Under the Orange Moon (25 page)

On a surprisingly chilly Monday morning, Meredith stepped into her apartment full of boxes and sighed at the unorganized style her life had fallen into. After the wedding, she and Charlie planned to move into a new house just one neighborhood east of Linda’s.

She was a traditional girl she liked to think, only willing to live with Charlie after they were man and wife. Charlie fought hard against this, claiming they had sex more regularly than couples that lived together. In his mind, what was the difference? In Meredith’s, she wanted that guarantee from him. She wasn’t giving in until she had his last name.

Charlie was already there, and she could hear him pleading for Ben to call him in the kitchen. This was one of many messages she heard him leave Ben, although, they were not all the same, these messages. Some were lighthearted, happy, and full of jokes. Others were eager, angry, and flat out rude. Most of the time, he just asked for a return call that Meredith knew he wouldn’t get.

Charlie hung up the phone as Meredith rounded the corner. His eyes squinted as he smiled at her. He had a way that no man had ever had with her before. He was handsome, sweet, and strong. He wasn’t very smart. He was street smart, of course, but seriously lacking intellect.

“Ben again?” Meredith asked coldly. She was so tired of Ben’s unreal presence in her life. He wasn’t there physically, but he sure seemed to be a pain despite his absence.

“Yes,” Charlie answered in a sigh. “I wish he would just call me back.”

“Maybe you should give up,” Meredith replied. “He obviously doesn’t want to speak to you.”

Meredith thumbed through the mail that had come, but remained well aware of the angry eyes he fixed on her. She knew how callous she seemed about everything except the wedding. Even to Dylan, Meredith’s mentality reeked of a
get over it
attitude. So what? If this was the only time in her life that she would be allowed to be selfish, so be it.

It was true, she rolled her eyes in disgust at even the mention of Ben’s name. And, yes, she couldn’t hear another word about Ben McKenna and his unbelievable, yet totally undeserved, hold on all things Mathews. It was enough to drive her insane! The fact alone that Charlie insisted on holding a spot open for Ben at the reception caused an endless throb inside her head that seemed to pound the word
Ben
over and over again.

This was her time, damn it!

“You don’t know him,” Charlie snapped. “You don’t know what he’s thinking.”

“Do you, Charlie?” she shot back, beyond fed up.

“I think I do more than you,” Charlie answered sharply. “Ben’s different from you or me. He works to an unusual tune, you know?”

“Maybe you want to believe that but, I don’t know, Charlie. I think he may just be a selfish jerk.” She said it with such a careless demeanor as she flipped through her mail and smiled at an RSVP that had come. “This may just be his way of saying ‘I don’t care about you Mathews people anymore.’ He clearly wants to be left alone.”

Charlie stood so quickly it startled her. He was her gentle giant most of the time. It was clear she had crossed a line at that point. The chair he had been sitting on flipped back and fell to the linoleum floor behind him. Had it been a harder floor, the darn thing would have shattered.

“Careful with the chair, Charlie Bear,” she warned patiently. “We’re tapped out from the wedding and I’m not about to ask my father to buy us new chairs. How could I even explain a temper tantrum?”

“What the hell, Meredith?” he asked, nearly shouting. “Ben is my brother.”

“No, Charlie. Ben is not your
brother
.” She stood her ground with her hands on her hips, completely worn out on this subject, but needing to go on with the low-blows to make a point. “Brandon, Hugh, and Jonah are your brothers. Dylan is your sister. You do remember Dylan, right?”

“I know things you just couldn’t, Meredith.” He sighed and picked up the abused chair to set it upright again. “I think
—no—I know that everything will work out. That’s why I want him to come to the wedding. If he sees Dylan, maybe he’ll realize he made a mistake. Maybe my brothers will speak to him again.”

“Charlie, he’s trying to avoid her. He doesn’t want to see her!” she snapped in even more annoyance. “He knows she’s better off without him!”

