Grey
December 23, 2014
WITH A CALMING breath, I raised my hand and knocked quickly on the door to Jagger’s mom’s house. When no one answered, I knocked a little louder and waited when I heard someone running inside. Charlie swung the door open, her face falling when she saw that it was me.
“Grey . . .”
“Can I come in?”
She stared at me for a few seconds before nodding. “Yeah, of course.”
I stepped in and glanced around before asking, “Your mom isn’t here, is she?”
“No, she went somewhere with her husband yesterday morning, I haven’t heard from her since then.”
“Did she take Keith?” I asked quickly, my chest tightening at the thought.
“No, I’d just put him down for a nap when you started knocking. Are you here to . . . if you’re going to yell at me, then just start.”
Turning to fully face her, I threw my arms around her and pulled her close. After a few seconds of hesitation, she wrapped her arms around me and started sobbing into my chest. “I’m sorry for everything you went through, Charlie. I was hurt the night you told Jagger and me, but now I hurt for you. If I had known what had happened all along, things would’ve been different. How different? I don’t know, because to be honest, I probably would’ve been a lot more pissed off then than I was the other night. But at least you wouldn’t have had to go through all the suffering alone.”
I stood there holding her until she finished crying, and then walked over to a couch, waiting for her to join me.
“Why aren’t you screaming at me?”
“Because I forgive you, and I forgive Ben for what he did to me . . . but not what he did to you. I now have Jagger, and apparently I was really the only one who didn’t see what I was supposed to see for a long time. But my friends saw it, Jagger saw it, my family saw it, and apparently so did you and Ben. Even the man who I thought was the love of my life knew who I was supposed to be with.”
“But you did love him,” she argued.
“I did, and I still do. I will always love Ben. But after what you told me, and after thinking about my entire life with Jagger, I’m not sure that Ben really was the love of my life. I loved him for such a long time, and that love grew, but thinking back—even before I found out what he’d done—I knew something was different in what I have with Jagger now from what I had with Ben. So now I’m wondering if it was the thought of it all that I wanted so much. I’d been with Ben since I was thirteen; getting married felt natural; and since we wanted to move in together, it kind of became necessary. And getting married to my childhood sweetheart was something of a fairy tale for me—or at least that’s how it seemed. I remember thinking that it was all perfect, that my life was playing out exactly how it should, because not many people get to have the type of story Ben and I would’ve had.
“I loved Ben, and I would’ve married him and been happy for the rest of my life. But the way I was seeing that life was what made it seem so perfect. I was living in a fantasy and blinding myself to everything else around me. If I hadn’t, I would’ve noticed what I felt for Jagger earlier. Because I still can’t think of when I changed from loving Jagger to being in love with him, I just knew one day that I was in love with him and had been for a long time. And if I hadn’t been in my fantasy, I would’ve noticed that Ben was confused. I would’ve seen how he stayed away from me when we were around Jagger, for Jagger’s benefit. I would’ve seen that he had feelings for you in all those times we were around you. I would’ve seen that something was going on with him in the weeks leading up to his death. I would have seen that we were only getting married right then because we wanted to live together and I wanted my fairy tale to move forward, and not because we were ready. But I didn’t see any of those things, and because of that you had to live through years of pain. And I’m sorry.”
By the time I finished, Charlie was sobbing again. “You shouldn’t apologize to me. I made him be unfaithful to you. I was mad at you for being happy with Jagger.”
“You didn’t make him do anything. It was his choice, his decision, his acting on something he was confused about. And I underst
and why you were mad. I understand it completely and don’t judge you for that at all.”
She was shaking her head back and forth, her eyes looking down as she continued to whisper “I’m sorry” over and over again.
Scooting closer to her, I grabbed her hand and waited until she looked up at me. I sent her a sad smile as tears filled my own eyes. “Stop apologizing, Charlie. We all, unfortunately, know how short and unpredictable life is. It took me a long time to realize what I was doing to the people around me and myself by clinging to what had been and what could’ve been. That’s why I’m treasuring every second of my life with your brother, and that’s why I want for you to heal and move on with yours. I learned very recently how to let go of the past, and it was the most freeing feeling when I did. Letting go doesn’t mean forgetting. It’s accepting, forgiving, and being emotionally ready to keep moving.”
“I don’t think I can do that,” she admitted. The pain in her voice was the same pain that had echoed through my own mind just months ago.
“I know it’s so much easier to get trapped in the past because you want to stay there, but it’s also dangerous, and you have to be the one to decide you’re ready to move on. I love you, Charlie, I’ve known you most of my life, and you’ve always been like a sister to me. I’m not letting Keith or what happened come between us. It’s in the past, and I’m willing to let it stay there if you are.”
She didn’t say anything, just stared off into space as she quietly nodded her head; so I hugged her tightly, and then stood up. When I got to the door, I turned around to look at her.
“Do you ever go to the cemetery?”
She slowly looked up at me, her eyes red and puffy. “No.”
“Maybe you should. Go talk to Ben . . . about anything. Yell at him, tell him everything that’s happened, whatever you want. But it might be good for you.”
“O-okay.”
“Jagger’s worried about you, and so am I. Come talk to us whenever, and bring Keith with you.” With a smile in her direction, I stepped outside and walked to Jagger’s car.