by KL Hughes
Charlee’s fingers squeezed around Alex’s. “It’s so beautiful here.”
Her hair swished in the grass when she turned her head and smiled, blue eyes bright in the moonlight. Alex suddenly felt like everything—every broken path she’d traveled, every night spent yearning for family, every time she whispered to herself not to give up, not to ever give up—had led her here. To this. To Charlee.
She felt heavy and weightless all at once, grounded and floating.
Licking her lips, Alex opened her mouth to agree, and something else came out. “I love you, Charlee.”
It was only a whisper, so quiet it was nearly nonexistent, but Charlee’s smile stretched wide, and Alex felt it in her bones. They were growing together, always growing up from the ground like the dewy grass, up toward the stars like their gentle breath.
“You know I love you,” Alex whispered, tightening her grip on Charlee’s fingers. “Right?”
“I know.”
“Alex?”
Alex jerks from sleep and glances toward the doorway. The first thought that sparks in her mind is that Kari has returned, but the thought fizzles as Alex wakes. She knows that voice. She tries to force herself to move, make herself unravel from the blanketed ball she has become on the couch, but she can’t seem to make her limbs work.
“The door was unlocked, so I let myself in.”
Alex brushes her hair away from her face, the strands still damp from being out in the storm, and tries to move again. Manages to get herself up into a sitting position, still leaning heavily against the arm of the couch. She wraps her blanket tighter around herself and fixes her gaze on the changing colors of the Christmas tree. “In here,” she says, though she knows the words aren’t loud enough to carry.
Her eyes cloud as she hears footsteps draw nearer. The couch dips beside her, and an arm slides around her shoulders.
“Oh, honey,” Gabby says, and Alex allows herself to be drawn in.
She sinks into Gabby’s chest, and the sigh that escapes her shakes the tears from her eyes. They drip down her cheeks and over her chin, and Alex can’t bring herself to care enough to wipe them away.
“Kari’s gone,” she says, the words muffled against her blanket and Gabby’s sweater. She turns her head, breathes in Gabby’s familiar scent, and tries to let it soothe. “She took her clothes, some of her things. I tried calling. Over and over. I tried, and she won’t…” She stops when her lip quivers, when her voice threatens to fail her. Then she takes a breath and tries again. “She isn’t coming back.”
Gabby’s hand kneads soothing circles into Alex’s blanket-covered back. “Do you want her to come back?”
Alex lifts her head and looks at Gabby. “I want to make things right,” she says. “That’s what I came back here to do. That’s why I needed to see her. I need to make things right.”
“How would you do that?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, what exactly did you come here to do that you think might have made things right?”
Alex can do little more than stare at Gabby, unsure. Her lips move wordlessly. What was I going to say to her? What could I have said? After a moment, she manages to organize her thoughts and speak. “Apologize,” she says. “I wanted to apologize.”
“Okay. What else?”
Sitting up more fully, Alex fixes her blanket around her shoulders and settles her gaze on the Christmas tree again. “I wanted to explain. Or try to explain. Tell her she was right. She was right about all of it, about me, about how I feel—about how I’ve always felt.”
“How you feel about her?”
“About Charlee.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.” Her back hunches as she drops her chin to her chest. The disappointment she feels in herself and the guilt that has been brewing in her gut for far too long nauseate her, make her hate herself. Part of her wishes she could just curl back into a ball, close her eyes, and make the world go dark. Disappear.
“She was right,” she says. “And God, I should have realized what I was doing to her, to myself. I should have…” Her voice cracks on her tongue, then dies entirely. Her eyes flood. “I want Charlee. I’ve always wanted her. I never imagined I would spend my life with anyone else, not really, but I didn’t want to hurt Kari. I never wanted to hurt her. I never wanted to hurt anyone.”
“I know that.” Gabby runs her fingers through Alex’s hair. They snag on tangles, and Alex winces. “I need a brush. This is a mess.”
