The Space Between Us(65)
“Does Charlie know?” She asked through a broken sob.
I nodded. “Someone from my office should be calling her shortly.
“Calling her? She wasn’t there?”
“She didn’t know. Mr. McBride had very specific wishes and Ms. McBride wasn’t informed of his condition.”
“Ms. McBride? What the hell is wrong with you Asher? Her name is Charlie.”
I ignored her comment. I knew it seemed like I was being an ass, but I didn’t know how else to act in the moment. I didn’t know how to be all the people I was at the same time. I couldn’t be friend, enemy, ex-boyfriend, lawyer and man completely torn apart all at once. I had to pick one and stick with it, so I chose lawyer.
“Mr. McBride wanted to make sure that Ms. McBride wasn’t alone, so I am here to make sure that you will make yourself available to her at his service, but most importantly at the reading of his will. Mr. McBride was afraid that she wouldn’t contact you, so I am here to make sure that if you don’t receive a call from her that you are aware of the times of the service and the reading.” I paused and looked down at my hands. “He thought she might not reach out to anyone. That she might close up again and he wanted me to make sure you were there for her, that someone was there for her.”
“Close up again? Damn it, Asher, she hasn’t opened up from the last time.”
That tiny piece of information was like salt in a wound, but also like a sip of water in a desert. I was thirsty for information about her, desperate to know any tiny bit of information I could gather and I had been since the last time I saw her that day. But hearing that she was closed up, like a flower refusing to bloom, burned going down – stung like guilt.
“Someone from my office will contact you with the exact date and times of the service and the reading. Can you agree to be at both?”
“Yes. Of course I will be there. Will you be there too?” I looked her in the eyes for a moment, willing myself to be honest with her, to tell her that I would be there in an instant if I thought it was what Charlie wanted, but I knew better.
“It was nice seeing you again, Reeve. You have a beautiful daughter.” I stood and walked through her door and out to my car without looking back. I started my car and drove to my place, purposefully avoiding the neighborhood that held all the memories burned into my mind. I prepared myself for an agonizing evening, and thought I might as well get some bourbon to ease the ache growing in my heart. My throat already burned from hearing her name on someone else’s lips, from hearing about how still, after all these years, she was still not the same person she had been before I had ruined everything. If I was going to burn from the inside out, I might as well get drunk while it happened.
Chapter Three
Charlie
I routinely tried not to study myself in the mirror. I never liked what I saw. Unfortunately, I found myself to be less in control than I would wish. So, here I sat, at my expensive vanity, in my expensive bedroom, of my expensive New York City apartment that overlooked Central Park, and all I could see was emptiness. But I didn’t want to see anything else anyway. I didn’t want to feel anything. Because, when I felt something, it was usually pain.
I’m sure to everyone else I looked normal, maybe even happy. But I knew better.
I picked up the big brush from the table top and used it to paint color on my cheeks, to fool everyone around me into thinking that my heart worked well enough to pump blood throughout my body, to make my cheeks this color. It didn’t though. My heart hadn’t worked in a long time. It was a miracle I was even here, breathing this air, existing in this world.
“You ready to go, Bit?”
My lungs stopped working, the air in them froze like blocks of ice. My throat closed up, the lights in the room dimmed. The brush in my hand fell with a loud bang onto the vanity again.
He must have noticed my distress, because he came running into the room, his hands cupping my face.
“Charlie, what’s happening? Are you ok?”
I grabbed his hands and looked into his eyes, trying to remind my lungs how to work properly. “Why did you call me that?” I managed to gasp at him, holding tears back.
“Call you what? Charlie?” He said, looking fully and truly confused.
“No. Bit,” I cried, shocked by the pain it caused to even say the word. He continued to look confused, his brows crinkled together at the center of his face. Then they relaxed and I saw realization come over him.
“I asked if you were going to be ready to go in a little bit.” He said softly. I finally realized what he had actually said and then I let the hurt wash over me. I allowed myself, as I had time and time again, to lean into David and use him as a receptacle for my sadness. He held me close to him, my face buried in his stomach, my tears staining his dress shirt which he would now have to change. But that wasn’t unlike him, he always changed for me – changed his plans, changed his mind, changed his life.
When we met, he’d had so many plans for life. He was a successful doctor, moving up in the medical society of New York City, making a name for himself. He’d seen me and I knew he wanted me. I recognized when men wanted me. He wanted a wife, a mother for his future children, and he saw that it me, like many had. I was aware of how I looked on the outside and what I really was on the inside. It was more difficult for others to see what I wouldn’t show them. David, however, was the only one who got this close to me. Selfishly, I haven’t been able to let him loose.