Love and Other Unknown Variables

by Shannon Alexander

  “Oh, she does?”

  “Yes.”

  “What do you say?”

  “What do I say to what?”

  Charlotte chuckles. “I’m going to give you a pass on that invitation.” Her fingers massage my skull making my mind blank out. “Where is Greta?”

  I can’t even remember who Greta is for a second. When it comes to me, I manage to murmur, “Mad.”

  Charlotte’s fingers freeze in my hair. “At whom?”

  “Me. Always me. I’m kind of a huge disappointment as a best friend. She kinda saved my life, or at least my future life, one time. I owe her a lot, but this year feels different. I haven’t told her certain things.”

  “About me?”

  I nod. “Which sucks because she’s smart, not just about school stuff. She’s people smart. She helps me figure out my next steps, you know. Without her help, I may end up stepping in a land mine.”

  “You should definitely talk to her if she’s mad,” she says, her fingers moving through my hair again, behind my ears, along my neck. It feels so damn good. “A sincere apology wouldn’t hurt.”

  “She could finally get that video footage she wants.”

  Charlotte chuckles. “Yeah, I don’t know what that means.”

  “We should definitely double,” I say just as Becca yells for Charlotte to come see something.

  Charlotte leans so her lips are just above my forehead. “Ask me when we’re sober.” She lays my head on the grass where I instantly pass out.

  4.0

  James smacks my shoulder. “Hey, we gotta go. I hear someone coming.” He’s trying to pull me to my feet. Either he’s slurring or my ears are stuffed with cotton.

  When I stand up, the trees around us do a funny jig. “Oh, God. Dancing trees are not good.” Charlotte buoys me up from one side, while James holds the other. We all lean into each other for stability as a lone figure comes around the corner.

  “What the hell’s going on?”

  Busted.

  Greta stops five paces before us and puts her hands on her hips. Becca yelps and hides behind James.

  “It’s Greta! Hey, guys! It’s Greta!” James shouts and barrels toward her. Charlotte catches me before I face plant. “I didn’t know if you got my text, but you did! And you’re here!”

  Greta eyes the mostly empty bottle in James’s hand. He holds out the bottle toward her. “I saved some just for you.”

  Greta grimaces, but it turns into a lopsided grin. “Um, wow, I’ll pass on the alcoholic backwash, but thanks.”

  James nods. “You sure?”

  She laughs. “Yep.” When she looks at me, leaning on Charlotte, her expression gets grim. “You okay, Chuck?”

  I don’t answer. My brain feels like it’s wrapped in a fur coat.

  “He’s fine,” James says, wrapping an arm around Greta. “I did good, huh?”

  “Good?”

  “They look cute.”

  “They look wasted.”

  “We can hear you,” Charlotte sings.

  Greta glares at her.

  I’m concentrating on keeping my feet under me. I must have Dad’s sucky-alcohol-metabolism-disorder. James seems to be better off. He can walk and talk at the same time.

  “No one’s wasted,” James says, demonstrating his amazing walking/talking skills.

  Just then my legs buckle, and Charlotte can’t hold me up. I sit down on my ass and end up pulling Charlotte down with me. Greta eyes us, folds her arms over her chest, and then glares at James.

  “He’s tired is all,” James says.

  I groan. Becca helps Charlotte up, but I just roll over on my face. The cool grass feels exquisite. Yes, I said exquisite.

  I silently pray. Please, lord of drunken night stupidity, let me get out of this with just a shred of my dignity. I think I asked Charlotte on a date. Unfortunately, I don’t remember her answer. Now Greta is here making her mean face. And I get why she’s mad at me, but why’s she looking at Charlotte like that? And dear lord of drunken stupidity, also could I not puke on anyone right now? Thanks.

  “Oh-kay.” Greta stomps over and pulls me to my feet. She leads me away from Charlotte. “Let’s go. I came back to talk to Charlie, but I can see it’ll have to wait.”

  “You can talk, G. We’re listening,” James says, pinning my other arm in his grip.

  Greta searches my face and looks over her shoulder to where Becca and Charlotte are leaning on each other. “Nope. Let’s go.”