“In the bathroom,” Alex says. “Down the hall, on the right. Door’s open.”
Gabby heads down the hall. She returns a moment later with Alex’s large square hairbrush and settles onto the couch again, turning Alex’s back to her. With care, she begins to brush through Alex’s half-dry, half-damp hair, and the bristles scratch comfortingly across Alex’s scalp with each pass.
“That’s nice,” Alex says, and Gabby hums.
“Remember when I used to have to brush your hair out after you and Charlee swam in the lake? You used to whine that Charlee was too rough with the brush.”
“She was.” A ragged laugh escapes. Alex wipes her nose with the back of her hand and sniffles. “She pulled out more hair than she detangled.”
Their quiet laughter melds together and slowly fades into silence, nothing filling the room except the changing lights and the steady sound of the brush through Alex’s hair. Alex lets herself rest in it for a minute, finding it a far lighter weight to bear with Gabby there than it had been on her own, then she quietly asks, “How do I make this right if she won’t answer my calls?”
Gabby sets the brush aside on the coffee table. “I think the best thing you can do is to let go and move forward,” she says as Alex pivots on the couch to face her. “What good will talking to her do when all you can tell her is she was right?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean how would that benefit Kari?”
“She needs to know she was right about everything.”
“Honey, she knows she was right about everything. That’s why she left. She’s heartbroken, Alex, but she made the right choice for herself. You calling her or seeing her again only to say, ‘You were right; I do want to be with Charlee,’ is only going to hurt her more.”
“But—”
“This is about you.” Gabby places a hand on Alex’s knee. “You feel guilty, and it’s eating away at you, so you think acknowledging your guilt to Kari will make that feeling go away. You want everything wrapped up in a neat little package so you can tuck it away and say, ‘There, this is finished. I took care of it. Now I can move on to what I want.’ But, honey, it doesn’t work that way. Life’s too messy.” Gabby’s voice softens as she speaks. It’s the same voice she has used with Alex a thousand times before, even when teaching her a lesson. Her hard truths always come in gentle tones.
“We don’t always get the chance for forgiveness,” she says. “No matter how much we might want it. Life doesn’t always give us the chance to say what we need to say, or it does and we just don’t take it because we’re too scared or too proud or because we think there will be another chance later.” She pats Alex’s leg. “But even when we take the chances we’re given, the people we hurt aren’t obligated to unburden us with forgiveness or even with understanding. Some things, we just have to carry.” Gabby tilts her head and gives a sad smile. “You know that.”
Alex’s stomach lurches as the words sink in and burn. “I was trying not to hurt her,” she says. “And I was trying not to hurt Charlee. And I ended up hurting them both.”
“And yourself.” Gabby wipes through a fresh track of tears on Alex’s cheek. “But you can choose to forgive yourself and do better from now on. It doesn’t mean you won’t mess up again, because you will, and Charlee will too. We all will. But as long as we acknowledge our mistakes and keep working
to do better, that’s what matters. You understand?”
Alex nods and shifts to lie down. Still bundled, she rests her head in Gabby’s lap. “I’m glad you’re here.”
“Well, your sister called me,” Gabby says, patting Alex’s arm through the blanket. “Said she tried to call you a few times before her shift, but you didn’t answer. So she sent me to investigate.”
“Inspector Mom.” Alex lets out a ragged laugh.
“Not a bad title.” Gabby scratches lightly at Alex’s scalp. “Seems like you need one right now.”
“One what?”
“A mom.” She squeezes Alex’s arm. “Good thing you have one.”
Her heart swells at the words. “Thank you.”
The events of the day flood through Alex’s mind again as she lies in Gabby’s lap. She sighs. “I was with Charlee. Earlier, I mean, before I came back here.”
“And? Should I be worried about her as well?”
“I think she knows I’m with her,” Alex says, rolling in Gabby’s lap to look up at her. “I think she knows. I just needed—”
“To be with only her.”
