CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHARLIE
I'd like to say reality hit me the second she walked away. Or that it hit the second she got in the car, or better yet, the second Brad started making his bullshit accusations with his bullshit video that was obviously fucking staged, when she went quiet and invisible to my blind rage. I wish I could say that more than fucking anything.
Instead, reality hit after Rudolph came roaring down the street. After he pulled us apart, sent Brad home, and hauled my ass inside. After he slapped me in the face and told me I was acting like a bitch so I'd get treated like one.
It fully hit the moment the house went still and I realized she'd left her panties on the floor. A slinky purple pair with lace around the trim, her favorite kind, I'd noticed. They had been kicked back by the trash can when we'd been fooling around and I was confessing that I didn't like to have shit matter to me.
Was it only ten minutes later that I proved it?
She didn't get the full story. She didn't get the blood, the friends blown to fucking bits by roadside bombs and people who sure as fuck didn't want us there almost as much as we didn't want to be there. She didn't get the chaos that followed, the spirals after I got home, the hours and hours logged with a shrink who tried to get in my head and talk about shit that should never see the light of day.
She didn't get the accident. She didn't get my scars. She didn't hear about why my thumb is a map of fucked decisions and wrong corners on my way to becoming a functioning person again who just tuned everything out. She got none of that. I chased her away.
The worst bit was I was going to. I wanted to tell her everything, spill it all out and let her understand why I became the Charlie Vermont half the fucking campus liked to talk about. Instead, Bradley the Fuckface and his shitty side piece showed up at my house to ruin everything.
Or, rather, I ruined everything, according to Rudolph.
After finding her panties, I was inclined to believe he was right.
"You should have just left it alone, Charlie." Rudolph handed me an ice pack and pointed to my eye. "He is as hotheaded as you and it's a recipe for disaster. All he wanted to do was make someone else responsible for his girl not wanting to fuck him anymore. How pathetic is that? Sit down and work that shit out for a minute. He couldn't deal with the fact she didn't want his tiny dick anymore, so he tried to antagonize the bear to make him look better."
"It didn't work." I snorted, ignoring the ice pack.
"The fuck it didn't. Did you just see what happened out there? Number one, he can report your ass for his headlights. Number two, regardless of what he thought he had, he got you stirred up so bad your girl left you and called me to come settle you down because she's terrified. Congratulations. You now look like a monster."
I stared at the ceiling in my room and wondered how exactly I got to this point. Sandbox aside. I've seen the stats and I know some guys who are real fucked up, but I always thought I was better than that. I knew I was better than that. I'm Charlie fucking Vermont. War hero, badass, I win every goddamn thing I go into. I picked up countless girls with ease in the bars and dropped their asses twice as fast.
Somehow, despite all that, Ashley showed up in my life and made everything scary as shit but a million times better. Of course I fucked that up.
Charlie Vermont does not deserve nice things.
So, I stared down a bottle of Jack. We've done a dance for a long time, whiskey and me. It was one of the few suggestions I took from my shrink—ditching the brown water for good. It turned me into a monster, they said. Well, if I'm already a fucking monster...
Rudolph knocked on the door and opened. "Hey, do you...."
I felt him looking at me, but I didn't move. "It doesn't matter anymore."
"Bullshit it doesn't matter anymore. You're acting like a bitch again. Do you need another slap?"
"I'm a monster, remember? I fuck everything up. I ruin everything I touch, including relationships that aren't even mine. The whole campus thinks I'm a Jody... remember?"
Rudolph exhaled and made slow work of coming into my room. I didn't like it. It meant he thought I was on edge. I wasn't about to jump off the deep end. I already was off the deep end. I'd been here a long time.
"Charlie, listen to me. Everyone fucks up. Literally everyone."
"Literally everyone?" It made me think of Ashley. Thinking of Ashley hurt. I unscrewed the bottle and set it back down.
"Literally. Everyone. I know you think you're exempt from this rule, but it's human nature. We fuck up, we apologize, we start again. I know this Brad asshole has been messing with you and knew exactly how to push your buttons. That guy deserves to choke on a dick, no question. You can't erase what followed, but you can talk to her about it and apologize."
My throat felt rough and raw. I was tiptoeing down an alley I hadn't visited in a long, long time. "She won't talk to me. I've called three times."
"Because she's scared and upset. That's normal thing that happens, man. As in, you aren't the first to go through this. It also means you can still get your shit together and fix it. Even if she never talks to you again, you can still fix yourself to make sure this doesn't happen again."
"Or." I held up a finger. "I can get drunk and not feel shit ever again."
Rudolph grabbed the bottle. I thought about grabbing it back, but my body was too busy warring with my mind to do anything about it. He left and I listened to him walk down the hall, go into the bathroom, and pour it down the drain.
My jaw clenched, but nothing else happened. I'd bricked. Ashley's name appeared on my phone and I nearly busted my ass grabbing for it.
"Hello?" There was a thick silence on the other end. She took a deep breath, like she'd been crying. I was desperate. "Ashley, listen, I need to—“
"Please, Charlie. I can't... you obviously have some things you need to deal with. And that's fine, okay? Rudolph told me about your time over there with him and some of the things you've seen. It's terrible and I'm so sorry you had to see those things."
I already saw what tunnel she was driving down and everything in me tightened. "Ashley, don't do this. Please don't do this."
"I can't help you, Charlie. I'm not the person to do it. I have my own things to deal with and I can't put that aside to be with someone who is so..." She took a shaky breath. "Scary."
I collapsed on my bed. "I'm so sorry, Ashley. I never should have listened to him and I never should have given a shit and you're right, you are so right, just please let me—“
"Please get help. Please talk to someone. And please... don't call me anymore." She hung up.
I was the eye of the storm. Frozen. Calm. At peace. Then the moment passed and I became a rolling storm of chaos. I threw everything within reach, broke everything that had give. Rudolph just stood there, watching me, pitying me.
I looked at him square in the face and punched a new hole in my wall. Sweat poured down my face, my body heaved, and I wanted to burn the entire world to the ground.
Rudolph held up his keys. "It's time, man. We can do this the easy way, where you come with me, sit the fuck down, and go where you're told. Or we can do this the hard way, and I knock your ass out and drag you there. Your choice."
I looked around my shattered room that matched my shattered soul. I looked at the phone on my bed with the lock screen picture of a smiling Ashley. Rudolph grabbed it.
"I'm going to stop you there. You don't do this for her. Eventually, you will have to talk to her, but until then, this isn't about her. You do this for you. You deserve to be a whole person again, Charlie. You aren't worth the shits you take to that woman until you are."
I looked at my thumb, remembering the night I tried to end it all on my bike, drunk off my ass, swerving through traffic. The doctor told me I was a medical miracle to escape that accident with nothing more than a busted thumb. I thought I was invincible because I couldn’t kill myself.
Two years passed and how much had I changed?
I nodded because it was all I had left.
Rudolph gave me a tight hug. "I'll be right there, okay? We've all been here, Charlie. You're just tougher than most of us and could live longer without it. We're iron, Vermont. Iron needs to be sharpened. Let's sharpen you."