Once the security system was up and raring to go, Jensen showed me how to arm it, and I felt my eyebrows rise when he told me the code. "That's my mom's-" he gave me a shy smile and I shook my head. "Freaking hackers," I muttered, and his grin grew to its full blown glory and I thought that Carrie was super screwed. Not that she minded, since I caught her winking at him. Jesus.
"Just hit the code to arm it, the reverse to disarm, AND if for some reason you need help immediately-" I was waiting for him to tell me to hit all zeroes or something, but he handed me a gun. "Shoot it." It? The gun, something I was completely uncomfortable with in the abstract, felt completely fucking wrong in my hand.
"It?" I swallowed, thinking I'd rather just chuck the fucking thing in the garbage and hope for the best. "What's the 'it' in this particular scenario?" I couldn't look up from the weapon in my hand, similar to the one I imagined my mom had killed herself with, not that Jensen would know that, but then again, he knew her birthday.
"Whatever is coming at you, Char," Clay offered, close at my side, the heat of him not calming my ass one tiny iota. "I know you don't-"
"Do you?" I looked up and saw that his eyes were pinched. "Do you know?" Swallowing past the urge to throw up, I carefully sat the gun on the counter near me. "Thank you for the security system," I offered this to Jensen, and saw that Carrie was helping him gather his things, nodding at me to let me know she'd get him out of the apartment as quickly as she could. She knew, she understood better than either man ever could. I took a deep breath and moved away from the gun, the counter, and Clay.
"Char," he followed me, of course he did, and I closed my eyes to keep from screaming. "Your mom's choice, what she did to-"
I snorted, not that it was funny, but the idea that she felt she had a CHOICE. That was darkly hilarious to me. "Her choice? She didn't choose it, Clay." I turned and was happy to see that he was giving me space, and that Jensen and Carrie had left. The red light was on the security system so it was armed. That was good too. "He destroyed her and left me behind to watch her deteriorate."
Not many people knew, my mom had been raised in a world that showed her precisely how to hide it from the world, how she was ruined. How her world imploded, and how she struggled? Those weren't fit for everyone in town to be privy to, but me? I lived with her. Carrie's mom had been my mom's best friend, and she was safe to witness it too. Uncle Davy, George, they saw it, but I watched it bloom the brightest, or darkest actually.
"He never loved her," my voice was hushed, as though I had to keep the secret, as if my mom would come rushing in to admonish me for sharing her shame. "He gleefully told her, during dinner, on the night he walked out." I felt like I was five years old again, listening as he sneered at how weak and useless she was, how she was a means to an end, and if she hadn't been so desperate to keep him, I wouldn't even exist. That I was just as useless and unwanted as she was to him. "Then,to add insult to injury as they say, he moved down the street. A one way street, Clay, that he drove down every single day past our house to get to his new life."
"Charlotte, we don't have to-" I shook my head and huffed out a humorless laugh at his need to keep me safe, from my own memories at that.
"Yeah, I think we do." I sat down, and waited for him to take his own seat. "She hid it from everyone in this damn town, as though he kept it quiet. She wanted so badly to NOT look simple or used, or god forbid stupid." My eyes were burning, but I kept going, he had to know why that gun wouldn't stay with me, no matter how much he insisted. "I started staying away from home as long as I could, the older I got, the more I snuck away to stay here." He nodded and I kept going. "I left her too, Clay, alone with nothing but the same thoughts over and over. That she wasn't wanted, that she wasn't good enough, that she didn't matter." I felt the first tear fall, but didn't brush it away. "And I didn't want her. I wanted the mom I had before he shunted her aside. The one who played with me and took care of me. She broke apart, and I pushed her away just like he did." My face was damp, but I barely took notice of it. "The day she did it, the day she finally made her 'choice', I was here. Downstairs, hiding away from her, just like every day before she put a gun in my mouth and pulled the trigger to 'free me from the stain of dealing with her'." I used quotes, because that was part of the note she'd left behind. Not that Davy had wanted me to see or read it, but inquisitive kids are nosy as fuck and I found it. "I killed her, Clay, I had just as big of a hand in it as he did, and I don't want that gun near me. Any gun, to be honest, because what happens if I finally get my birthright from her? I deserve it, after what I did to her."
Clay pulled me to him and held me while I sobbed, the first time I told anyone how I felt about my mom's death. The truth about it, I mean. I had so much guilt, more than anyone could ever guess, even my uncles who knew me better than any person on earth, and Clay and Jensen's attempt to keep me safe by handing me a fucking gun had unleashed it completely.
Clay held me all night, even if I didn't sleep, even if the alarm barely registered, he held me and comforted me in the only way he could. Helping me into the shower, watching as I went through the motions of my daily routine, he didn't push me to talk or to pretend that I hadn't fallen completely apart the night before. Instead, he was there, pure and simple. And it was oddly comforting.
By the time we walked into the living room so I could grab my keys, I felt almost normal, and I had plenty of time to bake before opening the shop. I almost flinched when I got within touching range of the counter where I'd left the gun, but then I realized it was gone. I turned to see Clay's mouth in a tiny smile and bit my lip.
"You don't want it," he moved closer and wrapped me in his arms. "So it's gone." His lips brushed my forehead. "I just want you to be safe, Charlotte." He breathed into my hair and I relaxed completely in his arms.
"I am," tilting my head back so I could look up at his face, I smiled. "Or," I corrected as I saw he looked unconvinced. "I will be, once you put MAX in their place." That brought his smile back and then his lips met mine and I REALLY wished I hadn't chosen to go all melodramatic PTSD shitshow the night before, and this morning. Fuck, what a waste. When he pulled away, I was seriously considering sending Keli out for donuts from the local grocery store, but groaned in the knowledge I wouldn't. "Let's get this fucking show on the road," and with a sigh, and a chuckle from him at my obvious irritation with myself and my routine, we walked downstairs to start another glorious day at The Little Drip.
