by Cronk, LN
When Charlotte finally showed up – about three hours later – her eyes were bloodshot and her hair was dripping wet.
This time when I reached for her, she started crying and she let me wrap my arms around her, clinging to me and burying her face against my chest. Freezing cold water soaked through my clothes.
“What are we going to do?” she gasped. “What are we going to do?”
I stroked her hair with one hand and pulled her closer with the other.
“It’s going to be okay,” I soothed, kissing her forehead.
“It’s not going to be okay!” she cried, pulling away to look at me. “I just got you back!”
“No matter what the test results say,” I told her, “we don’t have any idea what God has in store for us. We have to remember that everything works to the good of those who love Him.”
“How is this possibly going to turn out good?” she asked. “How can you say that?”
“Because I know He loves me, Charlotte, and He loves you, too. All we have to do is love Him back.”
“I have tried loving Him,” she yelled, her eyes flashing. She took a step back. “I have tried and tried and tried to love Him and all He does is keep throwing crap like this at me!”
I looked at her for a moment and then gave her a little smile.
“Come on,” I said, taking her hand and leading her.
“Where are we going?”
“You’re going to take a long, hot bath and get warmed up,” I said, pulling her toward the bathroom. When I got there I let go of her hand and walked over to the tub, turning on the water. She stood in the doorway, watching me as I picked up the little bottles that were on the edge of the tub and read them. “Do you want Brown Sugar and Vanilla or Tropical Coconut?”
“What are you doing, Jordan?” she asked.
“Trying to figure out what kind of bubbles you want.”
“I don’t need a bath,” she protested mildly.
“Which one?” I asked again.
“Coconut,” she said, reluctantly.
“Okay.” I unscrewed the lid and poured it into the flow of the water. She stared at me for a moment and then walked over to me, sitting down next to me on the edge of the tub.
“I’m going to take care of you,” she said, putting her hand on my arm. “Whatever happens – whatever you need – I’m going to be there for you and I’m going to take good care of you.”
“I never doubted that for a minute,” I smiled at her, kissing her gently on the lips. “But right now, I’m going to take care of you. Now get in there and I’m going to go get you some food.”
“No,” she said, shaking her head.
“Come on, Charlotte,” I insisted. “You’ve gotta eat.”
“No,” she said again. “I can’t eat right now. I’ll take a bath, but I can’t eat anything.”
“Okay,” I agreed, “but would you at least drink some hot cocoa?”
She nodded and I went back out into the room.
By the time I got back with the hot cocoa, Charlotte was in the tub with her eyes closed.
“Wow that’s a lot of bubbles!”
“Yeah,” she smiled, opening one eye at me. “I think you put just a tiny bit too much in.”
“Oops.”
“It feels good though,” she said. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” I smiled back. “Here’s your hot cocoa.”
“Thank you,” she said again, her eyelids fluttering shut. “Just put it down and I’ll have it in a second.”
I set it on the edge of the tub and then I sank down onto the floor next to her. I reached out and brushed a strand of hair away from her face and then I ran a finger along her jaw. I rested my chin on the edge of the tub and stared at her.
“What are you doing?” she murmured, her eyes still closed.
“I’m staying here to make sure you don’t fall asleep and drown.”
“Mmmm,” she nodded. “That’s probably a good idea.”
“You just rest,” I said quietly, stroking her hair.
“Okay,” she agreed sleepily. “I don’t know why I’m so tired.”
I do, I thought to myself.
Wrestling with God is hard work.
~ ~ ~
AFTER SHE GOT out of the bath, Charlotte and I crawled into bed together and I held her close to me.
I don’t think she moved for about five hours.
When she finally woke up she turned to find me smiling at her.
“Feeling better?” I asked.
“When did you find out?” she asked, ignoring my question.
I was taken aback for a moment, but then I answered her quietly “February.”
She didn’t say anything for a moment.
“Who did you tell?”
“No one . . . well, not at first.”
There was another long pause.
“You told Rhiannon,” she stated, “didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Who else knows?”
“Just David and Laci.”
She nodded.
“Did you tell them before you went down there?”
“No,” I answered, shaking my head.
“So,” she said carefully, “the first person you told was Rhiannon.”
I nodded reluctantly.
“And for four months before that you just kept it to yourself and didn’t tell anyone.”
I nodded again.
She was quiet for a moment and then she looked at me.
“You needed to be able to talk to someone about it,” she said softly.
“I should have talked to you.”
