Something Special

by S. Massery

  Part II

  The third time I see Avery,

  He is broken.

  7

  Thirteen Months Later | August

  My best friend, Georgia, has a big glass of wine in front of her when I get home. There is an empty glass waiting for me, which makes me love her more. I had texted her this morning that I had the potential to be fired from my brand-new job.

  “I have ice cream in the freezer,” she says as I drop my purse on the counter.

  “I didn’t get fired,” I say.

  “Get out.”

  I grin and shrug. I’m not sure how I pulled it off, either. “He made me go with him to a meeting with the CFO. I somehow didn’t screw it up.”

  Georgia grins. “Celebratory wine, then.” She points to my glass, and I pour myself some. “Cheers!” After we both take a sip, she giggles. “I definitely thought you were going to be out on your ass.”

  I pretend to be insulted for a second.

  “Just imagine your mother’s face.”

  We burst into laughter.

  “I think she would disown me!”

  My mother had been generous enough to cover my rent for last month. I wouldn’t have been able to stay in Chicago without her help. “Asking for help builds character, Charlotte,” she had told me when I called her in July. I was shocked that she didn’t condescend. And then she had continued, “I’m glad you’re trying to make a name for yourself out there. We want you to be successful, and that doesn’t happen overnight.”

  I had shed a few tears when she said that.

  But, still, she had made it clear that failure wasn’t an option.

  “Seriously,” Georgia says, “you’re good?”

  “Seriously,” I confirm.

  “Well, there’s still ice cream…”

  We laugh again, and I join her on the couch. Before I accepted the job, I had consulted with some people I had worked for at my internship. I asked if they thought it would be a good job opportunity or if I should look for something else. I was warned that my new boss was a hard ass and went through assistants like cigarettes. Based on today, they weren’t exaggerating.

  “He was nice in the interview. Remember? Kind of gruff, but he said I had an interesting resume for someone who was just graduating college.” I snort. “Interesting should’ve been my first clue. Why not something like impressive? And then today…” I tip my head back and let out a sigh. “I don’t know, it was like he was Dr. Jekyll in the interview and Mr. Hyde for most of today.”

  She pats my knee. “We all have horrible bosses at some point.”

  “I think my mother gave Jared my phone number,” I tell her.

  Georgia and I met in college, and we’ve lived together since our junior year. She has ventured home to Massachusetts with me on occasion and knows the history surrounding my neighborhood—most of it, anyway. Just this past September, she came with me to my parents’ Labor Day party. Jared was absent, which made me guess that he was too busy with his baby and its mother. I was too ashamed of my thoughts to ask my mother or his parents.

  Georgia glares at me. “Why would you think that? Why would she do that?”

  I fiddle with the wine glass in my hands. “Because I have a message on my phone from him.” My heart had stopped when I realized it was his voice in my ear.

  “What did he say?”

  “Uh.” I stop and roll my eyes. Why did I bring this up to her? “I don’t know. Nonsense, really. Something about wanting to catch up.”

  “And you believe him?”

  I think I laid on my grief about never hearing from him once he left a little too thick, when I told Georgia about my childhood. She would go to battle over anyone that hurt me, past or present.

  I shrug again. My heart has picked up speed, thundering out of my control. Maybe I should call him back. Maybe not.

  Hey, Charlie, it’s… uh, it’s Jared. Jared Brown. Ha. Anyway, I figured… I don’t really know. I guess I just wanted to hear your voice. Call me back when you get this.

  I leave Georgia to her television show and walk into my room. I stare at my phone and listen to the message twice more before I press call back.

  “Charlie?”

  I have a lump in my throat that I can’t seem to swallow around.

  “I’m sorry for calling…”

  There are so many feelings racking up inside of me.

  “Are you there?”

  “I’m here,” I say.

  He chuckles. “Wow. You’ve never been quiet.”

  I shake my head. Yes, I have. I lost my voice, and it took a while to get it back.

