She is even more incredible than I gave her credit for, and I didn’t think that was possible.
She should be broken. Between her childhood, living relatives, and what I’ve put her through, she should be in victim mode.
But she’s not.
Charlotte sees life through a glass half full instead of empty. She needed me, and I wasn’t there for her, but she still is willing to love me, believe in me, and allow me to show her I love her.
Charlotte has had no one besides her four friends love her. She could choose any guy she wants, but she’s chosen me. And after everything I put her through, she still loves me.
We are naked, lying on our sides facing each other in bed, wrapped up in each other. Her head is resting on my arm, and I am stroking the soft skin of her back.
“When’s your birthday?” I ask her.
Sadness passes in her eyes. She quietly says, “February eighth.”
I stroke the side of her head. “Why do you seem sad?”
She looks away from my eyes and shrugs. “I don’t like my birthday.”
“Why?”
“Because it always reminded me that another year went by and chances were going down for a family to adopt me.”
My heart bleeds at this moment, thinking of Charlotte as a little girl, waiting for a family who never came to adopt her. I don’t know what to say, so I pull her tighter to me and kiss her.
Biting on her lip, she blinks. “I had to hold myself back from texting or calling you on your birthday.”
“Good thing you didn’t call me because I had a huge pity party that day,” I admit.
“What happened?”
I inhale deeply, and my pulse goes up. “Nothing good.”
She stares at me, waiting for me to tell her.
“I was really frustrated because I still couldn’t remember anything and thought I was twenty-two turning twenty-three. Noah, Chase, and Jamison took me out for dinner and some drinks. The cake came and had thirty-five on it, and it hit me. They’d told me for a month I was not twenty-two, but at that moment, everything hit me. I remembered nothing about the lasttwelve years, so...” I turn away from Charlotte, not wanting to tell her the rest because of my shame and embarrassment.
Quietly, she says, “It’s okay. I won’t judge you. What happened?”
“I got drunk and into a fistfight with Chase. Noah and Jamison had to pull us apart. The cops were called because it was in the restaurant, but we all knew the cops from being paramedics. Noah wrote the restaurant owner a big check and convinced him not to press charges. I apparently knew the policemen who were there, but I didn’t remember them that night because my memory hadn’t come back yet.” I wait for her to judge me and rightly so.
But she doesn’t. She pulls me closer and strokes my cheek. “It’s good you were with friends. That explains a lot now.”
“What do you mean?”
“I was still at Noah and Piper’s in New York recovering. I assumed something happened, but I didn’t know what. Noah acted strange when he came home, but I felt something was wrong. I asked Piper what happened, and she said there was an argument, but everything was fine.”
“Things got ugly for a bit after that.”
Charlotte stares at me. “With Chase?”
I shake my head. “No, he forgave me before we left the restaurant. It got...it got dark for me.”
She scoots closer to me, and our faces are inches apart.
“I...I was frustrated because I couldn’t remember. And...” I stop myself from finishing because I don’t want to hurt Charlotte.
“And what?” she urges.