“But that’s how things got started with Rhiannon, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
She was thoughtful for a moment, and then asked, “Why did you love her?”
“I told you,” I said, shaking my head. “I didn’t love her.”
“No,” she answered. “I mean before. In high school . . . when you dated her. You loved her then.”
“Why do you want to talk about this?”
“I want to know.”
I sighed and turned away. When I looked back at Charlotte she was looking at me, expectantly.
I shook my head and looked away again, trying to figure out where to start.
“After my dad disappeared,” I finally began, “I really started doing a lot of soul-searching and trying to find God and trying to figure out what He wanted me to do and stuff, you know?”
She nodded slightly.
“And before long He started becoming more and more important to me and I really just started growing spiritually. I started trying to make sure that everything I did would be pleasing to Him and all my focus really became about that.”
I looked at her and she nodded again.
“I was in junior high school and it didn’t seem that a lot of kids that age were really . . . in that same place, you know? The closer I got to God the further away I seemed to get from everybody else,” I explained. “Nobody else really seemed to understand how I felt.”
“Except Rhiannon.”
“Yeah. She was pretty much in the same place I was and it was really nice to be able to talk to somebody who felt the same way I did.”
“So even way back then, that’s mostly what it was about with her? You loved her because you could talk to her and she prayed with you and stuff?”
“Well, yeah,” I said. I hesitated, but then decided that if she hadn’t already figured it out, she needed to hear this now. “What I loved most about her was that she loved God just as much as I did and she trusted Him and she tried to put Him first in her life. That was really important to me.”
It’s still really important to me.
She looked away.
“How much did you love her?” she asked after a long moment, finally looking back to me.
“Nowhere near as much as I love you,” I smiled. “Not even close.”
She didn’t smile back.
“Three times?”
“Yeah.” I smiled again. “When you showed up on my doorstep and told me you’d broken up with Jarrett. That was the first time.”
She glanced up at me and gave me a small smile back.
“And then,” I went on, twirling a strand of her hair around my finger, “right before we went off to college . . . when we got back together? I thought I was going to die when I had to leave you.”
She smiled at me again and I pulled her toward me and kissed her.
“And when else?” she asked when we pulled apart.
“These last few months . . . I’ve been falling in love with you all over again and I love you now more than ever. I’ve never loved anyone as much as I love you,” I promised her. “I could never love anyone more than I love you right now.”
“Why?” she asked.
“I just do,” I said, starting to kiss her again.
“No,” she said, shaking her head and pulling away from me. “When I asked you what you loved about Rhiannon you knew exactly why you loved her. Now I want to know what you love about me.”
I looked at her for a moment and then I smiled.
“Okay,” I said, and I spent a long time telling her – and showing her – every single thing that I had ever loved about her.
“Those are all the reasons why I love you,” I whispered to her when I was finished.
“That’s a lot,” she said breathlessly.
“Yeah,” I agreed, kissing her neck and burrowing my head against her shoulder. “It’s a lot.”
It was almost everything.
~ ~ ~
CHARLOTTE WRESTLED WITH God for the next four days. Every morning and every evening she would go for long walks by herself – even in the rain – and while she was gone, I would pray for her.
In between, the two of us would curl up together for hours as she tried to work it all out and I just kept doing what I knew God wanted me to do – love her unconditionally, the way He loved me.
I was prepared to keep it up for the next sixty years if that’s what He wanted me to do . . . but I really hoped He wasn’t going to make me wait that long.
On our last day there, Charlotte went for her usual morning walk. I sat on the balcony with my Bible – planning to read and pray while she was gone like I usually did – but I had barely spoken two words to God when I suddenly heard the door to our room open.
“Charlotte?” I stood up, set my Bible down, and went back into our room. She was standing just inside the door, staring at me.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
I saw her swallow hard.
“Were you praying?” she finally asked, gesturing toward the balcony.
I gave her a slight nod.
“Do you want me to pray with you?” she asked quietly.
I gave her another nod. She stood there for a moment, looking at me, and then she shook her head.
“I don’t know if I can,” she finally said, starting to cry. I crossed the room and wrapped my arms around her. Suddenly it was as if she had no energy left to stand and when she felt my arms around her she sunk to the floor. I went down with her and kept holding her.
“I don’t know if I can,” she said again, still crying.
“You just talk to Him, Charlotte,” I said. “That’s all you do. You just talk to Him.”
She stopped crying quite so hard and looked at me. I reached up and wiped a tear from her face and then tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. She kept looking at me.
