"I haven't seen her or spoken to her at all today, or yesterday, or the day before. Okay?"
He nodded, rubbing his hand over his face. "She has her phone switched off. I tried Ellie, but she was at work and hadn't heard from her all day either. I don't know where she is. She called in sick for work." He stopped then, unable to give her anything more, unwilling to elaborate.
"Is this the first fight you two have ever had?" There was a hint of amusement within her voice.
Toby straightened. "No! And this isn't a fight." He took a step back, his fury at her, at the futility of this visit, at the entire situation, it was all converging within him and he was very close to losing it right now.
"Then what is it?"
"It's a mess. And I don't know what to do about it." A very real panic was taking place within him in the wake of a realisation that he may have inadvertently stuffed up the greatest thing to have ever happened to him.
"Go home, Toby," Jenna said, not without sympathy. "She'll turn her phone on when she's ready. Or she'll just come home. Go on."
"She's taken stuff with her."
Jenna shrugged. "I've done that before. You can always bring it back. Toby, I think you're just over reacting."
Toby stared at her wordlessly. She would think that. Because she had no idea what he had done. The full gravity of the situation was only just beginning to make an impact on him. He had not expected this. Not for a single moment. He had expected Charlotte to be upset, to even hold it against him for a time, but not to leave him. He had come to rely on her steady acquiesce over the years and in its absence, he felt as though he was running blind. Was it so unreasonable to just stick to a plan? Taking his leave of Jenna, he got back into the car and drove away from her little house. Braking at the end of the driveway, he pulled out his phone and tried Charlotte one more time, to no avail, before hitting the highway.
There was a soft knock on the hotel door and Charlotte pulled it open, so grateful to see Ellie on the other side of it that she instantly burst into tears. Ellie pulled her into her arms as she stepped into the room, closing and locking the door behind her. Charlotte sobbed onto her shoulder for a good ten minutes before pulling back and attempting to get herself back together while Ellie silently handed her tissue after tissue in order to get the job done.
"What's going on? Toby rang me at work all cagey, asking me if I knew where you were but not giving me any reasons at all about why he didn't know himself. Then Jenna rang telling me Toby had gone tearing up to her place demanding she tell him if she had heard from you or seen you at all. He told her he thought you had left him, which is more information than what he was willing to give me. And then you call me from this hotel, which, I might just add, is a pretty swish affair." Ellie looked around the room in appreciation. "I guess that even when you're fighting you still have access to his credit card."
Charlotte threw the tissues into the bin and got up to grab herself a glass of water from the kitchenette. "I can pay for things myself you know. I have a job."
Ellie made no reply to that.
Charlotte looked at her from across the room. In the silence, Ellie's phone began to ring. She pulled it out and glanced down at the display.
"It's Toby. What do you want me to do?"
"Ignore it."
Ellie tucked the phone, still ringing, back into her bag.
"I'm pregnant."
Ellie's head shot up, her gaze widening as it connected with Charlotte's. They stared at each other for a few more long moments before Ellie nodded with understanding. "He's upset?"
Charlotte laughed then, without humour. "That's one way of putting it. He wants me to have an abortion."
Ellie's mouth dropped open, her eyes widening with surprise. "He actually said that?"
"He even made me up a list of places where I could go to get it done."
Ellie's body slumped back against the couch then, her face filling with sadness. "Oh, Charlotte, I'm so sorry to hear that."
Charlotte snorted. "You're not the only one."
Ellie's phone rang again. She reached into her bag and pulled it out, waving it at Charlotte. "It's Toby again."
Charlotte turned around and placed both hands onto the bench, leaning heavily against it. She turned with surprise when she heard Ellie's voice, clearly answering the call. Charlotte had assumed she would just let it ring out again.
"Hello, arsehole," she greeted.
Charlotte winced, clicking her fingers in an effort to try and catch Ellie's attention, but she was deliberately not looking her way.