  He laughs in my ear, because I haven’t responded. His voice is low and smoky, and so different from how it was before.

  “I’m sorry—”

  He cuts me off with one word: “Charlie.”

  I close my mouth. I can’t read his voice like I could when we were children.

  “I wanted to apologize for last year.”

  “What happened last year,” I repeat. I feel like I should be the one apologizing—I yelled at him, after all. “That wasn’t…”

  He sighs. “No, really. I didn’t—Macie shouldn’t have been there. I didn’t know she was going to show up.”

  Pregnant. My mind supplies the word that Jared hasn’t acknowledged. He didn’t know she was going to show up pregnant.

  “Jared,” I start, and pause at his quick intake of breath. When he doesn’t interrupt me, I continue, “It isn’t your fault. And you shouldn’t be apologizing to me.” Jared may have fractured my soul in one moment, but it wasn’t his fault. I should’ve prepared for the eventuality of him moving on because we hadn’t talked in years. It just surprised me how much it hurt.

  “Okay,” he says. There are notes of uncertainty in his voice that I don’t understand. “I just—I was a shitty friend, at the end, and then…”

  I shake my head again, and I want to say, No, no, don’t go there. I don’t want to talk about the past. A shiver runs through my body. I’ve done so well at blocking out what happened after he left. “I have to go,” I say instead.

  There is silence for a moment. I wonder if the call dropped, or maybe he hung up first. And then, “Okay.”

  “Bye, Jared,” I whisper. Tears prick my eyes, because this feels final.

  “Goodbye, Charlie.”

  8

  Past

  Dear Jared,

  Are you coming home for Thanksgiving? I am hopeful because I miss you, and I keep crying randomly. It’s been forever and a day, and sometimes it feels like infinity is just stretching on in front of me. It’s this stupid road that just goes on and on and I hate it. I want to veer off the road and crash into the trees.

  Halloween was awful. It was just Halloween last week, and I went to a party. Colby invited me. My mom was so excited that I got invited. I think she’s always wanted me to be popular, but friends (besides you, obviously) just haven’t worked out for me. So she pretty much forced me to go…

  Colby was leaning against my locker when I walked up to it. My arms were full of books, and I stared at him, willing him to move. He eventually did, sliding to the side and tugging the books from my arms. Half of me expected him to drop them on the ground and stomp on them.

  Instead, he held them and watched me with steady eyes. After I opened my locker, he shoved them inside and closed it. “Lunch,” he said. He had been offering in the past, but this time seemed different. I felt a thrill of danger under my skin; it was the look in his eyes. It was too intense. “Charlotte, come to lunch.”

  I shook my head. I didn’t like that feeling. One step closer, and I would get shocked. “I have plans,” I said.

  He quirked his lips. “Plenty of girls would kill to have lunch with me, and I want to eat with you.”

  “No,” I said again. I move around him, headed toward the library. I had a date with a book. He watched me go, and my skin crawled until I rounded the corner. I let out a sigh I hadn’t realized I was
holding.

  But in the library, Colby found me again. He had a lunch tray with him, and he plopped down across from me with a clang that made me cringe. “Halloween,” he said. I looked at him blankly. “Come with me to a party.”

  He never asked me, and maybe that was what irked me the most. When Jared did it, it was okay. We were friends. Colby had come sauntering into our lives with his hard eyes and brash language and demanded things that I didn’t want to give.

  I shook my head and ignored him.

  I thought, later, that maybe it was that point that fueled him on more. He went to my house. He talked to my mother, made up some story about how I was worried she wouldn’t say yes to an older boy—a junior—and told her how he really wanted to take me to a Halloween party at his friend’s house. So then it was my mother, standing in the doorway of my bedroom, glaring holes through my head until I agreed to go.

  It was a disaster.

  Mom picked out the costume; at that point, I had given up hope of controlling the situation. That night, she walked into my room with a bag in her hand. “I had this made,” she said to me. “Look what I found! We can do your makeup to match.” She pulled out a green leotard, and I realized that I had unwittingly become Tinkerbell.

