What He Doesn't Know(15)

       
           


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There was something different about her that night, and it wasn't just  her jeans. I could feel her slowly opening up to me, slowly letting me  in, and the more she gave me, the more I wanted. If she offered me a  smile, I begged her for a laugh. When she gave me a sentence, I pried  for a paragraph.

I'd always been greedy when it came to Charlie.

"That's so disgusting," she said as I lit my second cigarette. Her nose  wrinkled when I inhaled the first hit, blowing out a big puff of white  smoke with a wink in her direction. "I thought for sure you'd have given  up that habit by now."

"Nah. It's like my dad used to say. Something has to kill me eventually, might as well be something I enjoy."

"You don't have to speed up the process. You're going to have lung cancer at forty."

"That's still five more years of good cigarettes, great beer, and even better sex."

Charlie laughed, her cheeks flushing a deep pink. "It's like trying to argue with a five year old."

"You would know better than I would," I told her, taking another pull  from my cigarette. I was careful not to blow the smoke in her direction,  though my eyes stayed on her. "You're drunk."

"Maybe." She giggled the word, picking up her beer to take another  drink, anyway. "It's been so long since I've had beer. I forgot how it  makes you feel all …  swimmy."

"Swimmy?"

"You know," she said, extending her arms to the side and doing a weird  version of the wave. "Floaty. High. Free." Her smile settled into a lazy  smirk, her glazed eyes finding mine. "You were responsible for my first  beer, you know."

"Ohhh, no," I corrected, holding up my right pointer finger. "Don't even  try to pull that. You begged me for your first beer. I said no. You  threatened to tell my parents about the porn stash you and Mallory had  found under my bed. And then I gave you a Stella, which you couldn't  even finish because you hated the taste so much."

"Is that how it went?" she asked, feigning innocence.

"It was. You were such a brat for being a quiet little pigtail-wearing bookworm."

She threw her head back in a laugh. "Oh, my God. I still can't believe  my mother let me wear those things for as long as she did. What  sixteen-year-old still braids her hair into pigtails?"

I swallowed, not wanting to admit the answer to that question - at least  not out loud. The truth was, Charlie had been unlike any other  sixteen-year-old girl I'd ever met. She was smart, quiet, witty, and way  too sexy for her own good. Charlie didn't even have to try to look  sexy, either. She had this innocent school-girl thing going for her - no  makeup, petite frame, pink lips and rosy cheeks. It was even worse when  she wore her glasses, which I noted she'd traded in for contacts  sometime in the years we'd been apart.

At sixteen, she knew more about the world than most of the kids I hung  out with at college parties. Hell, she knew way more than I did, and I  was five years older. I used to love just talking to Charlie, even  though I'd fake that she and Mallory both annoyed me. Sometimes I'd even  complain when I'd come home from a party and Charlie was there in the  kitchen, the only other person still awake in my house. I'd pretend I  didn't want her to be awake, that I didn't want to hang out with her,  didn't want to spend the entire night playing music for her and  listening to the thoughts inside her head - but it was always just that.  An act.

Charlie had always been different. Special. She just never saw it herself.

Taking one last drag of my cigarette, I pulled up the sleeve of my  cardigan, checking the time on my watch. It was half past ten, and as I  drove what was left of my cigarette into the ashtray to extinguish it, I  eyed Charlie with words I didn't want to say balancing on my tongue.

"It's getting kind of late," I unwillingly pointed out. "Are you …  do you have to go soon?"

Charlie's eyes grew sad again, and she stared at the amber liquid in her  glass before tilting it to her lips, finishing what was left. She wiped  the corners of her mouth with a shrug.

"Go where? Home to go to bed alone while he works?" Her fingertips  skated the top of her empty glass. "Not exactly in a hurry for that."

My brows bent together, hand twitching to reach for her again. I gripped  my glass of water to keep from reacting the way I wanted to. "So,  that's what happened to date night," I mused. "He works with your dad,  right? I remember him working long nights and weekends when we were  younger, too."                       
       
           


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Charlie sighed, running her hands back through her hair before she  realized it was still in a bun. She messed it up with the drag of her  nails, but instead of fixing it, she just tore the hair tie out and  shook out her long brown hair, letting it fall over her shoulders.

I couldn't help but stare as the strands fell over her shoulders. I was  almost positive it was the first time I'd ever seen her hair down, and I  had to fight the urge to reach forward and run my fingers through it.

She was so damn beautiful.

"Yeah, he works with Dad," she said. "And I know he wouldn't be working  if he didn't have to. I didn't mean to sound like such a brat."

"You didn't."

"I did," she argued. "But, it's not just tonight. It's not just work."

I swallowed, feeling like my next words needed to be the right ones. "What is it?"

Charlie looked a little like the young girl who used to read books on my  porch in that moment, her eyes a little softer, skin a little younger.  The way her hair surrounded her face like a halo took at least five  years off her appearance.

She closed her eyes tight, shaking her head before she opened them again and found mine. "Can we go somewhere?"

"Where?"

"Anywhere. I just …  I don't want to go home yet."

I understood what she didn't even have to say. I knew all too well what  she was feeling - that terrible, sickening realization that home wasn't  really home anymore. That what once made it home was now missing. My  family had always been home to me, not the place where we lived.

Now that they were gone, I was convinced home was a thing of the past,  something I'd marvel at in the museum of my memories and wish I could  relive.

I didn't know why Charlie felt the way she did that night, or what was  now missing in her home that had been there at some point before I'd  moved back to Mount Lebanon. I didn't know exactly what to say to make  her feel better, or if there even was anything I could say that would  comfort her. I didn't know who she was five years ago, or even five  months ago - didn't know what had changed her since the last time we'd  stood together in the garage of my old house.

But I did know exactly where to take her to clear her head.





Reese



The Duquesne Incline was a historic staple in Pittsburgh.

When we were younger, our parents used to bring all of us kids out to  ride the old rickety cable car up Mt. Washington to the historic outlook  over the city. It had been so magical as a kid, all of our faces  pressed against the glass as we rode up, the pizza we'd stuff our faces  with once we got to the top. But tonight, as Charlie and I rode the  eleven o'clock cable car up to the top, it was beyond magical.

It was surreal.

I watched her profile as her eyes skated the lights in the distance, the  car creaking and groaning as it pushed us up the incline, and she was  no longer the little girl I'd known. Her long, dark hair was still down,  curtained around her small, pale face. Her eyes were heavy and tired,  from the alcohol and from something else I wished I could reach inside  her and pull out to inspect, to fix.

The guilt I'd once felt for looking at her that way because she was too  young had faded, but it was replaced by the fact that she was a married  woman. I had to keep repeating it to myself, had to have those thoughts  on replay so I wouldn't forget. Because looking at her this way, in this  light, in the cold - it was easy to forget.

"I haven't done this in years," Charlie confessed when we reached the  top of the incline. We climbed out of the car, skipping the little  museum at the top and opting for the scenic overlook that was just  outside the old building, instead. She slid her arms over the railing,  her dainty wrists hanging over the edge as her eyes swept the view. "In a  decade, actually. Gosh, I feel old saying that."

I chuckled, twisting the top off the hot spiced cider I'd whipped up at  my place while Charlie waited in the car. "You're not old," I said.

"I feel like it sometimes." Her voice was soft, almost like the song of a bird. "I feel tired."

"I think we all do."