The Last Time I Saw Her

by Alexandra Harrington

  “Sophie, please—”

  Sophie made an aggravated sort of noise. “You can’t do anything. Don’t you get it? You’ve done enough, Charlie.”

  “We’ve been friends for ten years, more than that, you’re my best friend—”

  “Shut up,” Sophie hissed. It was a tone she reserved for when her lackeys were being needy, or when a guy wouldn’t give up flirting with her. An inconvenience, instead of something that was truly bothering her. It wasn’t venomous or laced with hate the way Max’s words had been. If Sophie hated her, it would be a relief, Charlotte thought. Because Sophie only hated people she loved. “Don’t call me that,” Sophie continued.

  “We’re just calling it quits, then?” Charlotte countered.

  Sophie frowned. “Let’s not even try to make me sound like the bad guy here. I didn’t flee the town in the dead of night.”

  “I know, okay?” Charlotte pushed back some hair from her face. “You’re right.”

  “You never called, or even texted.”

  “I didn’t know what to say,” Charlotte said honestly. “‘Hey Soph, I moved across the province for a bit, mind shipping me my phone charger?’”

  “Literally anything would have been better than finding out from your brother. You didn’t even say goodbye.”

  “I didn’t know when—or if—I was coming back,” Charlotte said. “I didn’t know how to tell you that.”

  “This is the same conversation we had on my birthday. We’re going in circles.” Sophie tossed her hair back off her tanned shoulders, staring blankly out the window for several seconds. Sophie suddenly snapped back to attention. “I’m tired. You should go.”

  “It’s barely noon,” Charlotte noted.

  “Yes. Well, Charlotte, I’ve had a very long, hard day already due to my estranged childhood best friend reappearing from nowhere after a year of total silence,” Sophie said sweetly.

  Charlotte played her last card. “If you make me leave, I’m taking the chocolate with me.”

  Sophie’s head whipped back in her direction—mild panic. Charlotte smirked and for a brief second, Sophie looked less murderous than usual.

  Sophie moved over to the coffee table and grabbed one of the bars, tearing open the wrapper. “Fine. You have until I finish this.”

  Charlotte’s first reaction was that maybe she should have prepared a please-forgive-me PowerPoint.

  “You don’t have to forgive me now, I wouldn’t expect you to…I just want you to know I didn’t do any of it to hurt you, or—”

  Sophie waved a hand through the air, mid-bite. “I don’t care that you’re sorry. I should friggin’ hope you are. I want to know why.”

  Charlotte knew that was coming. Running off to a mysterious boarding school a few counties over was a move that invited people to ask questions. And she couldn’t just brush Sophie off like she did everyone else.

  “It was…Sean wanted me to go,” she told her. Not entirely a lie. Not technically. There was no point making up something more elaborate; they were experts at knowing when the other was lying.

  Sophie chewed and looked at Charlotte like she had confessed to leaving because she was secretly Kate Middleton.

  “Reeeally?” Sophie stretched about four extra syllables out of the word. “He wanted you to go to boarding school? Was that so he can focus more on his crappy part-time job and pot money?”

  Charlotte ignored the dig at her only remaining family member. “It’s a long story. I don’t even know where to start—”

  Sophie cut her off by rolling her eyes. “Please, spare me the dramatics. I’m losing interest and have actual problems to deal with. Now, can I eat this other chocolate bar or do you need to return it to pay the mortgage?”

  Charlotte recalled fondly, just moments earlier, when she had missed Sophie.

  “Good to know the year I missed hasn’t made you any less of a raging bitch,” Charlotte said.

  Sophie peeled back the wrapper of the second chocolate bar without looking at Charlotte. “It’s good to know you’re not going to be one of those people who is only nice to me because of my tragic backstory.”

  Charlotte pushed herself away from the sofa. “I’m trying this new thing where I’m not so pathetic, which you were so kind to point out at your party.”

  Sophie threw her hands in the air and choked on a laugh. Charlotte noticed she used her hands while she was talking about a million times more than she’d used to.