  “Right,” James says, lifting the bottle in a toast and finishing it off. “Homeward.” He tosses the empty bottle into the creek. It makes a funny plunking sound.

  Greta and James lead me off toward home with Becca and Charlotte trailing after us. I look over my shoulder once and catch Charlotte’s eye. I hope my expression tells her how sorry I am that my underage adoptive parents are psychos and all, but I probably just look like I’ve got alcohol poisoning.

  ---

  I wake to a distinct pounding. My mouth feels like I’ve spent all night sucking on James’s ratty Adidas sneakers. And my head—oh my God, my head. I wriggle further under my covers to get away from the thudding in my head.

  Except it isn’t just in my head.

  Thud! Thud! Thud! “Better be decent in there, boys. I’m coming in.”

  I peek from my covers. Greta promised she’d be back, first thing in the morning. Actually, she said, “I can’t talk to you when you look like you’re gonna puke. Sleep it off drunk-ass.”

  The door flies open, but gets stuck when it jams into James’s body sprawled on the floor. It had to hurt, but he only moans and rolls over.

  Greta stomps into the room and slams the door. My head erupts with another round of pounding, and I want to retreat, but I’ve been spotted.

  “Get up,” Greta yells. Maybe she isn’t yelling, but it feels like it. She rips the pillow from under my head and whirls to smack James with it. “You, too, Sleeping Beauty.” She hits him again. He snuffles and grabs the pillow from her mid-smackdown. Snuggling up to the pillow, he falls comatose again.

  Greta rolls her eyes and turns back to me. “You sober?”

  The room tilts like a gyroscope as I sit up. My throat feels raw. “Maybe. I honestly don’t know.”

  “I barely got you home last night. How much did you drink?”

  I squint in the dim light. “I don’t know.”

  “What were you thinking?”

  “You were gone. We don’t do well without you.”

  Greta slumps into my desk chair, like all the angry wind holding her afloat has died away. “Jesus, Chuck. What are you going to do next year when we’re at different schools?”

  “Throw myself into my work?”

  Greta’s smirk is grim. “As long as that work doesn’t involve the distillation of ingredients to produce C2H5OH.”

  “Alcohol. Very funny.”

  Using her foot, Greta rolls James onto his side. Watching him sleep, she looks so sad.

  “I’m sorry, Gret.” I pause, swallowing hard. “Did you want to get your phone to video this?” Her right eye twitches a little. “Sorry for that, too,” I say, pointing at her eye. She smiles.

  “I should’ve told you about Charlotte. It was stupid. I’m stupid. But, Charlotte’s like—”

  Like what? The answer? I thought I had my future settled until I met Charlotte. Now, it’s all a blur.

  Greta gnaws a fingernail. There are shadows under her eyes. Even her curls look tired.

  “You’re my best friend,” I say. “I should’ve told you.”

  She nods. “You’re not the only one with secrets.” She frowns at James. I think she’s going to chew on her fingernail again, but instead, she gives her finger a good lick before reaching down and jamming it in James’s ear.

  “Arragag,” James sputters, sitting up and swatting at his ear. As soon as he’s vertical, his spit-soaked ear is the least of his worries. He grabs his head, smooshing his kinky curls. “Ohmygodmyhead hurtsIthi
nkI’mdying,” he mumbles before flopping back down.

  Greta chuckles. “Good. I hope your head hurts all the way to next week, you drunk.” She nudges him again. “Stay awake. I’m about to confess some shit.”

  James groans, but he’s paying attention.

  Greta inhales, sitting up straighter in the chair. “We all know Chuck and baby Finch are buddies, and Chuck sucks for not telling us.”

  James and I grunt because nodding would hurt too damn much.

  “Okay, before I go on, Chuck’s got to be honest.”

  “I will.”

  “How much do you already know about Charlotte Finch?”

  “Not much.” I pick at a grass stain on my pant leg. “She likes old movies where people randomly break into song, but also has an appreciation for comics.”

  James gives a thumbs up. “Cool.”