“How could you know that?” he asked, confused. “You don’t even know him.”

“Because,” she began cautiously, ignoring the danger signs that flashed through her brain, “I’m the one that told him to leave and he agreed. He knew I was right. He knew Dylan was better off without him.”

Charlie’s eyes filled with angry bewilderment. It was almost as if she punched him in the gut with that admission. She might have well as. He looked dizzy with betrayal.

She wanted to grab her words and pull them back. She should never have said that, she knew. She only wanted to prove her point and her ego may have gotten the best of her. She waited for Charlie to react, which was all she could do at that point.

“Why would you do that?” he finally asked. “What right did you have?”

“He was hurting her, Charlie. He was being so selfish.”

“Meredith, the only thing Ben’s ever heard his entire life is how bad he is. His mother always said to him that people were better off without him. He was told every day that he was just like his father. And—God—his father was no better. He always found a way to remind Ben how worthless he was. He drilled it into Ben’s head that it was weak to care about people. You told him what he was afraid of. You only reminded him, Meredith.”

“Oh,” Meredith answered in a whisper. “I didn’t know that.”

“Like I said, you don’t know him. He wasn’t pushing anyone away because he didn’t care. He was afraid Dylan would end up like Ruth.” Charlie’s eyes shined with a watery gaze. “How would you feel if your mother did what Ben’s did? Guilty? Angry?”

“Probably both.” She felt lower than scum. She couldn’t even look at Charlie, knowing she screwed up. Ben wasn’t family by blood, but Charlie drew no lines when it came to him, and he expected the same from Meredith. 

“Ben doesn’t handle emotion well. He never has because the right people never showed it to him.” Charlie grabbed his keys from the counter and headed for the door. “Ben is my brother, Meredith. I’m sure of that. You, on the other hand, I’m not so sure of now.”

“Where are you going?” Meredith asked in fear. He had never walked out on her before and here he was leaving in anger over someone else, telling her she really wasn’t at the top of his list. “Charlie?”

“I can’t believe how cruel you are, Meredith,” he said with his hand on the doorknob. “You’re the one who’s selfish. You said those things to him because you’re jealous of him. I’m certain of that. I’m not sure I even know you.”

“You can’t just leave, Charlie. We have to work this out.”

Charlie’s lips pursed. “I don’t know that we can.” He said nothing else before stepping outside and letting the door close behind him.

Meredith stood in disbelief on the other side. She still held the RSVP that had come in the mail. She sank to the chair behind her and wondered if that had really just happened. Did her life really take such a drastic change in a mere fifteen minutes? She still had her shoes on. Her cheeks hadn’t even warmed from the unusual chill in the air outside. How had it come to this?

Dylan packed another box and set it on top of the tower of three she placed by her door. Her room was just about empty, and it was sad to think of what she was leaving behind. She had spent so much time wishing to escape these walls that she didn’t stop to think of what she would miss as she shoved it all away into cardboard.

She stared at her bed and thought of Ben and the last night they were happy. He looked at her with such love in his eyes, she was sure he was going to say that he loved her. He never did, though. At the time, she didn’t think he needed to. There was so much there that she thought she recognized. Though she had never had it before, she only thought she knew it then. Sadly, there was no line between fantasy and reality for her. She betrayed herself and stupidly believed that the real Ben would be the Ben in her head. He turned out to be the opposite, the Ben everyone else knew.

She promised to never regret the time she spent with him, though. She secretly wanted to remember every time he touched her, made love to her, and dazzled her with his charm and magnetism. He was talented, she had to admit. He certainly knew what he was doing.

She crumbled when she imagined him back at Harvard with not a care in the world. He probably never gave her a second thought while he plummeted through girl after random girl, filling their heads with lies and promises to call. Did he even give them that the next morning? Did he even ask for their numbers? She knew the answer.

