A/N: Hello! I just wanted to take a tiny minute to say a few things: First - because I'm paranoid and I overthink everything, I just wanted to put a disclaimer out there that I started writing this chapter a few weeks ago, and I promise I didn't borrow the character's name from the adorable newborn princess. Second - I spent the entire month of March dealing with a health issue that crept into my daughter's life, and introduced us to the world of biopsies, MRIs, and bottomless fear. Everything is fine now, thankfully, and I hope to be posting much more regularly. March kicked my butt, and it took me most of April to recover, and I can't even tell you what a lovely escape it is to play around with these characters. Thirdly... my beta is awesome. One of the lines in this chapter was her idea, & I paraphrased her words (section 3, in which Cal can't tell if his mates are lying), and not only did she help me plug numerous holes in this installment, but she has talked me off a ledge more times than I can probably count. She rocks. And all of the people who have stuck with this story, sent me messages / feedback / well-wishes for my daughter? You guys rock too. :) Hope you enjoy the chapter!
-Jen
Part IV (Age Twelve): Until there's nothing left of them but moonlight and stars…
Charlotte.
Her name is Charlotte.
She has pale skin and emerald eyes… she is kind and funny, gentle and sweet. She's his biggest fear and his deepest desire all rolled into one, and her smile makes him feel alive in ways he'll never admit aloud. To anyone. Ever.
The most obvious truth is that he wants to kiss her. Repeatedly. He is twelve now, after all – which means that thoughts of girls, freedom, and delicious temptations occupy roughly ninety-five percent of the space in his head, while the remainder scrambles to play catchup with the rest of his life. He's no saint, to be sure. He's… curious. He's interested. And of all the things he lacks, an active imagination is not one of them.
In his mind? Everything is always easy. He has confidence in spades, and just enough experience to know exactly what he's doing. His voice doesn't crack at the worst possible times, and she never notices the scars on his arm or the bruises on his wrist. In his mind, he doesn't worry about saying the right thing, or finding the right moment… because in his mind, she fancies him anyway. Regardless of circumstance.
In reality, though, things are different.
He's nowhere near as confident as he likes to pretend, and being twelve isn't easy at all.
She lives nearby, in a quiet little flat with her quiet little family, and with a father who doesn't hide his own insecurities behind a bottle of booze. She has a sister. A puppy. A picture perfect life to which he cannot relate in any way, and a heart that carries hope rather than pain.
She is free, see?
…but he is not.
Which means that the not-so obvious truth is framed in fear. His fear. Not of her, and not of the world in general – but of rejection. Of being pitied. He's scared that if he takes a chance… if he gets everything right, and Charlotte truly does fancy him just as much as he fancies her… that he'll find happiness for an instant, only to watch it shatter as soon as she sees the parts of himself that he always tries so hard to hide.
Hide.
Hide.
Hide.
Pity that word is still such a constant in his life.
He thinks of winter as the hardest season. Long sleeves mask the souvenirs of his family's private demons, and footprints of denial echo through the chills and darkness. Time passes slowly, weeks blend into months, and when it finally ends – when sunshine and (empty?) promises of sobriety suddenly turn everything on its ear – there she stands. His Charlotte. And the future doesn't feel quite so daunting anymore.
They spend the earliest days of springtime falling into a shy routine. She doesn't ask questions, and he doesn't pretend to be someone he's not… and it works, yeah? It just works. It's scary, and it's brilliant, and some days it feels like his feet don't even touch the ground.
…like he's living inside a dream.
…like he's suspended – midair, mid-breath, mid-everything – without the weight of a thousand broken promises to hold him down.
He thinks of her at nighttime, when the faint whispers of his mum's fading tears leave him restless in his bed. He thinks of her laughter, her smile, and the sweet way she speaks his name. And then he tries to understand why something as small as alcohol has the power to control so many different lives.
Instinct still tells him not to trust anyone. It understands that promises break, priorities shift, and selfishness often suffocates the places where unconditional love is supposed to live.
But.
If he listens close enough… if he looks beyond the scars, past the doubts, and above the shadows of his past… he senses something new, now. Mostly because he wants to trust Charlotte.
And he wants to believe that people can change.
