by Randa Lynn
“You… you know what? Never mind. Thank you for giving me a place to calm down and bringing me here. Goodnight, Slayter.” She turns around and runs up to the house, never looking back at me.
The sound of the door slamming is deafening in the silence of the night.
I grab the back of my neck, pinching my eyes shut. “I’m screwed.”
“How was the honeymoon?” I ask Lizzie, taking a sip of my coffee.
“It was perfect, Char. I can’t believe Mom and Dad did that. It was just,” she pauses and sighs, “everything I dreamed of and more.”
The smile plastered on my little sister’s face is incredible, and absolutely deserving.
“What have you been up to since the wedding?” she asks.
I cross my legs and sigh heavily. “Just working, working, and more working. Staying busy so I don’t go crazier than I already am,” I laugh. I laugh, but it’s the truth. If I don’t stay busy, I’ll start thinking too much, and when I think, I allow myself to go back to the dark place I try so hard to stay out of.
“I don’t see why you work so much, Charlie. You have plenty of money to just stay home and work on getting yourself better and figure out why you always have such bad migraines.”
I can see the sincerity and worry in Lizzie’s face, but it’s not needed. I know why I get migraines—because I had severe head trauma. I know I have plenty of money, but money doesn’t keep me semi-sane. Staying busy does, but she doesn’t understand it. She never will. “I know that, but I do it for me. I work because I actually enjoy photography. It’s the only thing I do find enjoyment in. And I don’t care how much money I received in the settlement, I refuse to live off money I got from something that caused the death of my son… and my memory.” I take a big gulp of my coffee, letting the scorch of the liquid take away from the scorching pain in my soul.
I wish so badly people would understand, but I know it’s useless. No one who isn’t me understands, and as amazing as Lizzie has been, I wish she would drop it. I’ll never use that money just to enjoy it. The only time I even touch the money is when I have doctor bills I need to pay or if emergency spending comes up. Every time I think about it, about what that man took from me, I get sick. My stomach churns, and bile rises in my throat. My life, in every sense of the word, save my beating heart, was ripped from me, because he was too busy checking his cell phone to pay attention to the road. I refuse to solely rely on the money I have from that wreck—the wreck which completely stripped my joy from me—for any sort of joy. Because the only thing that will bring me any sort of solace in this life is remembering Phoenix. I’m not naïve enough to say having him back would bring me joy, because I know it is absolutely impossible, but I just want to remember. Something. Anything.
Is that too much to ask for?
“I know. I’m sorry I mentioned it.”
I wave her off, not wanting her to feel badly when she meant well. “What did I tell you about apologies?”
“Ahh. I’m sor…okay. No more apologies.” She giggles before taking another sip of her coffee.
The cars zoom outside the café window as the morning traffic starts to pick up. She cuts her eyes back towards me, talking over her steaming cup of coffee. “Slayter has asked about you a couple of times.”
I nearly spit my coffee out of my mouth. “He what?”
“Stetson talked to him a few days ago and he asked about you. He also came over last night and asked me how you were.” She grins like she knows something I don’t know.
“Tell him to quit wasting his time.”
“Why?” she pouts. “He’s a nice guy, Charlie. And he’s Stet’s brother. I know he comes from a good background. He might just be the very thing you need.”
“No. Definitely not.” I sigh exaggeratedly. “What I need is to have my life back. The one where I wasn’t viewed as the woman who lost everything, but as Charlotte Blake McGee. I don’t know who I was before, but I don’t want to have to always live with the big neon sign over my head, which apparently reads ‘FRAGILE: APPROACH WITH CAUTION’. I might not be made of stone, but I’m not made of glass, either.”
“You’re not fragile, Char,” Lizzie says. Her voice quietens. “You’re the strongest person I’ve ever met.”
Yeah. I just wish I felt as much. “Yeah, well…” I shrug.
I take a sip of my coffee before placing it back on the table. Lizzie grins, her eyes pointed directly over my shoulder.
