by Jones, Ayla
“And I’d do it again, Charlie,” she said defiantly. Nikki had basically organized a drug disposal effort amongst my friends, making sure my parents’ place, my apartment, and the condo were completely free of anything that could be used against me. “The person I did that for was not the same person from before. I had faith when Samira told me you were doing everything possible to stay in Lux’s life, and I knew what that meant. Everyone deserves a second chance when there’s growth. And you know I love you so much.”
But I was thinking about Julian’s story again. Love is dangerous because it’s powerful. I didn’t want Nikki burying bodies for me. “If…when I get sentenced to prison, I’d rather you not even consider waiting for me. Please…”
“Charlie—”
“No, I don’t want you to resent me if you stick by me. And promise me if it starts affecting your health and well being or holding you back, you’ll go without hesitation. This can’t be like before. Because I know I can’t rat on Fallon, Nik. She tried to warn me. That would make me an asshole. I already had my lawyer pass on to hers that I won’t testify against her. I don’t think I’m going to change my mind. Right or wrong, she’s my friend.”
Nikki got teary eyed and squeezed my hand tight. “I know. Doesn’t change anything for me.”
***
SAMI
What if you have to live without me, Chuck?
What if you and I have an ending and it isn’t good?
CHUCK (V.O.)
I don’t respond, and she doesn’t press me to.
But I don’t think we’ll ever have an ending. At least not the way it’s told in movies. I don’t think stories like ours really end. Or maybe facing uncertainty is forcing me to be optimistic. I am sure of exactly one thing though: She was never my prison.
Sami Mitchell has always, always been the key.
It was my final rewrite (again) of the ending of the last episode of How to Fuck up a Friendship. I thought I had actually gotten it right this time, and I was so glad that Hillington was willing to add more money to our budget so we could re-shoot the ending. I was satisfied with it, and the true fans would be, too.
And now that one story was complete, it was time to map out how the other one—my real life—would play out. I put my laptop on the nightstand and looked at the summary of the plea deal I was accepting. I would sign the official version of it later this morning at my attorney’s office, so she could then have it notarized and couriered back to the prosecutor’s office. At my next court date, I’d accept it officially in front of the judge, and then he would sentence me a few weeks after that. I still wouldn’t testify against Fallon, but I would take responsibility for the drugs in my car. I was looking at more than a year in prison, and the prosecutor could argue for up to five, especially because he was probably pissed that I wouldn’t testify. Who knows, though, maybe I would find inspiration in prison and write my best work yet.
A stab of regret tore through my stomach when Nikki stirred next to me, and I almost changed my mind as I watched her. Take it all in, dumbass. Take in what you’re losing…again. Insert heart-wrenching montage of all the cool things we’d done recently…
Right here.
“How’s the ending?” she asked in a gravelly tone.
“I finally think I got it. It’ll just be me and Samira, so it should be an easy re-shoot.”
“Good. And don’t worry; you didn’t wake me. I think my brain knows what’s coming and was only able to shut off for a few hours. I’ve just been lying here hoping day wouldn’t break.” She spied the clock. It wasn’t even four A.M.
“What do you want to do today?” I asked.
“Not think about today. But I will take a kitchen floor chat instead. Will you make me pancakes?”
“Fuck yeah.” We’d been staying in the condo, and I’d stocked it with everything we loved to eat.
I made chocolate chip pancakes, and we shared a plate and ate right there in front of the fridge, reflecting on the past. Our past. “I think I fell in love with you the first night at Julian’s,” she said as she swirled a piece of pancake in a puddle of syrup. “I thought it was just a crush thing at first…”
“I mean, I get it…I’m pretty cute.” She laughed but a tear landed on her thigh.
“I almost didn’t go to the police station that day we met. It seemed too early for them to have tracked down my iPod. I’m so glad I was so impatient, because I never would’ve gotten any of this…” She started to sob.
“Nik, please don’t cry.”
“I don’t mean to.”