Alex nods again. “I don’t ever want anything between us to be tainted. I don’t want our first kiss, the first time we really hold each other again… I don’t want to feel guilty or dirty or like I’m betraying anyone. I want to do it right, because loving her is the purest thing I’ve ever done. It’s the purest thing I’ve ever had.” A sick feeling claws its way up Alex’s throat as she thinks of Charlee’s eyes in the storm, pained and desperate, understanding but sad. “She knows I love her, right?”
Gabby smiles down at her. “She knows.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” Gabby pokes her side. “Now, let’s get you dressed. A blanket is not an outfit.”
Alex’s lips tug with a small smile, but it falters as she thinks about her empty bedroom. The hurt she caused Kari comes rolling back in waves, and she hesitates.
Gabby seems to understand, though, because she pats Alex’s arm and says, “You wait here. I’ll pack you a bag. You can stay with me tonight.”
She plants a kiss on Alex’s forehead before sliding out from under her, and Alex’s chest burns with an overwhelming feeling of gratitude, of love. She never thought she would get to have a mother, the kind who loves fiercely and unconditionally and never lets you forget it, but she does, and it’s good.
It is so incredibly good.
When her hand found only empty sheets, Charlee blinked awake and sat up. She was alone in bed, but she could hear the water running in the bathroom, so she knew Alex hadn’t left for class yet. She buried her nose in Alex’s pillow and breathed in the smell of her. It made her chest feel heavy in the best way, like it was slowly filling up, filling and filling and becoming so full that she could burst.
Charlee slipped out of bed, slid open the bedroom door, and padded across the cold concrete floor to the bathroom. A smile spread over her lips, sleepy but wide, when she found Alex standing at the sink, naked but for her green underwear, with toothpaste foam decorating her mouth and chin.
Steam clouded the mirror, and a haze hung in the air from the heat of Alex’s shower. Her wet hair was set in a loose knot at the base of her neck. Unnoticed, Charlee leaned against the doorway and watched as Alex rocked back and forth on her heels and scrubbed at her teeth, humming to some song Charlee couldn’t place.
Her chest felt heavy again, filling and filling. Suddenly, she was overwhelmed with what it meant to have someone in this way, to see forever in simple moments, in everyday routines, in foamy lips and wet hair and pillows that simultaneously smelled like a lover and like home.
Charlee stepped into the bathroom and wrapped around Alex from behind, pressed her naked chest to Alex’s bare back. She rested her ear against Alex’s shoulder blade, closed her eyes, and listened.
When the water shut off, Charlee could hear Alex’s heartbeat. It was steady and strong, and she drew in a deep breath at the sound. Tears fell from her lashes and rolled down her cheeks, melted into Alex’s skin.
Alex’s fingers played over Charlee’s arms. Foam muffled her voice enough to make Charlee smile. “Are you okay?”
Charlee nodded against her back, her cheek squeaking against damp flesh. “You’re the love of my life, you know.”
The damp pillow sticks to her cheek as Charlee burrows further into her old mattress and yanks the covers over her head. She’s pretty sure there’s snot running down her face, but she doesn’t care. Everything’s a blur in her mind, yet at the same time, everything’s clear. She can still feel Alex’s cold fingertips and the heat of her breath against her forehead. Alex’s words bounce between her ears, between her ribs.
Charlee, you’re the love of my life.
The feeling of her walking away is just as strong and alive as the image in Charlee’s mind, and both make the breath in her lungs feel solid and sharp.
She startles when the door to her studio suddenly opens. With her head buried in blankets, she hadn’t heard anyone come into the loft. She jerks up into a sitting position, body tense. The sight of her mother standing in the doorway, however, relaxes her.
Gabby gapes, taking in the space, and Charlee huffs out a breath.
“Surprise,” she says, her voice drawling. She settles back into place and pulls the covers over her head again. “This is what I’ve been hiding in here all this time.”
A short silence follows before her mother speaks. “I see.”
“It’s a legitimate shrine, I know.”
