“Yeah, he did. I hated to hear that, mom. I wish there was something we could do.”
“Well, there was a reason why.”
“What is it?”
“It’s Grandma Dorothy, honey. Her doctors tell us she’s in a rapid decline. She needs to be hospitalized soon, for her health and safety. We do our best, but she needs more care than we can provide at home. It’s one of the reasons we’re selling. It’s the only way we’d be able to afford for her care.”
Guilt twisted at my heart. “Are they sure?”
Mom sighed over the line. “They’re sure. I just wanted to let you know. Your dad was going to tell you, too, but it’s been really hard on him. He may seem hard, but he has a big heart.”
“Thank you for letting me know. Keep me updated, okay?”
“Of course. You call me if you need anything, won’t you?”
I managed to say goodbye before I lost it.
** *
“You look worsethan I did yesterday,” Charlie said as soon as I stepped in the door.
I grunted in answer and dropped my bag of school shit by the front door and toed off my shoes, leaving them by my bag. After a brutal morning at the gym where I tried to erase the conversation with Mom from my brain and an even longer afternoon of classes I was beat. None of the applications I’d submitted the night before had returned any results and I had another stack of overdue notices crammed in along with my textbooks and dirty gym socks.
“Well, hello to you, too,” I said.
“Everything okay?”
I snorted. “Yeah, sure.”
“I ordered pizza,” she said with false cheerfulness.
At her hollow tone, I grimaced. I was being a dick. “Charlie…”
“I got you the cheese and mushroom you like,” she interrupted.
“You don’t have to take care of me, Charlie. Breakfast and now pizza. You don’t have to be weird about living here.”
“I’m not being weird. I’m trying to be nice,” she said as she pulled out paper plates. The scent of cheese and tomato sauce filled the air, reminding me I’d stupidly skipping lunch after the gym. Well, skipped is a strong word.Didn’t have the money forwould be more accurate.
“Didn’t we already have a conversation about being nice?”
She rolled her eyes. “Let’s not go there.”
“Sorry. It’s just…it hasn’t been a very good day.” I scrubbed a hand over my face.That was the understatement of the year.
Charlie loaded up the plate with a gargantuan sized pizza from Momo’s, a local legend for pizza slices bigger than your head. “Well, I’m here and I have ears if you want to tell me what’s got you looking like you’re going to incinerate innocent civilians with your eyesight.”
I tore into the pizza still standing and said, “I’m never letting you watchX-menagain.”
She took a bite of her own, licked the sauce off her lip. I cursed myself for the thin athletic shorts I was wearing and casually slid onto a stool at the island so she couldn’t see the outline of my dick through them.
“Seriously, though. What’s wrong?”
“Mom called me today.”
Charlie set the pizza on a paper plate. “What is it?”
She’d gone completely white. “Shit, Char. This is why I didn’t want to tell you.”
