About Time (Broken Vows #4)

Chapter 21

Chapter Twenty-One

Hattie Past- Age 26

I’m regretting not bringing Clark with me as I drag my suitcase up the front walk to the porch. There isn’t a cell in my body that doesn’t feel absolutely exhausted. My soul is weary, and that blanket of numbness is fraying. I need to hold it together long enough to plan a funeral.

All I want is to go in and collapse on the couch. I don’t still have a room here, since Lis turned it into a library for her and Wren a couple of years ago. Sleeping in her room is out of the question. My mind is already trying to reject that they’re never coming back. If I wake up in a room having the smell of her perfume mixed with his aftershave assaulting my senses in those few seconds when I am waking up, it might snap that thread I’m hanging on by.

I dig my keys out of my bag. It’s been eight years since I’ve lived in this house, but the key is still on my keyring. The house is dark when I enter. I try to be as quiet as I can so I don’t wake Wren if she’s managed to get any sleep.

I’ve been out of it since I got the news several hours earlier. If I’d been more with it I would have thought to call Wren or anyone to check in on her. At least I’m here now. The next week is going to be full of missteps, so I need to remember to give myself and Wren grace. Even if she’s pissed off to find me here in the morning, I’ll be patient. She would have every right to be mad at me. It isn’t like I’ve been the most attentive to her in the years since I left.

These are all problems for tomorrow. I reached my capacity to deal with shit hours ago, and now I’m running on fumes. I abandon my suitcase by the door and drop my keys on the entry table.

I drop down on the couch and immediately realize I’m not alone down here. The blanket on the couch starts squirming, and I jump back up to my feet. Reaching over to the end table, I flick on the lamp.

It only takes a second for my heart to stop. It occurred to me that I might run into him while I was back. Actually, given the size of Harriston, I figured it was pretty much guaranteed I’d see him. Then there’s the funeral, which of course he’d attend because he was one of Martin’s best friends.

The odd thing is that as afraid of this moment as I have been, I’m very happy he’s here. He’s always had the ability to make everything stop for a little while, and I want all the loudness in my head to shut up, even if just for a minute.

“Hey, Doll,” he greets me in a voice still rough with sleep.

I can’t fight the rush of feelings and burst into sobs.

He sits up and pulls me into his arms. With my head on his chest, he slowly strokes my hair. “I know Doll. Let me be here for you tonight.”

I nod and let him pull me down with him. Charlie pulls the cover over both of us. Without thinking I whisper, “I’ve missed you, Charlie.”

He kisses the top of my head and holds me tighter. He doesn’t tell me he missed me too, but for a few hours I can pretend there’s not an ocean between us. All that matters is that right now he’s the person I need most. I think this is the reason I wouldn’t let Clark come with me, I just didn’t want to admit it to myself.

The smell of coffee rouses me in the morning and I wake to find myself alone on the couch. It’s for the best, I really don’t want to explain anything to Wren. We both know nothing has really changed. I’ve heard the rumors from the friends I still occasionally chat with over social media. Charlie gets around more than our mailman.

It hurt like hell when I first heard it, but I’m glad right now that I know. It helps me keep things straight in my head. It would be so easy to let my mind run away, but I’ll be going back to Florida eventually.

Charlie strolls into the living room carrying two cups of coffee. He sits next to me and puts one of the cups in front of me without saying a word. I take a sip, and it’s exactly the way I like it, with a large pour of sweet cream and a little bit of coffee. I shouldn’t read into it, but it’s hard not to wonder what it means that he remembers how I take my coffee.

There’s so much pain in my life right now that I think I’m looking for an escape, any escape. Charlie was that for me once, but I can’t go backward. At least not permanently. I don’t think there’s any chance I’d be able to forgive him again, but I don’t see the harm in letting him help me get through the next few days or so.

Charlie breaks the silence first. “How are you feeling this morning?”

I take a sip of my coffee, careful not to burn my mouth. “I think I’m still in a bit of denial. I keep expecting Lis to walk in the door, or to hear Martin tinkering in the garage.”

He chuckles. “You mean breaking things in the garage.”

For a second I smile. “Yeah, he really sucked with tools. You know Elisa would wait until he went to work to have a repair person come in and redo whatever DIY project Martin did around the house. I think he thought he was great at fixing things because of that.”

Charlie stares into his coffee for a minute. “How has life turned out for you?” His voice is soft and quiet, and I almost don’t hear what he’s saying.

“Are we really going to do that? Do the whole catching up thing and pretend that we’re just friends who’ve lost touch? I don’t think I want to hear about how you’ve moved on from me. Not right now.”

