Revel (Second Chance Romance #1)(6)

Anna had become uncharacteristically angry at Declan, “You need to mind your own damn business, son. What are you doing going through my things?”

“Does Dad know about this?” Declan asked, his voice cold. “Does he have any idea?”

Anna’s eyes filled with tears, “There you go judging me. You don’t know what I go through every day. The painkillers help the kind of pain that can’t heal or get fixed. They help me get through the pain of living! And my benzos help me sleep. So don’t you accuse and judge and persecute me, Declan Seamus DeGraff. Jesus says don’t throw stones.”

Declan sighed, “I don’t remember Jesus saying that it was okay to be a junkie.”

For the first time ever, Anna slapped him. She’d never laid a hand on him, not in the entirety of his life, but she’d smacked him hard across the cheek in that moment.

And then swiftly burst into tears.

“I’m sorry,” she cried. “It’s just so much harder than people know. If only people knew what happens in my head every day… They’d leave me be.”

Declan was in shock. The sting of her slap wasn’t what hurt him. Seeing her vulnerable and sobbing in front of him is what truly killed him.

They had never spoken again about that day. She’d promised to try to be better about her pills and booze, but assured Declan she wasn’t addicted to anything and that she could stop at any time, if she wanted to.

“I just never want to,” she admitted. “They keep me happy. And don’t you know how important it is to your daddy that I appear happy at all times?”

Declan was the only one that knew this side of his mother. She had her bad days, but also, like that day on the porch, she had many great days. That’s what he tried to focus on.

“Well,” Declan said. “I think I’m going for a run.”

Anna sipped her tea, “Antonia just set up lunch. Aren’t you hungry?”

Declan leaned down and kissed his mother on the head, “I’ll eat after. I won’t be gone too long. It’s just a gorgeous day and I haven’t run the bridge in a while.”

The Ravenel Bridge was a large white beacon of hope that crossed over from Charleston to Mt Pleasant. It had a runner’s path and Declan tried to jog it every other day or so.

“It’s so hot, baby. Take some water. I don’t want you passing out,” Anna said.

“I’ll be fine,” Declan said. “I run it all the time. I need to do some thinking. Decide how to plan my summer without the Sullivan’s house.”

Anna laughed, “Oh! To have such dilemmas! Okay, sweet baby. You run and I’ll sit here and enjoy this day, this tea, and a sandwich.”

Declan nodded, “You do that.”

He walked back to his room to change into his running shorts and a t-shirt. Part of him thought about not doing the run, it really was hot.

But for whatever reason, he pressed forward with it. He’d later say it was as if something was pulling him toward that bridge.

And that something was Charlotte Sanders.

********

Charlotte hadn’t known where to go or what to do after her talk with Allyn. It was her day off from her job as a server at the Dixie Garden, a soup and salad place off of Church Street that catered to college students and young professionals. She worked there as much as she could when she wasn’t in class, and her hope was that now that school was out, she could pick up some more shifts.

But now she didn’t even have a place to live past the next couple of weeks, and her stress levels were beyond anything she had experienced since she’d first moved to Charleston. Part of her wondered if she should just go back home to Nashville, quit while she was ahead.

But she was determined not to do that. She’d made the decision to move and go to school here, and she didn’t want to not finish what she started. That wasn’t the type of person she was.

She just needed to clear her head so she could think of a good plan to stay here for the summer. The thought of going back to Nashville with her tail between her legs and the sound of her father saying, “I told you so” was enough to inspire her to at least try to figure a way out of this dilemma.

A walk sounded like a good way to clear her head. She knew just the place.

She’d often walked over the Ravenel Bridge, or the Cooper River Bridge as some locals still called it, to do her heavy thinking. It was a beautiful white passage that joined the peninsula of Charleston to the island of Mt Pleasant. It was grand and gorgeous, and at its apex provided her with incredible views of the river, Fort Sumter, and Charleston Harbor.

Charlotte knew it was a long walk, a couple miles at least, but she had all the time in the world, and her apartment was the last place she wanted to be right now.

As she walked, she thought about what it was that had drawn her to this city in the first place. Her father had never understood why she’d want to go back to a place that held so much pain for all of them. As far as he was concerned, the city of Charleston was cursed, and he refused to ever visit Charlotte there, no matter how much she would have liked him to.

Charlotte supposed part of it was that her mother’s death was still such a mystery. They had never found out who had hit her and fled; there had been no witnesses and no one had come forward with any information. It killed her to know that there would never be justice for her mother and by proxy, for her family. Charlotte struggled with that, and maybe part of her felt if they stayed in this city, if they showed the town they weren’t afraid of it, they could somehow be presented with the answers the Sanders family was so desperate to know.