Except one.
It's a promise I'll be able to keep until I leave this world.
If I’d known this was my fate, I would have just given Rianna a polite smile and pointed her toward someone else for directions.
I wipe my eyes and force myself upright, every movement aching. A gentle breeze stirs the air, carrying that suffocatingly sweet, flowery scent from my shirt. The nausea hits so hard I double over, retching until my throat burns raw.
Ripping the shirt off, I fling it aside, then break into a run. But no matter how fast I go, I can’t escape my fuck up. The scent clings to me, a permanent brand of my betrayal.
Why did I do it?
Why is that answer so impossible to find? I should know why I tossed a grenade into my own relationship, obliterating the future I desperately wanted.
Charlie.
Her broken eyes are forever etched into my heart.
Here I am, running from everything, when I should be with her. If only she’d let me explain, let me beg for forgiveness.
Call her. I can call her, and when she answers, I can beg her to stay long enough for me to get there.
I dig into my pockets for my phone, but they're empty.
Shit. I have to find it. Every photo of Charlie is on that phone. They’re all I have left of her now.
A long, low sigh blows past my lips as I rub at my eyes, slowing to a walk.
I can’t just storm back. Charlie asked for one thing. Time to gather her things. No matter how much I ache to see her, my wants stopped mattering the moment I betrayed her.
My thoughts are the only company I have on my walk back to the apartment.
When I first saw Rianna, lost in the hallway, I simply meant to be helpful. Charlie’s kindness often influenced me, so I helped a new girl find her way before lunch. Still, I noticed how striking Rianna was. Her blonde hair, her brown eyes, and the way her lips pouted. She wasn't like Charlie, who always stood out, but she had a pull of her own.
Finding Rianna attractive shouldn’t have mattered. But since I was in a relationship with Charlie, that guilt gnawed at me. I’d never really noticed other women before, not like this. Maybe that’s why the guilt hit so hard.
After I helped her find her way, I ran late to meet Charlie.
Looking back, maybe that was the first red flag. In sixteen years, I’d only ever been late to meet Charlie three times, always with a good reason. This time, I was late just because I lost track of time talking to Rianna. Charlie didn’t mind—she was even glad I’d helped—but that only made me feel worse.
When Rianna came looking for me a few days later, for some reason I can’t even recall, that guilt should have made me walk away.
So why didn’t I? What made me keep reaching for her friendship?
The glow of the apartment complex parking lot lights leads me home. As I drag myself up the steps, the sharp scent of burnt cotton hits my nose. At the walkway’s end, an orange glow flickers, drawing me closer.
I should have paid attention to the warning signs Charlie always mentioned. The prickling dread crawling over my skin, the pressure squeezing my chest until my head spun, the shaky breaths as I rounded the corner and saw the sprawling backyard.
My eyelids flicker as I struggle to process the scene. A metallic tang floods my mouth as I stumble down the back stairs toward the two women by the firepit, surrounded by boxes and shattered picture frames.
Charlie’s stuffed Gremlin catches my eye, and when she hurls it into the flames, a jagged pain rips through my chest.
I got that for her after she made me watch both movies with her for the first time when we were thirteen. It took my mom and me forever to find one, but I was so damn excited when they delivered it a few days before her fourteenth birthday.
As the toy ignites, I must make a noise, because both Charlie and Amelia whip their heads toward me. Amelia’s glare is pure hatred, but it’s nothing compared to the emptiness in Charlie’s eyes. The light she once carried is gone, and I’m the reason why.
You took a fundamental part of who she was and crushed it in your fucking hand.
As I stare into her eyes, David's words haunt me.