  “Oh, yes, leave it to Charlotte Anne-Hathaway-in-Les-Mis Romer to play the victim,” Sophie snapped. “The world has really been oh-so-unfair to you, my dear.”

  “Sophie, please—”

  “Stop saying my name,” Sophie cried, her voice gaining more of an edge with every word. She didn’t sound sad or hurt; she sounded angry. Angry, finally, because Charlotte knew she was sort of pushing her luck. She knew how it looked, reappearing in Sophie’s life but completely unable to explain herself. She’d be angry, too.

  “I want you to know—” Charlotte tried.

  “I don’t care!” Sophie screamed at last. “I don’t care what you, or anybody else, wants! You want to say you’re sorry, you want to help, you want us to be friends—I don’t care. Not about anyone. Definitely not about you. I stopped caring after I lost everything. My boyfriend, my parents, my baby, everyone at school, and like—ha, ha—the ability to walk—” Sophie stopped herself like she’d made a mistake.

  Charlotte replayed the list in her head. “What did you say?”

  Sophie opened and closed her mouth and was eying Charlotte carefully.

  “Your…baby?” Charlotte asked.

  “Max,” Sophie said unevenly, looking intently at the coffee table.

  “You already said Max.”

  Sophie shrunk in her chair. She twisted the ring on her middle finger—a gift from Max for her seventeenth birthday—and wouldn’t make eye contact with Charlotte.

  “I used to tell you everything,” Sophie said quietly. “And then you weren’t there. So I didn’t tell anyone.”

  Charlotte swallowed. “What?”

  “I lost it…in the hospital, after.”

  Charlotte crossed the room and sank into a kneeling position. She tentatively reached out and placed a hand on Sophie’s cheek. “I don’t know you were….”

  “You can’t tell anyone,” Sophie whispered to her knees. “Please.”

  “I won’t, I won’t.” Charlotte smoothed back a few pieces of Sophie’s blonde hair. “Come on, talk to me.”

  “No one knows.”

  “Max?”

  “No,” Sophie said quickly. “Especially not. He would hate me for not telling him. You can’t tell him. You have to swear.”

  “Okay, okay,” Charlotte said, still trying to process. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t.” Sophie shook her head. “I’m so sick of pity. People think that when something bad happens to you they have a free pass to just… commiserate with you. And tell you about whatever bad thing happened to them. Like it opens you up. I’m tired of people trying to get in.”

  “I wasn’t trying to pry,” Charlotte started, having to actively stop herself from apologizing again.

  “I wasn’t talking about you, really. You’ve known me for a long time. You’re about as in as they get.” Charlotte caught Sophie’s sort-of smile before she shifted back to reserved. “Whether I like it or not.”

  Sean wasn’t home when Charlotte got back. She made herself a late lunch of peanut butter toast with the last of the bread that wasn’t approximately older than she was. The pop-up contraption inside the toaster didn’t work properly, so they sort of had to guess when the toast was done and pluck it out with a pair of plastic chopsticks. She always ended up burning hers.

  As Charlotte smeared the peanut butter on the dark slab that no longer really resem
bled bread, her visit with Sophie looped through her mind. Sophie had cried for a while before claiming she needed “alone time” and dismissed her.

  So, they had taken what seemed like a step forward, but now somehow everything was a thousand times worse. The thought occurred to Charlotte that, had there been no accident, Sophie would not only be able to walk but she might have had a baby, too. Maybe. She wasn’t sure what Sophie would have chosen to do, but she should have had the chance to choose. All the misery the accident had caused was still unfolding. Like little ripples.

  There was an uncomfortable clenching in Charlotte’s chest. She wondered if Max and Sophie would have stayed together if they had to raise a baby together. Is that why Sophie had broken up with him, for good? Charlotte wiped the remaining peanut butter off the knife and onto the rim of the jar, licking a stray glob off her thumb. She sighed. It had been a long day. Er, morning and early afternoon.