“Well, if this isn’t a surprise so early in the morning.”
Seriously? It’s as if he knew we were here.
“Hi, Slayter.” My voice is clipped. I cut my eyes back to Lizzie. By the look on her face, she didn’t know he would be here. She better hope she didn’t set this little chance meeting up.
He grabs a chair, scraping it along the concrete flooring before sitting down. He slides closer to me than necessary, so I scoot my chair closer to Lizzie.
“Don’t look so thrilled to see me,” Slayter says with a smile, looking directly at me before turning his attention back to Lizzie. “How’s my sister-in-law this fine Texas morning?”
“Just having coffee with Charlie before she heads off to a photography workshop for a couple of days.”
Does she really have to inform him of what I’m doing? It is absolutely none of his business. None what-so-ever.
He nods his head. “Is that so? Well, I’m going to need to get my coat back from you. You’ve had it for weeks now. Your rental has expired.”
I roll my eyes. It is entirely too early to deal with his sarcasm. “No problem. I’ll just throw it on the street and you can pick it up.”
“That is a three-hundred and fifty dollar coat. You will do no street throwing.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t spend stupid amounts of money on a jacket.”
“It’s a coat.”
“Same thing.”
“Is not.” He grins.
“Is so.”
God, he’s annoying.
“Okay you two. That’s enough flirting. And why do you have his coat slash jacket?” Lizzie eyes me suspiciously.
“I am not flirting.” I clip.
Slayter leans back in his chair and looks at me. “Because, the night of your wedding she was cold after we kissed, and I gave it to her.”
If eyes could kill, Slayter Beck would be dead ten times over right now.
“You don’t know when the hell to shut up, do you?” I mumble, my annoyance rising by the second.
“You what?” Lizzie gasps.
“Calm down. I shoved him off of me. It was an annoying kiss. I assure you, it won’t happen again.” I speak to Lizzie, but stare directly at Slayter. He just shrugs his shoulders like he’s completely and utterly amused.
“Whatever you say,” she says. “We’re all grown here.”
“Yeah,” I abruptly get up from the table and put my North Face on, “and I’m all done here.” I don’t want to deal with this conversation, and the realization that not every single part of me finds him irritating. “Thanks for the coffee. I’ll see you when I get back, okay?”
Lizzie stands up and hugs me goodbye. “Love you, Char.”
“Love you, Liz.”
“Good seeing you again, Charlie.” Slayter smirks up at me.
I roll my eyes and laugh, trying to remain annoyed. It’s a little pointless. As much as I hate to admit it, he’s growing on me. He winks at me, and I get butterflies? Who gets butterflies? “Yeah. Okay.”
It’s cruel how life works. It can give and take within the span of one heartbeat. It can go up and down faster than the blink of an eye. Life is all about learning and living and making memories. It seems like a good thought in prospect. In retrospect, however, when all you’re doing is trying to live instead of actually living, because all those memories you made were erased like irrelevant aspects in the universe, it makes you think differently.
It did me.
I flip through the photo albums in front of me. The elect
ric fireplace is going, emanating a fiery glow throughout my apartment. I know it’s not the real thing, but it’s the closest I can get. It might not make much sense, but fires remind me of Phoenix. It’s so beautiful. So pure. So intangible.
Just like Phoenix.
A few months after the accident, I was finally well enough to move back to my apartment. The moment I stepped in, I started boxing up things, unable to handle seeing Phoenix’s stuff strewn about. I couldn’t look at anything that he touched. His bed, I gave away. His clothes, I donated. His toys, my mom stored them. It was too hard. Then I came across his baby book. Despite my reservations, I flipped through it. Each page inked with memories. Each mark of the pen a mark in time I don’t remember. On one page it asked where his name came from. When I read the words, I didn’t only read them, I felt them in every bone, every fiber, of my broken body. It broke my heart in two. It still does.
