Later That Afternoon

There was a big test on African culture in World Geography class. A class the whole five of us had last period. Five because Leah happened to be a junior. So she sat quietly reading some magazine while the rest of us crammed our brains full of unnecessary facts about the Nigerian economy and Kenyan pop music. The only thing I really learned was that, if I lived in Nairobi, I would never be fat. I mean, seriously, it's beautiful there. Warm, sunny, and the shelves at the grocery store are chalk full of fruit. I would walk everywhere because it would be so nice and eat tons of fruit so I would be healthy and thin and happy. I told the rest of the little study group that, and everyone but Dougie laughed. Dougie told me I was being dumb and that just living in Nairobi wouldn't keep me from getting fat. He said he would never live there because people were still oppressed there. Dougie said that I would hate the heat, because I'm fair skinned and burn easily.

I told Dougie to shut up.

"Charlotte, stop acting like a first grader." Dougie spat, shaking his head and turning the page in his text book. I glanced around the circle, everyone looked up nervously, obviously uncomfortable with the awkwardly hostile tone he was taking with me.

"Dougie, stop acting like a jackass." I shot back. Dougie looked up slowly and gave me the dirtiest look I have ever seen.

"I'm not being a jackass, I'm just sick of listening to your delusions."

"My delusions?" My voice squeaked with my indignant shock, "What about your delusions? You were getting so attached to that stupid doll I thought I was gonna have to pry you away from it with a crowbar."

"Fuck you, Charlotte." Dougie got up, tossing his book to the ground and started walking away. I didn't even bother shooting my shocked expression to the others, I didn't care whether or not they thought he was being irrational. All I cared about was why he had suddenly gone hulk on me. I stomped after him across the campus lawn and caught his arm.

"Don't walk away from me, Dougie!" I shouted. He spun around and glared at me.

"You had to bring the doll into it didn't you?" He said. I was taken aback at his question and stumbled over something to say. Dougie shook his head and continued, "I told you why I liked that doll."

"Yeag, you said you liked the responsibility, and you felt needed, and you wanted the practice." I counted off on my fingers, "But why? You're eighteen years old, Dougie, you aren't supposed to want that kind of responsibility yet. And you've never, ever been like this before." I let out a long breath and licked my lips, pleading with him, "You're so...morose. It's not like you to be so serious."

Dougie's angry expression melted and he looked away from me, "So that's what you think of me as? A fucking fool? A clown?"

"No!" I insisted, "Dougie...I have never seen you that way. But this is just too serious. Too different. It's scaring me."

He sucked in a quick breath and ran a hand through his hair agitatedly. He looked nervous, and I could tell he was shaking.

"Just tell me what's wrong." I whispered desperately. Dougie's eyes shot to my face nervously. He let out a slightly hysterical laugh and sucked his bottom lip into his mouth.

"What isn't wrong?" He asked softly, almost inaudibly, like it wasn't really meant for me to hear. I just watched him shift uncomfortably for a minute before I stepped forward and tried to touch his shoulder. He flinched from my touch and stepped back.

Inside, my stomach dropped and my whole body broke out in an instantaneous cold sweat. I could feel myself shake with a sick confusion and I covered my face to stop myself from breaking down into heaving sobs.

"I'm sorry, Char." He said. I looked up at him from between my fingers and blinked back tears at the utterly forlorn look on his adorable face. I dragged my hands down my cheeks and swallowed the lump in my throat.

"It's okay." My voice croaked out, "But, please, explain the whole doll thing to me ag--"

"For the love of fucking God, Cha--"

"I'm sorry I care about your feelings, Dougie! I'm sorry I give a flying fuck what's wrong with y--"

"Don't you fucking pull that!" Dougie shouted, whirling away from me, "Don't you fucking put me through a guilt trip!"

I clutched my hands to my chest as my devastated emotions beat me and choking sob escaped my throat, "Dougie, why are you yelling at me?" I sobbed at him, beseechingly, "What did I do?"

Dougie's face fell the second the tears sprang forth and he flinched forward, as if he wanted to console me but thought better of it. His mouth opened and closed then he ran a hand through his hair and over his face, "You didn't do anything." He said quietly.

I shook my head and swallowed a sob, "Then, please, tell me what's wrong." I waited for him to reply, but he only peered at me from above his hand which was covering his mouth as he stared back at me. I took a step closer, "Doug, I'm your best friend--"

"I know you're my best frie--"

"Well? I can help you!" My voice was straining against my vocal chords as it hit pitches I didn't know existed in my desperation.

"No you can't!" Dougie shouted back, his own voice sounding cramped and forced. I closed my eyes tightly against the tears that threatened to break the surface.

"Dougie!" I wailed. Dougie had turned away from me, but as his name left my lips with so much pleading and so much worry, he spun back and took a menacing step toward me.

