Part 8
By the time she gets home, she's edgy again. A half-block from their building, they hit a patch of road work, and the line of rattling jackhammers snakes straight up to their front door. It's like gunfire. She jumps at every shot.
"Babe?" Cooper says.
He waits until they're home, inside, the door closed behind them, before he tries speaking again.
"Char?"
He watches her for a second as she takes in the silence with a grateful sigh. Then it starts up again, and she finds herself doubling over, her hands covering her ears, flinching every time she hears a bang...
He comes up behind her, starts rubbing his hand on her back in gentle circles.
"Charlotte. You're okay. It's okay..."
But it's not okay. She's in that hyper-aware, hyper-sensitive zone again, like she was after the nightmare. There is the explosive crash of the jackhammers battering down on her, and there is her heart, beating much too loud and fast on top of it. And there is the friction of Cooper's hands as he tries to comfort her, his fingers up against her clothes, leaving traces of energy behind that almost burn. And then there is the pressure of her own hands pressing up against her ears as she tries to block it all...
She ducks out from under him, scrunches shut her eyes, tries to focus.
"Char?" He sounds worried now, and she hears the clomp of his shoes as she steps closer.
"Char, Come on, baby, stay with me, it's okay, it's all okay..."
The jackhammer stops, then starts up again, and she jumps, then bangs her knee into the coffee table.
"Stop saying that!" she snaps.
"Babe?"
"No! It's not okay. It's not, Coop, it's not. Say you're here for me, if you want to say something, but don't you ever tell me it's okay, it's not, it's not..."
And she tries to get up again, but her knee crumples when she tests it with her weight, and the pain, in this hyper-sensitive state, is excruciating. She manages a single whimper before the dam at last breaks and she collapses, fighting pain and panic and tears. He catches her, tries holding onto her, but she flinches, then kicks him away.
So he sits down on the floor beside her and holds out his hand. And waits for her until she's calm enough again to see that it's there and reach for it herself.
When she's quieter, he tries pulling her close, but she can't quite go there yet. She drops her hand, scoots back, rests on her heels with her back against the wall.
"Can I tell you?" she asks him. She's sniffling away the last of the tears, not quite sure they won't start up again if he touches her any more than he is. "Can you just stay over there a little and let me tell you?"
"Yes."
"Just still feels loud in here. It feels loud, and I banged my knee, and I just don't want anything touching me right now."
"Okay. That's fine, baby, it's okay..."
"Need you not to say that, also. Cause it's kinda not. You get that, right?"
And then he sounds like he's almost crying too. "Oh, sweetie..."
"That isn't helping. I guess it's not your fault, and I guess I need to start dealing with you having feelings in this too, but Coop, it's so hard hearing you sound so damned sorry all the time. Guess sometimes, I feel like I'd say anything, or do anything, not to hear it."
"And when you do that," he says. "When I feel you pulling away, it just makes that sorry come out more. Cause I see it anyway, and I know what it's doing to you."
"Yeah. So, how do we get around this, Coop?"
"I guess we accept that sometimes both of us are just going to be hurting. And part of getting through this together -really together- is going to be each of seeing that, and just letting it be."
"Can you just...can you be sorry later? Can it be, but not right this second? Cause I still feel like I'm hanging on by a thread here, Coop, and I need you to pull me out of this."
The jackhammer starts up again and she jumps, her head banging into the back of the wall. "Damn it!"
"Okay, okay. Shhhh, I'm here, baby, I'm here..."
"I can't be here right now. Coop, you have to take me someplace else, because I can't be here..."
And she's crying again, before she can stop herself. He picks her up and carries her out to the car without another word.
She sleeps on the way to wherever he's taking her. Her senses are the first part to wake up again. There's a blanket underneath her, and her feet are bare and cold. There is sound here too, but it's a rhythmic, natural sound. Soothing, for all its power. Primal, somehow.
She opens her eyes, and she's on the beach. Her feet dangle off the side of the blanket into the cool, packed sand and she has her head in Cooper's lap. He's stroking her hair, so gently she almost doesn't feel it, and looking down at her with a tenderness that for the first time is free of pity and fear.
He sees that she's awake, and he smiles gently and pulls his hand away. "You look so peaceful here," he says."
"Where...where are we, Coop?"
"The beach."
"So I gather. But...where?"
"Sam and Addison's. I told him we had some noise to get away from, and he offered us his place -or hers, if you'd rather- for as many nights as we need. They stay together most nights anyway, so..."
"I like it here. Coop, if we buy a place, we should buy one here. By the ocean."
"Oh yeah? It'll be colder here. Waves bring weather with them."
"Well, yeah. But I have you to be my good man in the storm."
"That you do, babe. That you do. So, game plan?"
"Let's just sit for awhile. Hold me like this."
"Can you...can you hold me back, a little?"
He holds out his hand, and she takes it this time. Lets her fingers wrap around his palm.
"This isn't so bad," she says. She takes a deep breath, inhales that fresh, ocean scent. "Coop, I can do this. Maybe just right here, right now, but I can."
He breathes in too. "Auckland," he says after a moment.
"What?"
"Astoria was the last one. Ends in A. So, now, I'm giving you Auckland."
"Delaware."
"Europe."
"That's a continent, Coop. You can't play continents. And you had two turns."
"Oh. I did?"
"Astoria, and then Auckland. Both of those were yours."
"Well, you pick the A than."
She thinks for a moment, frowns. "I would've picked Auckland, though."
"Fine. Auckland. So, I get a D and I choose Delaware. Which leaves the E for you."
"Enough," she says. "E is for enough. This is good right now, us, here. Don't need games. Let's just sit for awhile."
They settle in, and after a few minutes, she's quiet, utterly hypnotized by the soothing, rocking motion of the waves. They are too close to the shoreline. Tendrils of ocean dip toward her feet, like hands reaching up from the earth for comfort.
Like Big Daddy's hands. Waving goodbye.
The end