Phoenix Blake McGee. I was buried in the ashes, smothering away in a life I shouldn’t have been living. Then you happened. My saving grace. You gave me the strength to rise from the ashes and learn to live again. You are my Phoenix. You are my love. You are every bit of beauty in this ugly, ugly world.
I wipe the tears from my eyes. I can recite my words like I’m staring at the directly at the pages. But I’m not. I can’t. I haven’t been able to muster the courage to flip back through the baby book since that day.
It hurts too badly.
It guts me.
Reading those words, feeling the ink stained pages that held so much love, so much honesty, rips my soul to shreds. Yet here I am, flipping through photo albums of my son and me, trying to remember a life that was once mine.
I hate it. But I’m doing it because this makes me feel like maybe, just maybe, one day I’ll wake up and remember.
Remember. Most people live their lives wishing and hoping they could forget at least one thing that’s happened to them. All I want to do is remember. Remember the bad times. Good times. Happy times. Sad times. I want to remember the first twenty-three years of my life. My first kiss. When I got my driver’s license. All the friends I had. Mom’s obnoxiously large meals. Most of all, I want to remember what it felt like to be a mother. To have a son. The first time he crawled. His first steps. His first Christmas. His first birthday. The way his hair smelled after a bath. His favorite food. I just want to remember Phoenix.
My Phoenix.
There’s a hole so gaping in my soul, so empty, I feel it in everything I do. I can’t go out in public without seeing a mother and her son laughing, smiling, living. When I see that mother and son, jealousy, anger, and sadness overwhelms me. It consumes everything within me. Why can’t I have that? What did I do so damn wrong in my life to be punished so badly? Was it not enough to lose my son? Was it not enough that I had to lose every ounce of memory I had of him, too?
Was it not enough?
Because I’ve had enough.
I grab the bottle of liquor off the coffee table and down it as I stare at the tear stained pictures.
There’s a picture of Lizzie, Phoenix, and me at Lizzie’s high school graduation. Phoenix is in my arms; his curly blonde hair is perfect against his tan skin. He’s kissing Lizzie on the cheek and holding a sucker in one hand. I’m smiling, genuinely happy, just staring at my son in awe.
Why can’t I be happy again? Lizzie doesn’t get it. Mom and Dad don’t get it. Stetson doesn’t get it. They always say how sorry they are. I don’t want I’m sorry, I just want my memory.
Why do people always say sorry? I think Slayter is the only person who hasn’t apologized for the shit that’s happened to me. Why him? Why is he the one who understands that I don’t need apologies?
I grab the picture I always carry with me and clutch it to my chest. “Phoenix,” I cry, “please, please come back to me.”
Grabbing the bottle again, I let the burn of the alcohol take away my pain, even if only for a moment.
“I’ll email the paperwork over later. I’m not home right now to get to a computer, and I didn’t send the files to my phone.”
“I need the paperwork by the end of the day, so I can read it over with the client and their attorneys tomorrow and close on this deal,” Paul, my right hand man, says. He’s worked in the construction business since before I ever came along, and I’m damn lucky he’s stuck with me.
“Paul. Have you forgotten this is my business? I’m the boss. But don’t worry, you’ll get the damn paperwork. Patience.”
“Yeah, I hear ya, Beck.”
I hang up the phone and slide it in my pocket, looking up at the apartment number. I don’t really know why I’m here. I mean, yeah, I want my coat, but I have twenty more. I don’t need my coat.
But I need to see Charlie. I’ve had this weird feeling in my gut since last night and it’s got her name all over it. It could be because I haven’t quit thinking about her since the night of Stetson and Lizzie’s wedding. It could be because that kiss has me messed up.
I don’t do messed up. Yet here I am about to knock on her door and use the excuse that I’m here for my coat.
I’m so messed up.
I rap my knuckles three times and stand back and wait. And wait. And wait. And wait some more.
I knock three more times.
Finally, the door cracks open. One eye peeps at me through the crack of the door. “You’ve got to be kidding me?”
“I need my coat.”
“Jacket,” she says, opening the door wider. “How do you know where I live? Stalker.”
