Charlie and Me. The Saga Continues

Charlie and Me. Chapter 15

Bit of an epic this one, but I think you’ll see that it doesn’t split easily into smaller bits.

This one's dedicated to Bobbi because she's a big fan of Charlie.

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Charlie and Me. Chapter 15

A few days after Charlie returned from Abby’s, and while the plans for Nigel were in full swing, I had a disturbing phone call from Haydn. He was anxious, apologetic, and uncertain. I couldn’t fault him for that; this was serious. I sat in Mission Control trying to work out what to do. I decided I just had to tackle things head on.

Around midday Charlie came home from a session with the disadvantaged children, breezed in yelling ‘Hello, Shithouse.’ I said stonily, ‘We have to talk. Really talk. Right here, right now. Sit down.’ I indicated a chair at the other side of the kitchen table. I’m not usually like this, but I was furious. And hurt and utterly confused. Charlie sat down, looking worried, which she very much should have been.

‘Tell me why, before you went to see Abby in Scotland, you asked Haydn to try to hack my mobile phone company and track where my phone was going.’

‘He told you? The little...’

‘Shut up! He did the right thing by telling me, and it took him a long time to find the courage. You asked him to spy and snoop on me. It made him feel awkward, and he feels awkward at the best of times. You made it worse for him, and he didn’t deserve that. He eventually told me because he was trying to help me; I’m his friend. He was trying to help you, however fucking ungrateful you may be; you’re his friend too. You abused that friendship, not him. He likes us; he likes me; he likes you, for fuck’s sake. He was trying to help us!

‘Don’t you dare try to slag him off. Don’t you even fucking dare. It was you who did the wrong thing. Asking him to track my mobile, to access my emails. I’ll bet you’ve been trying to read the text messages off my phone, too. That must have been really interesting. ‘Terry, need another set of rear tyres for nora charlie shredded the last lot already, cheers, rick’ So tell me, please, what is going on here.’

Charlie slumped, looking utterly defenceless, totally vulnerable, frightened. I was so angry I didn’t care.

‘I was worried you were cheating on me. I wanted to find out.’

‘Why didn’t you just fucking ask? What on earth could have made you think that? What the hell have I ever done to make you distrust me?

‘Tell me now why you are so angry all the time, why the defensive sarcasm, the whole thing, because that’s the root of this. It’s not just the borderline thing. Tell me what it is or I swear to you I’m out the door. That’s it. All over. I won’t even bother packing. You can have the house. It’s all yours. I won’t want to be here ever again.

‘I don’t want you to change, because then you wouldn’t be you, I just want to know why. I think I can guess a bit of it. This is about a man. An adult man. You hardly ever behave badly with women and never at all with the children you teach. You’re able to rein your anger in with them. You’re angry with a man, but I don’t know which one, or what he did to make you so insecure. I need to be told. I need you to tell me. What the fuck is going on? Because this could destroy us. It’s hurting me.

‘I haven’t done anything to deserve this; neither has Haydn. Somebody else did this to you. Tell me now, or it is all over. I mean it. You’ve never seen me like this before, and there’s a very good reason for that; I’ve never felt like this before. You sometimes irritate me, but I’ve never been angry with you. I am now. You’d better fucking believe it. So tell me the truth. Now.’