Selling the Drama

by Theresa Smith

  Charlotte watched him wordlessly, tears welling in her eyes, unable to articulate a reasonable response. She ate some more of her salad before asking him, "Isn't there any medication you can take to prevent the seizures?"

  Chad nodded. "I take some pills for it. Nothing makes it go away completely though. My brain has been permanently damaged. I'm kind of lucky really, I could have ended up so much worse. Anyway, Jenna is the first woman who's ever stuck it out with me. She's also the first one I've ever wanted to have stick it out with me, so I'm winning all round at the moment. I can't support her financially, but I try to do everything else I can for her. We're working it out as we go."

  "Did the person who attacked you get caught?" Charlotte was appalled at the thought of someone getting away with inflicting so much harm onto another person.

  "Oh, yeah, he went to jail. He wrote to me after he got out. A letter of apology for what he'd done to me."

  "How did you feel about the letter?"

  Chad shrugged, his expression non-committal. "I figure it was probably a lot harder for him to write than it was for me to read. You know, nothing he could say to me will ever change what's happened. I have to live like this for the rest of my life. But in saying that, hanging onto anger and being bitter about it won't change the outcome either. Some things just are what they are." He finished off his salad and gestured to her near empty plate. "Still hungry? I made a cheesecake as well."

  Charlotte groaned. "I am going to get so fat while I'm here."

  "Darl, you're about to get fat anyway, so you might as well enjoy the ride." He stood, holding out his hand for her plate.

  "Good point." She stood then, taking his plate from him. "I'll clear up while you get the cheesecake."

  They both paused then at the sound of a car pulling into the drive. Charlotte turned from the table and crossed over to the front window, peering out through her grandmother's old lace curtains that Jenna still had hanging over every window. Turning back to Chad, she passed him the plates still in her hand. "I'll have to take a rain check on the cheesecake. That's Toby."

  "Baby daddy?" He took the plates from her, a look of sympathy settling onto his face.

  She nodded.

  "Are you afraid of him?"

  Charlotte was surprised by this question. She looked at Chad carefully and he dropped his eyes to her arm, the faded mark from where Toby had grabbed her still evident. She felt her cheeks flush at the implication. "No. No, definitely not. He's not like that."

  Chad looked as though he did not believe a word of it, but even so, he left her to it, disappearing into the kitchen with the plates in hand, off to clear up and then do his yard work into the afternoon. Charlotte could not help but wonder, in light of his disclosure about his injury, if he mowed so often and trimmed the trees every day because he had forgotten that he had done it all the day before. The sadness of that thought was entirely overcoming. Toby's footsteps could be heard on the creaking stairs leading up to the veranda, so Charlotte went to open the door before he had a chance to knock.

  He stared at her through the mesh of the screen door and to her complete mortification, she began to cry before he even had an opportunity to say anything.

  As she stood there crying on the other side of the door, Toby was gripped with a feeling of profound sadness, this place they had found themselves in was somewhere he had never envisaged for them. He had seen Charlotte cry plenty of times before, yet not many of those times had been because of something he had personally done to her. His eyes travelled over her and came to rest on the mark he had made on her arm. He stared at it, another feeling taking place within him. He had not realised he had grabbed her so hard; another thing for him to chalk up in the tally of shitty things he had done to deserve her leaving him.

  He let himself into the house and cautiously approached her, still weeping just inside the door. He wanted to apologise, but sorry seemed nowhere near enough of a platitude to convey all that he was feeling in this moment of confrontation. As he stood there wavering, unsure about what to say or do, a guy Toby had never seen walked into the room and headed directly over to Charlotte, wrapping his arm around her shoulder and steering her away, disappearing up the hallway with her, not a word being exchanged between them the entire time. He returned moments later, alone, approaching Toby with his hand held out.

  "Chad. I'm Jenna's boyfriend."

