Part 3
She ducks out with Cooper at lunch to get the line-up done. She feels her throat closing up as soon as she sets foot in the police station, but she tries to remember what Violet told her. She has a safe place now. Not here, she tells herself, feeling her fingers tighten as the spots of panicky light flicker in her eyes. Not here, not here, not here...
Then she's on a hard, plastic chair, and her head is between her knees, and Cooper is holding her hand.
"Breathe, baby. You're okay, it's okay, deep breaths..."
The cop looks sympathetic. Waits for her to get a hold of herself. Then, takes her in.
She sees him, right away, she sees him, and the pictures flash before her eyes ever faster. Safe place, she tells herself. Not here. Not here. And now that his face is clear for her, it's realer somehow, and she she sees the blows in her head, she feels them on her body again, and she's crumpling to the floor, holding her stomach, her arm hanging limply at her side...
"Jesus," the cop says.
"It's two," she gasps out between panicky whimpers. "It's two. Number two. And don't even tell me what his name is..."
The cop nods, turns and leaves them. Nobody comes in again; they let her collect herself and leave when she's ready. She hears the cop say something to Cooper about how good it is that she reacted. There are gaps in the evidence, and seeing her do this again, in court, might be the best chance they have of nailing the bastard.
She staggers out of Cooper's attentive grip, makes it to the bathroom before she's sick.
"Maybe we should get out of town for awhile," Cooper says. He's driving them back to the office and doing his best to look nonchalant and non-rattled.
"Hmmm?"
"Have a break from all this. You're healed now, and we won't hear from Price for awhile. You keep saying you want to get on with things. So maybe we just need a break for a couple days. We could run ourselves up to that little B&B we went to that one time..."
No. That is hallowed ground now, a safe place. She won't go there again, in the real world.
"Or somewhere else, if you'd rather. Get away from all this. Get away from...from him..."
She doesn't want to think about that, doesn't want to think about him out there on bail or something, his bright eyes, his dark hair, his clean features, his strong, hard hands raining down on her, his fingers moving up and down...
"Hey. Charlotte, look at me, it's okay, we don't..."
"It's not okay," she snaps. "Stop doing that, Coop!"
"But..."
"No! You're like...like this slick Sheldon thing, you're saying all the things you're supposed to say, but it's not okay, and it isn't helping!"
He's quiet. "Well? What would help?"
"Just be you, I guess. Be you. Don't say what you're supposed to. Tell me something real."
"Okay. I'm scared, Charlotte. I'm scared that if we stay here right now while this isn't done, we'll see him, and I won't be able to control myself."
"Oh, Coop..."
"And yeah, I'm scared for you. That seeing him out there somewhere will make you hurt again, like you hurt this morning. But even more than that. I'm scared for me."
"Okay. Okay, Coop."
"So, will you think about it? Going away for a couple days?"
"I'll think. Can't promise more, right now. But I'll think."
To her surprise, Violet's with Cooper on this one. "Might be a good idea," she says.
"But...you...my sessions..."
"You're right on track, actually. You have the tools- for now, anyway. Might be that the best thing to do right now is go away for a couple days and process it before we work again."
"And...Amelia..."
"We're a phone call away, if you need us. It's a good idea, Charlotte. Just think about it."
And she does. She thinks about it all afternoon, and what it comes down to, for her, is that scary though it might be to rejoin the world again, to go out there, just her and Coop, and leave the other ones...this is what life is going to be. There is not always a meeting. There is not always a Violet. The only constant is her own strength, and his, together. And she'd best get used to that, or she'll never really come back from this the way she should.
To her surprise, by the end of the day, it turns out to be out of her hands. When she heads back into her office, there is an email waiting for her from one of her brothers. It's Momma's birthday. She is being summoned.
Cooper is delighted. He's picturing that big old house, that rolling Alabama countryside. She's picturing her addict mother, her cold brothers, that repressed Southern Gothic that made things so hard for her once she had left it for more open places. She has that coldness too. She has that smothering choke-hold on her inner self that turned her to drugs, to sex, to all the things that got her into trouble later. There's baggage. Of course there is. And all Cooper can see is the goddamned house.
"First time back since your father?" Cooper asks. He's read her mood, but given it over to the wrong reasons. Now that he mentions it, there's that too. But it's more the feeling she gets that when she thinks about that place, those people, she has to close up everything inside her and just hold it in until she's out of there again. She's not sure she's strong enough for that right now, with the rest of her still so raw and reeling...
"Tell me what I can do," Cooper says.
"Nothing," she snaps without thinking. But then, she thinks about it again. "Won't have Violet. Won't have Amelia. You'll have to be them for me, Coop. Be you, but also be them."
"And I won't have Sheldon," he says.
"But that's better right now. Coop, it's you I need. The real you."
"And I need you," he says.
"You won't get it, there. Not unless we're in private. Coop, these are not sharing people. And here I am, supposed to be learning that, and then going back in there..."
"I'll be with you," he says.
"Yeah. I know you will. You want to book it, or should I?"
She gives him special dispensation to talk to Violet, just this once. But he insists she come with him, and she's glad she does, because the first thing Violet wants to do is work out some things that he can say when something difficult happens.
"For example," Violet says. "If she says she's feeling afraid, you could say I'm here for you."
But he's getting this sort of platitude already from Sheldon, and it isn't helping her. It is surprising for her to learn, as someone who thought they prized distance as much as she did, that what she is craving right now is real honesty. She doesn't want canned responses from him. If she says something and it worries him, she wants it to be okay for him to say so. This is not just about her, anymore. She's thrown in her lot with him, and he gets to feel about that too.
"I'm worried a little, about the addiction thing," Cooper admits from the safety of Violet's office. "Her family...well, let's just say stuff may be around, and people may be around who are using it..."
"That's a fair point," Violet says. "And maybe Amelia would be the one to speak to about it."
"No," she interrupts. "I'm the one to speak to. Coop, I know the deal on this. Got through harder stuff than what it is now without the pills already, because I made a choice on this. I'll hold."
"It'll be hard for you."
"Lot of things in life are hard. I'll hold. I'll call Amelia, if I need to. But I'll hold."
"As for the rest of it," Violet says. "You have the tools. You know how to de-escalate, if the panic hits. You know how to switch over to a safe place if you're in a scary one. Might take you some time, in the implementing-and you might scare Cooper half to death while he waits for you to come back to him-but you have the tools. Consider this little trip a field test to see how you do deploying them without me."
That's a good way to frame it, she reflects. She's a smart one-medical school, being chief as young as she is-and she has always excelled at tests.
The flight leaves in the morning. They have night in their own bed together and now that they've reached this new understanding, he not surprisingly (but lord help her just the same) wants to spend it talking.
"Are you okay with this? Really, are you okay?"
And she decides, then and there, to give him what she's asked him for herself: real honesty. Like it or lump it, however much the truth in her head might make him worry, he's going to hear it if he asks.
"No," she says. "Not really."
"But?"
"But I'll do it. This is my test, Coop- more than that dumb old party, this is my test for getting back at things. And I have you to help me."
He smiles, and for the first time in weeks, she lets him cuddle up beside her just a little. And for the first time, the warmth of his body beside her is a tiny comfort.