"I need you."
Charlie
"Steven."
"Charlie...." Steven breathed. I wasn't expecting him to look so sad.
I asked the first thing that came to mind. "What're you doing here?"
Steven shook his head. "Wasn't thinking," he mutters. "Shouldn't have come here. My mistake. Sorry...."
I grabbed the door-handle when he put the car in reverse, so that he was unable to back up. "I didn't say you shouldn't be here. I asked why," I said.
"Had a thought I shouldn't'a had, and now I've realized I shouldn't have come. So, please, let me go."
"Please don't go," I asked. We looked at each other for quite some time.
"I've gotta go," Steven said, eyebrows knitting together. "Just like you did."
His words sent a twinge through my gut; I felt sick. "No..." Seemed to be all I could breathe out.
He started backing away again, and like a crazed, desperate person, I chased the car down the short driveway, latched onto the handle. "No, no, no, wait please," I begged, feeling like crying. But I wasn't going to cry. I needed I keep it together; I needed to stay focused; I needed to talk to him.
He sighed, exasperated. "Why, Charlie," he demanded to know.
"I– I..." I stammered, loosing my thoughts. "I need to talk to you."
"Not a good time," he said, now ignoring the fact that I held the door handle, and finishing backing down the driveway.
"Steven, wait!" I yelled as he pulled into the street. He could hear me, I knew. "Sorry," I said, "I'm sorry! And– please come back... I can tell you why..."
But Steven was already dwn the street, and probably couldn't hear me anymore.
"Goddammit." I traipsed back to the porch of my dad and Alice's house, head hung and feeling tears in my eyes. "I can tell you why," I whispered again. I sat on the steps, letting out a sigh and putting my head in my hands, staring out at the street. "I just..." I've officially lost it now: I'm talking to myself. "Ugh."
//\\
Steven
"I can tell you why," she yelled. I was halfway down the street though. She didn't see me stop the car and turn around at the nearest empty intersection.
Really, why she left is all I want to know. I'm the main reason, but it's got to be more specific. That, and I want to apologize for being the main reason. I had no right and it was absolutely wrong for me to do the things I did.
But I can't help but be upset that she would leave without a trace for eight years, and then suddenly want to start talking to me again. It doesn't make sense and she shouldn't be putting me on like this. It's wrong and unhealthy for the both of us.
Nonetheless, I'm back in her driveway.
The look on her face when I pulled the car up was that of shock. She was crying, which broke my heart a little. Whenever Charlie was upset, it would always put me in a sad mood as well, for some reason. But I can't help but be mad at her; she left, without a trace, without a reason, without saying goodbye. We were going to get married, have a family, all the good stuff. I don't know if she wanted a family, but I do...
Did.
I did want a family.
Anyway. I'm angry and frustrated and confused with her actions. I seem to get that way a lot, with Charlie, now that I think about it. Back when we were dating in the seventies, I put her through hell, with Annie and Julia and the drugs and all. But she doesn't realize that I was going through hell too! When she lied to me about everything, when she was dating Nicky, when she was avoiding me, when she lied to me again, and again, and again... When she fucking left me.
"What're you doing?" she asked quietly, wiping her eyes as I joined her on the porch.
"You're gonna tell me?" I asked, but it wasn't exactly a question.
Charlie took a shaky breath, she looked hurt by my tone. "I, see, well..."
"Charlie. You're killing me..." She looked up at me sadly. "Do you know how much you hurt me when I came home and found that you were gone? Gone for good? I didn't know where you went. You could've been dead for the past eight years, for all I know. And it was painful to think about that. I didn't know where you were, what you were doing. I didn't know what to do without you there. There wasn't anything I could do, I realized. I realized that I had made one huge mistake with you after another. The cheating, the lying, the cheating again, and then the– the... Why you left."
She folded her arms, either out of anger or keeping herself together, I don't know. "And why did I leave?"
"I– I dunno," I stammer. "Because of... Of what I was doing." I take a breath. "God, it was wrong. It was wrong, it was wrong, it was so fucking wrong. I didn't know what I was doing. I wasn't in my right mind. It was... It was–"
"It was awful," she supplied. "All of it. Awful."
"Uh, yeah, but... What about the good times we had?"
"What good times?" she asked. "There aren't any that I can think of. There's only what happened after we were engaged; those last few months before I left. Only that. And that was horrible. Those months are the only thing I can think about when I think about you or–like now–talk to you..."
"What good times?" I demand, mocking her. "You're gonna say that were was nothing good between us ever? How can you say that and mean it!? Don't you remember anything? How can– How could– Why– How could you leave?"
Charlie shrugged, feeding off my frustration, and standing up to see almost eye-to-eye with me. "I just did, Steven," she says coldly. "Because I wasn't happy and we weren't happy. Things were ugly, things were bad. I couldn't live like that! No one should!" Charlie was crying at this point, but I didn't do anything to help her, because why should I? Obviously she doesn't want my help; why else would she have left me?