  Well, she didn’t have a voice, either.

  When Colby showed up an hour later, I saw it had been planned: he was the spitting image of Peter Pan. “Ah, Tink,” he whispered to me. And then, to my mother, “Should we get some pictures?”

  It felt like the ultimate betrayal to smile and stand close to him.

  I got into his car, and it was the beginning of the end.

  I’m sorry, Jared, I can’t… I don’t want to talk about this anymore. I hope you come home for Thanksgiving. I realize that you’re never going to read these unless I mail them, and I’m not going to do that. We were always on the same telepathic wavelength. Why can’t you know that I need you?

  Please come home.

  Charlie

  9

  My hair tangles in my face as I rush down the sidewalk, late. Literally, I am running toward the hotel. They didn’t nickname Chicago The Windy City for nothing. Tom and I have a meeting with some executives from a firm in Boston—some sort of merger deal. My heart sinks when I see him waiting for me, because he looks perfect, as usual. What kind of hair gel does he use? It never moves. I take a deep breath, slowing my pace to a brisk walk and approaching him with fake confidence. When he turns toward me, I am shocked to see him holding two cups of coffee.

  Nice generally hasn’t been in his playbook.

  “You’re late,” he snaps. And then he looks me over and blinks a few times. Maybe he’s going into shock. I can’t stop staring at the coffee. My zombie brain can practically imagine its taste. “Go fix your hair in the bathroom. You’re a damn disaster, Galston.”

  “Sorry, Tom.” I glance from him to the coffee. “Is one of those for me?” The hopeful tone in my voice kills me. I struggle against the blush creeping up my neck. Every damn time. Tom is attractive. And married. Besides, I learned in college that my first love would always be coffee—and that’s clearly the case, the way I’m giving it moony eyes.

  He passes it over, then uses that hand to push me toward the restroom.

  True to form, my hair is a nest. I am surprised there are no leaves or twigs to pull out. I keep a hairbrush in my purse and a hair tie on my wrist for these exact reasons. It takes a few minutes to get it sorted. When I return to the lobby, Tom is leaning against the receptionist’s desk. There are three receptionists behind the long desk, but only one focuses on him.

  I approach as the receptionist tells Tom, “Mr. Henley will be down in a minute for you.”

  Tom nods. “Charlie, we need you to sign in, as well.”

  The receptionist’s eyes widen a fraction before she laughs. “Oh, Mr. Kasper, I was expecting a man!”

  Do not roll your eyes.

  I say, “It’s short for…. Avery?”

  There he is.

  “How is Charlie short for Avery?” The receptionist wrinkles her nose.

  I don’t answer. I barely give her another glance before I start walking toward him.

  “Where are you going?” Tom’s voice echoes behind me.

  There he is.

  He has a suitcase next to him and a folded newspaper on his lap. His hair is longer, pulled back into a low ponytail. He has a slight scruff. When I get closer, his eyes flicker up to mine.

  For a second, I think he won’t recognize me. It has been just over a year, after all. A year since we kissed, and then he disappeared from New York altogether.

  And now? He’s in my city. In the same building as me. On the same day, at the exact same time. Fate. But only if he remembers me.

  “Avery?” My voice quivers. This should not affect me so much, and yet there it is. All the emotion I had blocked out is shoved to the forefront of my mind. He looks gaunt, from either lack of sleep or unhealthy eating. Maybe both. I need to know how he ended up in Chicago.

  I see the minute it clicks. He stands, the newspaper forgotten. It falls, scattering on the floor and drawing attention, but he doesn’t react to that. He comes closer and closer, and he wraps his arms around me, pulling me flush against him. I inhale into his chest, letting a small smile flicker across my lips. He’s taller than I remember. My head tucks under his chin. Hesitantly, I hug him back.

