She shook her head. “No, not that. How do you feel right now, in this moment, about telling me all this?”
Her question caught me off guard. I stared at her, a bit confused, unsure what she meant.
How I feel about telling her?
That wasn’t something anyone had ever asked me before. People were always more concerned with how I was managing my sobriety or if I was “doing okay.” They tiptoed around me. Fuck. I tiptoed around myself.
“I, uh . . .”
Her big, bright amber eyes stayed fixed on me, full of genuine curiosity. I turned away for a second, still waiting for the condescending remark, something to undercut what I’d shared.Yet there was nothing. Just her standing there, waiting for an answer.
“I feel better for finally getting that out. This is the first time I’ve been around a girl doing...” We never officially called this a date, so I wasn’t sure what to say. “Bucket list stuff.”
“Yeah. It can be pretty intimate to do bucket list stuff with people. I mean”—she bumped me in the shoulder—“you did already see me naked in the lake.”
I chuckled. “Yeah. I guess we’re already pretty close on that level.”
We continued on the path that curved toward the lake. On this side, we were alone, with only a couple of fishermen off in the distance on the far end. The lake, though small, was big enough that it gave us some privacy. The space between us felt intimate, quiet.
“Thank you,” I said, leading us toward an old wooden picnic table beneath a sprawling oak tree. “Thanks for letting me say all that.”
“Anytime.”
She brushed the satin fabric of her skirt, and I realized that I might have misunderstood—or underestimated—how casual her request to come to the lake had been.
My mind was racing, stressing out over every little detail. I should’ve done more for her. The times I’d seen her at school, she was in a T-shirt and pants. Now she looked fancier. Was that a part of the bucket list? What did that mean? This would’ve been the first date—or whatever the heck it was—since my divorce. Did everyone overthink like this during a date? Was this normal?
I glanced down at my hands, half expecting them to be shaking, but I let out a breath when I noticed they were fine.
Charlie wrapped her fingers around mine, and I looked up. “What’s going on?”
“I-I didn’t bring much. I, uh—” I held up the grocery bag like it was some grand explanation. “Just some stuff I grabbed last minute.”
She hiked up her skirt and perched on the top of the picnic bench, looking completely at ease. “Nah. This is perfect. Anything fancier and I probably would’ve felt underdressed.”
Tension eased as I smiled and joined her at the top of the table, emptying the plastic bags between us. Out came a few bags of chips, two cans of sparkling water, a couple of Diet Cokes, and an assortment of chocolate bars that tumbled out onto the table. It was a pretty mismatched spread, and I cringed a little at how thrown-together it looked.
She grinned. “You brought all my favorites.” She picked up one of the chocolates and turned toward me, her body vibrating with excitement. “Oh my god. We should pretend like we’re on one of those cooking shows.” She grabbed another chocolate bar and shoved it in my lap. “We should do a taste test while we wait for the sunset.”
“Really?” There was no way this was actually fun for her. It felt so... relaxed, unplanned.
“Yeah. When I was growing up, my parents were so strict about everything.” She peeled off the packaging of the chocolate. “My mother is very strict with me—what I eat, what I do for work, who I hang out with, what events I attend on the weekend... and a whole slew of other things in my life.”
She closed her eyes as she took a bite of the chocolate bar. “This,” she said as she opened her eyes and looked right at me. “This is so against anything she’d ever let me do, and yet this couldn’t feel more perfect to me.”
“You’re not in some kind of rebellion phase, are you?” The question slipped out before I could stop it.
I’d been down that road before with Nova, and it hadn’t ended well.
“I’ve heard that my entire life — being called rebellious, being told I needed to stop breaking the rules my mom set out for me. And yeah, the list was my rebellion. But not the kind you think. It’s not about acting out for the sake of it. It’s about choosing a life aside from the one she mapped out for me.”
The guilt hit me hard as it twisted in my chest. “I’m sorry,” I said, the words tumbling out as I realized how my comment might have echoed her mom’s.
She shook her head, brushing it off with a small smile. “It’s fine.” She handed me her chocolate bar. “Let’s trade. This one’s a solid seven.” She held up the chocolate with a playful smirk. “What’s your rating?”
The way she moved us from serious to light was something I wasn’t used to. My life had been all seriousness lately—focusing, trying to heal, always pushing forward. She was like a breath of fresh air, filling spaces in my lungs I didn’t know could open up anymore.
I took a bite of the chocolate bar. “Alright, I’d give this one an eight.” I handed her the bar, and she jumped up and stood on the bench.
