“Aiden, comeon,” Charlie says, stretching out that last syllable. “Give us something, will you?” She’s curious, sure, but she’s pissed, too—the frustration of her continued efforts to get to know me better, to make some kind of real friendship between the three of us.
I clear my throat, push my back farther into the cushions until I can feel the hard frame of the sofa across my shoulder blades. “It’s—she’s different than what I expected,” I say, mentally kicking myself for not taking it in another direction. Why didn’t I talk about my competitors? Hell, why didn’t I tell them about my doubts about my presentation?
“She fucked you right up on that dartboard,” says Ahmed. “That was unexpected.”
I press my lips together, remembering how she’d lined up. How one of her eyes would narrow a fraction before she’d throw.
“Oh, shit,” says Charlie, lifting a boot from the coffee table so she can nudge my shin with it.“Youlikeher.”
“Jesus, Charlie,” I say. “I’m not fifteen fucking years old. We’re doing ajob together.”
“What’s that got to do with it? I met Autumn on the job.” Autumn is Charlie’s wife, the med student up in D.C. who started out as an EMT. From the scraps I overheard when I first joined this squad, it was pretty much love at first sight for the two of them. Autumn quit to go to another crew two days after Charlie was hired, knowing there’d be too much conflict if they worked together.
I open my mouth to reply, to say something about how it’s different with me and Zoe, but something about the way Charlie has settled back into her seat and crossed her arms over her chest stops me. I look over at Ahmed, who’s shaking his head in what looks like annoyance, digging his fist in the bag for more popcorn. Under his breath he mutters something—I catch a huffycallherin the mix.
Right now is my cue to get up and think of some chore to do—scrub the bay floor, check the maintenance schedule on the rig. I’d even get up and clean the bathroom if it’d get me out of this moment, because when I look back over at Charlie, I think her chin might be quivering a little.
Fuck.
It’s pretty clear Ahmed isn’t going to say shit, and even though I’ve got my list of avoidance chores queued up, I feel stuck to this couch. For the first time in what feels like forever it doesn’t seem right to take the easy option. “All right, Charlie?” I ask.
She swipes hastily at her face, then tucks her arms even tighter toward her. “It’s fine. Autumn was supposed to come this weekend, but she’s not now. She’s got an infectious disease test on Monday.”
“That’s too bad,” I say.
“She’salwaysgot a test, you know?”
“Yeah, sure. They say med school is like that.” Like I know anyone in med school. Basically I’m just trying not to fuck this thing up too.
“I knew it would be hard, being apart,” she says, her voice wobbly. “But we’re basically newlyweds, you know? And everything was great, and we had this whole schedule and plan for when we would see each other, and it’s—it isnotworking out like we’d planned, you know?”
I’ve never noticed it, this verbal tic of Charlie’s—you know?—maybe because I’ve never seen her really upset. But when I hear it now, I take it for what it is. She’s looking for someone to say,Yeah, I get it. I’m with you. Ihearyou.
“Charlie, I told you, you’re being too hard on her. You should give her—” begins Ahmed, and I cut him a look. Even I know Charlie’s not looking for two dumbass single dudes to tell her what to do. She’s just looking totalk.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her, and she nods in appreciation, wiping underneathher eyes again.
“When I met Autumn I thought I’d found my other half. And we barely had a full year together before she moved up there, started this whole new life.Withoutme.”
Something about this last thing she’s said—it startles me in a place I don’t access except by accident, a long-buried fight I’d had with Aaron my first Christmas back from Wisconsin. Before his accident, before he’d gotten hooked on pills—but already he was different, hanging around with a crowd of Ultimate Frisbee guys and seemingly uninterested in his classes. By my third day home I’d only seen him twice, had jokingly bitched at him about it when he came home for dinner. “You forget about your big brother?” I’d said, nudging him playfully, like I did with guys on my team. I was younger, technically, by seven and a half minutes, but he’d never once been bigger, and before he’d always laughed at my teasing about it. “Fuck off, Aiden,” he’d said. “Youdo everything withoutme.”
“That’s rough,” I tell Charlie. “Trying to find a place for yourself in someone’s new situation. I’ve been there.”
She rolls her head toward me, her eyes wet, but I see the surprise in them. It’s not so much forwhatI’ve said, but for the fact I’ve said anything at all. Anything that’s notI’d better go do inventoryorMaybe we should get some shut-eye. “You have?”
I shrug, overly casual. “Not with a woman. But growing apart from people Iwas close to.”
“Yeah,” she says. “Itsucks.” But she’s stopped crying, and when Ahmed suggests that she think about going up to D.C. this weekend, keeping it low key, no expectations, Charlie’s more receptive. Barely a half hour later and Ahmed and Charlie are both asleep where they sit, Ahmed clinging to the popcorn bag like it’s a favorite childhood blanket, Charlie snoring softly with her phone in her lap. I’m staring at the TV, unseeing, feeling all right about how that conversation went but still stuck in the shit of the memories it’d brought up.
Two months after Aaron died, when I was still half-blind with rage and grief, working any shift I could get even when it broke the scheduling rules, my crew picked up a recent knee-down double amputee who’d called 911 screaming in pain, so out of her mind with it the dispatcher could barely hear her. We’d found her in bad shape, infected sores on her both her stumps. But all she’d said, over and over, wasPlease, my feet, my feet hurt so bad.
“Phantom limb,” my partner had muttered as we got to work, but even though I’d known about this from years of training, had seen it time and time again, I’d felt those two words like a punch to my face.That’s what I have,I’d thought.I havea phantom limb.
I’d obsessed over the idea at first, clinging to it as an explanation for the literal, physical, pain I’d felt since Aaron died, an aching in my joints that never seemed to leave me. But after a while, it wasn’t enough of an explanation. I didn’t have a phantom limb, after all. I had a phantomself. I was half myself without Aaron; I always would be. When I’d looked down at that little girl last weekend, I’d had about fifteen different feelings all at once, more feelings than I’m used to having in a single day, and the worst one, the worst one of all, was jealousy. I was fucking jealous of her, the way she’d looked over at her twin. I could remember the way that felt, to find Aaron in a room. Like the ground underneath me got more stable.
I should be annoyed, maybe, at what Charlie’s said. Married to Autumn for a year and saying she’s her other half? Six months ago, I would’ve been so bothered that I would’ve had to leave the room.You don’t understand,I would’ve thought.You could never understand.But I don’t feel annoyed, not even a little. If Charlie feels even a quarter of what I felt over my brother, I hope something turns around for her, and soon. I hope she goes up there this weekend and they work it out. The same way I woke up on Sunday and hoped I hadn’t hurt that little girl’s feelings.
I shut off the TV, listening to the slight crackle of the dispatch radio in the other room. I don’t want to think too hard about why I feel different now than I did six months ago. It feels a little like betrayal, like having that fight with Aaron all over again: Youdo everything withoutme. Here I am, in our hometown, at my job, with people who I get closer to calling friends every day. It’s just time, I guess—that fucker keeps moving forward, no matter how you try to stay perfectly still in your anger. It’s time that’s changingme, that’s all.