  He sighs a long, slow breath that tickles my ear. Our bodies easily melt into each other. It’s like we’ve done it a million times before and couldn’t forget how. Like riding a bike. It’s strangely intimate.

  “Charlotte,” he whispers. “I was hoping—”

  “Galston,” Tom calls. He hasn’t moved from the desk across the lobby, and his voice rings across the open space. I cringe at his tone. “We’re late.” I could hear him thinking, again.

  I pull away from Avery and look into his golden-brown eyes. Thirteen months later, and they are just as I remember them. There are so many things I want to say, or do, but can’t. I smooth his tie, and even that feels too familiar.

  “Dinner? Tonight? Please, Charlotte?” One of his old smiles slips over his face like a mask. “We can catch up.”

  “Are you staying here?” I ask. I take a few steps backwards, toward Tom. Maybe it would be enough to appease him a few more seconds.

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, I’ll meet you here.”

  “Seven o’clock,” he answers.

  I keep backing up, grinning, until I hear Tom say my name again.

  Once in the elevator, with Tom tapping his foot next to me, I let my grin fade. If he’s just visiting Chicago, I can’t get my hopes up about us working out.

  “Do you have my paperwork?”

  I swing my purse in front of my body. It’s large enough to double as a briefcase most days. He takes the file, flipping through it. Maybe he won’t ask any questions about Avery. I don’t know how to answer them, anyway.

  “Okay.” Tom takes a deep breath. Is he nervous? “You’ll take notes?”

  I nod. Life as an executive-slash-personal assistant… not always exciting. But today? I’m happy for it, because it’s brought Avery and me together again.

  “And, Charlie. Don’t be late again.”

  10

  I walk into the apartment and freeze when I see Georgia in only a bra and shorts. “Why are you not wearing clothes?” I try not to snort, but it slips out anyway.

  Georgia laughs. “I stayed over at Henry’s last night,” she whispers. They had been steadily getting more and more serious. While I am positive they’ve had sex before—I got all the details when that happened—they had never slept over at each other’s places. The fact that they are at this point now is promising. It isn’t just another fling.

  I raise my eyebrows. Sometimes I cover one of my eyebrows with my hair so it looks like I’m just raising one. It doesn’t fool anyone. “And?”

  “And… it was good.” She presses her lips together, loo
king down. “I’m scared, Charlie. Maybe it was too good.”

  Georgia is a romantic. She lives for the roses and fireworks and whatever else. I go over and hug her, because she looks like she needs it. “He didn’t disappear in the middle of the night?” That had happened before.

  Her hair swings around her with the force of her head shake. “No, no. We made breakfast together,” her gaze becomes dreamier, “and had morning sex—”

  “You know I love you, but I don’t need to hear about that.”

  Georgia bites her lip to hide a smile. “Sorry, babe. It scared me, letting him in like that, but he made it seem okay. He made me not worry.”

  I chew over her words.

  At the beginning of our senior year of college, Georgia and I moved in together. One year later, we were still in the same apartment. Over our years of friendship through college and beyond, I’ve witnessed Georgia’s taste in men. Which is to say, she really didn’t have a particular taste, except for the fact that she always chose the one that was going to leave her ass for the next best thing.

  There was Chad of freshman year, who proclaimed he loved her on the third date, and by the fifth date was cheating on her. There was Mark, a “nice guy” who freaked out when Georgia talked to any male besides him, including coworkers and friends. Then Anthony and Chad #2; Lorenzo was a foreign exchange student, so that was bound to end badly—and it did. They all did. Epically, loudly, and with a resounding echo.

  After that string, Georgia gave up dating. She claimed to be working on turning into a lesbian, but we weren’t sure attraction worked like that. To test that theory, she made out with a girl in a club and “didn’t feel anything.” After that, she vowed temporary celibacy—a six-month cleanse. I was on board with that because, by that time, it was three months post-Avery, and I hadn’t been on a single date since high school. It felt too raw. With one kiss, Avery had mixed up my insides. It took too long to put the pieces back in order.