AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Christian, how did Dad find out?”
He makes me wait. He bites into his candy bar, chewing it open-mouthed like a donkey. After the third or fourth bite, he finally speaks around the mouthful. “He found the love letters you wrote to your baby daddy, moron.”
I stare out the window, my heart hollowed out and vacant as we continue our northbound ascent into the Upper Peninsula.
* * *
Simon
It’s been nearly two months since I left her.
Thankfully my brother Mike doesn’t question my shitty outlook on life, my silence or my poor appetite. He probably thinks I’ve dropped nearly ten pounds because I’m still grieving. And I am still torn up over Timmy, and also homesick for Mom, but it’s the loss of Charlotte that has me this way.
I wish I could put her out of my mind. I really do, because this hurts too damn much.
During the day it’s not as bad. I’m busy with classes, playing catch-up a lot of the time because my school district didn’t have the kind of enrichment programs that most of my fellow freshmen have benefitted from. I’m struggling in Calculus, and my Microeconomics class, while it seems like a refresher course to my peers, is full of language and concepts that are entirely foreign to me. So I read the assigned text twice, take copious notes during the lectures and then review them over and over. I read in between classes and during the few breaks I get at my part-time job.
I get back from the warehouse by midnight—quarter to one at the latest. I feel filthy by the time my shift’s over, so I slip in and out of my dorm room quietly to shower, trying my best not to wake my roommate. Then I collapse into bed, weary knowing that I’ll be repeating the same routine tomorrow.
That’s when it hits.
Sleep should come quickly but it doesn’t. I toss and turn, willing myself not to gothere. But I do, every damn night.
The opening scene is always the same, a need to quench the desire I feel for her, to be with her the way I used to be. Sometimes that morphs into a fantasy, one where Charlotte is here with me. We struggle through classes side by side, both of us working hard and barely making ends meet, but we’re happy. We laugh sitting across from each other as we eat dinner off paper plates, we tease and play in that way people in love do, and we fall asleep at night with our limbs tangled together. When it’s good like that, sometimes I can manage to drift off in the middle of it. But then there are the other nights, the ones when my thoughts take a dark turn. And I fall asleep eventually, but the nightmares can wake me up, sweat pouring off my body, teeth clenched and my fists pounding the mattress. In those dreams Charlotte is crying. Someone is hurting her because I’ve left her alone and defenseless. Sometimes it’s a faceless monster, sometimes it’s Wes, and sometimes it’s her brother.
Charlotte always denied it, but I know her brother. He’s an angry fuck and I’m convinced he lays hands on her. She swore up and down that it was only words, he never hit her, but her denials never sat right with me. It wasn’t a regular thing, but there were bruises, ones she couldn’t explain away. Bruises that ringed her upper arm like someone was squeezing, or the kind of black and blue you’d get if you took a bad fall on your ass. She wasn’t clumsy so I didn’t buy the trip and fall stories, even though she delivered them stone-faced.
The worst part is the helpless feeling. It’s like my hands are tied behind my back in those dreams. She calls for me but I can’t find her. She’s scared and she’s lost. I can hear her voice but it’s getting farther and farther away. I can’t get to her. I never reach her. I’ve lost her forever.
It’s after one of those restless nights that I break down.
I decided when I left that a clean break was the only way to do this. I wouldn’t contact her. Even though I knew it was cruel and she’d wind up hating me, it was better that way. It was the only way she’d move on, forget me. So I got a new phone with a brand new number. Chicago area code—big, important man I am. And I wiped my memory clean every friend and acquaintance I ever made back home. Knowing my mother and Henry were out of that town made cutting ties even easier. But I can’t rid myself of the memory of Christian Mason or the lock on Charlotte’s door.
Early that morning, as I was fixing to open the bedroom window and crawl out the way I came in, something drew me back to her bedroom door. The screws weren’t flush against the wood. You could see she’d put in some effort, but she wasn’t strong enough to secure them all the way in. I walked into the hallway, hoping for a confrontation, but it was still dark outside so it was an empty gesture. I knew that.
So today I dial the number and ask to be put through to his extension, not exactly sure what it is I’m going to say.
“Guidance office.”
“Mr. Vargas?”
“Yes. Who’s calling?”
I pull my collar away from my neck, even though I’m sporting an old, stretched out tee. “It’s Simon Wade,” I say, trying to calm my nerves.
“Simon! How are you, kid?”
“I’m doing all right.”
He sobers, morphing into concerned mental health provider mode without delay. “You’re settling in, doing all right? Tell me about life out there in Chicago.”
“It’s good. Different. Classes are hard.”
“The workload is heavy.”
Vargas is still using that mirroring technique. I don’t call him out on it, or even mind the slightest bit, because he’s good, doesn’t sound like a damn parrot. He’s nothing like the counselor I saw for a few sessions as part of some sham family support program at the prison.
“I’m handling the work, Mr. Vargas. And thanks for hooking me up with Professor Westfield. He’s been checking up on me, making sure I have everything I need.”
