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The words crowded my mind, and any ideas about resigning evaporated.
chapter eighteen
For the next week, I tried to keep some distance between Charlotte and myself. I didn’t take a walk or eat with her every day, but the days in which I didn’t were little slices of hell to be waited out until I could go to sleep at an hour that was acceptable in normal society. But even the days spent with her were wearing on me. We’d come back from a walk, and I’d listen to her play her violin, and then I’d return to my room with my audiobooks and takeout and all the same old bullshit I’d been doing for months.
I wondered what would happen if I asked Charlotte to go out to dinner with me.
Like a date.
Then I imagined sitting at a table, surrounded by other diners, and knocking a drink onto Charlotte’s dress or fumbling with a knife and fork, trying to cut a steak.
She wouldn’t care.
I knew that was true. She had seen me naked and puking and banging my head like a goddamn monkey in a cage. What was one awkward dinner to that?
You’re no good for her, and you know it.
And that was also true. I was no good for her. Not yet. But maybe…
When we did walk, we ventured deeper into Central Park each time, and Charlotte detailed the greenery, the paths, the gnarled trees and the strolling or jogging people. When she told me it was overcast, I asked her to describe the clouds, the shades of white and gray, the sky when it threatened rain, and the sun when it set. Some days, her beautiful descriptions colored my black world and I felt like I had a chance.
Other times, listening to her was torture, and I was the masochist who never told her to stop. I took it all like a jagged pill and swallowed it down, tried to force myself into thinking it was enough.
I could tell she was hesitant on those bad days, not wanting to hurt me. But she did as I asked because, like I’d reminded her, she was my employee and I was her boss.
Some days it felt like I needed that reminder a lot.
One morning, the sky was overcast but not heavy enough for rain. At least that’s what the guy on the radio said. I lay on my bed, listening for hours—since before the dawn, for sure—feeling like shit. There was no other way to put it. They told me at the rehab place that I’d have mood swings. Big ones. I felt myself at the bottom of a low, and a sickening fear that another migraine was on the way took hold.
I kept my damn meds near me this time and thought I’d ride it out alone, to spare Charlotte. But there was no migraine, and instead of stewing in hate, I felt a sudden, almost obsessive need to get out. I couldn’t stand being in that fucking room listening to that obnoxious morning show another minute. I just wanted to step out the front door and take a walk like a normal human being.
I took a long, cool shower, hoping to calm myself. I felt tightly coiled up inside, ready to spring or snap, and I had promised Charlotte she would never have to suffer that again.
She sounded happy—as she always did—when I asked her for a walk. But that afternoon, when we turned left instead of right from the front door, heading westward, I hit the brakes immediately.
“Where are we going?”
“I thought I’d try something new,” she said.
I dropped her arm. “What’s wrong with Central Park?”
“We’re going to a park, just not the big one.” She sighed at my silence. “Can it be a surprise? Just a little one? I think you’ll like it.”
Give her this and don’t be a dick about it.I took her arm again and mustered a bad joke to make up for being short with her. “It’s not an archery range, is it? I’m a bit rusty.”
She laughed—like music that I didn’t deserve to hear. “How’d you guess?”
We walked for ten minutes and then the cement under our feet became gravel. I scrunched up my face. “I smell dog shit. Or is that just the Hudson?”
“The first one. We’re at a dog park.”
“Why on earth did you bring me to a dog park? We’re not here to meet some fucking seeing-eye dog trainer, are we? This isn’t some goddamn set-up—?”
“Will you settle down?” she admonished. “This isn’t a set up. I thought you might like a change, that’s all. Something different.”
I muttered an apology, and she led me to a bench. I felt better at once; I could feel the wide-open spaces around me, and the Hudson River was close. Why that calmed me, I don’t know, but the insatiable urge toget outmellowed some.
I heard a scraping sound along the ground near us, and the image of a skidding Frisbee came to me as clear as day. The sound was followed by paws scrabbling over gravel and panting.