I kissed her nose. “Hey, I’m going to love you forever, Nicole Johnson. Even if we don’t get it ourselves. Even if you move on, okay?”
“Are you asking me to move on?”
“I’m asking you to be happy and to go after everything you want.”
“You’re not helping with the not crying thing, dude.” She sniffled. “Samira is planning a kick-ass going away party. She thinks I should jump out of a cake.”
“I’d eat you. Fuck cake.” I got a sad smile from her. As much as it hurt that I couldn’t make her happy in the moment, I would miss even seeing these smiles.
Sunrise was sobering, and we watched it together before getting ready for my nine A.M. meeting. My copy of the plea document shook in my hands. I read it a final time as I waited for Nikki in the living room.
“Don’t do it, Charlie. Please,” she said when she walked out of the bedroom. She was wrapped in a towel and scrunching the dress she planned to wear in her hands. “Please, don’t. Just tell them what they want. Please.”
“I can’t, baby doll, you know that.”
“There has to be another way.”
“I don’t think there is…” I hugged her and she bawled against my chest. “We’ll make an even better bucket list of all the great things to do before I go to prison, okay? We’ll do everything together. We’ll make the time count even more. I promise.”
“Okay…” she said in between sniffles.
“You gotta get dressed.” I shot my attorney a text to tell her I was on my way and we might be a few minutes late, but it wasn’t like what Nikki had said wasn’t resonating.
She reemerged soon after, dressed and mellow, and she held my hand all the way down to the car. I drove and she put on Kings of Leon, just like we always did. It weakened my anxiety a lot, and I leaned over at a red light to kiss her cheek. “You don’t have a record. Your family and friends and people from the community have written statements about you. Even Hillington wants to keep working with you when you get out,” she whispered. “So, just a year, I bet.”
I laughed flatly. “You’ve been talking to my mom.” She nodded and we didn’t talk again. Nicki only slipped her hand into mine, and we barely moved after that. These moments had become our serenity; we even had an official soundtrack now.
I had expected Nikki to cry when we parked but she didn’t. She rushed to my side of the car and threw her arms around me. “You’re not just going to be a writer with a past after all this. You know that, right? If there’s anything I’ve learned from you over these months it’s that we have a right to demand that people really see us. Every part of us.”
Once we were inside, Sheila’s assistant took us to a conference room and told us she was on her way back from meeting with a client who was actually in jail, and she would also be about fifteen minutes late. I immediately poured myself several glasses of water and quickly downed them. Nikki was typing furiously on her phone across from me, and it gave me an opportunity to just stare at her. I couldn’t help doing it.
“Hey,” I said to get her attention. “I almost didn’t go to the police station that day, either. I mean it was just my stupid wallet. I would’ve missed out, too. Getting to know you and being with you are two of the best things I’ve ever gotten to do. You should know that.”
Nikki stared back at me with an irritated look and she stood up. “You know what? You can’t do that. You can’
t do that and then tell me not to wait, Charlie. You can’t tell me that. I get to bury bodies for you if I fucking want to, unless and until I decide I don’t anymore. Julian’s story was about choices, right or wrong. I get to figure out my limits. How about you wait for me in there, okay?”
Man, I fucking loved this girl.
I really, really loved her. I loved her enough to…
“Okay, so…what if we waited for each other? Gave each other a reason to wait?” I stood up, too, my heart racing with an idea. “Getting married would be a completely crazy bucket list thing, right?” I can’t believe I just fucking asked that.
Nikki’s eyes got wide. “Married?”
“We’d only be doing it because I’m going to prison, right? And that’s really stupid…”
“Definitely stupid…but only if we didn’t mean the ‘forever’ thing? Because if we meant it, then…” She grinned.
“We should get married? We should get married.” Holy shit.
“Oh my God!” Nikki giggled, bouncing a little. “Okay. Okay! Let’s get married. Let’s get married, Charlie!”
Wow. This was really fucking insane and foolish and random, and it was exactly what I wanted to do.
“Mr. Dara?” One of Sheila’s paralegals burst into the room. “I just got word that the deal’s off the table!”
