Consenting Adults

by J. Lea López

  “You’re staring,” Deb scolded.

  “That’s what she said.” He fingered the strap of his messenger bag on the ground next to him. Part of him wanted to get up and go after her. Another part feared the look of contempt he might encounter if he did.

  “Well, go on,” Deb said. “If you go now you can still catch her.”

  His grin probably extended past his ears. “Thanks. I’ll see you next week.”

  He slung his bag over his shoulder and started off at a jog toward Charlotte, now a small dot nearing the parking lot. The bag thumped against his thigh and his flip-flops proved undesirable gear for chasing women, slapping against his heels and threatening to stay behind in the grass with each step.

  Even though she’d barely give him the time of day, he was mesmerized by her for some reason he couldn’t quite pinpoint. Maybe it was her shy silence that intrigued him. Part of him was afraid that he was intrigued by her only because she refused to play along when he tried to flirt. Stubborn. He liked that.

  “Charlotte, hey!”

  She slowed down, looked back at him over her shoulder, but didn’t stop. Of course she would make me chase her. He continued jogging until he fell in step beside her.

  “Hey,” he gulped down a breath of humid air. “I was wondering if you wanted to get lunch tomorrow, talk about some writing. Or not. We could talk about other things.” She doesn’t want to talk about your mediocre poetry, genius. He hadn't stumbled over his words like that since he was fifteen.

  “Oh, I can’t. I’m working a mid-shift tomorrow. But tell Deb we can do it another time.”

  He laughed, but Charlotte didn’t even miss a step.

  He placed his hand gently on her forearm. She slowed, stopped, turned to face him.

  “I guess I didn’t go about that so well. I wanted to know if you…”

  Charlotte’s hand flew to her mouth, but did little to camouflage the deep blush that flooded her cheeks.

  “Oh God, I’m an idiot!” She let out a little laugh.

  “No, no. Not at all. I should’ve been more clear.” He hoped his smile was reassuring. “When are you done working? Maybe we could make it a late dinner. Or dessert?” He liked to think of the possibilities of dessert.

  She stepped back. “Seriously?”

  Her shift from embarrassment to disbelief was startlingly seamless.

  His turn for nervous laughter.

  “You know,” he thrust his hands into his pockets. “I’m a pretty confident guy, but you’re making me doubt that a little bit.”

  She started toward the parking lot again, walking briskly.

  “I’m just surprised, that’s all. Kinda caught me off guard.”

  He quickened his pace, trying to keep up. He waited for what seemed like ten minutes for her to say something else. She knew how to make him sweat.

  He could see her blue Honda more clearly with each step; the concrete was hard beneath his thinly-soled flip-flops.

  “Charlotte?”

  She dug her keys out of the bottom of her bag. “You’re asking me out?” She glanced at him sideways, her eyes warm, but distant.

  He wasn’t sure if she was questioning his sincerity, or his own high opinion of himself. He decided it must be his sincerity that was under scrutiny.

  “It’s not that hard to believe, is it? Deb only has good things to say about you, and I guess I started to believe her.” That wasn't entirely true. Deb had been almost as vague as Charlotte herself. They stopped in front of Charlotte’s car. “Even if you are trying to shoot me down.”

  “I wasn’t trying to, honestly.” She was flustered again, fumbling with her car keys.

  This wasn’t going at all like he’d planned.

  “Listen, I don’t know how else to convince you. I like you.” Where was Ms. I Can Pay My Own Way? Ms. I’m Too Good For You? He wasn’t sure what more to say; he'd never had to convince a woman to go out with him.

  She opened the car door and sat behind the wheel. After a moment, she pulled a piece of paper from her notebook and hesitated again.

  Please don’t say no. C’mon, what wasn’t for her to like?

  “I’m free Sunday. I mean, if you haven’t changed your mind.” She wrote down her phone number.

  Home phone and cell phone.

  “Really?” He had braced himself for a stinging dismissal, or at least a few more minutes of her self-deprecation.

  Charlotte smiled. “Is that so hard to believe?”

  She handed him the paper; when he took it from her, he let his hand cover hers briefly before she withdrew it. She didn’t even blink.