“Yes, it is.”
“Don’t make fun of me.”
“Honey, my closet’s still half-full of your father’s clothes,” Gabby says, and Charlee can hear her maneuvering around the room. “I still spray his cologne on my pillow sometimes.”
Charlee closes her eyes under the covers, imagines Gabby running her fingers over Drew’s shirts. Her throat constricts and her eyes begin to burn when she feels the blankets lift and the mattress dip a second later. Tears drip over her nose and disappear into her hair and pillow. They only come faster when her mother scoots in behind her and wraps her arm around Charlee’s waist.
“I heard you spilled your guts,” Gabby says, lifting her hand to brush down Charlee’s messy hair. She kisses the back of her damp head. “In the middle of a storm, no less.”
A wet laugh spills free as Charlee sniffles and relaxes back into her mother’s embrace. “And here I am, crying into my pillow, probably in the beginning stages of a cold.”
“And here I am,” Gabby says, “being incredibly proud of you for being brave enough to tell the person you love that you love her, even though things are a little messy right now.”
“She knows what she wants.” Charlee wipes her cheek on her pillowcase. “But she can’t just…” She shrugs. “She feels like she owes something to Kari, I think. Like she has to make sure everything’s finished before we can, you know, start over or whatever, which I mean—”
“Makes sense.”
“It wasn’t a rejection, Mom.”
“I know that.”
“I know,” Charlee says. “I’m just saying. It wasn’t.”
“Okay.”
“She just…you know how Alex is.”
“I do.”
Charlee sighs and wipes her nose on her sheet, resolving to wash everything later. “She’s good.”
“I know.”
“She’s just good.” Charlee rolls onto her back and pulls the covers off her face. The cool air of the room is a relief, and she takes a deep breath.
Gabby shifts to adjust to Charlee’s new position but stays close. Her hand finds Charlee’s under the covers. “So are you, honey.”
“I’ve never seen her so worn down.” Charlee stares up at the ceiling and squeezes her mother’s hand in little pulses to help keep
her anxiety at bay. “She’s been killing herself just trying not to hurt anybody.”
“Things are complicated,” Gabby says, gently rocking Charlee beside her, “but Alex will get to where she needs to be. You both will. You need to trust in that.”
Charlee rolls over and burrows in against her mother’s chest, finds her familiar scent there but also Alex’s. Its presence overwhelms and comforts her, and she closes her eyes.
“Is Alex okay?”
Gabby doesn’t respond for a moment, her hands working silently through Charlee’s hair and over her back, but then she says, “Kari left her.”
A flash of pain sparks through Charlee’s chest, a familiar kind of pain. She thinks of the hurt in Chris’s eyes when she broke up with him and imagines a similar hurt in Kari’s. She imagines all the ways Alex must be torturing herself over this, and she aches even harder.
“She’s going to stay at the house for a while.”
Charlee turns her head just slightly so her ear rests against her mother’s chest and listens. The steady, thumping rhythm of Gabby’s heartbeat comes through, and Charlee’s entire body relaxes at the sound. It makes her feel small again. Small and safe.
“Everything is so messed up,” she says, every bone in her body exhausted.
Gabby runs one hand up and down Charlee’s back. The other scratches at her scalp.
“I wish she’d come home, Mom.”
“She will.”
Chapter 13
“It’s hot as tits out here.”
“It’s not as bad now that the sun’s down,” Alex said, leaning against the sidewalk’s metal railing and fanning her face. It had been a long walk in the heat.
“True.” Cam took off her sleeveless shirt so she sat in only her sports bra and mesh shorts. “And we needed this, so screw the heat.” She pulled her hair back into a ponytail and then tied her shirt around her head like a bandana. “Two weeks in and I’m already overwhelmed with projects.”
“I know.” Alex passed their half-smoked joint back to Cam. “I’ve got another week before my first big assignment is due, but Charlee’s already up to her eyeballs in paint.”