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“Yeah this is a great place to find a little peace from the chaos.” I grab her helmet and mine, placing them on the handlebars.
“When I first left Liberty, I made it to this little town in Michigan. The lake there was so big, you couldn’t see the other side. It’s as close to feeling like you’re on the ocean as I’ll ever get.”
“What made you leave?” I ask as we make our way to a little bench on the river’s edge.
“The winters,” she replies with a laugh.
“It gets pretty cold here too, babe.” We sit on the bench, and I throw my arm on the back, playing with the ends of Charlie’s dark hair.
“True, but I may be rethinking my stance on cold weather. I’m rethinking my stance on a lot of stuff these days.” She sends me a shy smile before turning her gaze back to the river.
“Like what?”
She lets out a sigh before replying.
“It’s been just me and Lucy for a long time. I’ve never had a family like the one you all have made for yourselves. I like it. It’s not something I ever let myself consider. When you’ve never known anything else, you don’t expect anything else. Seeing you and your brothers makes me wonder what I’ve been missing.”
“No brothers or sisters, then?”
“No.” Charlie laughs. “My mom didn’t even want me, really. As soon as I turned eighteen, she was out the door with her trucker boyfriend. She decided she’d done all she needed to by keeping a roof over my head and food in the fridge. It was her turn to live her life and not be tied to the responsibility of a kid.”
“Doesn’t sound like there was much love in your house.” My mom had been a single mom, but we never felt like a burden to her.
“She wasn’t a horrible person or anything like that. She didn’t hit me or have guys over all the time partying. She just wasn’t present, ya know? I was just sort of… there. Like a houseplant. She had to give me water to survive, but other than that, she pretty much ignored me.” There’s hardly any emotion in Charlie’s voice when she talks about her mom, as though she’d become resigned to her mom’s indifference long before we crossed paths.
There’s a lot my mom probably wished she’d done differently but treating us like we weren’t there would never be one of them.
“Then came Jace,” she continues, staring out as the river rushes by. “He actually seemed to give a shit about me, at least in the beginning. We were high school sweethearts, and he had a way of making me feel special, seen. Something I wasn’t used to.” Charlie turns her body toward me.
“You have to understand, it’s not like we started dating and he immediately started smacking me around. I’d never really felt loved, like I was important in someone’s world. That’s exactly what Jace did. His dad was an asshole, so we spent a lot of time at my house. My mom didn’t care. I doubt she even noticed. He was the one who took care of me if I got sick or made sure I had cake on my birthday.
“When I turned eighteen, I was still in high school, but that didn’t stop my mom from taking off. I had a little money saved up from my after-school job at the diner, and Jace had a job doing oil changes and stuff like that in the only garage our town had. It wasn’t much, but we were able to stay in the apartment me and my mom had for a few more months. Jace made sure I wasn’t upset by my mom leaving. He told me he loved me every day, and it was like being married. Exactly like I thought it should be. A lot changed after graduation.”
When I found Charlie that night all those years ago, she was living in a rundown trailer. Yeah, I’d say a lot changed for her. It’s obvious this is the hard part of her story to tell, so I wrap a comforting arm around her, even though anger for her and what she went through courses through me. She doesn’t need me going off about what a piece of shit parent her mom was. She obviously came to that conclusion a long time ago. The only thing I can offer now is support while she opens up to me. She gives me one of her sweet smiles, and the urge to kiss her to make her forget the bullshit is strong. I settle for a small peck on the lips because I have to taste her sweetness, then let her continue.
“We moved into the little trailer because rent was so much cheaper. Everything was fine for the first few months. Jace was still working at the garage, and I was able to get more hours at the diner since I wasn’t in school. Then he started hanging out with a guy who lived a few spaces down from us. The guy didn’t work, but he seemed to have plenty of cash all the time. Said he liked living in the trailer to keep his bills low.” Charlie rolls her eyes.
“Jace came home one day and told me he was quitting the garage and was gonna work with this guy. We argued about it because, I don’t know, I always got a weird vibe from him. Turns out, he was running meth for a dealer, and Jace decided that was a wise career move for him. He started staying out all night and coming and going at weird hours when he did come home. The changes I saw in him scared me. When I brought it up to him, that was the first time he hit me.” A shudder runs through her body.
“Of course, there were apologies and promises to never lay a hand on me again. He was stressed because the guy’s supplier was caught and sent to prison. Since they’d already hired someone else at the garage, Jace was broke and jobless. We were living on the tips I made, which wasn’t much. Then Jace got in touch with his cousin. He knew Cillian was involved with some less-than-legal activities that brought in major cash in Boston. He would be gone for days at a time, and when he got back, he would crash. God, I remember when I woke him up one time vacuuming.” She pauses and takes a deep breath. “Let’s just say I’ll never look at a vacuum cord the same again.”
I don’t ask her to elaborate. I don’t need to. What I need is to put that fucker six feet under.
“Anyway, it was more of the same. Only difference was he stopped apologizing or making promises.”
“I have to tell you, sweetheart, if he wasn’t already on my shit list, he sure as hell would be now.”
“I felt trapped, ya know? There was no one for me to turn to. He told me plenty of times that he would find me wherever I went. When I came home from work, I’d have to hand over my tips. I was so fucking embarrassed about what my life had become.” A tear slips from her eye, which I promptly wipe away with my thumb.
“You have nothing to be embarrassed about, sweetheart. That was all on him.”
“I know that now, but it took getting away from him and meeting Lucy before I accepted what he told me was a lie. It wasn’t my fault, and no matter what I did to try to make things better and bring the old Jace back, he was gone, replaced by the fucking monster you know now.”
“Fuck, Charlie, I’m so thankful I met you that night. If that was what it took for you to get away, I’ll never regret spending those six years in prison.” The truth of that statement settles down to the marrow of my bones after hearing what she went through.
“When did you meet Lucy?”
She tells me the story of making it to New Orleans, where she stayed for a few years, finally feeling like she was getting her life back and didn’t need to be on the run.
