.

  “You’re beating a dead horse, Maxwell. I’ll be back soon, call if you need me.”

  “I will sweetheart.”

  Chief turned to me after the door clicked shut.

  “I heard what you did for Charlie,” he said.

  I wasn’t quite sure what he was referring to. A lot had happened since the day of his heart attack.

  “Driving to get her from school,” he continued.

  “Oh, yes,” I said, looking anywhere but his face. This conversation was quickly turning painful and it had only been a few seconds in length so far. I wasn’t sure I was up for a talk about how I could help him fix Charlie—apparently, she still believed I was the reason for her distress.

  “Thank you for doing that, it means a great deal to me—to Julie and I both, actually.” He took a deep breath, drumming his fingers soundlessly on his lap. “I never got to finish the conversation I started with you before…the old heart had other plans, I suppose.”

  He tapped his heart like the Tin-man on The Wizard of OZ. It was a funny gesture, though my smiled was short-lived.

  “Well, Chief, it might be pointless to try and continue it now since she’s not speaking to me. I doubt I can be of much help to you, although I did find out the reason she didn’t come home for Thanksgiving. It was because of me, she told me that much,” I said.

  He nodded, as if the information I had just shared with him wasn’t a surprise. Maybe she had told him that. I hadn’t been around for too many conversations lately—or any, for that matter.

  “And you’re feelings for her haven’t changed?”

  I laughed humorously. “Hardly.”

  “Good.”

  I stared at him. “I don’t see how that’s good, sir. She’s barely spoken a word to me since-”

  “She can be stubborn, Briggs, but Julie and I believe she’s just trying to protect herself.”

  “From what?”

  “You.”

  What does that even mean?

  “Something happened when she was home last spring…it changed her. She’d been so distant and defensive prior to that term that when I came home from my trip, I hardly recognized her. She was so joyful.” He paused. “But in my excitement to have my daughter back, I think I overlooked a vital part—or person—who helped in that transformation of her heart.” He pointed to me. “You, Briggs.”

  I shook my head, dumbfounded. “What? But you just said you think she’s trying to protect herself from me.”

  “I do.” Chief said again, nodding. “Charlie has always tried to escape hurt and pain by doing whatever she could to avoid it—all of us do that to some degree, but with her it’s a little different. Charlie has always had the same weakness Briggs, do you know what it is?”

&n
bsp; In an instant, the answer was there, in my head and on my lips.

  “She’s never felt wanted.”

  Tears welled in his eyes as he spoke, “I have spent many years praying that Charlie would grab ahold of her second chance. When Julie and I realized her talent, we both believed that piano was the vehicle she needed to leave behind her past.” He shook his head slowly, “There is no question that Charlie is gifted, but her accomplishments in piano will never overshadow what she needs the most. I can’t say what she will choose for her future, but I hope you’re in it, Briggs. I’m convinced your love for my daughter runs as deep as my own for her does. You’ve waited a long time, and I don’t want you to have to wait any longer. You have our blessing, Briggs. I hope the two of you can figure out your future…together.”

  My mouth hung open.

  “But Chief, Charlie…” I couldn’t finish the sentence. I’d waited nearly eight months for his approval, and now that I had it, Charlie would barely look at me.

  The slap of irony stung.

  “Go, Briggs. Charlie will want to hear what you have to say.”

  I nodded, thanking him as I made my exit.

  I didn’t need to be told twice.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Charlie

  After showering and eating—yes, I made myself a ham sandwich—I sat down at the piano. I couldn’t remember the last time I had played. With all that had gone on, it felt lower on the scale of importance now. Camille and her brother had dropped my car off yesterday, along with my music binder. I ran my hand across the front of it before turning to my unfinished composition. I stared at the blank lines and spaces at the end, and suddenly, I knew the notes to fill it.

  I poured my heart into that melody until there was nothing left inside it. Every last hope, every last thought, every last dream it held, I played, note by note. And just like that, the piece that had challenged me the most, the piece that had avoided an ending for so long, was finished.

  I picked up my pencil, scribbling the notes down with lightening speed so I wouldn’t forget them—ever.