Unbearable (33 page)

I turn my gaze to the ten o’clock position and see nothing and no one unusual. I sit up and see that Daniel is staring straight ahead and roll my eyes. I should have known. Clearly Daniel has no idea how to read an analog clock. Every time he gives a position in relation to a clock, he’s nowhere near correct. I follow his eyes and see exactly who he’s looking at.

Alexis, Phoebe, and Cozi are emerging from the main office, and in the center of them is a stranger. Granted, with a school as large as ours, it’s not possible to know everyone, but she’s one I would have noticed. She’s about the same height as Phoebe, which puts her around five-and-a-half feet. She has straight, blonde hair. Nothing extraordinary in either of those features but she’s definitely on the gorgeous side of life, I can see that even from here. She laughs at something one of the other girls says and Daniel turns a look to me, grinning. Her laugh carries across to us, throaty and joyful, one of the greatest laughs I’ve ever heard.

“We should go say hi,” I say.

“That’s what I was thinking,” Daniel replies, scooping up his backpack from the floor as he rises. When we near the group, Alexis sees our approach. Her gaze finds mine and I see a flash of anger mixed with hurt. Her eyes flick to the new girl and then back to me as understanding dawns. She knows I’m not coming to see her, but to meet her new friend.

“Hey, guys,” Daniel says.

They all respond, except the new girl. I’ve got my gaze locked on her and she’s looking back.

“Hi, Benjamin,” Phoebe says.

“Hey, Phoebe,” I say, my gaze flicking to her quickly, dismissively, before returning to the new girl. She’s even better looking up close. Her eyes are a hazel green, wide and almond shaped, surrounded by thick, dark lashes. I wonder if they’re
fake. Plenty of girls have fake lashes. “Who’s your new friend?”

“Oh, um, this is Charlie. Charlie, this is Benjamin and Daniel.”

I hold a hand out and her eyes look at it. She hesitates just a nanosecond before placing her hand in mine. She grasps my hand tightly, gives it a single firm shake then pulls her hand back before I have a chance to give her my usual soft squeeze and gentle brush of the thumb across the back of her hand. It always works to throw girls a little off, when they’re not sure if they’ve had their hand shaken or caressed.

Alexis bites the inside of her cheek and I can see she’s trying not to laugh over Charlie’s handshake. Alexis is one of my most recent heartbreaks—her heart, not mine. To be fair, I only went on two dates with her. That’s my absolute maximum. Any more than that and the girl might think I’m interested in some kind of relationship. Sometimes they fall too hard for me. If I’m being honest,
most
times they fall too hard for me. Not my fault. Alexis smiles at Charlie’s apparent rejection of the vibes I’m trying to project.

Charlie turns and juts her hand toward Daniel, giving him the same brusque handshake, but smiling at him as she does. Alexis laughs outright this time. I ignore her, awed by Charlie’s smile. It reveals deep dimples in both cheeks, with smaller ones at each corner of her mouth. Her smile is even better than her eyes and her laugh.

“Charlie?” I say. “That’s an unusual name.”

“Short for Charlotte,” she says, gazing directly at me. I try using my most intense, come-hither look. She remains unmoved.

“Down, Benjamin, she’s new here,” Cozi says, linking her arm through Charlie’s and leading her away. Daniel and I watch her go. Daniel is grinning, but I watch her intently. It’s not usual for a girl to be immune to me, particularly when I’m pouring on the charm.

Well, I decide, nothing like a good challenge to begin the football season.

Two

Charlie

“I’m home,” I call, stepping through the front door. I drop my backpack by the door, then remember my aunt’s obsession with order and pick it up again. I can hear the TV playing in the family room at the back of the house. I look around the strange entryway, allowing myself one moments longing for my grandma and her home where we lived until her death a month ago.

I walk into the family room and see my mom, sitting on the couch, watching
Barney
. I dig my nails into my palms. Man, I hate that stupid, annoying, dense, purple dinosaur. “Hi, Mom,” I say.

Mom jumps at the sound of my voice. She’d been too intent on Barney to hear my earlier greeting. She turns my way, a wide smile splitting her face. I smile back. Her eyes crinkle with joy as she jumps up from the couch, stray, wiry gray hairs escaping her messy ponytail. I grit my teeth at my aunt’s lack of care of her.

“Charlie!” my mom yells brightly, running to me and throwing her arms around my neck, kissing my cheek noisily. I hug her tightly, cringing at the slightly sour smell.

“Mom, did you take a bath today?”

“Mimi says I don’t have to bath today.”

“Mom, we talked about this, remember? You need to bathe every day.”

She shakes her head, mouth drooping. She refuses to shower, has ever since the
incident
. So we compromise with a bath, followed by a lotion rubdown. If she could manage to go a night without wetting her adult diapers, she could skip a bath. In all the time I can remember, she’s been able to skip only a handful.