“Uh, I might have an informant in the form of a brother. Don’t blame him. I really need my coat.” I point inside. “Are you letting me enter your lair?”
She cuts her eyes to me, and when I get a good look at tem—bloodshot and puffy—my heart dips. It can only mean one thing…
Phoenix.
“Never mind,” I say, not wanting to make her shove me out the door before I ever make it through. “I’m coming in. Thanks.”
She turns around and walks down the short hallway until we enter the living room. The first thing that catches my eyes is a liquor bottle shattered on the floor. Then, I see pictures scattered everywhere. “What the hell happened here?” I ask, looking around her apartment further. My eyes go to the walls. Bare, white walls. Not a single picture hung on them. What photographer doesn’t have any pictures hanging on their wall? It’s completely bare of any personal touches, minus the mounds of pictures strewn across the floor.
“Nothing,” she quickly replies, falling back down on the only couch in her living room. “Your jacket is hanging on the rack by the fridge. Get it and go.”
I walk over and retrieve my coat before sitting back down on the couch. I’m not ready to go, and I don’t think she’s really ready for me to go, either. “Need help cleaning up?”
She stares blankly for a beat. “Why are you being nice again?”
“Uh, because I’m a nice guy?”
“That’s been disproven.”
“How so?”
She scoffs. “Because you took advantage of me.”
I shrug. “You kissed me back.”
“Did not.”
“You did. Our tongues tangled. You kissed me back.”
“Tangled? Gross. Could you stop? I’m not in the mood to argue with you.” She leans her head back and looks up at the ceiling, sighing heavily.
“Okay. But I win. Now, do you need help cleaning this mess up?”
“You did not win.” She looks around the living room, whispering to herself, “Holy crap. It is a mess.”
“It is,” I agree.
“I don’t even remember doing any of this,” she admits, dropping her face into her hands. I get up and start picking up the scattered photo albums. “You don’t have to do that.”
I drop the pile of pictures on the coffee table. “I know.”
“Then stop.”
I ignore her, picking up the rest of the mess before putting it up. “Do you have a broom and
a dust pan?”
“You sweep?”
“No. But I also don’t stitch feet up well, so I’m going to sweep up this glass. I don’t want you to hurt yourself.”
“You don’t have to take care of me,” she snaps.
I look her straight in the eyes. “I think you’re pretty capable of doing it on your own.”
She crosses her arms over her chest defensively. “Then leave and let me do it.”
“I’ve got you, Charlie.”
“I don’t need you to got me, Slayter,” she snaps.
Once again, I ignore her. I sure as hell don’t think I need to, but I can’t help but want to. And damn, if it wouldn’t make my life easier if I just walked out that door and forgot all about Charlie McGee. But I can’t because she’s stuck in my head.
I walk into the kitchen, looking around for the broom. I open up the pantry and spot it. After sweeping up the glass and dropping it in the trash, I put the broom up and walk back into the living room where Charlie is still nicely planted on the couch. “Your feet should be safe now.”
“Thanks,” she whispers, pulling her knees up to her chest.
“When do you leave?”
She looks at me, confusion masks her face. “What?”
“Lizzie said you were going to some photography thing.”
“I can’t believe you remember that.”
“I remember everything that has to do with you.” When the words come out of my mouth, I regret it. I regret it because I’m scared of scaring her away. The last thing I want is for her to run when I have finally conceded to the fact that I want her. Her green eyes widen at my confession, so I change the subject quickly, needing the mood to lighten. “Tired of seeing me, yeah?”
She laughs lightly. “Actually, yeah. You’re distracting.”
“Attractive, you mean?” I wink, thankful she got over my slip up quickly.
“Distracting,” she corrects, shaking her head.
“Same thing.” She rolls her eyes and smiles. She smiles, and I feel some twitching going on in my chest and it needs to fucking stop. “Want to go grab pizza?” I’m suddenly really hungry for pizza and she seems like the perfect person to do that with.