  “Call me tomorrow, tell me when and where. And I’ll be there.” She pulled the car door shut and reached for the seat belt.

  “It’s a date, then.”

  Chapter Three

  Charlotte's stomach felt like it was trying to digest itself. Why had she agreed to this date? It was too damn perfect. Steven showed up looking like a walking yacht club advertisement in white shorts, a navy-striped polo, and a pair of top-siders. It was different than his usual earthy-casual look, though he wore both well.

  Their conversation never faltered through lunch, but the gnawing feeling in the pit of her stomach only grew with each passing hour. It wasn't the food, either. That was fantastic. The problem was Charlotte herself.

  Steven liked her. She'd never been very good at reading those types of signals, but he left no doubt in her mind. He touched her hand or arm when he laughed. He smiled a lot. He asked a lot of questions. She should be thrilled. But there was something he didn't know. Something she needed to say that would probably negate the past few weeks of growing attraction. As they climbed the steps to her apartment, she swallowed hard and took a deep breath.

  “Steven—”

  “It was nice to get to talk to you outside of the workshop.” He stood close when they got to the landing. Like prepare-for-the-kiss close. She took half a step back.

  “Yeah, it was. There's still something I need to tell you, though.”

  “Good, because I was just going to suggest we extend this date a little longer. It's still early. You want to take a walk in the park or something?”

  Not that she didn't appreciate his enthusiasm, but she wished he would just stop and listen for a moment.

  “No, not the park. I—”

  His lips silenced hers with a kiss worthy of one of those tip-toed, one-foot-off-the ground movie poses. She didn't expect his lips to be so soft, or for her own to be so easily distracted from their original purpose. When his hand slid to the small of her back, her traitorous body molded itself to his. He ended the kiss sooner than she would've liked.

  “You’re ringing,” he said.

  “What? Oh!” She pulled her cell phone from her pocket. “It’s Deb.”

  “Go ahead.” He moved a few feet away, hands in his pockets, a slight smile on his face.

  Thank you, Deb. Saved by the bell.

  “Hello?”

  Deb was panicked, sobbing, talking too fast. Charlotte heard Gary in the background, trying to coax the phone from his wife, with no luck. The words she heard didn’t make any sense. They couldn’t be true.

  Sam… car… hospital…

  “Okay, I’m coming. I’ll be right there.” Charlotte choked back tears. “I’m on my way right now.”

  She flipped the phone closed and shoved it back in her pocket as she bounded down the stairs toward her car.

  “Charlotte!”

  The kiss was already a distant memory. She couldn’t deal with that right now. She didn’t look back.

  “What happened? What’s wrong?” Steven caught up as she was trying to unlock the car door. Her hand shook, scraping the key against the paint.

  “Hey, hey.” He put his hand over hers to steady it.

  “It’s Deb’s son, Sam.”

  “The older one?”

  She nodded, afraid to say the next words. He took the keys and unlocked the door.

  “W
herever you have to go, I’ll go with you.”

  She got in on the passenger side without protesting and buckled the seat belt. A scant minute ago she’d been trying to rid herself of him, and still he came to her rescue. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that. He adjusted the seat and rear view mirror to accommodate his tall frame before backing out of the space. After a moment, she had swallowed enough of the lump in her throat to speak again.

  “Sam’s been hit by a car.”

  “Christ.” He looked over at her briefly. For the first time since they’d met, she couldn’t bear to meet his eyes.

  Though it seemed near an eternity, they made it to the hospital in little more than 15 minutes. She was out of her seat belt, pushing the door open, even before the engine shut off.

  She tried not to listen to the sounds of distant ambulance sirens or the chatter of ER doctors and medics as they made their way to the emergency room entrance. Tried to focus instead on listening for the sound of Deb’s voice.

  Tried not to look at the anguished faces in the lobby or the eerily blank faces of those coming to deliver both good and bad news, instead preparing to search for Deb’s face through those doors.

  She could handle this. She had to.

  But nothing could prepare her for the way the hospital’s sterile environment, with its brassy fluorescent lights and white linoleum floor, reached a steely hand into her chest and squeezed the breath from her lungs.

