I needed all the help I could get where my heart was concerned.
I thumped the loaf of bread on the table, squashing it. Alex tried to salvage it by reshaping it with his hands.
“Tell me what to do, Alex,” I demanded.
I didn’t need to elaborate.
“I can’t. You have to figure it out,” he said quietly.
I looked to the floor, trying to hide the fact that I had begun to cry. It was frustration more than sadness. Alex dropped the bread and enveloped me in a hug. “If you already knew the answer, what would it be?” he whispered.
My mind worked surprisingly quickly.
Going to New York had never seemed like a long-term plan. It was something I needed to do to be with Adam, but I’d always considered it temporary. It was an adjustment I was too selfish to make permanently. It wasn’t surprising that I’d never looked at the bigger picture before now. Leaving everything to chance was my usual modus operandi, but Adam – the boy who loved small details – had somehow managed to overlook them too.
Once broken down, it was simple. I was not a girl who had it all together. The list of things I’d never done was far too long. Adam knew his place in the world, but he was prepared to bend and twist his life to keep me in it. I couldn’t let him do that. I had to let him go.
26. La La Land
If Adam thought it odd that I called him at six in the morning he didn’t let on. Nor did he question me when I told him that I needed to see him. I don’t know what made me suggest meeting at the lookout on the cliff. We hadn’t been there since the day after we’d first met.
He borrowed Gabrielle’s car. I took mine, never suggesting that we go there together. He never questioned that, either.
Nothing about the view from the top of the cliffs ever changed. Even the weather remained the same. Cold blustery winds that sting your face and freeze your hands the second you get out of the car are constant. The only thing that had changed since the last time was us. We no longer sat at opposite ends of the rickety wooden seat, cautiously trying to figure each other out. We sat together, bound by something neither of us had ever really managed to understand.
“What are you thinking, Charlotte?” Adam’s eyes were locked ahead, fixed on the angry ocean below us.
I tightened my grip on his hand, sucked in a breath and prepared to let go of everything.
“Going to New York would be a mistake for me, Adam. It would be a mistake for both of us. I don’t belong there.” I wanted to sound strong but my tone smacked of indecision.
“Would you like to tell me why?” he asked seriously.
I pulled my hand free. “This isn’t your real life. Your life before me was exactly as it should have been.”
“I’ll happily make room for you in my real life,” he said, forcing a smile.
“I don’t want you to. It won’t work,” I said coldly, watching his expression crumple. “You have everything worked out. You’ve always known who you are and what you want. I don’t know anything.”
His frown intensified into a scowl and he focused back on the ocean. “Perhaps it seems that way because until a week ago, you didn’t know where you’d come from. Your father has to own that one. Seventeen years of angst and guilt and displacement could have been avoided if he’d just been truthful.”
It was the first time Adam or anyone had ever referred to Alex as my dad. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. Perhaps that was the crux of my problem. I might have been far less complicated if I’d known the truth from the beginning.
“Please don’t bring Alex into this.”
“I know he’s been in your ear, Charli,” he replied.
Annoyed with the direction the conversation was headed, I stood up, unsure of my next move. Adam made it for me, grabbing my hand and pulling me back down.
“Alex has nothing to do with this,” I insisted. “I’m trying to tell you that – ”
“You’re trying to run away,” he interrupted. “I know we have some figuring out to do, but I’ll do whatever it takes to make sure you’re happy in New York. And if I can’t, then we’ll work something else out.”
He made it sound simple, but I couldn’t swallow away the lump in my throat. There was no way I could let him change anything about his life for me. I wasn’t a safe bet at the best of times. Gambling his whole future on me was the riskiest long shot ever.
“It’s not enough,” I said grimly. I made no attempt to stem the tears down my cheeks. I deserved to feel woeful.
“Tell me why,” he demanded.
“It’ll never work, Adam. Eventually I will make you miserable and all the little quirks you find so endearing now will drive you crazy.”
“Charlotte – ”
I snatched my hand away, overcome by frustration. He was still trying to reason with me. I wasn’t used to being the sensible one.
“I’m not Charlotte, Adam. I never was. I’m Charli Blake, scattered and a little bit crazy most of the time. ”
He didn’t hesitate. “And I am Adam Décarie, the guy who never took a chance on anything before you. I never even believed in anything before you. And somehow we found each other. You’re telling me that means nothing. What are you suggesting we do, exactly?”
“You will go. And this will end. That’s what I want.” I sounded remarkably strong considering I was dying inside.
“You can’t even look at me when you say that,” he pointed out.
I had spent the entire night wrestling with myself, searching for solutions to problems we hadn’t even faced yet. I could justify everything by telling myself that I was saving us both a lot of heartache in the future. Punching holes in his chest and tearing out his heart was harder to defend – and impossible to watch.
Adam stood, digging his hands into his pockets as he looked at the grey sky.
“Please understand,” I begged.
He closed his eyes. “I can’t understand. And I don’t believe you. The only way there could be an ounce of truth in what you’re saying is if you don’t love me.”