“What? Why?”
“Sheila will be here shortly. She’ll explain everything.”
Nikki gasped. “Oh, God. Do you think the prosecutor changed his mind? That he wants to try the case in court?”
My throat was too dry to speak, but it wasn’t like I had an answer anyway. So, we waited in silence for Sheila to walk in. I found my voice the minute she did. Especially when Fallon fuckin’ Gregory walked in after her. I’d neither seen nor talked to her since her warning text.
“What happened?” I asked. “What the fuck happened?”
“Calm down. Calm down,” Sheila demanded, taking a seat. Fallon was still standing in the doorway. “I took the deal off the table. Things have changed.”
"Meaning…?" I asked.
“I’m giving you my client list,” Fallon whispered. She looked so worn out, like she hadn’t slept in weeks.
“What?” Nikki and I both yelled. Was she shitting me or what?
“I’ve been working on a few things behind the scenes with Fallon’s attorney these past few weeks. I’ve known about the list, but I didn’t want to get your hopes up about it, in case she decided not to release it to us,” Sheila explained.
“A lot of my customers were the kids of very prominent Miami people who go to my school. People the prosecutor knows I’m sure, because he’s in social circles with them,” Fallon said. “Everyone was buying and selling their meds at Prep. I have screenshots of phone numbers and conversations! Everyone has turned against me, except you, but the thing is they were all in deeper than they originally claimed, so that throws a wrench in the whole thing, if this gets out.”
“And if the list goes public, I’m guessing the DA will be pressured by the parents to settle this quickly before kids start losing their college admission spots and the school gains a worse reputation. And then he looks stupid for botching this entire thing…” Sheila said.
“Holy shit. And me?” I asked.
“This is our bargaining chip. People will want this all to disappear and fast. Your charges have always been mostly about pushing you to testify against Fallon and punishing you with prison time for refusing to. That’s done now. Drug ed classes and a few months of probation. That’s what we’re going to demand.”
“So, it’s fucking over?” Nikki asked.
“In the interest of time and justice, yes. What those kids were doing is way worse than you and in larger quantities and with far more serious drugs. He has a great—and bigger—case for drug conspiracy and distribution against all of them. Saved texts all back it up. Fallon kept very careful and detailed records.”
“And this will really get me off the hook?”
Fallon nodded. “Yes. Trust me, he really wanted this list. Probably to see who else he could get to turn on me and turn it into even more charges against me, while keeping some people on it safe. You guys should release a portion of it, just so he knows you have it and he’s lost control. Trade it for that better deal. Nothing related to you is on there, by the way. So, now, you have it. My story is way cooler than Confessions, huh? This is how you would’ve written it, anyway. Come on.” Fallon smiled weakly. I’d never seen her this timid before.
“Yeah, but I would’ve put this part in way earlier, dude.”
“You gotta understand, Charlie; when this list comes out, it’ll ruin so many things. No one will ever talk to my parents again. I’ll lose my last few friends. Everyone will say I’m a snitch and that I should’ve kept my mouth shut and that I shouldn’t have kept records in the first place. I’m going to make a lot of enemies. I needed time to think it through. To accept what I was giving up forever.”
I got up and went to give her a hug. “Thank you.”
Fallon squeezed me tight. “When you adapt my future best-selling book about my life in prison for the big screen someday, you better give me tits like your girlfriend’s.”
“Done,” I said. “Thank you and good luck. If there’s anything you need, just let me know, okay?” Fallon nodded when we separated, and then she and Sheila went into Sheila’s office to have a phone powwow with her attorney.
Nikki tackle-hugged me from behind. “Oh, thank God. I didn’t really think I could visit you in prison, but I would’ve come, anyway. Day after day after day. You and me, good days and bad days.”
“Yeah, but I think we’ve met the bad day quota for a while. Deal?”
“Deal.”
