Frenched Series Bundle (73 page)

I took a shower and poured a glass.

Confession: I poured the glass first and took it into the shower with me, soaping with one hand, drinking with the other.

I got out and got dressed, choosing jeans and a sweater instead of pajamas, although I really just wanted to curl into a ball and go to bed, forget today ever happened. After picking at a salad but finding myself unable to eat, I abandoned the effort and sat fuming on the couch, pickling my anger with wine. I drank a second glass, and then a third. And the more I pickled it, the more intense it grew—for fuck’s sake, he’d had every opportunity to tell me the truth! The only bit of truth
I
could see was that he didn’t take me seriously. I was a fling, that was all. Not worth honesty. Not worth trust. Not worth commitment.

I was a fling, and he was a liar.

I was not OK with that.

My house was so quiet I heard the crunch of his footsteps in the snow as he came up the driveway, a few minutes before eleven. I was expecting his knock, but I still jumped when it sounded, three sharp bangs on the glass. Pinot Grigio in hand, I stumbled to the door and opened it.

My confidence flagged when I saw the way he lit up at the sight of me. When I felt the way my heart beat faster at the sight of him. Somewhere in the back of my mind, hope sprouted.
Maybe it’s not true. Maybe I should ask and not accuse. Maybe I should listen to his side.

“Hey,” he said, his eyes clouding with concern when he noticed my troubled expression. “What’s going on? Everything OK?”

“We need to talk.” My voice shook.

“Uh oh. Sounds serious. Are you breaking up with me already?”

Tucking my hands inside the sleeves of my sweater, I stepped back from the door. He shut it behind him and took off his snowy boots, careful to leave them on the rug. He wasn’t wearing his uniform, but he was wearing a thick blue toggle-close sweater with a flannel shirt underneath that made me want to get inside his clothing and stay there.

He set my wine glass aside and reached for me, and before I could stop myself, I let him take me in his arms. Kiss my head. Rock me a little. “Hey you. What’s up?”

It felt so good. So damn good. But growing in the pit of my stomach was the sickening dread I used to feel when my parents would get home from a party and I knew an argument was coming.
Maybe I don’t have to say anything. Maybe I can pretend not to know. We can just have sex and ignore this another day.
Then I glanced at the dead plants on my windowsill and came to my senses.

What was left of them after the pickling, anyway.

“I want to talk.”

“OK.”

“I can’t talk like this. You have to let me go.”

He squeezed me tighter. “Never.”

I pushed him away and moved a step back. The room spun a little. “Don’t say things like that.”

He looked confused. “Things like what?”

“Things like
never
, when it comes to letting me go. You don’t mean them. You’re a liar.”

He glanced at my wine glass. “Are you drunk?”

“No,” I said, although it was obvious I was.

Charlie narrowed his eyes. “Erin, what is this about?”

“This is about you making a fool of me.”

“And how did I do that?”

“You have a daughter!” I burst out. “A daughter! And you said nothing to me about her, not for months! And you
know
I kill plants!”

Charlie’s mouth hung open for a second. “What?”

“And an ex-wife too! How could you think I wouldn’t find out, Charlie?”

He shook his head slightly. “Where is this coming from?”

“Do you deny it?”

“No,” he said carefully. “But I don’t like the way you’re attacking me with it.”

I coughed and sputtered. “You don’t
like
it? You don’t
like
it? You’re a piece of work, Charlie Dwyer. You march in here, with your badge and your drill and your hard wood, and you lie to me and seduce me and get me to fall for you, and now you don’t
like
it that I found out the truth?”

“Seduce you! Erin, what the hell? This isn’t like you at all.”

It wasn’t, but it felt sort of good to just let fly whatever I felt like saying. “Just be honest for once,” I snapped. “Do you or do you not have a daughter? Were you or were you not married to her mother?” Against all odds, that little piece of me prayed he’d say this was all a misunderstanding.

He hesitated too long.

“Answer me!” I yelled.

“I don’t see why I should,” he yelled back. “You’re just going to stand there and judge me like I knew you would.”

I shrank back. “Judge you! Is that what you think this is? I’m judging you for having a child? For being married and divorced?” But I was drunk, so it came out more like
juszhingoo
than
judging you
.

“For making mistakes! For being less than perfect, which we both know you are. You’ve never done one thing wrong in your life, Miss Perfecty Perfect Homecoming Queen with her clean floors and her ABC spice rack and her fake scented Christmas tree that doesn’t drop any needles. We can’t all be as perfect as you are, you know.”

“Fuck you!” I shook my finger in his face. “I did make a mistake, and that was letting
you
into my life. You had every opportunity to tell me the truth, and you didn’t. You lied to me.”

“I didn’t lie to you!” Charlie’s blue eyes blazed. “I chose not to share something with you at this point in our relationship. It’s my personal life, and I get to choose when I share things!”

“It’s not a fucking
thing
, Charlie! It’s who you are—you’re a father!” Why couldn’t he see that having a child wasn’t something you got to choose to share or not share, like an aversion to cilantro or an affinity for hot chocolate? It was an essential part of his identity. “I feel like I don’t even know you at all, like I never have.”

Charlie inhaled and exhaled, and I could see him trying to keep his temper in check. “I told you right from the start there were things in my past I wasn’t proud of.”

