Remembering Phoenix (8 page)

“I’m not saying sorry because life has been really shitty to you. Even though it has treated you like the world’s toilet paper.” She picks her head up and looks at me. Tears brim her bloodshot eyes, but a smile spreads across her gorgeous face, and something inside of me twists.

God, Charlie. Quit smiling.

“Did you just compare me to shitty toilet paper?”

I shrug. “Maybe. But you’re much prettier than shitty toilet paper, and you smell better too.”

She smells her shoulder. “Good to know.” She reaches for her phone and clicks it on. “Crap. It’s really eleven o’clock?” she asks in disbelief.

“It really is,” I assure her.

“I have to be up so early in the morning.”

“Early? On a Sunday?”

She looks up at me and rolls her eyes. “Some people have to work on weekends.”

“What do you do?” I ask. I’m curious about her.

Why am I curious about her?

“I’m a photographer.”

Photographer. I could see her behind a camera. She seems the reserved, creative type.

“Nice. Why photography?”

“Are you interrogating me? Because I feel like I’m being pried for information.”

“If that’s the way you want to see it, then yes,” I reply, propping my elbows on my knees.

She rubs her hand over her eyes, then looks directly at me. All the ease stripped from her demeanor. “Because pictures stayed when my memory didn’t. Pictures are a moment stamped in time that can’t be undone, can’t be relived. They’re a story, the truth. With one click of the camera, you can say a thousand words without saying anything at all.” A tear trickles down her cheek as she stares off into the flames in the fireplace.

“Yeah. Pictures definitely keep you holding on when that’s all you have,” I reply, looking up at mine and Claire’s photo on the wall.

“Can I ask you another question?”

She nods her head. “Sure.”

“Phoenix’s Dad. Where is he?”

Her shoulders sag. Defeat washes over her. Shame, maybe. “I have no idea who he is,” she admits.

“He hasn’t even spoken up after the accident?” What a fucking sorry piece of shit.

“No,” she says, “you don’t understand. Even before the accident, I didn’t know. I read my journals. I asked my parents, Lizzie, everyone. I had no clue who the father of my child was.” She drops her chin to her chest, covering her face with her eyes. “I was a whore, Slayter.”

“Hey.” I tug her into me. “We’ve all been people we weren’t entirely proud of. It doesn’t make you any less of a person.”

“Maybe not,” she whispers. “But it made me less of a mother.”

“Not true,” I say. I pull her chin up so she has to look at me. There is no way I’m about to let her think who she was is any indication of the type of mother she was, she is. I know I didn’t know her then, but all I have to do is look at the pain in her eyes to know she was the best damn mother. “There is nothing you’ve just told me that made you less of a mother.” Tears glimmer in her eyes, and she closes them to keep the saltiness from falling over her lids. “Did you continue doing what you did before after you were pregnant?”

She shakes her head no. “Everyone said I changed completely the moment I found out. They said it was like a light switch. In one moment I was this wild party girl, and the next I was home every night, taking care of myself.”

“See?” I say, “Stop beating yourself up over something that isn’t even true.”

She opens her eyes. We stare at each other for a moment. “You have no idea what it’s like to not remember anything, yet feel this constant pain of every memory I lost. It’s the loneliest feeling in the world to mourn a person you don’t remember.”

Charlie is ripping me apart with every word she says. It’s like she speaks with a purpose, and every word etches into me, burying themselves deep inside.

It’s too much.

She’s too much.

I need to think. To breathe.

I’m torn between needing to get away from her and never wanting to let her go. It’s a battle of wills, but I’m not sure I’m strong enough to push her away.

“I need to get going,” Charlie says.

Well, I guess that solves my internal conflict. “I’ll need you to take me to my parents’ house though.”

I nod. “I’ve got you, Charlie.”

One month ago I was broken with the thought of having to live without a little girl I’d spent nine months loving.

Then something happened. I stole drinks from a girl at a bar. Then, that girl happened to be my new sister-in-law’s sister. Then, I find out that girl has gotten the shittiest end of the stick life has to offer, and it’s made my problems seem so small, so miniscule in comparison. I’m still angry over the lies Jodi spit out, making me fall in love with Claire, just to rip her out of my life in an instant. I proposed. Promised a forever, and I planned on giving it to her. But she cheated, and I should have known when she said she wanted Claire to have her last name until we were married. I should have seen the flags at every corner, but I didn’t.

They say love is blind. I was exhibit A.

I don’t hate Jodi for it, I don’t blame her. Well, yeah I do, but I’m not holding a grudge. She gave me nine months with Claire, and that’s nine months no one can ever take from me. I’m not Claire’s father. It hurts, but I’m starting to come to terms with it. Becoming at peace even.

I just hope wherever she is, she is loved and living the life she deserves. Jodi is a lot of things, but she was always an amazing mother to Claire.

“Take a left up here,” Charlie instructs quietly from the passenger seat, breaking me out of my thoughts. “Then go straight until you see mailbox number 7681 on the right. The gate will be open, so just drive right in.”