"He left, Charlotte! My dad fucking left, he's gone!" He shouted, his voice cracking. Dougie's hands shifted through his hair and tugged angrily on the red bangs that hung in his eyes. My chest began to ache and I tasted bile in my throat. I strange sort of fluttery panic rose in the pit of my stomach and I twitched.

There was a long, extended silence before I managed to find a sliver of my voice, "...What do you mean?" I asked softly, the words barely making it out my mouth.

"He left!" Dougie yelled, "He just walked out on us. Just...walked out of the house as if there wasn't anything there to begin with. Like he didn't even care." He paused, "They've always been dysfunctional...but they were fighting more than usual..." He trailed off and his gaze shifted across the courtyard.

I stared at him for the longest time, trying to fully comprehend what he was telling me, "When?"

Dougie took in a heavy breath and let it out sharply. He wouldn't look at me, instead his eyes stayed fixed on his sneakers. He was still tugging roughly on his hair, probably to distract himself from the pain in his heart. His eyes were red and welling up, and he remained silent until he had gotten his tear ducts under control.

"Last Saturday. They had this big argument because he was working instead of watching me play. I told her it didn't matter...it was one game...I told her I didn't care, but...but she made a big fucking deal out of it and now he's gone."

Last Saturday. His parents fought because his dad wasn't at the game last Saturday? I had spoken to his mother, and she seemed so upset. But I hadnt thought anything like this would happen. I took in a shaking breath and looked away from him. And he called me that night, that strange, un-Dougie-like phone call. I had known something was wrong.

But this was so unreal, this kind of thing only happens on TV, on Lifetime movies or Dawson's Creek. I knew Dougie's dad, he loved Dougie. He wasn't an affectionate father, but I knew he loved him. How couldn't he? I struggled against tears that slowly beat me and crept over my lower eyelids and slid down my cheeks.

"But he wouldn't just--out of the blue like that..." My thought slipped away from me as the severity of the situation was setting in on me. Dougie laughed disdainfully.

"Yes he would. Don't kid yourself, Charlotte. My dad's never been a really spectacular guy." He paused and the frightening, sickeningly humored expression on his face faded and was replaced with an overwhelmingly sad dawning of realization. "I guess he just got tired of being miserable." He whispered.

I wanted to hug him, to wrap him up in my arms and make all of his doubts and his worries and his ridiculous guilt go away. I could see it in his eyes and read it in his body language. He felt responsible for his dad leaving, and that wasn't fair. He didn't deserve that. But at the same time, the magnitude of his words was much too heavy for my puny heart. I knew what he meant. People can only pretend to be happy as they are, with the way their life is, for so long before the degree of their own discontentment overwhelms them. Sometimes, you just get tired of pretending. I knew exactly what he meant, because I was doing the exact same thing when it came to Dougie.

I let out a long sigh, "We all do." I said softly. Dougie's eyes flickered to me and hovered level with my own. We held each other's gaze, sharing a mutual feeling of understanding. I understood, now, his strange parenting behavior. I knew what he meant when he said it was his chance to go against his nature. He was afraid that he was going to be like his own dad, and let his child down. Dougie was so young, he shouldn't have the weight of the world on his shoulders.

And Dougie understood that there wasn't anything to be afraid of with me. He knew that I wouldn't be angry or pitying. He knew I would be exactly what he needed. And I think he understood what I meant when I confirmed his theory about people's tolerance for their own unhappiness. I wasn't condoning his father's actions, I was accepting the sad truth that we all feel that way.

We both blinked and looked away from each other. I wiped at a piece of hair that had clung to my wet cheeks, "So he just...walked out."

"Yeah." Dougie let out a long, slow, tired breath, "And he's not coming back."

A new sting of tears hit the back of my eyes and my throat at the sound of his bleak words, "How do you know that?" I asked, almost angrily. How could he afford to be so fucking hopeless?

Dougie groaned and lifted his face to the sky, "Because I saw it in his eyes, Char, I saw it on his face and in his eyes...when I begged him to stay." He laughed scornfully, and I heard not only hate and resentment in his words, but longing. And it was the voice of a small child, lost and afraid. Dougie rubbed at his eyes, "I actually begged that bastard to stay. But he just looked at me...like I was a stranger...and left. His own son! And he wouldn't do it...not even for his own child."

A million thoughts flashed through my mind at lightening speed. The doll, the park, the baby dress. All of the strange things he had been saying to me in the past week kept repeating over and over like a broken record. His reaction to me calling him a dead beat dad, his adamancy about the outfit the doll should wear, his insinuation that this project was more important than I was making it out to be. Everything. I had been so fucking blind.

"I'm so sorry, Dougie." I said. Dougie looked up at me suddenly.

