"Charlie," he repeated. "Don't look at me like that. Don't … you can't … " He shook his head, stepping just an inch closer. "You have to tell me. I have to know. What does this mean? What are you thinking?"
But I couldn't answer.
The crowd's cheers morphed into a loud siren, the stage lights blinding me in a flash before everything went dark.
Reese
I'd never been so sick in my entire life.
///
I couldn't eat, couldn't even drink a damn beer as I paced my house and waited to hear from Charlie. Catching her in my arms when she fainted back stage should have brought me comfort. The ambulance was called, and she was cleared as being okay before I'd even left the school.
But I didn't feel comforted, because though I'd been the one to catch her when she fell, it was Cameron who was holding her when she woke up.
I didn't even bother to crack the door in my house as I lit up the fifth consecutive cigarette and smoked it aggressively as I paced. Back and forth, back and forth, from the kitchen to the door, my eyes catching on the fort Charlie and I spent the entire weekend in each time I passed it.
We should be together under those sheets right now, but instead, she was halfway across town with him.
I'd been so naïve when the morning had started, comforted by a false assurance that everything would be okay and she would be mine now. It'd been so easy to feel that way after three nights of having her to myself, after hours spent talking and touching and sealing what I'd always felt for her, and what I'd known she'd always felt for me.
Even at the concert, when I held her in the dark costume room, I only halfway felt the fear I knew my words portrayed. I was scared, sure, but at the same time I was confident. I told her I'd wait forever, knowing in my heart that I wouldn't have to wait long.
That was, until Cameron showed up.
The second I saw him on stage, my stomach twisted into the most horrid knot of my life. Watching Charlie's emotions as he talked, as he spoke directly to her heart - it killed me. I couldn't touch her, couldn't pull her into me, couldn't force her to look at me instead of him and remember everything she'd felt the past few days.
I could only watch, helplessly, as my opponent rolled up his sleeves to fight back.
It was the last thing I expected him to do.
Now, I didn't know what Charlie was feeling. I didn't know where her head was at as she talked to her husband in their home after being in mine all weekend. Would she still tell him about us? And even if she did, would she tell him I was her choice, or had tonight changed everything?
I sucked my cigarette down to the butt before cursing and snuffing it out in the ashtray on the counter, raking my hands back through my hair. I was going to go mad in the hours that stretched between now and when I would see her at school the next morning, and there was nothing I could do about it.
A timid knock at the door stopped me dead in my tracks before I could light another cigarette. It balanced between my lips, hanging there limply as I stared at the door as if I'd imagined the knock.
But then it came again.
The cigarette dropped to the floor as I sprinted for the door, tearing it open as I sent a prayer up to whatever God was listening to find Charlie on the other side of it. My heart pounded with the force of a cannon, but at the sight of the literal last person I expected, it stopped altogether.
"Surprise!"
Blake smiled at me from the other side of the screen door, suitcase in hand. My hand was frozen on the door knob. I blinked, wondering if the image would clear, if it was just a hallucination or my worst nightmare coming to fruition.
But nothing changed when I opened my eyes again.
Blake was there, pulling the door open since I couldn't do a single thing but stare.
"Guess my surprise really worked," Blake said with a chuckle. "You're speechless."
I still couldn't believe it. Nothing would register. My heart wouldn't start again, my hands wouldn't move, my breath wouldn't pull the much needed oxygen to my lungs - because it wasn't Charlie on my doorstep. It was Blake.
Blake, my ex-roommate.
And, technically, my girlfriend.
Charlie
Jane's cage door was still wide open, the two swings within it empty, and I stared at the gold-plated bars of that little prison as I waited for Cameron to return.
He'd helped me into bed after my episode at the concert, and though I was lucky I hadn't cracked my head like an egg backstage, I still somewhat wished I could just pass out again to skip whatever conversation was about to happen.
I missed Jane.
If she was in her cage, I could open the door and tickle her feathers while she nudged her little head into my hand and sang me a song assuring me everything would be fine. Then again, not even her comforting song could change the fact that my life was a royal mess at the moment.
Still, I couldn't stop staring at her empty cage, longing for her company.
The sun had set long ago, well before the spring concert even started, and our room was illuminated only by the soft white glow coming from my bedside lamp. I heard Cameron's footsteps coming up the stairs and down the hallway before he even appeared, but I still blinked when he entered, as if he'd shaken me from a dream.
///
"Here," he said, taking a seat at the foot of our bed near my ankles.
I kept my eyes on the cage as he handed me a steaming cup of tea on a small porcelain plate. The floral aroma of it hit my nose first, and I finally glanced down at the hot liquid, letting the steam warm my face. It was a white berry tea, one of my favorites, and I hated that Cameron knew it would bring me comfort.
I sat it on the bedside table.
"You need to try to eat something soon," he said softly, placing a small bowl of tea biscuits next to where I'd placed the mug. "I know you don't want to, but you should try."
I nodded as my only acknowledgement, leaning back against the fort of pillows against our headboard with my eyes resting on that damn cage again.
"Why?"
My voice cracked a little at the first word I'd spoken all night. I tore my gaze from the cage, and Cameron's eyes were waiting for me, steady as ever.
"Why did you do it?"
"Because I love you," he answered easily, as if the answer was obvious. "And I'm not losing you."
I stared at him, willing myself to believe the words he'd said, to feel something when he said them - but I only found rage.
"Damn it, Cameron!" I threw the covers back, kicking them the rest of the way off until I could climb out of bed. I needed to walk, needed to be away from him.
My hands ran back through my tangled hair, and I squeezed my eyes tight once I'd reached the far end of our room, standing right next to the cage with the door still open. I wanted to crawl out of my skin, out of the house, out of my life. It was too hard to breathe, my head swimming again like it had at the school, and I blindly felt for the handle on our window before throwing it open and letting in the freezing cold breeze.
The shock of it stole my breath, but then it came back in a slow, comforting exhale, and I braced my hands on the windowsill, letting the cold consume me.
"I know about you and Reese."
His words should have shocked me, should have crippled me with guilt and sorrow, but they only elicited a snarky laugh that had never left my lips before in my entire life. I shook my head where it hung between my shoulders, fingers still curled around the white wood of our window sill.
"Oh, yeah?"
"Yes."
And what does it matter?
That's what I wanted to ask, but I simply leaned against the corner of the window, letting the frame take my weight.
"Well, then I guess there's really nothing more to say. If you know about him, then you know what happens next."
Cameron was still sitting at the foot of the bed, the only change in his stance being that he'd shifted so he was looking at me instead of the pillows where I'd sat before. He was calm and collected, seemingly unfazed by the fact that his wife had slept with another man.
"Enlighten me," he challenged.
I stared at my hands, folding them over one another in my lap. "It's over, Cameron. I'm done. I'm done with the pain, with being ignored, with this sham of a relationship we call marriage." I shook my head, finally feeling the sinking in my gut again.
Admitting that we'd failed was the hardest part.
"I love him," I whispered, sealing our fate, and I closed my eyes hard with the admission.
"No, you don't."
I frowned, opening my eyes again and finally looking at Cameron. It bothered me how calm he was, how sure he seemed.