“I think it’s killing me,” I whispered for the first time out loud to anyone.
Leighton held me like that, even when the waitress brought back our drinks. She never let me go.
“Something has to give.” I stared into the highball glass now sitting on the tabletop.
She waited. She waited until she was sure I had nothing left to say, and then she spoke. “I love you, Charleston.”
“I love you, too.”
“I know you do. I also know that you’ll understand that what I have to say only comes from a good place.” I nodded. Leighton didn’t have a malicious bone in her body. “You have to stop torturing yourself. First, it was with Dean. Then, it was with Henry. And it’s been either one of them or something else you’ve picked up along the way for the last ten years.” She sighed sadly. “You need to find a way to forgive yourself for losing them. You need to find a way to let go.”
The tears from my eyes fell quietly, and she wiped them away as she continued to speak.
“It’s not your fault they left you, but Char, I mean it, it’s your fault that you left you.” She started to cry too, because she knew it would hurt me to hear her say that. “I know you’re lost. I know it feels that way. It feels that way, because you walked out on yourself before you ever gave yourself a fighting chance.”
It burned.
It hurt the way getting stitches without freezing did.
You needed the pain to close the wound.
A necessary suffering.
“I know you did that because it helped, but it’s not helping anymore. You need to let it go.”
I wrapped my arms around her.
“I’m trying,” I whispered. “I promise I’m trying.”
She leaned back and put her forehead to mine. “It’ll hurt like hell, but I’ll be here.”
“I know.” I closed my eyes.
Then she kissed my nose and moved back to her side of the both.
That was Leighton; she bulldozed through the hard stuff like a soldier, with a glass of the house wine waiting for her at the finish line.
She didn’t drag it out.
She didn’t sucker punch you.
She just…did it.
“Now, I want you tell me more about all of these babes you’ve got.” She whistled and brought her Chardonnay to her lips.
“All?” I winced.
Plural sounded bad.
One woman having men in the plural always seemed to rub people the wrong way.
Including me.
“Oh hush.” She waved her hand and the mood lightened. “It’s 2016. If you can’t date multiple men as a single woman in 2016, when the hell can you? It’s not like you’re in a relationship. Dating is just dating. Try a few people on and see what you like.”
True.
“So now Kevin says he’s Team Beau, but I’m not sure I’ve picked a team yet.” She fanned herself with the menu she’d been looking at and smirked.
“Oh, God,” I groaned. “I’m not sure I even like Maverick as a human being, and Dean made me cry, twice.”
I held up two fingers.
“Whatever.” Leighton ignored my protests.
Everyone was in on the joke but me.
This seemed to be a running theme in my life these days.
“If you had to choose, which one would you pick?”
I paused, rolling the rim of my glass along my bottom lip. “All of them,” I confessed, tipping the bourbon back and enjoying the burn.
You know the boy who cried wolf?
Well, I’m the girl who cried love… and this time, no one was coming to rescue me.
“Message me tomorrow,” Leighton called from the open window of her Lexus as she began to pull away from the curb.
I turned around to walk backwards. “I will. Goodnight.”
“Night,” she hollered.
I loved her.
She was something I’d done really right.
I spun around, enjoying my three-whiskey buzz, and climbed up the stairs.
My passcode was easier to enter this time, but still, I took the stairs. The pulled pork mac and cheese comfort food I’d had for dinner would no doubt soon be residing on my behind.
Not that I really cared, but I cared enough to take the stairs.
Yanking open the door marked 3rd Floor, I fell a little into the hallway.
I wasn’t drunk, but due to the fact I could probably count on one hand the number of times I had three drinks in a year, I wasn’t sober either.
Humming along to I’ve Had The Time Of My Life and searching for my keys, I missed it.
I missed him.
“Charlie.”
My head swung up to see Dean sitting on the floor outside the door of my apartment.
I stopped abruptly and started to back up.
“Charlie, wait.” He started to stand, and the booze in my veins started to move through me like molasses.
“Stop calling me that.” I shook my head. “How dare you call me that?”
My voice was getting louder.
Somehow, through the loss of some of my inhibitions, I’d surpassed flooding and grief. I’d arrived solely at unjust anger.
“What you saw today—” he started and I laughed without humour.
“What I saw today was your daughter. What is she, ten?” I laughed harder, like a lunatic. “Matter of fact, where’s her mother, Dean? Where’s your wife?”
I was on a roll and gaining speed quickly.