Charlie scrubbed harder at the edge of a gold-rimmed dinner plate. "I swear to God, Evan. I swear to God. Enough with this shit."
"What do you mean?!" Evan said. "This shit's fucking brilliant! How many times did you almost drive up to Wake Forest our freshman year to try to talk to Griffin? This is your chance, dude!"
Charlie shoved him out of the way and opened the dishwasher.
"Do you remember how delusional I was that year? You were the one who had to keep convincing me not to do it!" Charlie argued. He wasn't used to Evan saying Griffin's name out loud so casually like this. It made his pulse thud in his eardrums.
Evan crowded closer to the sink. "But now you actually have a legit reason to go!"
Charlie pushed him away again and picked up another plate to rinse. The only reason he'd volunteered to do the dishes tonight after Thanksgiving dinner was to give himself a freaking moment to breathe. Now he couldn't even have that.
Between Charlie's mom and stepdad (Brent) pretending everything was perfectly perfect, and Max pretending like he understood the bullshit answer he got when he asked why Charlie's dad wasn't invited this year, and Evan's parents pretending like it wasn't one gigantic awkward fucking circus every time they came over...... The last thing Charlie needed right now was Evan pretending like it was a good idea to crash Griffin's group project presentation at Wake Forest. Charlie could be a stubborn idiot, yeah, but he drew the line at stalking.
"Just think about it, dude," Evan pressed. "You're a main character in the story. That's your excuse right there to go! Play it off like it was planned all along. Part of the show, you know? The crowd'll go nuts."
"What makes you—ah, FUCK." Charlie yanked his hands out from under the faucet. He'd accidentally cranked the water to scalding. Evan tried to hand him a dish towel, but Charlie ignored it. "What the hell makes you think a crowd's gonna be there, Ev?"
Evan laughed once, then again, and then his eyebrows shot up. "Wait, you're serious? Have you not looked at the response their announcement got?"
"I'm still on the Fourth of July chapters."
"Dude." Evan yanked his phone out of his back pocket and thumbed frantically at the screen. "It's got, like, over a thousand comments so far..."
Charlie turned back to the sink and pulled a deep breath in. He and Evan were the only two people in his mom's excessively decorated kitchen, but Charlie felt tight and cornered and more overwhelmed now than he was at the crowded dinner table earlier.
"Ha!" Evan said behind him. A phone appeared right in front of Charlie's face. "Eighteen hundred comments. Look at this shit! People are losing their minds."
Charlie jerked sideways to avoid looking. "So what?"
"So what? What do you mean, so what?" Evan pulled his phone back.
"So what if people are losing their minds?" All the anger Charlie had been trying to hold back was rising up in his chest now. "That's all the more reason not to go."
Evan just shrugged him off, still scrolling through comments on his phone. "Nah, it's the perfect reason to go. And it'll sure as hell get Griffin's attention. And bonus," he said, oblivious, "even if she rejects you, it'll at least be good for their group project grade, right?"
Charlie's stomach clenched.
"Still not going," he muttered, afraid if he spoke any louder Evan would hear his voice wobble. He grabbed another plate and began scraping leftover mashed potatoes into the sink.
"I think you're being a little extra about this, man," Evan said. "Seriously, what's the worst that could happen? Griffin ignores you and then we drive back to Charleston? At least you can say you tried."
Charlie stopped scrubbing, his eyes slowly closing for a second. Then he turned and forced himself to look his cousin in the eye. "You and I both know how that summer actually ended, Evan, so why the hell would she want me there? And why the hell would I want to go hear them talk about the fictional version of it in person? You know how embarrassing that'll be?"
Evan tucked his chin back. "What the—who cares if we already know how it ends? We show up to the presentation, you apologize and make up with Griffin, the crowd goes wild, and then you and Griff finally live happily fucking ever after. How would that be embarrassing for you? Chicks live for romantic shit like that!"
A humorless laugh jumped in Charlie's throat. Of course Evan didn't get it. He was too obsessed with the idea of a grand gesture to pick up on the context. Charlie was going to have to do the math for him, and he could already feel his face burning.
"The whole point of them putting that story online is so people would read it, right?" Charlie asked.
Evan stared at him suspiciously. "Yeah? So?"
"So, then, what's the point of posting chapters all the way up until the presentation, Ev? Why not just post it all at once?"
"I don't know, man." Evan scrubbed an impatient hand at the back of his neck. "To keep the readers interested until the end? Where are you going with this?"
Charlie threw his arms out to the sides. He was still holding a dirty dinner plate. "Exactly. To keep the readers interested until the end. So do you really think, with this many people already wanting to know how the story ends, and with their entire senior thesis whatever project depending on people wanting to know how the story ends......that they'd actually use the real ending from that summer?"
It took a solid three seconds before a lightbulb turned on over Evan's head.
"Dude, come on," he said, tipping his head back and smiling at the kitchen ceiling in disbelief. "Are you kidding me? You're worried it'd be embarrassing for you if they made up the ending instead?" He snapped his head upright again. "Lemme ask you something, Chuck. Why wouldn't they make up the ending?"
That caught Charlie completely off-guard. He almost dropped the dinner plate.
"Because you're right," Evan kept going, "the real-life version of it sucked absolute ass. I was there, remember? But you're full of shit right now if you're trying to tell me you're embarrassed they had to make up an ending." He jabbed a finger into Charlie's chest. "No. You're not embarrassed. You're just terrified of hearing what could've been between you and Griffin."