  She had been there before. Not in that particular hospital, but in another place, at another time that seemed both ages ago and uncomfortably recent. She felt as if all the oxygen had been sucked from the room, her chest being wrenched tighter and tighter until she was sure she would either suffocate or pass out.

  Steven’s hand closed firmly around her wrist, his fingers over a scar he’d probably never noticed but that Charlotte could never forget. Her head swam, and she spiraled back into the present moment. She had stopped a few feet inside the door.

  “Charlotte?”

  He laced his fingers with hers and squeezed her hand. The tightness in her chest eased slightly.

  “I’m okay,” she croaked, her throat dry. “I’m okay.” She tried to convince herself of that as Steven led her across the room toward Deb, Gary, and Gregory.

  Charlotte hugged Deb for a long time, the same way Deb had comforted her many times before. She didn’t know who was comforting who this time.

  “What do you know?” Charlotte asked.

  “N-nothing yet. N-no one’s come t-to tell us anything.” Gary put his arm around his wife; he looked pained, but he didn’t cry, instead keeping the strong face Charlotte had seen him put on before.

  “What happened?”

  The question alone sent Deb into a fit of silent, shaking sobs against her husband’s chest.

  “He was at the neighbor’s. Across the street.” Gary’s voice was soft, but steady. “Deb was in the front yard when he came out.”

  “He did everything he was s-supposed to do. He looked both ways!” Deb clutched at her husband’s shirt.

  “When he started crossing the street, the car just tore around the corner and—” He cleared his throat. “There wasn’t any time for him to turn back. The woman had to be drunk.”

  “Drunk before it’s even dark out. And driving!” Steven clenched his jaw, his face red. “I can’t believe some people.”

  Gary cast a furtive look in Charlotte’s direction. She couldn’t think of it right then. Her sanity counted on it. The memories were already pressing heavily on her brain, threatening to spin her into a dizzying array of sensory flashbacks. She fought it with every ounce of energy she had.

  She needed a distraction.

  She sat down, scooping little Gregory into her lap. His face was smudged with dirt and tears and he gave a tiny smile when she kissed his grubby cheek.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Thornton?”

  Gary and Deb looked up at the sound of their names.

  A tall, middle-aged man stepped toward them. He had short, wiry grey hair and pale blue eyes that would never betray the nature of his news, good or bad.

  “I’m Dr. McCormack.” His gaze fell upon Gregory. “If we could…” He motioned them to a more private corner of the room.

  Charlotte closed her eyes and pulled Gregory closer. The hospital’s antiseptic scent—real or imagined, she couldn’t tell—burned in her nostrils, made her light-headed.

  After a minute, Deb returned to repeat the doctor’s news. But Charlotte didn’t hear a word. People around her melted away as if they’d never been real, and she was on her back, looking up at the white lights.

  She couldn’t see where she was going as unseen hands wheeled her forward. Her body ached. Pain seared through her left wrist and arm.

  “Sarlit.” A tiny voice.

  Charlotte felt blood, warm and sticky, between her fingers; the coppery aroma latched onto her taste buds. Alternating rectangles of light and ceiling tile passed overhead.

  “Sar-LIT!” Gregory’s small fingers gripped her arms. “You squooshing me!”

  She blinked. She was in the ER waiting room of Mercy hospital, Gregory on her lap, Steven sitting in the chair across from her. She had pulled Greg even closer, tightening her arms around him without realizing it, pinning the startled little boy to her chest. She released her grip and ruffled his soft blond hair.

  “Sorry buddy.” She mustered all of her quickly dissipating liveliness and tried to appear relaxed, but Steven still shot her a concerned look.

  “We can go see Sam now,” Deb said, lifting Greg off Charlotte’s lap.

  Dr. McCormack led them through a set of large, white double doors. Deb whispered to her as they walked, knowing, somehow, that she hadn’t heard a word of what was said out in the waiting room.

  “He’s unconscious still. He’s stable right now, but it’s still pretty serious.”

  Charlotte’s knees grew weak as they drew near the curtained cubicle where Sam’s bed lay until they had a room to move him into. Everything looked, sounded, felt a bit fuzzy.