“He already knows every single thing that’s in your heart,” I told her, putting my hand over her chest. “He just likes to hear you say it.”
She still looked uncertain.
“And I’d like to hear it, too,” I told her. I leaned forward and kissed her salty tears away and then I kissed her lips. “I wanna know everything that’s in your heart.”
And so finally Charlotte poured it all out and told me and God everything that was in her heart. I feel pretty sure that God was glad to hear what she had to say . . . I know I was.
Charlotte took a deep breath when she finally finished praying. I smiled at her and ran a finger along her jawline.
“I love you,” I told her. “You’re so beautiful.”
She looked at me.
“But that’s not why I love you,” I amended quickly. “That just happens to be a huge perk.”
She smiled at me and then took another deep breath and flopped back onto the floor.
“I’m so tired of crying,” she said as I lay down next to her, propping myself up on one elbow.
“Then let’s not cry for a while,” I suggested. “How’s that sound?”
“Okay,” she said, smiling again.
“I can think of something else I’d rather do.” I leaned down and kissed her lips. She kissed me back for a second, but then suddenly put her hand on my chest.
“What?” I asked when she pushed me gently away.
“You said no more secrets between us.”
“Right,” I said, “and I meant it. I told you everything.”
“I know you have,” she said quietly, “but I’ve been keeping a secret from you.”
A breath caught in my throat.
“There’s one more thing I need to tell you.”
“Okay,” I nodded. “What is it?”
“It’s about Elias.”
I had to force myself not to cringe at the sound of his name.
“What?”
She bit her lip and looked away.
“What?” I asked again.
“I wanted to hurt you,” she said, talking fast and still not looking me in the eye. “I wanted to hurt you so much and I just did the one thing I could think of that would hurt you the most.”
I couldn’t get any air.
“What did you do, Charlotte?” I managed to ask.
“I lied to you.”
“You lied?”
“Yes.”
“About what?”
“About everything.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, I never slept with him or anything like that,” she said, finally looking back at me. “I just let you think that to get back at you.”
“But you were living with him.”
“Yeah,” she scoffed, “in his guest bedroom.”
I looked down at her.
“On his stupid futon,” she continued, “with that lumpy mattress.”
“You never slept with him?”
“No,” she said, looking me in the eye. “He’s just a friend. I never even kissed him.”
“I saw you kiss him,” I argued.
“When?” she laughed. “That day you were spying on me?” She waved her hand at me, dismissively. “That didn’t count . . . that was just for show.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Elias called me up and he’s all like, ‘Did you know your husband’s parked down at the end of the block?’ and I said, ‘No,’ and he goes, ‘Well, he is. I just went past him . . .’ so I decided to hop on out there and give you something to watch.”
I didn’t say anything. I think my mouth had dropped open.
“He’s very weird,” she went on. “He stirs his coffee with a steak knife and he tweezes his nostril hairs . . .”
I stared at her for another long moment, completely awed.
“Charlotte?” I finally said, grabbing her hand away from my chest and pinning it to the floor because I was getting ready to cover her with kisses and wasn’t about to let her stop me for anything.
“What?” she asked, a small smile playing on her lips.
I smiled back at her, and then I said, “I like your secret a lot better than mine.”
Author’s Note:
Thank you for reading Not Qui
ckly Broken. I truly hope you have enjoyed hearing things from Jordan’s point of view. I am sure you still have a lot of questions, however . . . questions about Jordan and Charlotte . . . questions about Amber . . . questions about Tanner.
Please make plans to join me for Book 8 in the Chop, Chop series, Alone. Alone is told by Jordan’s brother, Tanner. Spanning well over forty years of Tanner’s life, Alone should clear up most of the questions that you still have. I am planning on writing at least two more novels with characters from the Chop, Chop series. One book (yet unnamed) which will be told from Marco’s point of view, and another book, Taken, which will feature a character that you will meet in Book 8. I hope you will look for those books in the future and that you will enjoy them as well.
In the meantime, be sure to watch for Book 8, Alone, tentatively scheduled to be released by the end of Summer, 2012. For the latest news on all the books in the Chop, Chop series, become a fan of the Chop, Chop Facebook page at www.facebook.com/readchopchop!
Also, if you have not already left a review for the book that started it all, won’t you please take a moment to do so? It is an easy and very effective way for you to let others know about Chop, Chop. Thank you for sharing your time with me!
Many blessings ~ L.N. Cronk