Charlotte's Story

Him

Renee's POV:

The wind starts to blow all around me, the water making my feet feel like icicles, and then the sky opens up, letting the rain fall.

Everything is wet within seconds.

My feet pick up pace as I make my way back to my ocean-side condo.

I was soaked when the blue back door of my condo came into view.

There outside, standing knocking at my door, was the same back I had been thinking about all day.

His hair was longer, no longer a buzz cut, but it was him.

He turns as if he knew I was behind him, ten feet away, looking at him.

Why today did he have to show up at my condo?

I take my time; I am each step wondering what will be said and what could be said.

Has time affected everything?

"There is gum in your hair," Daisy had gawked; I walk over to the door to shut it; Ryder is outside bending over, picking up the empty cups lining the floor.

There were stains all over the apartment, and I shudder thinking about the down deposit I had to pay at this place.

"Great" I sit down on the bed beside her and let her try to wiggle the piece of gum free.

"I am sorry," I say to her, embarrassedly, pulling my legs underneath me, thinking about Ryder and his face; it had changed while I was standing there on the table.

He looked sorry for how the night had gone; maybe he did have a heart after all.

"You don't have to be sorry. Isn't this what college is all about?" she giggled, thinking about something. "Trust me, I did not think it would be like this today. I was thinking it was going to be boring," she confesses.

"Boring?" I cringe, my feelings a tad hurt.

"You know, like high school, where you go to your classmate's house to work on the assignment, and that is what you actually do. Instead of going to a rave being thrown in the girl's apartment, she has no control over the situation. And then her boyfriend has to step in before she gets completely covered in beer and food."

"He is not my boyfriend," I mumble out.

We hadn't even had an entire conversation yet. And yet, my mind still wandered to him constantly; he was a mystery. A mystery that hated me, even though I had done zero to him. He wasn't mean to his friends that came over; he talked to them, became lively with them at least.
With me, I had just gotten death stares, undeserved death stares.

"Oh, I just assumed by how he was looking at you...."

"No" I get up to comb my hair out and throw the piece of gum away.

Who would throw gum at someone? These were the people Ryder associated himself with.

"So about this assignment." 

The next few days, Ryder and I coexisted around one another; I finally got sleep after the party since he had zero visitors over since items had been thrown at me.

I wondered if this was his way of saying sorry, but I had no clue since we were not talking.

At least the glares had quit; now he would just quietly step out of the room, not saying a word, or looking at me, which was worse. It was as if I wasn't even good enough to be thought about.

My pulse quickened any time we were in the same room together.

"I can't do this," I said to him the following Saturday, stepping in front of his door, blocking his path.

"Do what?" his voice sounded annoyed that I had talked to him.

"This," I said, pointing at him and then back at me.

He raises his shoulders, not caring.

"Tiptoeing around my roommate is not how I imagined the first year of college-going."

"Oh," he leans against his doorway; if it was possible he looked more menacing, this was not going to go well. "Spending my sophomore year with a girl from Ohio was not how I imagined my second year of college-going." He was mimicking me. He had made Ohio sound like it was the dirtiest state out of all fifty.

"Good," I pause, waiting for his reaction. "Now I know something about you; you are a sophomore, so that means you are actually going to college" My words are filled with sarcasm.

"This is good; let's open up about our feelings about one another" he took a step toward me, releasing his hand that was holding onto his doorway. He was thinking he was going to make a fast escape. 

"Oh no..." His eyebrows shoot up, confused by my mock horror. "Because then you would have to admit that you are falling for me."

"Right" he keeps his eyes away from me, this time.

"Good, now that you have admitted it, we can finally be friends" I walk away, stopping at the island in the kitchen. "Oh, and you owe me a t-shirt."

Now he was standing outside my condo door.

Two years after the last time I had seen, heard from him, but not thought about him. It was hard to wake up and not think about him and what life could have been like.

"Hi" he steps forward from underneath the shelter. The rain was falling all around us. One word out of his mouth still sent shivers down my body.

My brain was searching for words, for what I was feeling. My stance, my speechlessness, was clue enough; I was going into complete breakdown mode. Ryder couldn't be standing here, in front of me, on the day I had just allowed myself to go back and remember.

"Hello," my voice comes out quiet. It would not be too hard to reach out and touch him, to know for sure that he is standing in front of me, and he isn't a figment of my imagination.

I shiver from the mix of rain and feelings floating inside of me.

He steps aside, letting me walk to my door; I turn the knob to the right and push the door open.

I do not need to look back to know he is shaking his head at me, at how dumb I could be for keeping the door unlocked. I leave him by the back door while I walk to my bathroom in silence to grab each of us a towel. We were both completely soaked.

In the bathroom, I stop to look in the mirror. Did I look like the same Ren he had met six years before? My cheekbones protrude more; they were more defined, no longer having the baby fat around them. My hair was shorter, cut into a bob, instead of hanging down to the middle of my back. And then there were my eyes; they no longer looked like a girl full of questions, who was naive about life. I had lived life and had more experiences now. I brush my hair out with my fingers and make my way back to my past, standing in my kitchen.

Ryder is no longer standing there. I find him in my study, his hand stroking my desk, "You kept it?" he asked, looking up at me.