"How can you say these things and mean them?!" I demand again, hysteric now. "How can you say you weren't happy when, for a good amount of time, we were very happy?! Very in love?! Very well off. Very ready for a new life, together! Why are you doing this to me?! Wasn't it enough when you packed your fuckin' bags and left in the middle of the fuckin' night without so much as a goodbye!?" I was shouting now, but it doesn't matter. I needed to get my point across, and I think I've done it quite effectively.
Charlie chokes on a sob, but I tell myself not to feel bad. She doesn't need me; she left. But then her face turns red and I know that she's about to tell me off. She's pissed, and she's not gonna let me yell at her like that. It's happened to me many a time before, these arguments have, that I know what she looks like when she's about to scream. I know what she looks like when she wants to punch a wall, when she wants to punch me, whichever is more effective.
But I wasn't going to back down. No way. In past arguments, I haven't backed down. It's an ego thing. I'm right, and she's not. She shouldn't have left and that's that.
However, Charlie's got the same thing going on: she thinks she's right, and I'm wrong. So Charlie gestures wildly with her hands, upset, angry, and probably hurt by my words. She took a step forward, pushing me back towards my car. "You're a fucking dick, you know?" she snapped angrily. "And I really, really hate you. I don't know what the hell I was thinking in saying yes. I can't believe I thought I was in love with you, and all that other bullshit. You're gonna tell me that I didn't have the right to leave your fucking apartment because every night was a fucking mess? Screaming, yelling, hitting; a fight. Every night, Steven! Do you think I wanted to live like that?! Did you wanna live like that? Obviously with time it was only gonna get worse. And, look, it's still bad!"
"It didn't have to be," I argue. "You're the one that argued back. You didn't have to say anything–"
"Seriously," she said, incredulous. "You're seriously gonna say that. Like you never started anything. Like you never yelled back. As if."
"You did it more!" I yelled. It's a childish thing to say, I realize now, but when I said it, it felt right. "If you knew it was gonna be so bad, why did you wait so long? Maybe it wouldn't have been bad! Maybe things would have worked out! You should've tried; given me a better chance. Maybe then we'd be happy r–"
Charlie cuts me off, a few tears falling down her cheeks. She doesn't make a move to wipe them away, and I don't either. She yells. And I guess I deserved to be yelled at. "I didn't wanna have a fucking kid grow up in a place where his parents are always fighting, Steven!" She chokes back another sob, her words not quite registering yet. "Then his father is a fucking drug-addict who doesn't know how to quit! That's why I left. I left because you didn't want it, because he wouldn't have been safe there, and because it was a bad idea. That's why I left." Charlie took a shaky breath, stepping away, going towards the door of her house. "And I suggest that you do too, now... Leave, that is." I wanted to follow her, to grab her wrist, spin her around, hold her, tell her it's okay now, that I've quit, that I do want that.
But then there's the fact that she said she didn't want to raise a kid.
And she talked about it like it was actually going to happen.
Which means... "You were pregnant," I state, unable to make my voice loud; it was monotonous.
She blinks. "Yeah."
"You– I..." I was unsure what to say. "I didn't– You said 'he'?"
She shrugs.
"Why didn't you tell– why– you... what?" Why can't I form words?
"I did," she says simply.
"When?!" I splutter.
"Before I left," she replies, hand still on the door, sounding distant, and not looking at me.
And then there was a pause of silence, where I collected my thoughts and convinced myself to ask a very stupid question. It was probably a bad decision to ask it, but I went for it anyway: "Could I– is he– where... where is he?" I asked in a small voice, a bit scared to ask because I didn't want to hear the answer I didn't want.
Charlie doesn't say anything. She just shakes her head sadly, looking down. "No," she mutters.
"I–" I begin sadly. "Right. Makes sense..."
"No, I–" she starts, looking up to see me going towards my car. "I mean– it's not... Not he."
There was hope, because now she was talking about it. "She?" I asked, a little too hopefully. I mean, what else could there be, but...?
Charlie doesn't give me an answer; she stares at me sadly, and I look back, confused at her reaction.
"Could I– what's her, uh, name?" I felt ridiculous, asking all these questions. What if she doesn't want me to know? I get it; it would make sense. But the least she could have done was tell me– oh. Right. She did. I think. I don't remember, really, much of the seventies.
Charlie shook her head again.
I too shake my head, embarrassed. "Right," I mutter. "Stupid of me to ask. Sorry. I'll– I'll see you arou–"
"I didn't keep it," she says flatly.
I freeze, turning to face her. "But– but you said he," is all I seem able to say.
She shrugs again. "In the short time I had it, I always thought about it as a boy."
"Oh."
"Yeah."
"Why'd you, uh... Why didn't you... uh, keep it?"
She opens the door, stepping inside. Before closing the door behind her, she simply said, "Because you didn't want it."
--
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A/N: Well. Double update because 20 reads in like a few hours hehe I'm grinning. Thanks to all of you; you're all fab:)))) Vote and comment and comment some more because... I feel this is a comment-worthy chapter. So. Yeah. I've officially run out of pre-written chapters. I had to update, though. Hopefully I'll have another written soon!