"Yes, I am with her right now. And no, you can't talk to her." Ellie paused as she listened to whatever Toby had to say. "Don't be so sure. She's too upset to talk to you and there is no way in hell I am telling you where we are." Another pause. "Good luck with that." She flipped her phone shut and tossed it back into her bag. Looking over at Charlotte, she bit her lip, as though contemplating what her next words were going to be. "He thinks you had the abortion this morning."
Charlotte burst into tears again.
Toby was hung-over. In the worst possible way. He was onto his third can of Redbull and it was only nine thirty. It was probably time to bust out the Nurofen Plus. Just to take the edge off.
"Why the fuck do you look like death?" Jake shouldered past him by way of greeting, a dark expression on his face.
Toby slammed the front door and followed him up to the kitchen. Crossing to the pantry, he pulled out a packet of soluble aspirin, tearing off four and dumping them into a glass of water. He set it down on the bench and fixed his gaze to the fizzing froth, ignoring Jake for the time being while he sifted through his clouded thoughts.
Running his hands over his face, he groaned, sinking down into a chair at the table, at last casting Jake a heavy look. "I expect you know what's going on?"
Jake sat down at the table opposite Toby, a pissed off expression settling onto his face. "I know what Ellie's told me, and I have to say, if what she says is true, then you've made a dick move. Really fucking bad, mate."
Toby got up to grab his aspirin, now dissolved. Looking out of the kitchen window, he drained the glass, shuddering at the end as the undissolved residue hit his tongue. Speaking without turning, he addressed Jake with a sombre tone, the gravity of this situation weighing heavily on him. "Is Charlotte alright? Sometimes there can be adverse effects-"
Jake hit Toby hard from behind, the unexpected force knocking the glass out of his hand and causing it to clatter into the sink, shattering upon impact. Toby spun around only to have Jake grab him around the throat, his eyes wide with fury, a look of disgust on his face that Toby could not help but flinch from.
"I never thought I would look at you and want to kill you. Not you. But right now, I'd happily squeeze your throat until you passed out. I don't fucking know who you are. You are so incredibly selfish it makes me sick. She's your girlfriend, and you would send her down to some clinic to get your baby dragged out of her so they can throw it in the fucking bin like it's some piece of garbage you can't be bothered with. I am so disgusted by you at the moment; you have no idea. No fucking idea." Jake released his grip and shoved himself away from Toby, turning on his heel and stomping out of the kitchen, slamming his way out of the flat.
Toby was gripped with a feeling he had long been without, and as the shaking began and the sweat erupted, so too did the anxiety of his youth. By way of fortune he was still standing in front of the sink as it all came pouring forth. He only wished he could purge out the rot that was embedded deep within him, yet it held fast, gripping to the core of him, as it always had. Tears coursed down his face, yet these were not as a result of his hurling, although it had perhaps induced them. What maintained them was a sorrow that brought him low and he wept, grief overcoming him as he leaned into the kitchen sink. There was a very real possibility he might never be able to make up for this hurt he had inflicted upon Charlotte. He was worse than his father. So much worse. There was something almost cr
uelly liberating in seeing yourself in such a toxic light. There was no further to sink, no lower to go, no more shame than what already existed.
"So, what do you want to do?"
Charlotte shrugged dejectedly. "I don't know."
"Do you want to stay with me and Jake?"
Charlotte looked at Ellie gratefully. Her offer was generous, but entirely impractical. "I can't do that to the two of you."
"Jenna?"
"Maybe." Charlotte sighed heavily and tears filled her eyes, once again. It seemed she had done nothing but cry for the last two days. "I could always just go home. To Cairns."
Ellie was quiet beside her. "Yes, you could."
Charlotte looked over at Ellie, connecting with her wide blue eyes. "I miss my dad. I would go home in an instant if he were there. But if he were still there, I wouldn't need to. Because Toby would never have done this if Dad were still around. Everything is ruined because he left! Everything!" Charlotte wailed as tears ran down her face.