  She spent the rest of the day indoors, trying to clean and tidy and trying not to think of much else. Charlotte went to bed early that night, after a dinner of peanut butter right off a spoon and some stale goldfish crackers. All the DVDs they owned had been arranged alphabetically by title. Sean didn’t come home.

  ten

  Charlotte figured all her accumulated bad karma must have ripped a hole in the time-space continuum because time refused to pass. Two days trickled by in what felt like a week. She was putting off getting out of bed, watching the sun carve a path across the ceiling as a new day leaked into the house. Mornings were sneaky bastards. For a split second or two she’d be ready to tackle the day, and then she remembered all the shitty things that happened in the previous twenty-four hours and she’d change her mind, deciding that burying her face under the covers was the best option. Then she’d start the vicious cycle of being too anxious to do anything followed by feeling guilty for doing nothing.

  So, status report. What Sophie had told her two days ago was…complicated. And Sophie had gone through that alone, on top of everything else. A selfish part of Charlotte was glad Sophie had been able to confide in her, but it wasn’t totally fair to treat this as a step forward. Sophie probably still hated her, but at least they had talked. Max, on the other hand, definitely hated her. No real loss there. And last but not least, there was the lingering question of how Sean managed to pull twenty thousand dollars out of his ass. Charlotte groaned, weighing the probability that if she simply never got out of bed again no one would come looking for her.

  Sean might. Debatable.

  The smell of frying pancakes was what eventually dragged her out of bed that morning. Nothing said keep on keeping on like pancakes. She leaned against the door frame at the far end of the kitchen, watching Sean poke the half-cooked batter in the pan expectantly.

  “Morning!” he said cheerily without looking up. The thick liquid sputtered a bit.

  “Morning. You got mix?” Charlotte asked, referring to the few groceries she had seen him bring home yesterday morning. She shimmied past him to the coffee machine, flicking the switch at the back and digging for a filter off the shelf above it.

  He looked at her as she scooped the last bit of coffee grinds at the bottom of the tin into the machine.

  “Mix? Nah, in this house we wing it.”

  She leaned back against the counter, facing the fridge. Beside the grocery list that was more wishful thinking than anything, a small photograph was held in place by a smiley face magnet. It showed younger versions of their dad and one of his friends in front of the Berlin Wall.

  Charlotte wrinkled her nose, peering into the large ceramic bowl containing the rest of the batter. “Winged it to what degree?”

  Sean waved the spatula nonchalantly. “You can substitute eggs for extra butter, right?”

  “I think I’ll just stick to the coffee.”

  “You drink way too much of that stuff,” Sean commented. “It’s not good for you.”

  “Hmm, kind of like smoking?”

  “I’m just saying.” He flipped a pancake. “It’s no wonder you’re up all night.”

  Charlotte filled her mug once the maker was finished gurgling and retrieved the borderline-expired milk from the fridge. She hadn’t been sleeping, which was apparently no secret in their house, but it wasn’t because of the coffee, she knew that much.

  “Well, I’ll swear off coffee when you quit smoking.”

  He bumped her shoulder with his own. “You worry about yourself.”

  “Maybe you should take your own advice?”

  “I’m your brother,” he grumbled, flipping another pancake, which was stark white on one side and had visible clumps of flour clinging to it. “And I don’t like your attitude. Don’t act all holier-than-thou just because of your fancy boarding school book-learning.”

  Charlotte and Sean had spoken once, maybe twice, while she was in Windsor. Normally, they were very close. They weren’t particularly affectionate, didn’t wear matching sweaters or anything, and Charlotte had had to miss homecoming to bail Sean out of jail, but they were still close. That’s what happened when you were all that was left of your family. But in the month or so leading up to her departure, there’d been an obvious shift. Charlotte knew she had to leave, that she couldn’t risk staying in town. But she still would have, if Sean hadn’t made her go. And once she was gone, it took a long time before they found things to say to each other again.

