Ike
Charlotte paced Grams’s living room, chewing at her thumb nail, while the three of us watched from the couch. I’d stalled long enough to get her to Grams and her brother before I came clean about knowing the truth and told her everything. Now we sat idle and waited while she processed the news.
“Talk to us, sis,” Axel finally said, breaking the tense silence.
Charlotte stopped and looked at him. “I’ve felt her…Marlena,” she clarified. “I’ve felt her trying to reach me.”
“You have?” I asked.
“I didn’t know it was her, I mean how could I, but... yeah...” she said, pausing. “She’s called to me in dreams, and a few times I felt something pulling at me. I thought it was all in my head.”
Grams cleared her throat. “Charlotte? Are you okay?”
Charlotte’s shoulders drooped before she sighed. “Confused.” She cut her gaze to Grams. “Why is this happening?”
Grams sighed and pressed her mouth in a thin flat line. She didn’t have an answer; none of us did.
“She’s going to try to reach out to you again, Charlotte,” I explained. “Soon. She thinks if you open your mind to it, she’ll be able to communicate with you.”
Charlotte snorted. “Great.”
I stood, stepping toward her with the intention of comforting her, but she held her hand up to stop me before I’d taken a step. “I need some space.”
I had expected there to be fallout from keeping the truth from her, but it stung bitterly nonetheless, and it took a moment for me to recover from the blow before I returned to my seat on the couch. Grams gave my leg a sympathetic pat.
Charlotte’s conflicted gaze met mine, and I braced for the lecture I deserved, but it didn’t come. “What did she mean by opening my mind? Just to simply believe that I’m alive?”
“I don’t know,” I answered honestly. Marlena hadn’t provided any tips; though, to be honest, I hadn’t exactly been in a listening mood. Charlotte fisted her hair as if overwhelmed by it all. Christ, I’m an asshole. So much for the sun dying for the moon…
“Just open my mind,” she mumbled.
The second I raised my head to look at her, she vanished. Everyone in the room froze, our eyes moving around to see if she’d reappear.
After a few moments Axel said, “You try first.” He’d apparently had the same thought I’d had, and we both had tried unsuccessfully to morph to her. “Maybe we can’t both go to her at the same exact time,” he added.
I pictured myself beside her the way I always did, but nothing happened. I shook my head, panic rising after Axel tried and also failed. No, not like this! My stomach reeled at the possibility that we’d just watched Charlotte leave the afterlife.
I buried my head in my hands, dread consuming me as my biggest fear seemed to be playing out in front of me. I didn’t even get to say goodbye to her. The last thing she’d remember was that I’d hid a huge secret from her.
“Maybe Marlena summoned her,” Axel suggested hopefully.
Grams slowly shook her head, “Ike never disappeared when she summoned him; he was physically still here.”
The stunned silence lengthened as we each absorbed our new reality. Charlotte. Was gone.
“Grams?” Axel asked quietly, his voice carrying an echo of hope that we were wrong.
“There’s no way to know,” she said. “All we can do is pray she’s okay. That’s all that matters.”
“But would she?” he asked. “Leave us?”
I pulled my head from my hands at his question, looking for any sign of hope in her expression, but all I saw was an apology. Her voice was filled with sympathy as she met my gaze and said softly, “If she can, she should.”
My heart shattered as it hit the floor.
“Ike, honey,” Grams said as she moved in front of me and took my hands in hers, tugging gently so I’d meet her gaze. “I’ve been waiting for my soulmate to join me for a very long time, so I can’t even begin to imagine how it’d feel to finally have him here, only to lose him again, but I do know I’d never want to keep him here if it wasn’t his time. We truly don’t know if this is Charlotte’s time, but if it isn’t, do you really want to rob her of the life she’s meant to live?” She squeezed my hands before continuing, “Charlotte is special, and her gift obviously has an impact, so there may not be any choice in this for her to make, but as much as we want her with us, if she’s blessed with the opportunity to return to her life and grow old, she should take it.”
Grams was right, but in my selfishness all I could think about was how unfair it all was. This is why I had been afraid to tell her—I knew there was a chance that she’d just be gone, and we wouldn’t even get to say goodbye.
“Whiskey,” Grams said abruptly as she smoothed out the skirt of her dress. Axel and I stared blankly at her, dumbfounded. She nodded decisively, as if settling and unseen argument, then reached for our hands and pulled Axel and me behind her.
“Whiskey,” she said again on a long exhale. “Lots of whiskey.”