I look over to her. The streetlight’s glow in the cab of my truck shines across her face. The scar residing on her cheek is raised and red. Maybe it’s one of those that get angrier as your emotions get higher. Whatever it is, I don’t mind it. That scar makes her a part of who she is.

Wait. Stop, Slayter.

I don’t know why the hell she is affecting me like she is. I’m not that guy. I don’t get drawn in this quick. It took me two years to ever say “I love you” to Jodi and look where that got me. But there’s something different about Charlie. Maybe it’s that she doesn’t see the world from the eyes of naïveté. Maybe it’s because she’s emotionally scarred and I feel a need to help heal some of them. Maybe it’s because she’s drop dead gorgeous, but doesn’t realize it.

“Don’t stare at me anymore. It’s uncomfortable.”

“I wasn’t staring,” I lie.

I watch her out of the corner of my eye as she snaps her head towards me. “You were staring. I hate staring. It’s rude. You’ve been really kind to me today, so don’t make me regret thinking you’re a nice guy.”

I pull into the driveway with mailbox number 7681 and stop. I turn and look at her. The moon shines on her skin. “I am a nice guy.”

“For the day? Yes. A nice guy in general? I’d say you’re most definitely full of crap.”

“I didn’t take advantage of you while you were on my couch. That makes me a nice guy.”

She laughs. “No. That makes you not castrated, because I would have done just that had you tried. Not that you would want…” She trails off like she wants to say more, but she doesn’t.

“Not that I would want what?” I ask.

She looks at me, placing a piece of hair behind her ear. “Not that you would want to take advantage of a girl like me,” she admits.

I scoff. She is absolutely insane. “What exactly is a ‘girl like you’?”

She shakes her head. “Nothing. Can you just continue up the driveway so I can get a shower and get to bed? It’s been a long day.”

“Sure.” I press on the gas and slowly head up the paved driveway, to the two story brick house.

She opens the door when I park and hops out of the truck. “Thank you for getting me out of there today when I needed it. Thank you for giving me a place to crash while I fell apart.”

“Are you okay, now?”

She laughs lightly. “I’ll never be ‘okay’, but I’ll make it…I guess.”

“If you ever need someone to be
not okay
around, you know where to find me.”

“Slayter Beck, you are such a bullshitter. It’s not even funny.”

I watch her as she watches me. There’s pain and loneliness swirling around that pretty face of hers.

Shit. I can’t do this.

“Hang on.” I hop out of the truck and jog around to her side.

“What are you doing?” she asks, panic in her voice.

“You said I wasn’t a nice guy, so I’m going to take advantage now.”

I grab her face between my hands and bend down until our lips connect, smothering her words with my mouth. She kisses me back, grabbing on to the front of my coat. Her soft lips meld perfectly to mine. The heat from our kiss mixes with the coolness of the November air, and damn, this feels good. Our tongues collide with each other in a battle of passion. Everything inside me screams for her. To be around her. To be there for her.

Suddenly, she pushes away from me, shoving on my chest. Her eyes wide, she yells, “What the hell are you doing?”

I’m still on a high from the damn kiss. “I was kissing you. It was a damn good kiss, too, I might add.”

“No. No. No. You were just being nice. I don’t do… this.” She flails her arms between us.

“Don’t do what?” I ask amusingly.

“I don’t kiss. I don’t allow myself to
feel.
”

“What’s so wrong with feeling?”

She looks at me as if I should already know the answer to the question. “Because feelings lead to hearts breaking and I’ve had my heart trampled on, my soul ripped in two, because of life. I just don’t do feelings.” She wraps her arms around her to ward off the cold. I shrug my coat off and drape it over her before she has time to object. “Don’t do that,” she says. “I don’t need you to be nice and pretend to
like
me or whatever the hell it’s called.”

“Who’s pretending?” I look around, looking for this
pretender
, because if I’m being honest, I don’t want to
like
this complicated, yet beautiful, mess of a woman. But I do, and dammit, there’s nothing that’s going to stop it from happening.

“You… you know what? Never mind. Thank you for giving me a place to calm down and bringing me here. Goodnight, Slayter.” She turns around and runs up to the house, never looking back at me.

The sound of the door slamming is deafening in the silence of the night.

I grab the back of my neck, pinching my eyes shut. “I’m screwed.”

“How was the honeymoon?” I ask Lizzie, taking a sip of my coffee.

“It was perfect, Char. I can’t believe Mom and Dad did that. It was just,” she pauses and sighs, “everything I dreamed of and more.”

The smile plastered on my little sister’s face is incredible, and absolutely deserving.

“What have you been up to since the wedding?” she asks.

I cross my legs and sigh heavily. “Just working, working, and more working. Staying busy so I don’t go crazier than I already am,” I laugh. I laugh, but it’s the truth. If I don’t stay busy, I’ll start thinking too much, and when I
think
,
I allow myself to go back to the dark place I try so hard to stay out of.