She dropped her face into her hands, well aware that she had crossed the line into hysteria. It was unfair to blame her father for this, but it hurt so much that he was not here for her right now. She could go home to Cairns, but who could say what her mother would be like when she got there. Iris simply drifted in and out of each day now, living at whim, entirely devoid of any interest whatsoever in Charlotte's life. What would she say if Charlotte were to turn up on her doorstep with a baby on the way? She would likely just ring Toby and insist that he come and pick her up.
Ellie's arm wrapped around her shoulder, pulling her into a hard hug. "I'll take you to Jenna's. It's a good place to start."
"Toby will find me there," Charlotte replied, tearfully.
"Charlotte, Toby will find you anywhere."
This was entirely true of course. The minute she left this hotel he would be able to find her. She could leave her phone turned off all she liked, but he was not stupid. He knew there were only three places she might go for any extended period of time. It was just going to be a matter of seeing how long he would wait until he sought her out.
"Do you hate him for this?" Ellie's voice had a hard edge to it now.
Charlotte shook her head.
"How can you not hate him for this?" Ellie appeared to already hate him enough for the both of them, but this was not unsurprising. Ellie and Toby had always been careful around each other. Neither Charlotte nor Jake really knew why; nothing had ever happened between them, yet as the years passed by, it was becoming more and more apparent that they put up with each other out of duty and obligation, with no real affection between them whatsoever. "I can't think of a more despicable thing he could have done to you. Jake is furious with him as well, and that's saying something, because Jake has always thought the sun shines out of Toby's arse."
Charlotte lifted her head from where she had it buried in her hands to look at Ellie sorrowfully. "Don't make Jake take sides. Seriously, I don't want that."
Ellie shrugged. "Jake will do what he wants. Toby deserves anything and everything he gets from this."
Charlotte stood up and walked away from Ellie. She was unable to deal with this right now. There was a baby inside of her who had a father who did not want it. She did not have it in her to think about how other people were feeling about this right now. She hardly knew what she was feeling herself. Wiping her face from tears, she spoke to Ellie over her shoulder. "I'll go to Jenna's for a couple of days, but I have a job, a good job, and I'm not going to give that up because I don't want to see Toby right now. I'll spend the time at Jenna's working out what I'm going to do. I don't need to figure it all out today."
"Okay. Do you want to go back to the flat to get any more stuff?"
Charlotte shook her head. "Not yet." She was not ready to do that and it had nothing to do with the possibility of running into Toby. There was a finality to packing up everything that she was not yet ready for.
Jake's phone rang mid-conversation. He paused, looking down at the screen before raising his finger. "Sorry, I have to take this. Back soon." He slid out of the booth and headed to the exit.
Toby looked over at Ellie who was studying her plate of food with a level of concentration that came over as completely false. He contemplated just ignoring her for the duration, her continued rudeness to him was seriously pissing him off more and more each minute he was forced to endure her company, but right now, she had information he did not. Information he very much wanted. So instead of meeting like with like, he smiled over at her, nudging her foot with his own.
She looked up at him with a dark expression, saying nothing.
"So, how's things?"
She shook her head at him with contempt. Could she be any more obvious with how much she hated him?
"All peachy, thanks."
She stared, assessing him carefully before taking a look around the restaurant. Looking for Jake, no doubt. Toby braced himself for whatever onslaught she was about to let loose on him.
"You remember that time I killed Porter? Right before he was about to hurt Charlotte even more than he already had done?" She waited, taking a sip from her drink, holding his gaze all the while.
Toby sighed heavily but gave her no response.
She took his silence as a mark to continue. "I never ended up feeling bad about that."
"Well, some might say that makes you a psychopath," Toby replied dryly.
