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To my surprise, she shakes her head.
“Come on,” I prod, “tell us what happened.”
Still, she refuses to speak. Baffled, I continue to talk to her, trying to get her to tell us why she’s crying, but she refuses to tell me.
Now I’m frustrated and getting upset too, and so’s Mum. I’ve been as gentle as I can up to this point, but that approach isn’t working, and eventually I sit back, my tone turning sharper. “This isn’t going to work,” I tell her firmly. “You can’t just sit there, bawling your eyes out. What are we supposed to think? I can’t leave you like this. I’m going to call Kip and tell him I’m not going tomorrow.”
“No!” She drops her hands then, clearly distraught. “You can’t. Youhaveto go.”
“Why?” Her insistence has sent fear fluttering in my stomach. “Charlie, what’s going on? Just tell me, and we’ll deal with it together.”
“I can’t,” she whispers. “I don’t want to ruin everything.”
“Jesus, Charlie! You’re upsetting Mum, and me. Please, just tell me. I know this about Jake. If he didn’t break up with you, what happened?”
She presses her lips together and wipes her face. Then she says, “I broke up with him.”
“Why?” I ask softly. “I thought you liked him.”
“I did. I do. I fell in love with him.”
My lips curve up. “But that’s a good thing, right?”
Tears continue to trickle down her face. She shakes her head. “He’s a couple of years older than me. He’s just finished his Master’s in Engineering. And… he’s got a job in Auckland.”
My mouth opens as I go to reply, but nothing comes out. And then it all slots into place. Her boyfriend’s moving to Auckland. And she can’t go with him. Not just because she hasn’t finished her degree yet. But because at the end of the year, she’s coming home to look after Mum with me.
I meet Mum’s eyes, and the depth of sadness she’s feeling is obvious. The absolute last thing she wants is to be a burden to her daughters, but it’s out of her control. She just can’t look after herself.
Charlie tears off a sheet of kitchen towel and wipes her face. “I’m sorry,” she whispers. “It’s okay. Really. I miss him a bit, that’s all. But it’s not like I’ve known him for years. We only started dating in January.”
My eyebrows rise. “Oh… he’s the one you went to the South Island with?”
She nods and smiles through her tears. “He’s the brother of one of my friends. I’d met him before, and he asked me out, but I told him I wasn’t on the market. Then when Ria came up with the idea of a camping holiday, he said he wanted to come. And while we were away, we just…”
“Hooked up?” I ask.
She gives a shy smile. “Yeah. I couldn’t resist him. Since then, we’ve seen quite a lot of each other, even though I’ve kept telling him I can’t be with him long term…”
“What brought it to a head?” I ask. “When he got the job?”
“Sort of.” She presses a hand to her mouth.
“Come on,” I say gently. “You’ve told us the rest.”
She puts her face in her hands again for a while. Then finally, she says, “He asked me to marry him.”
My jaw drops. It’s impossible to untangle my feelings at that moment. Joy for her, and a huge wave of pity because she obviously loves him so much. And hot on the heels of that, a deep ache in the pit of my stomach, because I know what it means.
I inhale deeply, and slowly exhale. Didn’t I know this was going to happen all along?Life isn’t a fairy tale, Alice. You knew it would never work out.I know what I have to do, but ohhh… it stings. Oh Kip. We came so close.
“Aw,” I murmur. “Charlie…” I lean forward and cover her hand with mine. “It’s okay. I want you to call him and say you’ll move to Auckland with him when your course is done. And you are going to marry him.”
She blinks and stares at me. “What?”
“Alice,” Mum whispers, “no.”
“Yes,” I say. “You have to do this, sweetheart. Love like this doesn’t come around often, and you have to grab it when it does.”