  Toby took the proffered hand cautiously, relieved at finding out he belonged to Jenna, yet still wary of this guy's involvement with the situation at hand. "Toby."

  "Cheers, shame we couldn't meet under better circumstances. I'm going to head outside, I've got some work to do. But I just wanted you to know, I've told Charlotte that I'll be within hearing distance."

  Toby bristled with indignation, Chad's unspoken accusation causing his defences to raise, along with his temper. "That mark on her arm was an accident." As the words slipped out though, he was reminded of how many times he had heard that very same excuse proffered in the past, and it grated against his conscience that he had just uttered it himself.

  Chad shrugged. "You tell yourself that all you like."

  "I don't think any of this is your business." Toby had timed this trip with the intent of avoiding Jenna, yet instead, he was facing off with this meddling arsehole.

  "Maybe not. But Charlotte is very vulnerable right now and I think she needs someone in her corner. I'm the only one here right now besides you, and you haven't done much from what I can tell to make her feel all that safe."

  Toby took a step back, conceding defeat. The guy was completely right. He would just look worse if he kept arguing with him and possibly ruin any chance he had of seeing Charlotte without Jenna standing guard over her. The longer he stood here with this guy, the closer it got to the time Jenna would get home and he needed to see Charlotte alone; it was his only way of possibly getting her to leave with him today.

  Chad nodded to him. "She'll be out in a bit. Help yourself to a cuppa, there's some cheesecake in the fridge if you're hungry."

  Toby watched him leave, marvelling at the lunacy of a person who thought he could possibly sit down and have a cuppa with a piece of cheesecake while his entire fucking universe was disintegrating around him. The guy was perfect for Jenna.

  Charlotte sat opposite Toby in the lounge room, feeling only a small measure of composure in the wake of a jagged fifteen minute crying fit. Neither of them seemed to know what to say.

  Toby leaned forwards, gesturing to her arm. "I am so sorry I did that to you. I didn't mean to grab you so hard."

  Charlotte looked down at her arm for the second time that day. "I seriously haven't given it any thought. I bruise easily, you know that." She sat back into the couch with a weary sigh, assessing Toby openly. He did not look his best right now. In fact, he looked like he might not have slept at all since she had left. He certainly had not bothered to shave or comb his hair. "Are you trying to look pathetic so I feel sorry for you?"

  He smirked. "I am pathetic. I don't need to try for it."

  She smiled sadly in return, a heavy pain within her chest. It came from too much crying, yet she could not help but think this was possibly how it felt when a person's heart was breaking, and that just brought on a whole new welling of tears to be suppressed, increasing the pain further.

  "I want you to come home."

  Of course he did. Instead of addressing that statement, Charlotte decided to address the actual problem between them. "I didn't have an abortion." She watched him carefully as he processed this, and she saw it, a tiny flicker, but it happened, and as it did, she felt the hope she had been nursing disintegrate into nothing but sorrow. "You thought I went and had it done?"

  He sucked in a deep breath and held it for a few moments before releasing it harshly. He stood up and paced around for a bit, agitation all over him. Charlotte watched him in silence, knowing how much he was struggling in the moment, understanding, yet not sympathetic. This had ceased to be about his comf
ort. This was no longer about what suited him.

  Turning, he faced her, placing his hands onto the back of the couch he had just been sitting on. "I just wish you could see this from my perspective."

  Charlotte rose to her feet angrily. "What about my perspective?!" The anguish within was deep. "I have your baby growing inside of me! I love you! That you could even ask me to do this!" Tears spilled over her cheeks. "I am four months pregnant, nearly half way there. Your perspective doesn't even count. Your perspective is the most hurtful thing I have ever encountered and the fact that you came here today still thinking I might have done it shows just how out of touch with me you really are." Charlotte collapsed back onto the couch, her tears degenerating into sobs once more, the kind that tear through and pull at every part of you.

  Toby stared at her, a stunned expression on his face. "How have you gotten so far in this pregnancy without me knowing?"