  “She sketches constantly in this notebook she keeps. She does this amazing hip wiggle thing when she dances. She smells like a garden of sugar-cookies—”

  I shut up, my ears suffering a sudden heat wave.

  “Ohh-kay,” Greta encourages me. “These are all super nice things, but what else?”

  There are plenty of other things I can say, but they would all fall into the “super nice things” category, and Greta looks like she might punch me if I continue down that vein.

  “I don’t know, G. What do you want me to say?”

  Greta looks away, watching the dust swirl in the gray light from the blinds.

  The pounding in my head ratchets up a notch forcing me to yell over it, “Greta, What? She’s a he? She’s wanted for murder? She has thirty days to live?”

  “Oh, Chuck.”

  I push myself up from the bed—too fast—the room sways, but I hold my ground. “Don’t you, ‘Oh, Chuck,’ me. What do you know?”

  Greta holds her hands up, surrendering. “When I met Charlotte here last night, I was shocked to be face to face with the girl whose secret I’d been hiding. When I bailed on you guys, it was mostly because I was mad at myself. I’m supposed to protect you, Chuck, and I failed.”

  “Secret?” I ask.

  “Dr. Whiting called my mom a week ago.”

  “What did that assbag want?” James growls from his prone position on the floor. “To threaten you some more?”

  Greta looks down at him. “I wish.”

  “What then?” I ask.

  “I’m not supposed to know this. I overheard my mom’s half of the conversation and some of Dr. Whiting’s, too.” Greta pauses to gnaw what’s left of the fingernail on her index finger (not the one that was just in James’s ear). “Ever noticed how loud he is? I always thought it was the school’s loudspeaker system, but no, that man is loud.”

  “Fortissimo,” says James, most of his face buried in his pillow.

  “People,” I say, my patience draining fast. “This tangent is not interesting me.”

  “Charlotte’s sick.” The words tumble out of Greta’s mouth.

  “Sick?” I see Charlotte in my mind’s eye, staring out at the rain from my porch.

  “Real sick, Chuck. Sick enough Dr. Whiting asked my mom to come meet Ms. Finch for a few therapy sessions.”

  “Whoa,” James says. He sits up too fast and reels. “That’s why Whiting was being all protective.”

  Greta nods. “He doesn’t care about Ms. Finch any more than he does about any of us though. I heard him say he was counting on her to turn around the school’s reputation. It’s all about the prestige. He’s worried Finch will let a little thing like her sister being sick get in the way of her performance at school.” This last sentence is so laden with sarcasm I fear the floor joists can’t hold its weight.

  “This is stupid.” I can feel anger ignite in my blood, like I’m an explosive ready to blow. Charlotte and sick do not go together. These are realities that cannot coexist.

  “What kind of sick?” James asks.

  “Cancer.”

  Monster.

  “What kind?” I ask.

  Greta shrugs.

  I don’t know why I asked. Charlotte already told me. Because I’m sick in the head.

  My mind is racing. This can’t be true. I’m still dreaming some messed up, alcohol-induced nightmare. The inside of my mouth feels like something vile has crawled in and died. I attempt to spit out whatever is decaying. “Fuck.”

  It doesn’t help.

  I pace my room and smash the remaining Oreos under my heels, feeling grim satisfaction as they crumble.

  “I’m sorry, man,” James says reaching a hand out as I pass.

  Greta explodes, “Freaking Dr. Whiting has the loudest freaking voice ever. Why can’t that man regulate his volume?” Like our principal’s booming baritone is to blame.

  “Yes, Gret,” James says, “He is the root of all evil.” He pats her knee.

  Greta stands and delivers a quick punch to his shoulder before taking me by the hand and leading me back to my bed and coaxing me to sit down. “You doing okay in there, Charlie?”

  She sits next to me, studying my face intently. When my mind broke before, Greta brought me to her mom. Dr. McCaulley taught me to look at stressful situations as triage. Scan the body and categorize the injuries: those that will heal on their own, those that will never heal regardless of the treatment, and those that treatment will immediately affect.

  “I don’t know, yet,” I tell Greta.

