16 years earlier
"Charlie, man, I know you're in there." Harry's shouts were broken only by more ceaseless pounding on the front door. The knocks felt like they were slamming straight into my skull, so heavy was the raging hangover I'd woken to. I needed to find an unopened beer, and quick.
"Charlie, open the damn door!" The knocks were getting louder. Or was my headache just getting worse? I knew that if I let Harry in, he'd make me go fishing, or on a hike, or down to the beach. Honestly, I love him and Billy, but I couldn't help but scoff at the Quileute belief that the cure for everything is "time spent in nature." Especially when the nature around here was nothing but grey clouds and rainstorms.
I dragged myself over to the coffee table and grabbed a lukewarm Rainer from where I'd left the 18 case the night before. It looked like I'd put a pretty decent dent in it, but still had a few left to tide me over through the morning.
"Okay, this is your last chance!" Harry bellowed. I hoped that meant that he would leave, but a split second later I heard the sound of wood splintering, a door crashing, and footsteps echoing in my front hallway. They'd actually fucking done it.
"You broke my damn door?!" I yelled at Harry and, evidently, Billy, as they rushed into my living room. I had beer cans and pizza boxes scattered everywhere – a few months' worth, at least.
"Better that than a window," Harry offered, looming above me. I hid my face beneath the pitiful, beer-soaked sheet I'd been using as a blanket.
"And better than leaving you to stew in this filth, Charlie," Billy said. He'd already begun putting cans in a bag, and piling up the pizza boxes and other assorted takeout containers.
This exact drama had played out every few months for the past year. The two would find a way in, clean up the place, and drag me out somewhere, hoping that it would somehow cure me. What they didn't know is that the only two people that could bring me back to the man I'd once been were now living hundreds of miles away.
"Go away," I grumbled at them, fruitlessly. Harry pulled the sheet off of me, and dragged me into a seated position. I just sat there, letting it happen. I didn't even have the energy to fight them off.
"Here's the thing, Charlie," Harry said as Billy continued his tidying. "We're not here to take you fishing, or into the woods, or anything like that, okay? So you can stop your frowning. We're just here to talk."
It was interesting that they were trying a new tactic. A small part of me was actually intrigued, though most of my mind was firmly with Renee, and Bella, and that rainy night all those months ago, when my world had come crashing down around me.
"We think that you need some professional help," Harry continued. "Because try though we might, this seems to go beyond even our abilities."
"And we hate to see you like this, man," Billy chimed in, prying a moldy slice off pizza out of the carpet. "Because damn."
I said nothing. They'd leave, eventually, and then I could go back to drinking, sleeping, and staring out the window in peace, dwelling on all my mistakes and all that I'd managed to lose in the short, sad life I'd so far endured. I could go back to allowing time to simply pass me by, with each tick of the second hand aching like the pulse of blood behind a bruise.
"We know that the past few months haven't been the easiest for you. It breaks our damn hearts to see it. But Charlie, for us, man, please just consider talking to her." He handed me a business card. Dr. Rosemary Thompson. Clinical Therapist. Her practice's address was just a few streets away.
"We booked you in for later today. We're not going to drag you over there if you don't want to go, but we think you should at least give it a try. If not for your sake, or even our sake, do it for Bella."
Even hearing the name set alarm bells off in my already aching head. My heartbeat quickened, and my vision blurred. The pain of losing not just the love of my life but my one-year-old daughter all in one fell swoop, and both my parents shortly thereafter, welled up inside of me like a tidal wave reaching shore. Harry must've seen me wince.
"Yes, Isabella. Your daughter, Charlie. She might not be here, physically, but she's still going to need a dad growing up, alright? And you are in no fit state to parent anyone as you are now. It sucks that they left, I get it, but that doesn't mean they're gone for good. Hell, she could spend her summers here, right? Or maybe one day she might even get fed up with Re... her mom, and want to come live here, with you. There's a world of possibility out there, but not if you let yourself rot away here, like this. This is not the Charlie that I know. But he's in there somewhere. I know it." Harry had placed his hand on my shoulder. It was warm. It was the first physical contact I'd felt for months.
"And we miss him," Billy said, dropping the garbage bag and sitting down on the other side of the couch. "We miss our best buddy Charlie. So if he's in there somewhere-" he knocked on my head with a grin – "Tell him to shape the hell up and do something, already. We'll wait around for him forever, if we have to, but we'd prefer he come back sooner rather than later."
It must've been the clearheadedness of fleeting sobriety, or the rare sunshine streaming in through the window, but I felt something different that day. Something hopeful. Here were my two best friends, doing everything in their power to help me through the toughest time in my life. I may have lost the family I'd made with Renee and Bella, and my own damn parents a few months later, but I hadn't lost the found family that my friends and I had formed as kids.
"Fine," I said, taking the card. "When's the damn appointment?"
---
There's a new chapter lined up for every Friday at noon! Help support the man, the myth, the legend Charlie Swan by voting for all parts, sharing Midday Clouds with your friends, and tuning in for the latest chapters.