They walk on eggshells for the first seven days, waiting for the inevitable storm: rage always comes first, pain comes second… and then guilt comes third, every single time the phrase "staying sober" fails to be as easy as it sounds.
This?
It's attempt number nine, actually. Take his mum's broken arm, two fist-sized holes in the bathroom wall, a doctor with the intuition of a bloodhound, and poof! Deja-vu. There's no beer in the fridge and no liquor in the cabinets, and he thinks there's nothing more than a sliver of a chance that this so-called 'fresh start' will last longer than a week.
…until it does.
Imagine that.
On days eight and nine, they struggle to find their footing. They're unsure how to relax in the presence of a man they can't afford to trust, yet keenly aware that they shouldn't take a single peaceful moment for granted, lest it all blow up in their faces by day ten.
But it doesn't.
So imagine that, too.
By day twenty-three, his mum no longer cries when she thinks no one is watching. The scar on his wrist is fading bit by bit. His body is completely pain free for the first time in a year… he walks taller, laughs louder, sleeps soundly, feels strong. And then a week later – as they cross the one month mark – he thinks about how lovely it would be to trust someone again. To have faith without fear.
Bruises heal. Bones mend. Scars fade, and tears dry. And those things are visible, yeah? They're obvious. They're tangible, physical ways to measure a thousand intangible emotions. The hardest work, though… the hardest work happens on the inside, where it can't be seen. Because that's the place where fear takes root.
Month two passes quickly. His shy routine with Charlotte picks up steam along the way, and she kisses him on day sixty-one, beneath the semi-private shade of a towering tree. It comes completely out of the blue, ends far too quickly, and leaves him grinning like a mute fool. He has no idea what he's doing, see? Not a single clue. But he loves it – all of it. He loves the way his heart won't stop hammering within his chest… the way his lungs shift into overdrive… he loves all of it.
He presses a hand to his lips in surprise, as she blushes crimson and then turns to walk away. She looks happy. Really, truly, genuinely happy to be with him – and right then and there, he feels it take root: faith.
He's starting to have faith in himself, now.
Finally.
He flies into motion roughly one tenth of a second after the final bell begins to ring – and a beat later, there he is: in the hallway. Waiting outside her classroom door. Trying to act like he's perfectly fine; like his palms aren't sweaty, and his brain isn't overthinking every bloody thing, while he tries to decide what to say.
He has no idea how to go about shifting their relationship into something more… formal… without looking like a total wanker in the process – and the fact that his mates are total crap at nonchalance isn't helping at all, because he can hear them in the background. They sound like a trio of fools. One of them whoops and hollers every few moments, while the other two hide their excitement behind phony coughs and too-loud snickering. And then as soon as she finally appears, they grow silent.
Instantly, obviously silent.
Which makes him want to kick them all in the kneecaps just for sport.
Her red hair falls in ringlets past her shoulders, and her voice curls around his name with perfect ease. She smiles. The word "hello" takes approximately seventeen times too long to make it from his brain to his lips, and they're halfway down the hall before his inner gentleman kicks in and insists that he carry her books.
She's quite tall, actually. In between rounds of mentally kicking himself for never doing something as basic as carrying her books before, it's her height that catches his eye the most and makes them look ridiculously mismatched. Strange he hasn't noticed it until now. Yes, they walk home together almost every day (…in a group, yeah? In a group, not as an exclusive pair. There's a difference…), and yes, he has eyes – but the last time they stood this close together and he had time enough to concentrate on things as basic as height, she kissed him. And he was far more interested in the taste of her lips than the differences in their stature.
It doesn't matter, anyway. That's what he tells himself.
He tells himself those words, in that order, as if he's willing the fear to stay away. He's trying to ignore the fact that they are so very, very different, because he wants to focus on the bigger picture instead.
Besides…
It's not as if he can grow a head taller by Wednesday, and hey – Charlotte doesn't seem to care. So why should he? She kissed him, remember? She kissed him. Which means he must be doing something right.