"Do you love me?" He hadn't even missed a beat. I blinked rapidly, slightly shocked at his seemingly random question, and stuttered.

"What?"

Dougie reached forward and grabbed my hand. He held it against his chest, over his heart and stared directly into my eyes, "Do you love me, Charlotte?" He asked again, more slowly. He didn't mean it in a romantic way, he meant it as a vulnerable human being simply craving the affection he had been denied. But he also meant it as my best friend.

"Of course I do, Dougie, I--"

"Say it."

I couldn't break our eye contact, the feeling that was being shared through it was far too intense to look away. I sucked in a sharp breath, "I love you, Doug."

"Really? Because the honest to God truth is that I can't get through this without you." He whispered fiercely, leaning so close I could feel his hot breath hit my face, "I really need you, Charlotte."

The weight of his words hit me like a million ton brick. My breath hitched in my lungs and butterflies filled my stomach. I swallowed to calm them, and took a long, careful cleansing breath before opening my mouth to respond.

"Okay." Was all I managed, "Okay."

That Night: 7:30

Dougie was asleep in my bed, I was pacing around my kitchen biting my nails and trying not to burst into tears.

My parents were both at work, and as irrational as it may have been, I was panicking. My dad worked a lot, and chances were he wouldn't be home for hours anyway, but the anticipation of whether or not he would even come home at all was absolutely terrifying me.

I was being ridiculous, I'm fully aware of that fact. And it's not like I was afraid he didn't love me, I was just really freaking out, I knew that he would come home and that my dad loved me. But it made me desperately sad to think that the same couldn't be said for Dougie.

I listened with overly anxious anticipation to the ringing emanating from the receiver. I chewed on my fingernails and my eyes darted nervously back and forth across the room. Finally the ringing stopped.

"Hello?" A light female voice answered. I let out an anxious sigh.

"Is Charles Reloveano available?" I asked. The finger I had been gnawing on had started to bleed around the cuticle. I slid my hand under my thigh to keep myself from chewing anymore and bursting a blood vessel or something.

"No, he's out of the office right now, may I take a message?"

I tapped my foot sporadically and began chewing on my lip, "Um, no...that's alright, it isn't important." I hung up quickly and tried to focus all of my attention on the crooked picture frame that hung on the wall opposite me. I absolutely hated crooked picture frames, it drove me insane.

Dougie, on the other hand, had no qualms with tacky disorder and thought it was extremely hilarious to watch me scramble around straightening frames. So every chance he got, he would tilt them.

I tried to mentally tilt it back, but unfortunately I still hadn't managed to unlock my inner Matilda. I tried to tell myself that a crooked picture frame was very trivial at that moment, and I should ignore it. But the anal retentive perfectionist part of me got the better of the rest of me and I hurriedly got up and fixed it. I stood and stared at it for the longest time, not really looking at the picture, but my reflection inside of it. I stared long and hard at myself, Dougie's words kept repeating in my mind.

I guess he just got tired of being miserable.

My own words answered him.

We all do.

Maybe it wasn't so much a fear of my father leaving as a fear of loosing Dougie. Could I really keep this up forever? Maybe I could, and that was the scary part.

But as soon as that thought floated into my brain it floated back out because the front door opened and my father walked in. I saw him, and a fraction of a millisecond later I had bombarded him with a hug that nearly qualified as a body slam.

"Whoa, Princess, calm down."

I hate it when he calls me Princess.

Yay, my daddy's home!

I reluctantly released him and swallowed my paranoid emotional tears. I felt embarrassed because I knew how stupid I had been acting.

"Sorry, dad. I'm just checking to make sure you still love me." I told him honestly, but he laughed, which was good. I didn't need anyone else knowing how irrational and paranoid I had been.

"Well, let me quickly assure you that, yes, I do still love you and I always will."

Exactly what I needed to hear, Dad. Thank you.

I talked to my dad for an hour before he had to go back to work. We talked about school, college, boys, mom, and finally Dougie. My father asked how he was, if he was dating anyone, how his soccer career was shaping up. I answered everything as honest as I could bring myself to be.

I decidedly left out everything about his dad.

As soon as my dad had pulled back out of the driveway, I made me way slowly up the stairs and down the hall to my room. When I pushed open the door, Dougie was lying on his stomach, hugging one of my pillows. His right leg was draped over the other pillow, and I stifled a laugh at how utterly innocent he looked; his bangs were falling across his forehead, his chin tucked down against his shoulder, and his back rose and fell with each intake of breath.

I watched him silently until he began to stir. I stepped the rest of the way into the room and closed the door behind me as he rolled onto his back and stretched, yawning and gazing at me sleepily.

"Hi." He groaned tiredly. I leaned back against the closed door and smiled shyly.

"Hey la sole."

