What He Doesn't Know(34)

Charlie was already shaking her head before I'd even gotten the first sentence out. "I just want to go home."

"To be alone?" I asked. "I know there's a home game for the Penguins  tonight. Sitting at the house by yourself is just going to make you feel  worse."

"But I need to be there for Jane."

The other bird, I thought. "Bring her, too. Maybe she can give me some pointers."

Charlie almost smiled, but then her face broke again, and she buried her eyes in her hands.

Shit. I was just making it worse.

"Look," I said, brushing her hair out of her face so I could meet her  eyes with mine. "The offer stands if you want to take it. Otherwise, lay  in bed all night and eat ice cream or whatever else it is that might  make you feel a little better. It's okay to be sad, I was just offering a  little bit of distraction and company. Okay?"

She sniffed. "Okay."

"Okay. I'm going to get out of here so I stop making you cry more," I  said with a smile. "And I'm going to ask Robin to play a game with the  kids in the hallway before class. Just to buy you a few more minutes.  Alright?"

Charlie nodded, and I had to fight against every nerve in my body not to  lean in and kiss her forehead in that moment. I stood instead, rubbing  my hand over her back once more before I made my way toward the door.

"He forgot."

She said the words when my hand was on the door frame, ready to swing me  around and into the hallway, but I stopped cold in my tracks.

"Cameron … " she clarified. "He forgot yesterday was our anniversary."

Son of a bitch.

I turned slowly, taking in the look on her face as I debated what to  say. Sorry felt cheap and insufficient, and everything I really wanted  to say would only upset her more.

"He's been so busy with work, I guess the days must have gotten away  from him," I said after a moment. I held her gaze, pinning her with my  eyes, hoping she heard what I really meant.                       
       
           


///
       

He's an asshole. He doesn't deserve you. You could be happier.

I could make you happier.

"I'm sure he feels terrible," I added, just for good measure.

Charlie forced a small smile. "Yeah. He said he'll make it up to me."

And maybe I was just making it up in my head, but I thought her eyes said more than her words in that moment, too.

I'm so hurt. He doesn't appreciate me. I feel stupid.

I want you.

"I'm sure he will."

I watched her for a moment longer, wishing I could just take her out of  school and hold her in my arms for the rest of the afternoon. I'd never  longed so much for time - time to be with her, time to hear the dark  thoughts that kept her up at night, time to tell her my own.

Time to love her.

I didn't see Charlie at lunch, nor did she stick around long enough  after school for me to make sure she'd made it through the day okay.  Robin said she'd left as soon as the kids had, and I wondered if she was  already curled up in her bed for the evening.

I smoked three cigarettes on the way home, all the while considering  turning my car around and driving into Pittsburgh. I wondered what  Cameron's face would look like if I just showed up, bought a ticket to  get into his section, and laid him the fuck out in front of the entire  complex.

Part of Charlie's sorrow that morning had been from her bird, but part of it had also been from his blatant disregard for her.

He didn't deserve her, and it killed me that he still got to have her, anyway.

I took a steaming hot shower once I was home, settling in on the couch  afterward with a beer and mindless television. I thought numbing my  brain would help to ease the anger stewing underneath my concern for  Charlie, but it only made it worse. So, I abandoned the TV and made my  way to my piano, flipping the black wood up to reveal the keys  underneath.

My hands moved over the keys automatically, finding their home in the  notes that echoed through the room. I closed my eyes and found a sigh of  relief as I began to play an old favorite song, one from my youth.  Sometimes it made me think of my mom, of her sneaking in when I wasn't  paying attention and listening to me practice in our old house. She'd  bring me food occasionally, but mostly she just sat there and listened.  Sometimes I'd move her to tears, other times she'd get up and dance.

I missed her.

Each song took me further from my aggression, my hands bringing music to  life in a slow, adagio tempo. I started with playing songs I knew, and  eventually drifted into playing music I'd only heard in my mind before  that evening. Sometimes I would stop to write it all down, to capture it  and create - but other times, like tonight, I just played. I just  existed within the keys, within the notes, within the music.

It was almost eight when I took my first break from playing, stopping  only to throw a frozen dinner in the microwave. But before I could open  the packaging, there was a knock at my door.

Through the window at the top, I saw Charlie bundled in a coat with a snow cap pulled over her ears.

My heart picked up speed as I crossed my living room, staring at the  little ball of yarn on top of her hat. I opened the door slowly,  watching her through the screen door still between us.

She held a takeout bag from the taco place down the street in one hand,  and a small bird cage with a yellow Budgie inside it in the other. It  sat perched on the little swing inside, chirping softly, and I could  hear the heartbreak in its song.

Jane.

My eyes swept over Charlie, taking in her messy hair, her tired, puffy  eyes, her chapped lips. I almost forgot I'd invited her, almost asked  her what she was doing here. My stomach flipped at the realization that  she was on my front porch, that she had come to me to make her feel  better. And in that soft light from my front porch, she looked just like  the sixteen-year-old girl I'd left behind on a cold night just like  this one fourteen years ago.

She looked like my Charlie.

"I brought Jane." She shrugged, her shoulders falling heavily back into place in the saddest sign of defeat.

I wanted to kiss her so bad it hurt.

But I just laughed instead, pushing the screen door open to take the cage from her hand.

"A tadpole and a bird, just what I ordered. Come on, let's get you both warm."

It was just a normal Monday. Until it wasn't.





Charlie



I knew the entire drive over to Reese's house that it was a bad idea to go.

Part of me knew it before I'd even started getting dressed, before I'd  moved Jane to her travel cage, before I put the car in drive. When he'd  asked me to come over earlier that morning, it was the absolute last  thing I wanted. But then I got home, and just like Reese had said,  Cameron wasn't there. He worked all day and went immediately to the  Penguins game after.                       
       
           


///
       

I thought maybe he would come home. Maybe just this once, for one night,  he'd sell his tickets and come home. He'd been the one to find Edward  that morning, after all. I knew they weren't his birds, but was he not  hurting?

If anything, did he not realize how much I was?

Between him forgetting our anniversary and Edward passing away, I was a  complete mess. I hadn't been able to keep myself under control all day  at school, which affected my kids' moods, too. My eyes were puffy and  red from the constant crying, and all I wanted was a little relief from  the pain.

So, even though I knew it was a bad idea, I'd gotten in the car and  driven to Reese's house, anyway. And now I was here, and Reese was  placing Jane's cage on top of his coffee table while I peeled off my  coat, hat, and scarf.

"I'm sorry I just showed up," I said, looking around for somewhere to  put my coat. Reese crossed the room to take it from me, hanging it over  the back of his sofa. "I should have called."

"You didn't need to call. I invited you, remember?"

"Yes, but I never said I was coming." I eyed his pajama pants, simple navy sweats that hung low on his hips.

He wasn't wearing a shirt.

That had been the first thing I'd noticed when he opened the door.

His chest and stomach were so familiar to me, even now with the new  patches of hair below his belly button and in the center of his pecs.  I'd seen Reese shirtless so many times growing up, back when it was just  normal for a teenage boy to be without a shirt in the summer or in the  comfort of his own home where my best friend lived.

He had a moon-shaped scar underneath the right side of his ribcage from a  bottle rocket fight he and my brother got into when they were sixteen.

I'd always loved that scar.

"You didn't have to," Reese said, running a hand through his long,  disheveled hair. He watched me for a moment like he couldn't believe I  was in his house, like he had no idea what to do next. "I was drinking  beer earlier, but I can open up one of those bottles of wine I told you  about? If you want."