Whether he meant to or not, he’d given me a way out. I had never once told him I loved him. I’d never figured out how to say it in way that gave it the merit it deserved. That omission might be the only chance I had to make him give up on me.
“You were a great distraction for me, that’s all.” It was one of Alex’s descriptions of him. “For a while, you saved me from this place. I used you and now it’s over. You go back to your life and I’ll go back to mine.”
The mean girl from fifty-three days ago was back with a vengeance. I hated her.
He stood staring at me for far too long. “You think I saved you? That’s rich, Charli. I thought you would have realised by now that you’re the one who saved me. You gave me everything.”
What could I have possibly given him? He was the boy who had everything to begin with. He was whole before he met me. So why couldn’t I just shut up and leave him unbroken?
“What did I give you?”
“La La land.”
I blinked in disbelief. “You don’t belong in La La land, Adam. Trust me, when you get back to New York you’re going to wake up every morning feeling relieved because I’m not there.”
He didn’t move. “Tell me you don’t love me.”
I hesitated, studying his devastated face.
“I don’t love you. I never loved you.” I said slowly, leaving no room for misinterpretation.
Turning his back he puffed out a hard breath, standing motionless for a long time. I waited for him to speak, or for lightning to strike me down for telling the blackest lie in the history of all lies.
“Well, I guess that’s it then,” he said, finally.
“I’ll make sure Norm forwards you the cheque for the boat,” I said unsteadily, making sure all loose ends were tied.
An angry noise escaped him. “I don’t want the damned money, Charlotte. I want you to keep it, and use it well. Use it to figure out who you are and what
you’re looking for.”
“And what will you do?”
He didn’t hesitate “I love you with my whole heart. The best I can hope for is that I can find a way to change that.”
I’d given him every reason not to love me. I was wretched and cruel. I kept being wretched and cruel. “Soon I’ll just be a girl you used to know.”
The look he gave me wasn’t kind. “And what will I mean to you?”
“You’ll be the boy who once saved me from myself,” I said bleakly.
I was truly a hateful person. Calling it quits and walking away wasn’t enough. I had to keep chipping at him until the only thing he could possibly feel was loathing. Then I’d know it was truly over.
He walked over, reached for my hands and pulled me to my feet. His lips pressed gently to mine and my body betrayed me by trembling, just as it had a million times before. Only this was different. This would be the last time.
***
There were a few noticeable absentees at school that day. Nicole, Gabrielle and my brain were missing. I couldn’t concentrate on anything and scored detention from two different teachers.
I didn’t care that Nicole wasn’t there. Ethan’s stranglehold on her was making her unreliable. I’d resigned myself to the fact that as long as he was around she was unavailable.
Gabrielle’s absence did concern me. I tried hard not to find reason for it. Every scenario I came up with pointed back to me and how vile I was.
It was almost dark by the time I arrived home. Alex was angry, and made no secret of it.
“Where’s your phone?” he barked the second I walked in.
“I turned it off.”
“Why?” he demanded
I didn’t need him yelling at me. I deserved it, but I didn’t need it. The flood of tears I’d been holding back since that morning couldn’t be blinked away.
“Because I don’t want to talk to anyone,” I blubbered.
Alex stopped dead in his tracks. Two things he never coped well with were crazy or crying. I was doing both.
“Don’t cry. Please, don’t cry,” he pleaded. I put my hands up, motioning for him to stay put. I didn’t feel worthy of comfort. I’d earned every bit of the hurt I was feeling.
“It’s going to be okay, Charli,” he promised, ignoring me and wrapping his arms around me.
I think he was relieved when I went to bed early. Everything he said was wrong, and nothing I said made any sense. I flitted from insisting that letting Adam go was the best thing for both of us, to sobbing that I’d made a huge mistake.
Sleep came, but it didn’t last long. I woke shortly after midnight feeling nothing less than grief-stricken – and finally, I understood why. Adam was about to leave my life thinking I didn’t love him. And that was a tragedy.
Annihilating him was the only sure-fire way I knew to end it. If I smashed the road up, there could be no going back. I just wished I had been able to do it without destroying everything we’d shared in the process.
I was left with brilliant memories that a hundred years would never dim. Selfishly, I’d cut Adam loose so brutally that forgetting he’d ever met me was probably preferable to remembering anything.
Throwing back the covers, I jumped out of bed, reaching for my coat that was draped over the back of the chair. I slipped out into the cold night.
My car tried to start. Every time I turned the key it groaned, but wouldn’t fire up. After a minute or two, the porch light came on, and my heart sank. I put my seatbelt on, as if that was all it would take to stop Alex dragging me out of the car. I tried to gauge his mood, but the darkness made it impossible to see his face.
Absurdly, I nearly jumped out of my skin when he tapped on the window. It was like a poorly acted B-grade horror movie.
“You used to be so much better at sneaking out,” he said through the gap in the window.
I struggled to look at him. “No, you just used to be better at turning a blind eye.”
“Here,” Alex said, pushing his keys through the window. “Take the Ute.”
I finally looked his way. “No catch?”
“There’s always a catch, Charli. You jump and then I catch. That’s always been the rule.”