(Hey there sunshine)

Dougie smiled and his eyes slid closed again. My eyes flickered over his lazy form. One arm was lying on the mattress above his head and the other hand went slowly up and down as it rested on his stomach. I thought he had fallen back asleep, so I turned back around to leave.

"Get over here." His voice drifted after me. I smiled and bit my lip as I shuffled across the floor and crawled onto the bed beside him. I laid on my side facing him, and shortly he opened his eyes and turned his head to look at me. His eyes met mine and we held each other's gaze for a long time before Dougie broke it with a yawn. Then he focused on the ceiling and rubbed his face.

"Did you have a nice nap?" I asked quietly. He smiled and wiped at the sleep in the corners of his eyes.

"Mmhmm." He mumbled. He faced me again, still on his back, and I reached carefully forward to brush his bangs out of his eyes. Eyes that were staring at something just above my chin.

I felt my stomach flutter as my fingers danced smoothly through his soft hair, and his only reaction was to scoot closer. I slid my hand over the top of his head, the long hairs went between my fingers, and came to a halt at the base of his skull. I could feel the warm skin of the back of his neck as it brushed against the side of my hand, and with a burst of curious confidence I spread my pinky finger outward to caress it softly. Dougie blinked slowly and licked his lips, chewing the bottom one thoughtfully. I felt a shiver shoot through me when his hand made it's way cautiously onto my hip and slid up and down my side slowly, making my body break out in furious goose bumps.

"Charlotte..." Dougie whispered, and something about the way his voice came out; raspy but shaky, made my heart leap into my throat.

"Yea, Doug?" I whispered back. And I knew that the pitch of my voice gave away my nervousness. Dougie's hand left my waist and appeared to cup my cheek softly, his thumb trailing across my jaw line and brushing languidly over my lips.

"Why didn't you say anything this morning...when I kissed you." His eyes fluttered over my face and landed on the bedspread beneath us. I saw something in this gesture that I had never seen in Dougie before; I saw an uneasy sort of shy apprehension. The key word; shy.

"You surprised me." I answered truthfully. Dougie blinked rapidly, and his hand found it's way into my hair. I closed my eyes involuntarily at the gentle tickle of his fingertips grazing my scalp. With my eyes still closed I asked him, "At school, when I asked you what was wrong...you said, 'what isn't wrong'." I opened my eyes and met his. My own hand found it's way slowly and deliberately onto his waist. I toyed absently with the hem of his t-shirt, and pretended not to notice the faint blush that appeared on his face when my fingers grazed his skin. "What did you mean?"

Dougie licked his lips slowly and my stomach erupted with nervous and excited butterflies as he wriggled closer to me on the bed and whispered, "I would've thought it was obvious. I mean it's not really wrong, just...really fucking weird and...unexpected." He paused, "I don't know what happened, and I'm fucking scared shitless. But it feels..." His eyes passed quickly over my features, and his expression was one of pure, but surprised, awe, "...Beautiful." He finished.

Now it was my turn to blush.

"Charlotte?" Dougie's whisper had gotten even softer and his fingers grazed my cheek.

"What?" I barely managed to respond. There was a pause, during which the only sound was our quick, short and uneven breathing. It gave away the passion of my long suppressed feelings, and his newly discovered ones, that we were finally letting out.

Dougie ran his hand over my face, the tips of his fingers brushed over my eyelids, my cheeks and my lips.

"I think I'm gonna kiss you again." He said softly, and I distinctly heard his breath hitch a little, exactly like mine. I struggled to take in air, any air, even a tiny miniscule gasp just so I wouldn't faint.

"Okay." I answered him.

Dougie's hand slid on to the side of my neck and he drew my face gently closer. I tried to shut my eyes but I was completely mesmerized by his lips as they inched steadily nearer to my own. I flicked my gaze up to meet Dougie's a split second before our mouth's should have met, and he looked back at me, both of our eyes betraying the absolutely terrifying nervousness we felt as our friendship crept at the speed of our heart beats toward an entirely new level.

But instead of the unmistakable sensation of skin on skin, we were met with a shrill ringing from beside my bed.

Ring

We jerked apart violently, as if we had felt electric shocks.

Ring

We stared at each other, neither of us daring to move.

Ring

Then the song Kelsey filled the room, and Dougie's attention jerked sideways to where his cell phone sat on my bedside table. We both remained motionless for another minute. Then Dougie was the one to break the silence with a sighing laugh that was a very cloudy mixture of relief and regret.

"We should get those." He laughed, running his fingers quickly through my hair. I forced my own laugh and nodded, but even as Dougie rolled over and sat up, I stayed where I was. I squeezed my eyes shut for a split second, mentally screaming in frustration and rage and sadness, because even though somehow I knew that everything had changed, I still wasn't one hundred percent positive that it had truly changed for the better.