She smells like strawberries, and she's wearing tiny pearl earrings. He's wearing long sleeves to hide his arm, and he probably didn't even brush his hair this morning, and let's face it: if he wanted to let the fear run wild, then it would have roughly twenty-seven different reasons as to why he should let it win. Why he shouldn't take a risk. Why he should be content to spend the rest of his days alone, wallowing in the shadows of self-pity. Which is nonsense, see? It's all just total nonsense, and he decides that there is no bloody way he can live with himself if he doesn't try to make this work.
Charlotte.
Charlotte and Cal.
Sounds pretty good, actually.
Three pairs of eyes are boring holes into his back by the time they make it outside, and he's just waiting for one (or more) of them to say something crazy. They're twelve too, remember? And each of them has far more experience with girls than he does.
(That's what they all keep telling him, anyway… but he can't quite decide if they're lying or not.)
They fall into step easily, and he doesn't think to ask the obvious question ("…mind if we walk alone for a change?") until they're already halfway to Charlotte's front door. And by the time he realizes that his mates have disappeared, he's too busy noticing all the things he probably shouldn't notice – like her legs – to give so much as a single toss about anything else. The ninety-five percent of his head that normally thinks about kissing her is screaming at the other five to just make a bloody move already, and his hand is itching to hold onto hers.
Stupid books.
Stupid heavy, bulky, boring books.
He shifts his weight and carefully balances the pile in his left arm, trying to act perfectly calm as he wipes his sweaty palm on his trousers. And then with the grace of a drunken giraffe, he makes not one, not two, but three attempts to lace his fingers with hers… only to trip on his own shoelace a mere sixty seconds later, and spill the entire stack of those sodding books all over the ground.
He's mortified.
A string of muffled curses shoots out of his mouth as he tries – but fails – to laugh at his own mistake. And he's too busy trying to salvage his dignity to notice a single thing about what Charlotte is doing… until she drops down on the ground beside him, smiling as widely as he's ever seen, and starts brushing grass off the pages and spines. She looks happy. Genuinely happy. He's a mess, and he's nervous, and he doesn't understand why his limbs have suddenly gone rogue, or why his body can't seem to complete basic tasks like walking, for example, without turning the whole scene into a slapstick parade… but she's happy.
And she's beautiful.
And she kissed him, yeah?
She kissed him.
Which means that he can either let a heartbeat's worth of embarrassment ruin the rest of their afternoon, or – and this is a big one – he can trust that every wonderful thing he sees in Charlotte's eyes is just as real as what he feels in his own heart.
They stand. His trousers are covered in dirt and her skirt is wrinkled all to hell. She has leaves and grass on the front of her jumper, and his hair is sticking up at odd angles – and if anyone caught sight of them now, chaos would ensue. Mostly because neither one of them looks innocent at all. She can't stop blushing, and he can't stop grinning, and roughly thirty-five seconds after his still-sweaty hand links with hers? He decides that trusting her…
…trusting this…
…might be the best thing he ever does.
By early summer, they are inseparable. His favorite place in the entire world is now the semi-private shade of 'their' towering tree, and kissing her feels as natural as breathing air. And when he thinks of how very differently their story might have gone – without faith, without trust, and yes, without the benefit of his father's sobriety nipping at his heels – he decides that the only thing worse than living in the shadows of an abusive alcoholic, is thinking that people can't change.
…or that all promises get broken.
…or that demons are more powerful than love.
People can change, yeah? He knows that now. He sees it, firsthand. He can't quite forgive, and he carries scars that will likely never fade – but he's healing, too. And he counts that as a victory.
They take shortcuts through the park, kiss until they lose breath, and eat so much ice cream that their stomachs nearly burst. She tells him stories about holidays with her family, and he doesn't feel self-conscious about telling jokes to fill the spaces where his own family stories would otherwise fit.
He loves her.
Of course he loves her.
And he's pretty sure that she loves him, too.
She asks about his family… meets his mum… and on day one-nineteen (when his father is nearly four months sober, and trust is starting to feel like a long lost friend), he barely thinks twice about veering off-course just long enough to tempt fate. He leads and she eagerly follows, and it isn't until they get within sight of his house – until the faded blue fabric of his father's favorite shirt catches his eye and slows his pace to a crawl – that he realizes just how different life is, now.
'Thinks.'
That's the key word, see?