  “It wasn’t that fancy.” She shrugged. “It was fine. School is school.”

  This was her chance.

  “I’ll have to send Aunt Heather a thank-you note,” she tried. “You know, for the tuition.”

  He didn’t meet her eyes as he studied the browned side of his pancake. It was like it took him a second to remember who Aunt Heather was. “Yeah, maybe.”

  “Actually, that’s a great idea,” she said, testing her coffee and her luck, “you wouldn’t happen to have her home address, would you?”

  She watched his face contort into a frown. “No, I don’t,” he said thinly.

  “Phone number? Do you think she has Facebook? Social insurance number? Oh, I could Skype her!” Charlotte knew she was pushing it, but she continued. You couldn’t just go around making up distant relatives and expect to get away with it. “I feel like she’s the kind of woman with a blog,” Charlotte mused.

  Sean was glaring at her now. “Something you’d like to say, Charlie?”

  She folded her arms and matched his gaze. “Nothing. Just how lucky I am to have such a caring, generous family member like Aunt Heather.”

  “Whatever it is that you think you know—”

  “Look, I know we don’t have an Aunt Heather, Sean! Or any aunt, for that matter.”

  His jaw was hard set. “How do you—”

  “It doesn’t matter. What matters is where the hell you got all that money.”

  Sean turned away, staring determinedly at the display on the stove like he could make time move faster through the conversation. “It doesn’t make a difference now.”

  “Doesn’t make a difference? Sean, do you not remember how broke we were? We barely had enough money to pay for anything after dad died. Do you not remember how they were gonna take me away?” That had been a scary two weeks.

  “Of course I remember,” Sean snapped. “Why do you think I got a job? Gave up college? So that I wouldn’t lose you. Charlie, everything I’ve done is so I wouldn’t lose you.”

  He wasn’t talking about foster care anymore. They were caught up to much more recent events. Caught up to her leaving, and why.

  She sighed, and put her coffee cup down. “I know that, all right? But that doesn’t mean I can just let you off the hook. We’re not talking about dealing a hundred bucks’ worth of weed, Sean, we’re talking about twenty thousand dollars.”

  “I know how this sounds,” he hissed, “but I’m asking you to trust me.”

>   Charlotte raised a hand and rubbed her forehead absently. “That’s kind of asking a lot, Sean. I don’t know where that money came from; I don’t even really want to think about it. There was no money after dad died—”

  “I know that!” Sean roared suddenly. “I did what I needed to—”

  “Do you hear yourself right now?” Charlotte cried. “You can’t just say stuff like that and then expect me to not think the worst! You sound like a goddamn hit man, Sean.”

  “The money was mine from another account.”

  “You mean the accounts that were closed after dad died, because we had to drain them all? Come on, I’m not stupid.”

  Sean had let the second pancake burn, pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger as if he were dealing with an irritating child. “What do you want me to say? It’s my work money.”

  Charlotte threw her hands in the air in exasperation. “Well, good to know you’re sticking to your story! What happened to Aunt Heather?”

  Sean turned off the burner with a sigh and scooped the rest of the batter into the trash. “Aunt Heather was a lie I made up so my nosy sister would be able to live with herself and not have to wake up every morning thinking that her brother sacrificed everything for her. Next time, I’ll spare you and get straight to it: the money for your boarding school was the last shred of hope I had for one day getting out of this shithole town and doing something with my life. Dad’s savings. For both of us. You think I didn’t want to keep it for you to go to university? But I had to. I had to use it. Feel better?”

  He didn’t even give her time to respond before he left the kitchen, shooting a last venomous glare over his shoulder.

  “Sean, wait!” she called after him. “Where are you going?”

  “Nowhere, obviously.”

  She heard the back door slam. A few seconds later, she saw the car rumble down the lane through the kitchen window. Charlotte sighed, sorting some dishes on the counter into the sink. That had gone about as well as her previous encounters over the last few days. Congrats, Charlie. There’s officially not a person in town who’ll speak to you.