What He Fights(8)

When it seemed like I was done, I kept my head over the trashcan for a minute just in case, waiting.

I was just about to stand up, when I felt a hand on my back.

“Charlotte.” His voice was laced with concern.

I whirled around.

“Don’t,” I said when I saw him.

“Are you okay?”

I stared at him incredulously. “Am I okay?” I repeated. “You’re kidding me, right?”

“Charlotte-“

“Do not say my name!” My body was filled with rage, rage like I had never known before, rage I didn’t know I was capable of feeling. I felt like I could kill someone, that I might kill him if I had something nearby to do it with.

“I’ve called the car,” he said. “Jared will take you back to the suite. You can wait for me there.”

I didn’t even try to address the fact that what he’d just said was ludicrous. If he’d thought I was going to go back to his hotel suite after what I’d just found out, he was insane.

“Why, Noah?” I asked. I hadn’t realized I was crying until I tasted the salt on my lips. My tears had mixed with the rain, leaving my cheeks damp. “Why did you do that?”

“I didn’t kill Katie.”

I shook my head. “Not Katie. Why didn’t you tell me what evidence they had against you?”

“I was trying to protect you.”

“From what?” I screamed. A woman passing by with a baby carriage stopped and looked at us, making sure I didn’t need help. She must have decided it was just your normal run-of-the-mill boyfriend/girlfriend fight, because after a second she kept going.

He’s a murderer, I wanted to yell after her. Did you know that?

“From everything.” He kept his eyes on me, and I saw his face soften, saw a glimpse of the Noah I was (used to be?) in love with. Apologize, I thought. Tell me you’re sorry. But he stayed quiet.

“Do you know what it felt like to sit in that room, to be there with Professor Worthington and a woman I’d never met before, while I saw that evidence for the first time? Do you know how humiliating it’s going to be for me to meet with her tomorrow? For her to ask me questions about the things you and I have done?”

His jaw twitched. “Charlotte,” he said.

“Stop saying my name!” There was something about the way he said my name that felt intimate, and I felt like he’d lost that right.

“Do you really think I would bring you to this breakfast, that I would put that evidence in front of you, that I would let a woman you’d never met grill you about our sexual relationship just because I wanted to be an asshole?”

“Then why did you?” I cried. “Why, Noah?”

“Because you need to get ready,” he said. “You need to be ready for when you’re up on that stand, Charlotte. They’re going to throw things at you, they’re going to try to trip you up. You’re going to be grilled about your sexual relationship in front of not only one stranger, but a prosecutor, a jury, a judge, a full courtroom. When this thing goes to a full trial, Charlotte, you’re going to have to be strong. And if you thought what happened in there was hard, well, then we’re going to need to work on thickening your skin.”

I stared at him. “I can’t… “ I said. My throat tightened, a knot appearing over my vocal cords. I swallowed and forced it to loosen. “I can’t do this anymore. I have to go.”

“Charlotte,” he reached out and grabbed my arm. “Please, let Jared take you back to the suite. We can talk about this tonight.”

I wanted to believe him. But I knew exactly what it would be like if we talked about it tonight. It would be half-truths and ambiguous language, him insisting that he had nothing to do with Katie’s murder, that everything that had happened this morning had only been him trying to protect me, to get me ready for the inevitable destruction that was going to reign over my life.

His hand was on mine now, his skin warm and inviting. I felt that pull toward him, the urge to bury my face against his chest. The urge for him to strip me naked, to feel his hands all over me, to fall asleep with him next to me, to have his lips on mine.

But I pulled away. “No,” I said. “I’m not going back to the suite.”

“Charlotte- ”

I looked at him. “Noah,” I said. “I am going to walk away from you now. Do not follow me.”

And for once, he listened.



**



I went back to my apartment. It was the only place I had to go.

“Hello?” I called as I opened the door. I’d walked all the way from Midtown, mostly because I was afraid of what would happen if I stopped, afraid my thoughts would overtake me and make it impossible to start moving again.