“That was smoother than a SEAL at a bar full of Trident fuckers,” Cabby observes.
“You should shut the fuck up.”
33
Nathan
“If this is stalking then I can see why women are creeped out. I’m creeped out,” Cabby says.
We’re parked across the street from a restaurant where Charlotte is having lunch with her male friend. The one that Cabby calls smooth and whom I am privately referring to as the fuckstick who is sitting too close to my girl.
“No one asked you to come with.” If he touches her arm again, I am getting out of this Jeep and ripping his hand off.
“She knows you’re here. Women have this intuition.”
“Cabby, is your whole world broken down into male and female categories?” I ask impatiently.
He pauses for a minute. “Yes? Mostly because I think in sexual terms. Females have the pussy and we have the cock. That seems like a clear delineation.”
“There are other places to stick your dick, and the fact you only know of one speaks to your bankrupt imagination.”
He’s unmoved. “So this is Charlotte? You hardly ever talk about her. I’ve heard plenty about your parents and famous athlete Nick, but this girl? You’ve said maybe twenty words, tops, in all the years I’ve known you.” I ignore him, but that doesn’t stop him from continuing. “You’re going to have to talk to get her back. Chicks like the talking. Consider me practice.”
He places his hands under his chin and flutters his eyelashes at me. If I don’t say something, I’m going to have endure a barrage of Cabby-style complaints, questions, and theorizations. And he’s not wrong. I do need to explain myself, but I don’t even know how to begin.
I lean my arm against the car door, not taking my eyes off of her. “Charlotte is the best part of my life. The best part of me. I grew up with her. She’s Nick’s best friend and was mine from the moment she was born. Mine to protect. Mine to love. Only I failed in that. When she was fifteen she was diagnosed with a form of cancer. There was a tumor growing in her head. She’d been vomiting and complaining of headaches. Her dad took her to the doctor who said she should have a CT. The CT showed this giant ball pressing against her brain stem. Another two weeks and she’d have been dead.”
“But she’s fine now. Very fine,” Cabby murmurs the last part to himself, likely remembering the vision of windblown Charlotte on the Coronado beach.
I clench my fists. I can’t prevent people from looking. It’s going to drive me crazy, but Cabby is a good friend. I’d have to talk to my dad about how he deals with this. “So she almost died but didn’t. . .” he prompts.
“She got better, but she was still sick a lot. Her parents started talking about sending her away for treatment.”
“Away from Chicago? There’s better treatment than there?”
“Some of the best doctors are working in these posh resorts where you can do experimental shit without the government wagging its finger at you. There’s this clinic in Switzerland where all the rich people of the world send their kids to be treated. Mostly, though, it was to get Charlotte away from me.”
“Her parents disapproved?”
“Not for the reason you think. Charlotte was getting sicker. She wasn’t eating, and she was tired all the time. I thought—I don’t know what I thought, actually—but I helped her hide the sickness, and one day she collapsed at a party that I had brought her to. She was sent away afterwards.”
But not before I took her virginity. Not before I made her a thousand promises—none of which I kept.
Cabby could only look at me with raised eyebrows. You done fucked up, boy, his expression said.
I nod in agreement. “Everything I did after she left made things worse for her. Her mom basically said that she couldn’t trust Charlotte with me, and she was right because after Charlotte left, I started partying hard. Before I’d always been careful because I was semi-conscious of the fact that Nick and Charlotte looked up to me. With Charlotte gone, I drank a lot and put myself in some shitty situations. I ended up getting on film with two other girls—seriously, Cab?” I can see he wants to ask me details, but my repressive look shuts him up. He pretends to zip his mouth shut. “The video was sent to Charlotte. She said she forgave me.” I shake my head. “She deserved someone better than me. I’d hoped she would forget me.”
Cab looks thoughtful. “But she wrote you letters for years. Those aren’t the actions of someone who has forgotten you.”
“I know,” I sigh. Charlotte and asshole are done with lunch. He’s signaling to the waitress for the check. “I tried not writing back. At first it was easy because we were in basic and then there was a lot of training. I volunteered for the shitty posts and assignments no one wanted. I signed up for BUD/S. After I graduated, there was more training and we’ve been in and out of one conflict after the other. I thought she’d stop, but she never did. Not until the end.”