Page 49

Ali bobbed her head. “You validated what I was feeling or thinking was real to me while also helping me move past it. That was good.”

“Okay. Pizza, snacks, and documentaries it is,” Charlotte said, adding a playful note in her voice, hoping to ease the growing weight in Ali’s tone. Charlotte wasn’t ready to cry in front of Ali and if she broke, Charlotte would cry with her. “As your friend and fake girlfriend I feel it’s my duty, dare I say privilege to have your back and help you find your way out of the dark room.”

“Really?” Ali asked, a hopeful note in her question.

“Really.” Charlotte vowed, squeezing Ali’s hand. “You can lean on me, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Do you want to talk about what got stirred up?”

Ali shot up. Charlotte thought for a moment she asked the wrong question.

“Oh my god, Charlotte!” Ali screeched in an over-dramatic way she did right before spilling piping hot tea.

“Oh my god, Ali. What?”

“Your ex is the fucking worst!”

“This is a known fact.” Charlotte said, nodding gravely.

Ali detailed the events, explaining how Victoria tried to take control of the situation and how she rounded out the meeting by trying to convince Ali to start a business so she could invest… Which was a fucking weird thing to say.

“But you’re an artist. Why would you suddenly become an event planner?”

“Beats me, babes. I fear she might be missing a few screws.”

Charlotte scooted up, fluffing the pillows and leaning against the headboard. She quietly and quickly sorted through the day’s events, knowing she wouldn’t get to fully do so until she made it home. But there was something she couldn’t let go of. “So… what went wrong?”

Ali lifted a hand, absentmindedly picking at the skin along her arms. Slowly, Charlotte pulled the hand away, lacing their fingers together.

“The things she said in the end… they were similar to someone I knew once and it brought up some memories I hoped would stay buried.”

Charlotte hummed low in her throat.

“What’s their name?” she asked, feeling murderous.

“Ashley. She was…”

Ali hesitated, looking down where her other hand was picking at the pills and pieces of lint on the comforter.

“Magnetic. I didn’t understand until after it was all over. I was so infatuated with her and I just wanted to make her happy, please her, bask in her presence. She was six years older than me and my instructor. What started as me legitimately going to her office hours transformed into something else. Something inappropriate.”

Charlotte grimaced, a dull throb starting between her ribs. A discomfort she couldn’t quite stamp out because the story was in a way all too familiar. Each of Ali’s words were barely more than a whisper but Charlotte detected an edge of shame in her tone.

“I lacked the skills I have now to manage my OCD. She would…”

Ali hesitated, and Charlotte listened to the slow breath she drew into herself.

“She didn’t believe it was real. Thought I just wanted attention… she was mean about it toward the end. Which, as you might imagine, just made it worse. And when I told her, somehow it became my fault… everything was my fault.”

“How did it end?”

A cold laugh chilled the air around them.

“She found the next attractive wide-eyed young thing who would worship the ground she walked on. Someone who didn’t need anything from her. Someone who wasn’t broken… Someone who wasn’t too much…”

Those words were crushing… Charlotte wanted to deny their validity but Ali was already speaking again. And she knew Ali wouldn’t believe her.