Charlotte sighed. “Being alone? Losing the only person who ever really loved me?” It sounded so pathetic when she said it out loud, but it was still true. But with that truth came a freedom. A cleansing. Her chest felt more open, breathing became easier. “And then I lost her anyway.”
Sloane laid a hand on her arm, said nothing.
“I’m not telling you any of this to garner sympathy,” Charlotte said.
Sloane laughed. “Only you would use the wordgarnerat a time like this.”
Charlotte smiled. “It’s still true. I just…I do want you to know me, Sloane. And yeah, that wasn’t always the case. But it wasn’t because ofyou.”
“It’s not you, it’s me?”
Charlotte laughed. “But itwasme. I was embarrassed. My own mother doesn’t really love me. And then the one person who I never thought would leave me…did. What does that say about me?”
Sloane sighed, set her glass on the bar, and took both of Charlotte’s hands in hers. “It says you got a raw deal. It says your mom sucks, and you and Brighton are complicated. It says it might beharder for you to trust people, and that’s understandable. But it doesn’t say anything aboutyouand what you’re worth, Charlotte.”
Charlotte’s eyes filled. She shook her head, looked down. She was starting to believe that, a glimmer of truth, but after twenty-eight years, it wasn’t just a flipped switch.
And maybe that was okay.
“And it says you probably need a really good therapist,” Sloane added.
Charlotte laughed through her tears. “Oh, there’s no probably about it. Another thing I’ve been terrified to try.”
“Everyone needs a therapist,” Sloane said, squeezing her hands. “Literally everyone. And I’ll help you find one when we get back to New York.”
Charlotte nodded, squeezed back. “You’re a good friend.”
“Damn right I am.”
They both got fresh glasses of wine and ordered some brown bread with honeyed butter that they both spent at least ten minutes lauding. Charlotte felt like she could fly, a weight she’d been carrying for days—maybe years—finally lifted. Still, even with all this new lightness, there was still a part of her that felt unsettled.
Restless.
“Can I ask you a question?” Sloane asked. They’d been talking about the tour, the music, what they wanted to see during their day off in Paris in a couple of days. “As a good friend?”
“Of course,” Charlotte said, but she steeled herself. Nothing that needed permission to be asked was going to have an easy answer.
“What do you want?” Sloane asked.
Charlotte frowned. “What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean,” Sloane said, then ripped off a pieceof bread, popped it into her mouth. “Is this it?” She waved at the hotel lobby, the dim lights, the low conversations in French happening all around them.
“Europe has always been a goal of mine,” Charlotte said, and even to her own ears, she sounded like a kid reciting a memorized line for a play.
Sloane just looked at her.
Charlotte sighed, let her eyes blur on her glass of wine. Shedidwant this. She wanted a life full of music, interesting cities, performance, and art. And she had all of that. She’d spent her entire adult life chasing exactly what she had right now, at this moment.
So she should feel satisfied.
Happy.
Accomplished.
And she did…but there was something in the very corner of her chest, a hungry fragment of her heart that wouldn’t rest. Wouldn’t stop wanting. A piece of her claimed by a girl with wild dark hair she’d met on the shores of Lake Michigan sixteen years ago.
Charlotte’s eyes stung. “Shit,” she said, looking away from Sloane, her instinct still to hide.