He barely thinks twice about veering off-course – about letting someone he loves with his whole heart come face to face with a man who has hurt him more times than he can possibly count – because the fear doesn't control him anymore. No, he isn't scared of anything, these days. Least of all his past.
And he's too busy being proud of himself to see all the little details; all the telltale signs that point to something being wrong. He's distracted, and he's happy, and Charlotte's smile is far more interesting than trivial, boring things like the time of day… or the fact that his father always works on Wednesdays… or the slightly slurred "Nice to meet you," that lands lightly in their wake.
It's day one-nineteen, after all – which seems like half a lifetime of sobriety.
And everything in his world feels pretty bloody good.
Month five passes quickly. His days are filled with sunshine and sweat – with football, swimming, laughter, and fun. He dreams, and plans, and loves, and lives. And it's perfect, yeah? It's absolutely perfect.
…until it isn't.
One-forty-nine. That's how far they make it, before the tiny little voice in the back of his head reawakens and quietly warns him that everything might soon change. But he's twelve, now. He's not a child anymore, and the very last thing he wants to do is admit defeat to anyone – even himself. So he ignores it. He plugs his ears and pretends not to notice, and he holds tight to those perfect, perfect days until there's nothing left of them but moonlight and stars.
He kisses Charlotte beneath the shade of their tree, and on a rainy night in mid-July, the words "I love you" take them both by surprise.
Time.
Time.
Time.
The voice in his head is anything but tiny by the earliest signs of August, and the return of his mum's tears begs him to notice that he's running out of time.
And it's too hard to pretend that he can't hear it, now; that he can't feel the tension creeping back into their small home, or see the shadows of his old life growing taller once again. He isn't stupid. He isn't blind, and he isn't stupid… but he is stubborn, see? So maybe that's to blame.
Charlotte leads and he eagerly follows, and it isn't until they get within sight of his house – until the faded blue fabric of his father's favorite shirt catches his eye and slows his pace to a crawl – that he realizes just how quickly life can change. Her hand is nestled tightly against his. Her hair smells like strawberries, and her pale skin pulls his gaze in a dozen directions at once, while he wills himself to ignore the terrible, ominous, insistent voice that suddenly begs him not to tempt fate again.
The signs are there, yeah? He sees all of them, now.
He isn't blind, and he isn't stupid.
It's the middle of the afternoon, and his father always works on Wednesdays. The heavily slurred "don't be late for dinner, boy!" lands loudly in their wake. And he thinks – no, no, scratch that, he knows – that somewhere behind their front door, his mum's heart is shattering anew.
Instinct draws his arm around Charlotte's shoulders, and he squeezes her into his body as they pass by. He doesn't want her to feel any of this. He doesn't want her to know what it's like to worry all the time… to break, or to bleed, or to crumple to the floor… and he doesn't want to lie, either, but maybe that's the kindest thing. To lie.
"You look like him," she says suddenly. "'Like father, like son.' Isn't that how it goes?"
And it doesn't mean anything – he knows that. She's just making conversation; just trying to fill the silence that is stretching fifteen beats too long, as he grips her shoulder even tighter and wills himself not to say the wrong thing. He shakes his head and curls his lip, and his gut instinct shouts at him to look back. To look right at his father, while he still has the chance.
The bottle is half-empty when the man pulls it away from his lips with a satisfied sigh.
He suspects it isn't the first one today.
It isn't even the second, most likely.
His stomach clenches, as he feels the weight of a thousand broken promises reverberate through his body in the span of a single step, and Charlotte smiles innocently as she wraps her arm around the small of his back. The words 'like father, like son' rattle through his head like a live grenade – wicked and wretched and very, very real – and it's all he can do not to vomit. It's all he can do to just keep walking. To concentrate on the feel of her skin and the scent of her hair… on the warmth of the sunshine and the sense of urgency in the air.
In his favorite dreams, everything is easy. His voice doesn't crack at the worst possible times, and his father doesn't find redemption through an endless stream of booze. In his dreams, he doesn't worry about saying the right thing, or making the right choices… because in his dreams, Charlotte loves him anyway. Regardless of someone else's mistakes.
In reality, though, he knows things are changing.
And being twelve doesn't seem easy at all.