  We’re silent while I breathe and sift through my injuries. The churning in my gut will pass. The chaos in my head will need some work to sort through. But my chest, well, I feel like a grenade has blown that wide open.

  I cling to Greta’s hand. “I don’t know how to solve for any of this.”

  “So don’t,” she says. “Walk away. It’s not your job to solve anything for the Finches. They sucked you in, and this is going to chew you up and spit you out. Charlotte should have told you. She shouldn’t have pulled you into this. This is her fault. Walk away, Chuck.”

  She makes it sound so easy. But when I think about walking away, all I can see is the desperation in Charlotte’s eyes as she sat in the rain on my front porch. Can I honestly make that better? Make things easier for her?

  “I can’t walk away.”

  Greta’s sigh is a mountain shifting down to its eons old core. “Then you’ll figure it out.”

  “That’s a circular argument, Gret.”

  “Yes,” she says, patting my knee. “And you just love circles, don’t you?”

  I do. Circles are my favorite.

  4.1

  I falter a moment before knocking on Becca’s door. I finally convinced Greta and James to go, saying I was going to shower and sleep. But I couldn’t sleep. I lay in my bed counting silently, holding on to the numbers like they could stitch me back together. Numbers can do many things, but they make lousy bandages. I comb my fingers through my damp hair and knock.

  “Yup,” Becca calls.

  I open the door and peer in. Becca is reading and Charlotte is sketching. “Everyone in here feeling all right?” Jesus! That’s how I open the conversation? This is not going to go well.

  But the girls just smile. “Some of us can hold their liquor better than others, big bro.”

  “Yeah. That was rough.”

  We all stand there looking at each other for a minute before Charlotte asks, “Did you need something?”

  “Oh, yeah. Um…I need help with something for your sister’s class. Would it be cheating if I asked you?” The discomfort in my voice thuds louder than the music.

  Charlotte closes her sketchbook and stands.

  I study her, looking for a sign pointing to her cancer. Were there dark circles under her eyes last week? I don’t remember her MOMA T-shirt being so baggy on her. Has her hair always been so short? She looks tired and as if she needs a shopping intervention, but there’s nothing screaming, “Death is coming.”

  Charlotte shakes her head and sighs, like I’ve disappointed her somehow. Did she know I was
scanning her like a human MRI?

  “Be right back, Bec,” she calls over her shoulder. Standing in front of me she says, “Let’s go get a drink, Charlie.”

  I can feel my pasty skin go even paler at the mention of drinks. Becca laughs. I try to smile, but I’m afraid it looks more like a facial tick, so I drop Charlotte’s gaze and nod.

  Once we reach the kitchen Charlotte opens the fridge and pulls out a pitcher of tea. I grab two glasses and fill them with ice, then watch her fill them with the cold, brown brew. We lean on opposite ends of the kitchen island and don’t touch our drinks.

  “So, listen,” I start, but can’t find the words to finish.

  “Are you asking me out again?”

  I blink, the foggy memory of my head in Charlotte’s lap swirling around my mind like water in the toilet bowl. It makes me nauseated. How could I ask her out like that? She deserves better.

  “That’s a no?” Charlotte tries to smile, but the lines of worry between her brows make the smile look painted on. She gives up and pinches the bridge of her nose, squeezing her eyes shut. “How’d you find out?”

  “Find out what?”

  She opens one blue eye in a challenge. “There’s only one other thing I can think you would want to ask about that would make you look this uncomfortable around me.”

  “Greta’s mom is a shrink.”

  “What about the whole confidentiality thing?”

  “Our principal has no volume control. He suggested your sister meet with Greta’s mom to talk about—”

  Charlotte heaves a giant sigh. “Awesome.”

  “Is it true?”

  Charlotte stares at the ice in her glass. “It’s complicated.”

  “Shouldn’t be. It’s either true or false.”

  “Maybe in your world, but not in mine.”

  “Jesus, Charlotte. We live in the same world. I deserve to know the truth. Answer the question.” My palms are sweaty, so I press them up against the cold glass. Now the question is out there, I don’t want to know the answer.

  “It’s true I have cancer. Brain cancer.”

  The words sink into the space between us.