One Golden Summer(91)

Charlie squints like he’s not sure what I’ve said. “Try?”

“Yeah, see where it goes,” I say. “I know it’s not what we originally planned, but we’re so good together. It’s weird how much we make sense.”

I pause, because Charlie has gone eerily still. Suddenly, he sits up, and I hurry to do the same.

“Alice.” I’m not sure how he can put so much weight into a name, how he can fill two syllables with so much frustration and sorrow. His eyes plead with me. Everything I’ve wanted to say turns to ash on my tongue.

Charlie runs a hand over his head. “I need coffee.” He practically leaps out of the bed. “What would you like for breakfast?”

I pull the sheet around myself as he throws on a pair of track pants. He peers at me over his shoulder and pauses. “I’m useless before I’ve had coffee.”

“Sure.” I sound deflated.

Charlie sits on the bed beside me. “Please, Alice. Can we just go downstairs and wait to have this talk until we’ve both woken up?”

I stare at him. “It’s a pretty straightforward conversation.”

“Please,” he says again.

So I wait while Charlie fixes the coffee and cooks me scrambled eggs with toast that I can’t force down my throat. I set my fork on the plate, and Charlie winces into his mug. I wait for him to take his last sip, and then I tell him the truth.

“I have feelings for you,” I say.

Charlie opens his mouth, but I plow ahead. “And I can’t pretend that’s not the case. I won’t.”

“Alice.” He’s shaking his head, his eyes cast downward. “Alice, I can’t.”

My frustration rises.

“What do you mean, you can’t? Of course you can. We have the best time together. We fit. I want more nights like last night. I want more of everything. Would you please look at me?”

It takes him a moment before he raises his eyes. I can see the apology in them before he speaks. “I told you I’m not in a place where I can get involved.”

“We’re already involved, Charlie. What we’ve been doing this summer…that’s a relationship. And you’re good at it.”

“I can’t do this in the long term.” He looks away. “It wouldn’t work.”

“How can you possibly know that?” My voice breaks.

Charlie rises, coming around the table and crouching in front of me. He wipes the tears away from my face. “Please don’t cry. I care about you. I care about you so much.” He’s almost as upset as I am. “I’m just not built for a relationship.”

“You are built for ME.”

“Alice.” His voice is pure anguish.

“Don’t pretend that you don’t agree or that you don’t have feelings for me. I’ve seen it, Charlie. I know you.”

We stare at each other for seconds, and then his face goes blank.

He stands, giving me his back. “This was a great summer,” he says slowly. “I wish it could stay like this, that I’d stay interested longer than a couple of months. But I’m me and you’re you. We’re too different. It would never work. I’d get bored.”

“I don’t believe you,” I whisper. But now I’m not sure. Maybe I’ve deluded myself, just like I did all those years ago with Oz. “Look at me, Charlie.”

When he faces me, I’ve never seen him so closed off, so impenetrable. His eyes are cold, his jaw tight. His voice sounds like it’s being scraped over shards of glass. “I’m doing you a favor, Alice. One day you’ll see that.”

I stand, forcing the tears back, and look him straight in the eye. “You know what I think? I think you’re a fucking coward. I think one day you’re going to realize that for all the shit you say you’ve done, this is your biggest mistake.”

Hurt flashes in Charlie’s gaze. I give him one more moment, but his eyes drop to the floor.

“I thought you were better than this,” I tell him. And then I go.

I don’t let myself cry again until I see the cottage, and my sobs come in loud, painful gasps. I double over, not sure I can take another step. But then Nan opens the door and holds out her arms.





47


Monday, August 25

The Last Day at the Lake

I spend two days in a numb fog, wishing I never came to the lake, before I pull myself out of it. And then I block his number. I refuse to see him. There’s a full week left of August, but Nan and I are going home early.

I pack our things into the car and take one last look around the cottage. I say goodbye to the view, to the curtains and pillowcases and tablecloths Nan and I made this summer, to the jar of matchbooks and the shelf of Harlequins. I say goodbye to my bedroom. I leave the key in the outhouse. But I don’t say goodbye to Charlie.



* * *





I spend my first week in the city focused on creating a new routine. I find a darkroom to rent. I carve out time in my schedule to work on my own art. I pick a date to meet with Elyse to show her my new photos. And every morning, I swim.

Today begins the same way as the previous seven. Shower. Swim cap. Goggles. Climb onto the diving platform and slice through the water. Twenty laps. Thirty. I don’t stop, don’t slow, don’t think. I breathe and kick and count, a crystalline clarity smoothing the sharp angles of my pain. Forty. Fifty. I get to sixty faster than I did yesterday. But there’s no pleasure in it. Like every other day, I’m not even out of the water before reality crashes into me.