  Charlotte looked up him, dragging her hands across her face to rid it of the tears that seemed to have no end within her. "That's a valid question, Toby. Why didn't you know?"

  He shook his head then, a bitter laugh escaping him. "And here we go with that again."

  "With what? With me whining at you that you don't make any time for us? That you don't listen to me when I talk? That you barely look at me for days on end because you're too busy looking at books and papers and whatever the hell it is you consider more important than us? Is that what you're referring to? Maybe if you'd looked at me, really looked at me, you might have seen. Maybe if you actually listened to me when I talk to you, you would have heard me on one of the five occasions I told you I was pregnant." Charlotte dropped her head into her hands, breathing heavily, the high emotion bringing on a wave of breathlessness that was leaving her somewhat dizzy.

  "Don't you dare sit there and tell me that you told me you were pregnant and that I ignored you. That's fucking bullshit. You might have tried to bring it up in that roundabout way you have of saying everything and nothing and then getting pissed off because I'm not responding, but if you had stood beside me and actually said those words, I can tell you now I would have heard you loud and clear and you would've known about it." He came around to the front of the couch and sat down heavily onto it, casting his gaze across to Charlotte, who was still sitting hunched over, hidden behind her own hands. "So, we're having a baby now?"

  Charlotte lifted her head and looked back at him angrily. "No, I'm having a baby. You're becoming a lawyer. You can't do both of those things at the same time, apparently."

  Toby made no reply to that. "You know that, in about six to eight months' time, things will be different-"

  Charlotte cut in over the top of him. "Things will never be different with you. You'll just trade studying for working. I've lived inside your plan for years now. I know the intricacies of it. I know how you operate. And I don't want my baby to be something you pencil into your break time. I've had enough of that for myself."

  "That's not fair. I have never regarded you as a part of a schedule. If you ever needed me, I have always been there for you. This year has been particularly busy, I'll acknowledge that, but that doesn't mean I haven't been available to you if you needed me. You're just twisting things after the fact to suit your argument now." Toby regarded Charlotte in silence for several moments. "Do we have to do this here? Just get your stuff so we can go home. We can work things out as we go along."

  Charlotte laughed at that, a humourless sound that echoed throughout the stillness of the house. "You still think you can just tell me what to do? I'm not going home with you."

  "Why not?"

  "Have you been present this entire time? This is what I'm talking about, Toby! You just don't get it! I am not a thing! I am not your possession to order about! I am so sick of feeling insignificant. Every person, Mum first, then Dad, and now you. I want to be the reason you exist. I want that for our baby as well. But I don't think you have that in you. Your dedication to your career is admirable. I just wish you could shift some of that focus over to your personal life."

  Toby appeared to be contemplating her words. Frowning, he looked at her intently, an inscrutable expression coming over his face. "Right from the very first moment I touched you, you have been the reason I exist."

  Charlotte swallowed deeply, overcome once again. "Toby, do you want this baby?"

  "I don't see the point to that question. I have no choice."

  "There's always a choice," Charlotte replied quietly.

  "I will not answer that question. There's no way I can answer that question and make you happy. No, you win. Yes, I'm a liar and you win. What do you want to do here, Charlotte? What is it you want right now?"

  Staring at him, Charlotte was gripped with the realisation that if she went home with him today, her life would most likely be one continuous compromise in his favour. He was flipping this situation back onto her, very deliberately presenting her with a way of giving him an out. Tell me what you want so I can deliver and we can go back home and I can get what I want and you can just keep on giving it to me. Charlotte put her head against the back of the couch, closing her eyes against him. "I want you to want our baby." She opened her eyes to his silence.

  "That's going to take some time."

  "So is my coming back to you."

  "How am I supposed to get used to the idea of us having a baby if we aren't together?"

  Charlotte shrugged. "That's for you to figure out."

  "Where are you going to live?"

  "In Cairns. With Mum."