  “It might be a little scary,” Deb told little Gregory, who had his thumb in his mouth. “Sam can’t talk to us right now, okay? And he has a lot of boo-boos.”

  “Does it hurt?”

  Deb choked down tears. “No, baby. The doctor gave him some medicine so it doesn’t hurt right now.”

  Charlotte pulled Deb to the side as Dr. McCormack opened the partition concealing Sam’s bed. Her hand trembled as she touched Deb’s shoulder.

  “I c-can’t go in there right now.”

  Her chest was closing up again, and there was a cold sweat forming on her brow. The panic attack she'd been staving off since she first set foot in the hospital was bearing down upon her with full force.

  “Is everything okay?”

  Don’t do this. Jesus, not now. But no matter how she tried to talk herself out of it, it kept pressing in on her, closing her throat, narrowing her vision.

  “Charlotte?” Deb’s voice seemed miles away. Charlotte could hardly hear anything above the blood pulsing through the veins in her ears.

  “I think—” She found it difficult to take oxygen into her lungs. Her sense of control was slipping slowly away. “I have t-to—”

  Her lips and tongue wouldn’t properly form the words. Her mouth couldn’t possibly keep up with all the messages being fired lightning-quick by the synapses in her brain. Fight or flight, her adrenaline told her. Tears spilled down her cheeks and she suddenly had the urge to run—anywhere. She wanted to be anywhere but there.

  Deb squeezed her hand.

  “Is this what I think it is?”

  Charlotte hadn’t had a panic attack in nearly a year. She nodded. It was all she could do.

  “Go. Get some air,” Deb urged.

  Charlotte turned on her heels and retraced their steps, suppressing the instinct to bolt. She rushed back through the waiting room and all the way outside. In or out, her fears screamed inside her head. If she kept it
all in, she might die. If she let it out, she might puke. Collapsing on a nearby bench, she gave herself over to shuddering, wheezy sobs. Despair clawed at every inch of her and she fought to push it down. Push it down, compress it, fold it neatly, and tuck it away some place where it couldn’t surface again. She pressed her fists against her closed eyes and watched as clusters of shimmering fireworks burst across her eyelids. Anything to get rid of the images of that day three years ago.

  She might have thought it was an accident. He was drunk, not in complete control of himself. But Charlotte had seen the clear purpose in his eyes, the deliberate turn of the wheel before the engine revved. She still couldn’t remember the moment of impact. But she remembered how her mother was standing near the driveway one minute, and was sprawled on the lawn ten feet away the next minute.

  The car didn’t stop after it hit her mother. It continued forward, heading straight for the house. Straight for Charlotte inside. With her eyes glued to her mother’s limp body outside, she didn’t react until it was almost too late. No sooner had she stepped away from the big picture window in the living room when the car crashed through it, knocking Charlotte to the floor in a spray of glass.

  She crawled through the shards, past the front of the car, its engine still running hot, ignoring the continuous blare of the horn. She crawled through the grass, trailing blood from her cut palms and knees, until she saw her mother’s pale face and glassy eyes.

  “Baby,” her mother whispered, curling her finger toward her. Other than her slowly blinking eyelids, and her lips that were already turning white, that finger was the only part of her that moved. “Baby, I love you.”

  “Mom? Mom, don’t…” Charlotte knelt and cradled her mother in her arms. Her mother’s side was warm. Sticky. It soaked into Charlotte’s clothes and covered her hands.

  “I love you, Char. Be a good girl, okay?” Her eyes shifted in and out of focus.

  “Don’t…you can’t die! Mommy, please don’t leave me.” Charlotte hadn’t called her Mommy since she was six. “Mommy please…”

  Her mom kept whispering I love you until the paramedics pulled Charlotte away. She tried to push them back, tried to hold onto her mother, and screamed when she finally felt the pain of her broken wrist. The medics pried her slippery fingers from her mother’s arms and strapped her to a backboard, loaded her in the ambulance. She didn’t hear the questions they asked her. She didn’t hear the sirens or the radio. She kept seeing it over and over in her head, in silent slow motion.