She quickly wiped a falling tear and shook her head to will the rest away. She had made a deal with herself to begin the healing process. She wanted to eat, laugh, and feel somewhat normal again. She wanted to feel peace when she thought of Ben and his wondrous ability to shrug off love. The first step to that, she thought anyway, was no more tears. 

“Hello?” she heard Charlie call from downstairs. “Dylan?”

“Up here!” she yelled through her door. “In my room!”

Charlie’s feet thumped up each step and Dylan knew her mother would kill him for leaving his boots on in the house. He never usually left them on, a sign his head was elsewhere.

“Hi,” Dylan said, as Charlie opened her door. “Mom won’t like those,” she warned, pointing to his dusty work boots.

Charlie’s face looked disturbed. “Oh shit,” he said, looking down. “I forgot.” He hunched over and untied the dirty laces, before clumsily toeing off each one, and then falling to Dylan’s mattress.

“What’s wrong?” Dylan asked, seeing the anguish in her brother’s face.

Charlie sighed and clenched his jaw. “I think the wedding’s off.”

“What?” Dylan catapulted to her feet in surprise. “Why?”

“It’s a long story,” he said, rubbing his temples. “I just realized I don’t know her like I thought. That’s all.”

“That’s all?” Dylan shook her head. “Charlie, you may need to come up with something better than that.”

“Maybe everyone was right before. Maybe she’s not the one for me.”

“I don’t recall anyone telling you she wasn’t right for you,” Dylan reminded. “I remember people saying not to rush into things, but nothing about Meredith being the wrong girl.”

Charlie growled in frustration as he continued to massage the sides of his head. “I don’t know what I’m saying,” he said. “I just don’t know if I can trust her anymore.”

Dylan returned back to her place down on the floor. She couldn’t be sure if what she was hearing was right, but she didn’t want to get too crazy over it, knowing Charlie needed his own pace to process things. She wrapped her arms around her knees and stared at her brother through narrowed eyes. He was visibly upset and it was clear this was not what he wanted. “Care to elaborate, Charlie?” she asked carefully.

Charlie felt his eyes sadden as he turned his head to meet his sister’s stare. He shook his head slowly, and said, “Sorry, but no.” He knew Dylan would only be angry at them both for even discussing Ben. He preferred only her presence as support anyway.

“Well, if you’re not going to tell me anything, then start helping.” She threw a pile of clothes at him, demanding, “Fold these
neatly
. Do it like how Mom would, not the lazy boy way, and then place them in there.” She pointed to an empty box at his feet.

Charlie chuckled, but moved quickly. “Geez. Sometimes I wonder who’s worse, you or Mom.”

“I learned from the best,” Dylan agreed.  She supervised Charlie’s first fold, and then smiled proudly when he raised it up for her approval.

“If I find any of your underwear in here, I’m done,” Charlie said. Just the thought had him reconsidering his decision to fold instead of telling the story. “I mean it.”

“Like I’d give you
that
pile,” Dylan hissed childishly. “Seriously.”

“Well, I’m just saying.”

Charlie smiled as he watched his baby sister. He hadn’t taken the time to notice how grown up she was. True, she was only three years younger than him, and Jonah’s twin for that matter, though he didn’t think of Jonah as a helpless child, something he couldn’t explain. Like his other brothers, he had never thought of Dylan as an adult before. And now, here she was, packing and preparing for her own home and her own life.

“Stop looking at me like that, ya dope,” Dylan said, looking at him from the corner of her eye. “I’m only moving out of Mom’s house. You’re looking at me like I’m moving to Mars.”

Charlie said nothing in defense of himself. He didn’t have to say it out loud; their little girl was growing up. He and his brothers had all taken their father’s request to the limit, and now it was time for them to let her go. Maybe they should have done it years before. But that would only have meant they were admitting that she didn’t need them anymore. Charlie couldn’t speak for the rest of them, but he was indeed proud of the woman before him and, for the first time, even despite the way Ben hurt her, he knew that she would be okay without his hovering. He would make no promises to completely stop the hovering, though. It was a DNA thing.