His eyes slowly slide up to meet mine. Like every time in the past, I am mesmerized by his dark brown eyes. It feels like I can see his very soul in their depths. “Have you? Moved on from me that is.”

I chew the side of my lip. Telling him that after all of this time, I can’t evict him from my heart would be too big of a hit to my pride, but I don’t want to lie either.

“Does anyone ever completely move on from their first love? I’m not going to lie, there’s a big part of me that would love nothing better than to tell you I’m engaged or something, but the truth is that my life is pretty much my work. I do have some friends that drag me out a few times a month.”

He nods his head a few times like he’s confirming something to himself. “That’s good, Doll, I want you happy.”

I open my mouth to argue. I’m not sure why, but a very petty part of me wants to hurt him. A creak on the stairs saves me from what would have probably been a mortifying experience.

Wren comes down looking more like a zombie than the teenager I saw a few months ago the last time I visited with them. A lump forms in my throat, and I stare off into space because it hits me, that was literally the last time I will ever visit with all of them.

She stops just inside the room and stares at me. I brace myself for her anger. She would have every right to lay into me.

Wren’s lip starts to quiver, and I can see tears filling her green eyes. I get up from the couch and run to her. She wraps her arms around me and clings to me like I did her mom under similar circumstances fifteen years ago. I wondered back then how Elisa could be so strong for me when she lost her mom too. Now I get it. Standing strong for Wren is the last thing I’ll ever be able to do for my sister. Taking care of her daughter is one of the last ways I can show my sister how much I love her.

We stand like that, arms wrapped around each other, for a long time. We rock side to side while we cling to each other. I’m not free of tears by any means, but I let them slip silently down my face while she releases the most heartbreaking whimpers.

Charlie doesn’t try to distract us or cheer us up. He just sits there and lets us feel our feelings. I think I’d probably murder him if he tried to cheer us up. People do that when you’re grieving and act like they’re doing you a favor for taking your mind off of it. The reality is that they have a hard time handling another person’s emotions and seek to make their behavior more comfortable for themselves. The sadness is still there for the person grieving.

Instead, he makes himself useful and goes to make breakfast for the three of us. There’s a lot that needs to be done, and not a lot of time to do it. I need to make arrangements with the funeral home, purchase two caskets, and then plan a funeral.

After we eat, the conversation turns to all of the things that need to get done. It was my intention to take care of all the details myself, but it turns out that I will have help.

Wren chews her lower lip while she’s thinking. “I don’t want to talk to the funeral home or pick out caskets. I just, I can’t think about putting them in a box.”

I nod. “Of course you don’t. I can take care of everything. You don’t have to do anything other than grieve.”

She shakes her head emphatically. “No, I can’t do that. It feels like I need to do something for them, and this is my last chance to do that. I want to pick the flowers if you don’t mind. Also the music. You know how much my dad loved his rock music. I’d like to give one of the eulogies too.”

“I think they would be very proud of you,” Charlie tells her.

“I know they would,” I agree.

Wren exhales as if she was afraid I wouldn’t have let her help with her parents’ funeral. “I’m going to go get ready. Liam is swinging by. I think he’s afraid I’ll spend all day in my head.”

When she leaves the room I’m left alone with Charlie. He reaches out and touches my face. It’s such a familiar move. The way he traces my cheekbone with the pad of his thumb floods my mind with memories from when we were a we .

“Let me be here for you right now. You don’t have to go through this alone,” he tells me.

I scoff. “Please tell me you aren’t suggesting we make another arrangement for just while I’m still in town. That didn’t work so great the first time.”

“I know we didn’t end on the best of terms, but I wouldn’t take back a single second I spent with you,” he says.

“Not even the last few?” I ask.

He gives me a sad smile. “I would certainly change a few things, but I wouldn’t have been anywhere else than with you.”

A tear breaks free. I angrily wipe it away and stand up. “You’re the king of mixed signals, you know that?” I hold my arms out to the sides, too raw to try and hold things back. “You know how I felt about you. It has taken me a long time to stop wallowing, but my entire life is my job. I guess I refused to accept that we were done forever until my life was on autopilot. Losing my sister has woken me up. You wanted me out of town, and I’m going to stay that way.”

He sets his cup on the coffee table. “You should. This town isn’t good enough for you.”

For the first time, I realize he’s telling me that he doesn’t think he’s good enough for me. I wish things were different. Of all the obstacles we faced, I think that is the one that I can’t fight against.