"You'd know all about that," she replied tartly. "My point though, is that given the right motivation, maybe we, as humans, can shrug off an otherwise heinous act. I mean, I would never kill Jake, for example, just for the sake of it. But you, however, are a different story. If you hurt Charlotte any more than you already have, I will kill you." Ellie smiled widely then, a look upon her face totally at odds with the threat she had just issued.
Toby looked at her with barely concealed rage. "Did you take her to Jenna's or put her on a plane to Cairns?"
"Go to hell."
"Whatever." He shrugged. "I'll just go to Jenna's and find out for myself."
"Good luck with her giving you anything more than I have." Ellie drained her drink, sucking hard at the dregs clinging to the ice cube, a loud slurping noise breaking the heavy silence between them.
Toby sat back then, reaching into his pocket for his wallet. He pulled out a twenty and tossed it at Ellie. "That's for my share of dinner. Tell Jake I'll see him tomorrow afternoon and he can talk to me then. I'm not waiting here with you."
She looked at him from beneath her eyelashes. "Ooh, poor Toby. It's tough when you can't get your own way, isn't it?"
Toby slid out of the booth, ignoring her snarky glare. He bloody hated her. With a passion. And she knew it. She also did not give a damn. He had been reluctant to go charging back up to Jenna's. If Charlotte was indeed there, then Jenna would now know the reason why Charlotte had left him, and if there was one woman on this earth who would be inclined to try and stick a knife in his eye over this, Jenna was it. You would think, in hindsight, he might have considered this lesson from the past a little earlier than now.
Jenna had a new boyfriend living with her. Well, he was not that new, they had in fact been together for about three months, but he was new enough that Charlotte had not yet had an opportunity to meet him. His name was Chad, thirty two years old, unemployed, incredible to look at.
Jenna's standard criteria had by all accounts been met.
He may be unemployed, but Charlotte could not fault him as a housekeeper. Jenna's place had never looked so good, both inside and out. He could cook as well, and not just meat with three vege, but all sorts of food that Charlotte had never even heard of and that tasted out of this world. As the days slipped by, Charlotte was beginning to think that having a man who was employed outside of the home was a little overrated.
She waited for Toby to show up, or to call, but he did neither.
"How did you and Jenna meet?" Charlotte glanced up from the salad Chad had made her for lunch and met his eyes
across the table. They were alone together each day during the hours Jenna was at work. He was easy company. He talked if she asked him something, offered her food at regular intervals, and pretty much left her to her own wallowing and self-pity in between.
He smiled, his face dimpling in each cheek perfectly. Apart from the lack of a job, he really was a bit of a catch. "We hooked up one night and found that we hit it off in other ways too. So we kept seeing each other. And here we now are, living happily ever after." He grinned, amused by Charlotte's sceptical expression. "Jenna is very special. I've never met another woman like her."
Charlotte softened at that. Jenna was indeed a special woman. She wore her heart on her sleeve and was constantly having it broken on account of always giving it away too quickly. "I'm glad you recognise that in her. She's not had much luck with relationships."
Chad nodded at that. "Neither have I."
"And why is that?" Charlotte ate some of her salad then, overcome once again by how he could turn anything at all into something that surpassed delicious.
"I'm not exactly an easy person to live with," Chad said, assessing her carefully.
Charlotte rolled her eyes and gestured to her salad with her fork. "Yeah, I can see how living with you would be torture. Gourmet food and a kept house and yard. Jenna must be going out of her head."
Chad smiled thinly at her but it seemed forced. "When I was twenty I got hit in the head with a piece of pipe. It was a random attack. I was with friends coming home from a nightclub and we got jumped. I have an acquired brain injury from it. It limits my employment opportunities. I get these seizures, they can happen at any time, I just go down and they can last anything from two to twenty minutes. If you see me having one, you don't need to call an ambulance, I'm alright; it just needs to run its course. But I forget stuff a lot as well. Sometimes really important stuff. It's not the type of thing that everyone wants to live with." He returned his attention back down to his salad, picking the tomatoes out of it and eating them first.
Selling the Drama Page 17