“You could have been a little more specific,” I spat. My lips were so numb, I garbled the word specific.

“I also warned you not to get attached, didn’t I? I told you that I mess up every good thing in my life.”

“Well, congratulations! You were right.”

We stood seething at each other for a moment.

“So that’s it, then. You’re ending this?”

“That’s all you have to say?” I shrieked. “No real explanation? No actual
reason
why you’ve been lying to me? Don’t you think you owe me the truth?”

Charlie seemed to struggle with the answer. Finally he stood taller, chest rising. “I told you the truth, and you didn’t believe me.”

“Ha! How do you figure that?”

“The truth is, I’ll never be who you want me to be. It was stupid of me to even try.” Then he turned around, shoved his feet into his boots, and stormed out.

Grabbing my wine glass off the island, I threw it at him, cringing at the ear-splitting shatter when it hit the door, and bursting into tears when I was alone again in the silence.

I fucking hate messes.

A miserable Christmas came and went, and I heard nothing from Charlie. His gifts sat under my tree, wrapped and gathering dust, sad reminders of what should have been our first Christmas together. I couldn’t bring myself to even touch them. Mia was my saving grace, including me in all her holiday plans, keeping up a cheerful stream of chatter about the baby, and listening patiently whenever I wanted to wallow in my misery. I’d told her about Charlie, and she fully supported my decision to break it off.

“A child is not something you just spring on someone,” she’d said. “He didn’t even tell you why he hid this from you!”

Coco and Nick returned from their honeymoon in Hawaii with tans and new tattoos and happy smiles on their faces. I felt bitter every time I saw them, and then horribly guilty for it. They deserved their happiness and had fought hard for it. It wasn’t that I begrudged them their happily-ever-after—I just wasn’t in the mood to see it that much. So when they invited people over to their house for New Year’s Eve, I faked a stomach bug and stayed home alone, eating ice cream, drinking the whiskey I’d bought for Charlie, and nursing my broken heart. I watched five episodes of Breaking Bad, nodding and crying like an idiot when Pinkman went to rehab and learned who he really was—the bad guy.

“See? Why can’t you face it and admit it?” I gestured wildly with my big spoon at the TV, although I was talking to Charlie. “Pinkman can face it. How can you let Pinkman be a bigger man than you are?”

But I guessed Charlie identified more with Walt, who was still in denial about who he was. He thought he could do horrible things and still be a good person. But he couldn’t, could he? I started to feel sick. I put the ice cream back in the freezer, poured another glass of whiskey and switched to Sex and the City. I needed something light and fluffy.

But halfway through the first episode, my phone pinged with a text. Hating myself for hoping it was Charlie, I snatched it off the coffee table and read it.

It was from Mia.
Happy New Year!! We miss you so much tonight. Here’s a big hug and kiss, hope you are feeling better! XOXO

Was it midnight already? Another day had gone by without hearing from him—that made thirteen. I sniffed, imagining my friends and their husbands at a party, kissing and laughing and toasting their infernal happiness. For the millionth time, I wondered what Charlie was doing tonight. Working? Home with his daughter? Out with friends? Out with a date? My stomach heaved. Would he go home with someone tonight because he was lonely, like I was? Did he miss me? I hoped he did. My only consolation was imagining that he was just as miserable without me as I was without him.

I wrapped myself up in the blanket on my couch, missing his warm body next to me even more, and finished the rest of the episode. When it was over, I was drowsy and figured I might as well go to bed when I saw headlights out my front window. Was that a car slowing down in front of my house? Ever since the burglary, I’d been a little jumpy whenever that happened.
Relax, it’s probably just someone driving slowly because they’ve been drinking.
But just in case, I darted into the kitchen and double checked that I’d locked the door and set the alarm. I checked the front too. Everything was secure.

But the headlights remained in front of my house. Nervous, I turned off all the lights and peeked out. It was Charlie’s car.

My phone pinged.

Biting my lip, I walked slowly toward it. Picked it up.

Are you awake?

Should I answer him? Part of me figured he’d just gotten off work and was lonely too, which was an even better reason to ignore him than the fight we’d had. If I saw him tonight, I wasn’t sure I’d have the willpower to stop myself from sleeping with him.

No. Don’t do it. Don’t let him get to you—he’s just looking for someone to make his pain go away for an hour.

But another part of me thought maybe he’d had time to think it over and wanted to talk again. Was I ready to listen? Now that my temper had cooled somewhat, I had so many questions. How old was she? What was her name? Why hadn’t he told me? Who was her mother? Where did they live? Did he have custody? My phone pinged again.

I miss you so much. And I’m sorry.

My throat squeezed. I missed him too. So much that I was willing to give him the chance to provide some answers. I’d go crazy if I didn’t learn the whole truth. But the headlights began moving slowly down the street and turned the corner.

He was gone.

#

I don’t think I slept all night. I lay awake, phone in my hand, typing and deleting a thousand messages.

I miss you too.

Delete.

I’m sorry too.

Delete.

I’m still awake. Come back.

Delete.

Crap, this was harder than I thought. I wanted him to let him know I was willing to talk but also convey that I wasn’t completely over what he’d done.

In the end, I settled for direct.

Let’s talk.