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I left my car outside the Monticello. I didn’t have the energy to deal with insurance and police reports and spare tires. Watching the scene from a distance, the theater was thankfully still intact. No firehose, no ladders, maybe no fire at all. If only what had happened between Charlie and me had been a false alarm too. All I could think about was the look in her eyes when Abigail pulled her away.
Abigail had been on the stairway just a few feet from where I’d spoken to Sinclair. I had tried to ignore the bulldog expression on her face. The hostility that she’d fired across the landing toward me—hostility I’d ignored because all I could think about was getting to Charlie.
But I knew, I just knew that Abigail had heard it all.
And she’d told Charlie.
Which meant that look in Charlie’s eyes? The devastation, the pain? I’d put that look there. I’d hurt the woman that made me want to give up my plans for the chance to hold her through the night.
By morning, there was still no answer from Charlie. Her car was still out front, while mine still slumped in the parking lot all night. Surely she’d returned home very late. As much as I wanted to rush up to her, wrap her in my arms, and tell her everything, I stopped myself. If she was going to hear me out—really hear me out—she’d need her sleep. And coffee.
I dressed quickly, called a mechanic out to replace my tire, and met him in the parking lot to retrieve my car. With my donut secured, I drove over to Magnolia Café.
“Morning, Sophie,” I said with whatever smile I could muster.
She grunted, hardly glancing my way. It was the coldest greeting she’d ever given me, and the knife buried in my guts twisted a little more. I ordered my usual and added a vanilla cappuccino for Charlie. I bid Sophie goodbye, thanking her again for the liquid boosts, but she just ignored me. I walked out of the little colonial café and sipped my coffee. Ugh. Sophie’s brew was even colder than her attitude this morning. I’d lost more than Charlie last night, it seemed.
But it was temporary. I would fix this. Somehow. I’d explain to her why I’d been dealing with Sinclair. I’d tell her about The Bach Company and righting my grandmother’s wrongs for my parents. I’d…
God, she would never forgive me if I tore down her home. But if I didn’t sell Radcliffe House along with the Monticello, I was stuck. No once-in-a-lifetime business deal, no justice for Mom.
The panic that had gripped me last night began to rise again. It tightened my muscles and made it hard to swallow my cold coffee. My heart sank when I got back to the apartments. Her car was gone. Which meant that Charlie was gone.
Already knowing what would happen, I called her once more. All I got was her voicemail, the modern-day cold shoulder. I stared at the cappuccino in my hand and snorted at myself. On top of everything else, I was an idiot for thinking coffee could smooth this over.
With my head hung low, I went inside and slammed my door shut. It rattled in its frame, and the entire wall seemed to wobble. Two weeks ago, that would have been just another sign that the place needed to be torn down. Now, as the house creaked and quieted down, I found it…charming. Comforting. It felt like these old walls could feel the tempest of my emotions and had the strength to hold it for me.
Who was I anymore? How had I gotten myself so twisted up here? I could have left yesterday. My thirty days were up, and I had the deed paperwork laying on my kitchen table to prove it. I could organize the demolition from afar. I didn’t have to be here. My business was done.
The Sinclair deal sat on the table like a rattlesnake curled on top of a warm rock. Wary, I watched it from across the table and wondered if I had the guts to go through with it.
And if I had the guts not to.
After everything, I should’ve been just as excited to sign those papers as I was the night Charlie lay there in nothing but a towel with those ink-stained lips. But I wasn’t.
Signing those papers was the beginning of me severing ties with this town. And by the state of things, severing ties with Charlie. Something I was desperate to do only a few weeks ago but now couldn’t stand the thought of. Every moment looking into her eyes, kissing her tender lips, had changed things for me. Maybe it had changed everything.
I took a sip of Charlie’s warm cappuccino, breathing it in, and remembering the way it tasted so much sweeter on her tongue. And I missed her even more.
Even if I stopped this deal, could Charlie forgive me? She knew she couldn’t stop the demolition. She knew about the Sinclair deal. Sure, she didn’t know I was doing it to give my mother what she deserved after being run out of New Elwood for not cowing to my grandmother, but that wouldn’t be enough. It wouldn’t justify the destruction of the only home she’d ever known.
So the choice, as I saw it, was this: I could beg for forgiveness and get nothing. Or I could sell up and get out of this town, once and for all, and accomplish what I came here to do in the first place.
The stack of papers beckoned for me to sign them, and I began scribbling my signature dozens of times. So many that my hand ached by the final page.
I couldn’t see another way. Charlie would simply have to pack up her memories and find a new place to create more. Like I would, away from here.
Tossing my pen aside, I stared at the stack of papers bearing my signature. My pulse was a rush in my ears, and fine trembling had overtaken my limbs. The walls closed in around me, and I tried to drag in a deep breath. My lungs clenched. Pinpricks of black shuddered over the edges of my vision, and I stumbled to the door to get some air. My shoulder bumped into the hallway walls, the staircase balustrade, the door to the other downstairs apartment, and then I was outside, gulping down a breath of hot, humid air.
As my vision cleared and the sound of birds and insects reached my ears, I sat down on the porch steps with a heavy thud.
And noticed the moving truck.
A pair of movers with elastic back braces appeared behind me, carrying out an old couch. Shifting out of the way, I recognized it from Albert’s apartment. Inside, I found my downstairs neighbor’s door wide open, the sound of a box fan blowing at full blast.
“Hey, Albert. What’s going on?” I asked, voice deceptively normal as I stepped into his home.
“What does it look like? I’m moving out,” he said.