Charlie set the plate down on the granite counter as calmly as he could.
"Do not—" He grabbed Evan's wrist and shoved is hand away so hard, Evan had to take a step back with the inertia. "—tell me how I should or shouldn't feel about this."
There was a half-second moment of panic then, right there behind all of Charlie's anger, that he'd gone too far. That that point of contact could to devolve this argument into something much worse. But when Evan got his bearings again, he didn't look angry or like he was about to throw a punch over it. He just leaned back against the kitchen island, crossed his arms, and sighed.
"I find all this pretty ironic, Chuck. For two reasons," Evan said after a moment. He held up a finger. "One, because I thought by now you of all people would've realized Griffin has to make up a different ending for the story, because—"
"Christ, Evan," Charlie cut him off. The fucking name-drops. "What're you even talking about? No shit I've already realized she had to make up a different ending. I was the one who had to point it out to you!"
Evan put his face in his hands. "Dude. Let me finish."
At this point, Charlie would've rather stuck his hand down the garbage disposal than keep talking about this for much longer. "Fine. Just finish, then."
"Griffin has to make up a different ending," Evan said, looking up again, "because she didn't put your family in Corbet's to begin with."
Charlie's expression dropped.
"Yeah. Get it now?" Evan said, nodding, and looking too eager to be smug over finally getting his point out. "Mhmm. Spoiler alert. Griffin didn't mention your mom or Brent or Max ever being there with you for the summer. At all. But I think you already kinda knew that, right? Even if you're only on the Fourth of July chapters."
Charlie was still trying to reel his temper back in. His was breaths were coming out in short spurts now, and the back of his throat was starting to hurt, because the thing was... Charlie had already kinda known that.
Not that he needed or wanted the confirmation.
"So, yeah," Evan said. "I find it ironic you'd think a made-up ending would be embarrassing when, if I recall correctly, all the shit that went down the week before your birthday that summer started with your mom—"
"Dude STOP—" Charlie lunged forward. "—talking."
Evan sidestepped out of the way, and Charlie pushed past him toward the archway leading out into the living room. Evan's parents, Charlie's mom, and Brent were all less than twenty feet away, throwing back red wine and watching the football game, and who even knew where Max was. Charlie peeked around the corner to make sure no one was listening in. He had to be careful about that in his house.
Charlie turned and hissed, "Dude, can you just not? Please?" at Evan on his way back into the kitchen.
Charlie got it now, though. What Evan meant. And it was hard to name the feeling it put in his chest. He walked over to the refrigerator, yanked it open, and grabbed the first two beers he saw—some gross craft bottles Brent liked. Whatever. It'd do the trick.
"OK, you're right. I won't," Evan said carefully. Apologetically. "I know that's your own shit and not my place, but...it needed to be pointed out, you know?"
Charlie rummaged around the kitchen drawers for a bottle opener, found one attached to a corkscrew, and popped the caps off both beers.
Of course he'd noticed his family had been completely absent in Corbet's so far. At first he'd thought it was out of convenience. Max and his mom and Brent had all stayed with the Andercheks that summer, not just Charlie, but it wasn't like Griffin and her friends had spent a lot of time around them. Charlie had made sure of that.
But the more chapters of Corbet's Charlie read, though, the more he couldn't shake the feeling that maybe those missing details about his family were more intentional than convenient.
Like how Evan's mom and Charlie's mom had gone with Evan and Charlie to play golf the day back in June when Charlie accidentally saw Bill Hammond's name on Griffin's phone. Charlie had actually introduced his mom to Griffin beforehand (which was still hilariously cringy to think about, given the circumstances from the night before).
Or like when they all went sailing on Doc's boat and Griffin had accidentally thrown Charlie overboard. His stepdad Brent had gone sailing with all of them that afternoon. He and Charlie both had fallen overboard. And Griffin had felt so bad about it she'd burst into tears, right there in front of everyone. Charlie had spent that entire afternoon trying to convince her to laugh about it.
So in hindsight, Charlie's mom and stepdad could've easily had a few more random cameos in Corbet's by now. Passing mentions. Casual run-ins. Maybe even a tiny acknowledgement that it wasn't just Charlie staying with the Andercheks that summer...
But the most obvious piece of evidence that Griffin had purposely excluded Charlie's family from the story was the complete absence of Max.
Griffin had spent more time with Charlie and Max together toward the end of that summer than she had just with Charlie by herself. Which was a lot to take on, considering Max wasn't even five yet at the time. Griffin and Charlie had even spent the entire Fourth of July day with Max because Charlie's mom and Brent had once again pushed babysitter duty on Charlie, so they could go off and do whatever, whenever, without the burden of a toddler around.
It was sad not a whole lot had changed on that front since that summer, either.
Charlie threw back half his beer in three long pulls. After a moment, he faced Evan again, and (because what was one more insult to injury here?) asked, "So what's your second reason, then?"
Evan was leaning against the kitchen island again with his arms crossed, watching him. "That I find all this pretty ironic?"
Charlie nodded, silently passing him the second beer from the fridge across the granite counter top.
Evan took it, raised the bottle to him, and looked thoughtful for a second.
"I guess it's ironic you're all worked up about Griffin having to make up a new ending," he said, "when I've been trying to tell you for two days now that we could just drive up to Winston-Salem and change the ending for her."
A/N: 😳😳😳😳😳😳😳😳
Thoughts? 👀
—ALEX
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