Epilogue
Three Years Later
“How’s Samira, babe?” I asked, approaching the women’s restroom in the crowded restaurant. I got my answer before Nikki could speak; the sound of Samira’s vomiting echoed from within. All the women waiting in line made faces. There was only one toilet inside.
“Still throwing up…still pregnant. I told her it was okay to skip dinner. She’s been feeling sick all day.” Nikki winced and knocked on the door. “You need me to get anything, Mira?”
“A time machine. A time machine, please, so I can go back and tell myself that no matter how cute Lux is, I don’t need another one. I’ll be out in a sec. It’s that guy’s cologne. Ugh.”
Samira walked toward the door, but then her footsteps changed directions hurriedly before she retched again. “Wow. Here’s to not being pregnant.” Nikki raised her palm and I gave her a high-five.
“Shit, I know, right?” I pulled her against me and kissed her forehead. “And I know better than to expect baby talk from you, anyway.”
She shrugged and tucked her head under my chin. “I like this ring, though.”
“I’m just glad every guy in Miami knows you’re mine.”
“Okay, Suddenly Possessive Charlie.” She groaned. “I know the long-distance thing is hard, but we’ve been managing for eight months, right?”
“Just anxious for you to get out there.”
“The worst thing we could possibly do is start our life together with me unemployed in L.A. and you supporting me. You’re writing and producing on two popular TV shows. Sinners & Saints: Miami is leading all the other shows in ticket sales right now. I just got the head choreographer position. Let me prove myself a little while, okay?”
“I know…I know, baby. I just miss you so much.”
“I miss you, too.” Nikki grabbed my face and kissed me hard. The door creaked open behind her, and Samira stepped out. She put her hands on her hips and shook her head.
“What are you doing? Didn’t you guys hear what was happening in there? Kissing started the path to Micah, okay? Save yourselves!”
“Micah?” Nikki squealed and spun around. “It’s a boy? You’ve already picked a name?!”
Samira shrugged as she grinne
d. “Sometimes, he’s Micah. Sometimes, she’s Noelle. Okay, I think I’m good now.” The three of us walked back to the table, and I collected Nikki’s stuff before we said our goodbyes.
“You’re leaving already?” Deacon asked. “I don’t know why you insist on us having these dinners when you’re in town, Charles. We all know you really just want to bang…uh, hang with Nikki.”
“I miss you dumbasses, too! Poker on Wednesday, right?”
He nodded. “Tell your hot girlfriend to bring key lime pie.”
“Hey! Hot future wife, you son of a bitch!” Nikki said, punching him on the shoulder. “And definitely.”
“10 A.M. for Booger tomorrow?” I asked Samira.
“Yes. Don’t be late. She’s been talking about hanging with Uncle Cha-Cha all week. Ask Nikki.”
“She can’t wait to see you!” Nikki confirmed. Then I swung my arm around my girl and walked us outside. I smiled when I caught her staring at her engagement ring as I rounded my rental car, after I opened the door for her. We’d planned to go right to city hall to get married after my legal troubles ended, but it felt wrong to leave our friends and families out, so we postponed it, and decided to have an actual wedding ceremony. During the delay, I officially proposed, only to shortly thereafter get hired in L.A. for two new shows Hillington pitched me, just as Nikki’s career was taking off here, too. But we were still doing it. Nikki and me. Getting married. Adulting.
I started the car, and as soon as I put it in gear she clasped our hands together on her lap. “How’s Ty?” I asked.
“Good. He likes College Station a lot more this year. No more talk of transferring. We Skype almost every night. When he’s not on with Camryn. She’s transferring from Miami-Dade Community to UF, by the way! She’s so excited. Anyway, Tyler will be home the week of Fallon’s parole hearing, actually. How is she?”
“She’s good. She just got elected as supervising inmate of arts and crafts hour or something in her prison unit. Says she can’t help being good at running things. But she’s really excited for the chance to eventually come out to L.A. and work on set, if she gets out. We are really going to push for her parole rules to include a supervision transfer to Los Angeles. It’s rare but we’re gonna try. She also says everyone in her wing loves the first draft of her novel.”