“Should we go take a bath now?” I ask.

“Barney’s on,” she whines.

“Yes, and if you take a bath, you can play with your Barney toy. Doesn’t that sound like fun?”

As fast as her mouth drooped, it now is replaced by a big smile. She claps happily and skips to the bathroom. I follow and run the water while she undresses, singing the annoying theme from the TV show. I pull the rubber band from her hair and dump water over her head. She blows bubbles as I do so. I get her washed as she happily plays with the big purple dinosaur and I then have to convince her to get out of the tub. Convincing her to get out is as difficult as getting her in.

Once she’s dried and dressed, she sits back in front of the TV to watch cartoons, Barney long since forgotten, while I start dinner. I’m angry that my aunt is still not home. I wonder how long my mom sat here alone, unsupervised, until I arrived.

She comes in when I’m just about done with the spaghetti, acting like nothing is wrong.

“Hi, Charlotte,” Naomi says. I bristle at the name. It’s not that I dislike the name; my grandma chose it for me because it was her own mother’s name. It’s because my aunt refuses to call me Charlie like everyone else does simply because it’s the nickname my mom gave me.

“Where were you?” I ask.

She stops in the act of setting her purse down to stare at me. “That’s none of your business.”

“It is when you leave my mom home alone,” I retort. “She can’t be left on her own.”

“I was gone maybe ten minutes before you got home from school. What can happen in ten minutes?”

A lot
, I think. I refrain from telling her though, knowing our living here is precarious and based on staying in her good graces.

“I have a life, Charlotte. Allowing you two to move in didn’t include the requirement that I give up all my freedom.”

“I understand that,” I say, biting my tongue from telling her how selfish she is. “I’m coming home directly after school. I haven’t signed up for any extracurricular activities or anything. I’ll even get up early to bathe her if that’s too much to ask of you. All I
do
ask is that you watch her while I’m gone.”

Naomi sighs. “We need to talk.”

“It’s time to eat,” I say. I have a feeling I know what she’s going to say. I move past her to call my mom when she places a hand on my arm.

“Not all homes are bad places,” she begins, and fury consumes me.

“I will
not
place my mother in a
home
,” I spit.

“You shouldn’t have to give up normal teen things to take ca—”

“I don’t care!” I’m shaking with anger. “I don’t care about any of that. I’ll drop out of school if I have to. I’m
not
putting her in a home!”

Naomi sighs again and I’m tempted to punch her. What does she know of taking care of my mom? She abandoned ship as soon as she graduated high school to get away from the embarrassment of having my mom for a sister. Plus, she
knows
what happened when my grandma did buckle under pressure—from Naomi, no less—and put her in a home. How could she possibly subject her to that again?

“I know it’s not ideal—”

I spin away from her, refusing to listen to another word. I walk into the living room where my mom sits, curled up on the couch, a blanket pulled up to her ear in one hand, sucking on the thumb of her other. My shoulders sink in dismay as I walk over to her. Her eyes are glued to the TV, but I know she’s not watching it.

“Mom,” I say softly, sitting down and placing a hand on her arm. Her wide, innocent eyes turn to me.

“Does Mimi hate you?” she whispers, voice trembling. Mimi is her nickname for Naomi.

“No, Mom, she doesn’t. Were we talking too loud?”

She shakes her head. “You were yelling.” Gotta love Mom’s honesty.

“I’m sorry, Mom. We were just having a disagreement. I love Mimi, and she loves me.” Blatant lie. “Everything’s fine now. I’m sorry we scared you. You want to come have some spaghetti now?”

She nods and takes my proffered hand, rising from the couch. When we enter the kitchen, Naomi is outside, pacing, smoking a cigarette. I bite the inside of my cheek. I
hate
that she smokes, but at least she no longer smokes in the house with my mom and me. I suppose I can give her a few points for that.

I sit my mom at the table and fix a plate for her before taking the time to check my blood sugar. I prick my finger at the counter with my back turned because it tends to freak my mom out. She thinks I’m hurting myself. A few minutes later, Naomi comes in. My mom brightens.

“Hi, Mimi,” she says happily.

“Hi, Cora.” Naomi gives her a tight smile then fixes herself a plate. “I’m going to eat in my room,” she says. At the doorway she pauses, and without looking back says, “Thanks for dinner.”

If my mom weren’t sitting here, I’d probably scream. Instead, I smile and play a word game with her while we eat.

To read the rest of
The End of Feeling
visit Cindy’s website at
http://cindybennett.blogspot.com/
and her Amazon page at
http://www.amazon.com/Cindy-C.-Bennett/e/B003ZULNNA/