RUSH (City Lights, #3)(51)

“Ready?” Charlotte said, her voice like a sunburst of optimism.

We set out.

*

The basket in my arm made me feel less able to defend myself from unseen obstacles, and I started to see why people like me used canes.

Yeah, and advertise to everyone how helpless you are? No, thanks.

Charlotte described the scenery as we went. In my mind, a blank scene slowly became populated with cabs, cars, buildings, and trees. My memory of New York City blended with Charlotte’s words. It wasn’t anywhere as good as the real thing, of course, but it helped.

She was good at guiding me away from obstacles like uneven sidewalks and curbs. Christ, I used to slalom down mountains where rocks hid under the snow like mines ready to explode my bones. Now a crack in the pavement could send me sprawling. Ridiculous.

The anger flared but I sucked it down, vowing Charlotte would never have to suffer me snarling at her ever again.

“We’re in the Park now,” she said. “Strawberry Fields. Have you been?”

“No. Well, maybe. One of the nannies may have taken my sister and me here. I can’t say for sure.”

“I’m sure you’d remember. It’s the memorial to John Lennon? With the big Imagine paving in the street?”

“Doesn’t ring a bell.”

“Would you like me to describe it?”

“Sure, thanks.”

Charlotte described the path through the park, and then the black and white Imagine plaque. She said it was strewn with colorful flowers people had dropped out of respect. I heard other people; voices, footsteps, smells, and the cool of shade over my skin.

We walked on and Charlotte led us out of the shade and into a clearing that wasn’t exactly private, but she found us a patch of grass in the sun. I heard her unfurl a blanket she must have been carrying under her left arm. We sat and while she unpacked the food, that itchy, staring feeling came over me.

“It’s crowded here,” I said.

“It’s not too bad. It probably sounds like it to you, but the nearest person is a good twenty feet away.”

I nodded.

“No one’s watching you, I promise,” she added and pressed a sandwich into my hand.



We ate and talked about nothing in particular, and it was the best day I’d had since the accident…and yet I felt strangely hollow. As if the peace and contentment of the day was sitting just out of reach and I didn’t know—in my endless black—which way to grab for it.

“Are you okay?” Charlotte asked.

“I don’t know. I’m so used to feeling pissed off all the time and now I feel sort of numb.”

“Maybe that’s a good thing.”

“Maybe. Feels like failure. Aren’t I supposed to rage, rage, against the dying of the light?”

“Oh, I love Dylan Thomas. Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight…” Charlotte recited. I heard the gentle smile in her words. “That sounds like you.”

“Was,” I corrected. “That was me. Not anymore.”

She shifted on the blanket next to me. “It’s still you. Just another version. Noah 2.0.”

She was trying to cheer me up, but the part of me that had laughed and smiled was broken. Maybe beyond repair.

“I don’t know, Charlotte. I’m worn out right now. The migraine kicked my ass, and I’m sort of basking in the lack of pain. But it might come back and the anger with it. I don’t want you to have to put up with it. Like I said, you don’t deserve it.”

“Oh, I’m a lot tougher than I sound.”

I turned in her direction, wishing like hell I could see her face. I’d lied to her when I’d said my hands hadn’t told me what she looked like. I hadn’t ‘seen’ enough to form a concrete image but enough to know she was beautiful. Christ, of course she was. Her exterior reflecting the beauty within. Which is why I have to save her from the f*cking wreck that is me.

“Charlotte, about last night…I shouldn’t have kissed you. That was a mistake and wrong and probably illegal somehow, given that I’m your employer. I was just…burnt out by the migraine and not thinking clearly.”

“Oh. Yeah, no, of course,” she said, and I heard blades of grass meet their end as she plucked them mercilessly. “I understand. It was…an intense situation.”

“Yeah, intense. And it would have been a hell of a lot worse if it hadn’t been for you. I think I was drunk on pain and exhaustion. Bottom line, I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”

I let out a slow breath. So that sucked.

“Okay,” Charlotte said, her voice sounding strange and distant. I couldn’t tell if she were relieved, indifferent…or maybe even disappointed. She inhaled like she was going to say more, but I guessed she changed her mind. I heard a creaking sound as rummaged in the wicker basket.

“I brought a book.”

I leaned back on my hands. “Okay.”

“You might be tired of listening to other people read with all your audio books, but I thought you might like this one.”

She was right; I was sick of the audio books. I wanted to read words on a page but what was my alternative? Learn braille? Exhausting just to contemplate.

“What’s the book?”