***
I parked the Ute on Gabrielle’s street, worried that the sound of the engine would wake her. The porch light cast a dull but helpful glow as I tiptoed down the veranda to his window, rehearsing what I was going to say – if he let me speak. Adam didn’t owe me one second of his time.
I swept the curtains aside as I climbed through. Something was amiss. My eyes adjusted quickly to the darkness of the room. My mind took longer.
He was gone.
I sat on the edge of the bed, concerned that the sound of my body crashing to the floor would wake Gabrielle, but the hallway light came on, telling me that she was already up.
“He’s gone, Charli,” she said, rounding the doorway.
I lifted my head. She looked nothing like someone who’d just been woken by an intruder. She looked like she’d been expecting me.
“Not for a few days,” I insisted.
“He changed his flight. He left this morning.”
I frowned, trying to work out the timeline in my head. Adam must have left town the minute I got through obliterating him. And Gabrielle’s absence from school made sense. She must have driven him to the city.
“You let him go?” My tone was unfairly angry. I had no one to blame but myself.
She ventured into the room and sat beside me on the bed. “No,” she corrected. “You let him go.”
Gabrielle Décarie was harsh but honest, painfully so sometimes.
“I had to,” I told her.
“He left something for you.” She handed me a small white envelope. “I’ll be in my room if you need me,” she said, exiting as quickly as she’d appeared.
Maybe she anticipated a meltdown, or an hysterical woe-is-me tantrum. Truthfully, I was capable of both at that point – simultaneously if the need presented itself.
I tore open the envelope and the opal pendant fell into my lap. I picked it up, dangling it in the air, pondering whether it meant anything anymore. I turned my attention back to the envelope. I’d torn the note inside. Piecing it together, I read quickly.
Charlotte,
I know you love me. I’ve never doubted it. That makes the end OK.
Adam
Air flooded my lungs. I no longer felt like I was barely alive. Adam had seen through me. I loved him and he knew it. It wasn’t a happy ending, but it was one I could live with. I was bruised but not wrecked. Better still, I hadn’t broken him.
27. Escape
Keeping busy made time pass faster. Life after Adam would have been unbearably slow otherwise. Even after four weeks, I caught myself thinking of him every time I sat still – so I made a point of never sitting still.
Weekends were easier. Occupying myself was easier.
The Parisienne was spending more and more time at our house. It was nowhere near as insufferable as I expected it to be. She clearly loved Alex and we rarely ate sandwiches for dinner any more. On the downside, sharing a bathroom with her was a nightmare. Gabrielle’s assortment of beauty products was mystifying to say the least.
The minute I stepped out the front door I knew that Saturday was perfect. The morning was cold and dewy and bright. Inspired, I balanced precariously on a stepladder, taking pictures from the veranda.
“Charli, what the heck is this?” asked Alex, stepping outside and waving something at me.
Every now and then Gabrielle left something behind. Today it was an eyelash curler. Even after I’d told him what it was, Alex looked baffled.
“So what’s it for?” he asked.
“Does the name not give you a hint?” I asked.
“Clearly not. What are you doing?”
“Come and see,” I said. I pointed to the eave. Alex looked up and I saw his expression transition from interest to wonder. A huge spider had made i
ts home under the eave, weaving the most intricate web I had ever seen. Drops of dew beaded through it, glistening in the morning light.
“I told you spiders were gifted,” he said exultantly. “I’ll bet her name is Charlotte.”
“Of course it is,” I drawled, laughing.
It felt good to laugh. It occurred to me that I hadn’t done it in a while. There were too many things I hadn’t done since Adam left, and I was beginning to realise that was a mistake. No one had died. I’d spent weeks trying to convince myself that no one had even been hurt.
“Alex, can we surf today?”
“Are you serious?” he asked, taken aback by my request.
“Deadly.” He’d been working seven days a week, so a morning in the surf would be good for him. He’d advertised Nicole’s position, but the only person to apply was Lily Tate. He wasn’t that desperate yet.
I assumed he’d keep the café closed that day, so I was surprised when he told me that we had to stop in on the way to the beach to open up.
“Who’s working?”
“Nicole, just for the day,” he said, wryly. “I offered her double pay.”
There was a time that Nicole would have done it for free. “That was so nice of her,” I said.
“Don’t be cynical, Charli,” he admonished. “It’s a small price to pay for a day at the beach with my kid.”
If I had been jealous of the time Alex spent with Gabrielle, which I wasn’t, spending time at the beach with him would have placated me. It was our thing. The Parisienne never went to the beach, probably worried about getting sand in her Manolo shoes.
I wasn’t a winter surfer by choice, and surfing in warm water, wearing as little as possible, ranked high on the list of things I’d never done. Every time I dragged on my restrictive thick wetsuit I thought about it.
The presence of Adam in my life had sometimes clouded the importance of my never-done list. Those tiny dreams were creeping back in. I felt nothing like I had when Mitchell skipped town. Adam Décarie had left me intact. I missed him terribly, but it wasn’t paralysing. I would love him forever, but refused to be consumed by it. I was coping; and that was the best I could hope for.