  Toby's eyes widened, and he could not have looked more surprised if she had slapped him. "What about your job?"

  "I put in for a transfer to the Far North region and they phoned me this morning to let me know that they have a space if I want it. I start there in three weeks. I'll stay in a hotel between now and then while I finish up down here."

  "So it didn't matter what I said or did here today, you already had this all worked out." He was angry now, feeling duped, no doubt.

  Which just served to clarify once again to Charlotte, that he had no idea. No idea at all. She watched as he stood, pacing before her. "There is always a choice, Toby. I could have changed my mind if I really thought you were ready."

  He stopped pacing and dropped down in front of her, his hands coming to rest just above her knees. "Don't do this. It's too far away. I can't possibly prove to you that I can make time for you and a baby if you live at the other end of the state." His voice was pleading, his eyes desperate.

  Charlotte reached out and cupped his face. "This is not about you." She saw for the first time since he had shown up on the doorstep, a look of real fear within his eyes. It spurred her on to do this thing that she did not really want, yet knew was necessary if they had any chance at all of making it through this to the other side.

  He wrapped his hands around her wrists. "I don't want you to leave me."

  "I'm not leaving you. I'm giving you the opportunity to find out what it is that you really want."

  "I want you." His voice had a desperate edge to it now, as though he finally understood.

  "But I'm not just me anymore."

  Toby closed his eyes and leaned into her neck. Charlotte released his face, pushing him back, standing so she could move away from him. The last thing she needed right now was his hands on her. She heard him stand behind her but did not turn around.

  His voice was thick with tears as he spoke to her back. "I should have known right from the moment you told me today that you love me that this was not going to go my way. You never tell me you love me."

  This was all too true. Even after all these years she still balked at saying those words to him. Spinning around with tears in her eyes, she smiled at him with sadness. "I never tell you because those words are ridiculous. They're completely meaningless unless they're backed up with tangible proof. People can say 'I love you' all they like, but unless they show you, take meaningful steps to prove it, then they might as well have said
, 'I think you're a piece of wood'. I've said it today because I mean it and I'm going to prove it to you by having your baby, even if I have to do it without you. There is always a choice, and I've made mine. It's time now for you to think about making yours."

  CHAPTER NINE

  Iris greeted Charlotte at the door with a look of utter perplexity on her face. "Charlotte! What on earth are you doing here?"

  "Mum!" She shoved her way in through the doorway, bags loaded in both hands. "I told you over the phone that I would be coming today!"

  "You did?" Iris surveyed Charlotte and the bags she had just dumped into the hall with confusion. Looking out through the door to the street, she said, "Where's Toby?"

  "Mum!" Charlotte put her hands onto her hips, exasperation flooding her. "Did you even listen to a single word I was saying to you when we talked?"

  "Refresh me, darling." Iris reached down and picked up the smallest bag, carrying it up into Charlotte's old room.

  Charlotte followed behind, lugging one of the heavier bags with her. "We are on a break," she said, grinding her teeth over the words.

  "Why?" Iris was leaning over the bed, the cover pulled back as she inspected the sheets. "They'll do. I changed them after your last visit." She straightened then, turning to face Charlotte. "Well? What's this about a break?"

  Charlotte merely shook her head and threw her bag down, stomping out into the hall for the other one. She dragged it up into her room and then turned to face her mother, placing a hand on each shoulder, looking right at Iris to ensure there was no possibility of her not taking any notice of what she had to say.

  "I am pregnant. Toby does not have time to be a father right now so I'm moving back here because to be around him is akin to sticking needles into my own eyeballs while walking on glass. Don't worry, I have a job, so I won't be here all the time. You can still roam around from room to room like the ghost of good times past that you seem to have turned yourself into. But once the baby is born, I'd really like it if you could snap the hell out of it, because I might need a little bit of a hand for a while." Charlotte released her mother then and turned to leave the room, calling over her shoulder, "Cup of tea?"