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Her body hummed. “Oh, you going to move on to bigger and better things now?”
“Bigger and better things than that damned treehouse, yeah, but I ain’t leaving you, Charlie.” My arm tightened around her back, pulling her in close to my chest. Her body fit so snugly against mine, like she was meant to be in my arms.
“Good,” she said, angling her head back to look at me with what I could only describe as bedroom eyes. “Because I don’t want you to leave, either.”
I smiled. “You know, that’s funny, because you’re the one that’s told me to leave twice now. Two times.” The arm that wasn’t holding onto her held up two fingers, wiggling them in the air.
“And you’re the one that came back for me twice.” She mimicked my wiggling fingers, giggling somewhat, but then that giggle died down, and she whispered, “And I’m glad you did. I don’t know what I would’ve done if you would’ve left for real.”
“What can I say? I guess I’m a persistent fuck.”
She brought a hand to my jaw, and she ran her fingertips lightly along my jawline, a steady heat lingering on the skin she’d touched. “You’re not a fuck,” she told me quietly.
It sounded weird, hearing her say the word fuck. Almost like she shouldn’t be allowed to say it. “If I’m not a fuck, what am I?” Objectively, I knew what I was. A bad man. A criminal. A serial killer that was wanted by the police—even though, technically, only one body had been mine. The others belonged to my cousin.
But what was I to Charlie? I knew that, too: the man she loved, someone who didn’t deserve her love, but who’d do his best to cherish it all the same.
What she said, though, wasn’tthe man I loveor anything along those lines. No, what she said was even simpler: “You’re mine.” The words were spoken with conviction, so meaningful to me that whatever witty retort I had ready vanished.
I was hers. Duh. Of course I was hers. I was hers the same way she was mine, but I didn’t think I’d ever heard her say it before, so I tucked this moment away in my head, memorized every detail. Had to take a mental picture so I’d remember it perfectly later. The moment when Charlie said I was hers. Possession had never been more meaningful.
“And you’re mine, Charlie,” I told her. “So I guess we’re stuck with each other now, huh?”
“I guess so.” She smiled at me, and for the first time in a long, long time, her dark brown eyes held no traces of sadness in them. Just warmth and light and happiness. Charlie Mulanie was happy.
Someone write this down, mark this day so we could look back on it in the future. The day Charlie was free from the weight of her past.
And what’s more, today was only the beginning. If I had my way, Charlie would see countless more days of happiness.
Chapter Twenty-One – Charlie
My mechanical pencil kept breaking, which was annoying, but if that was the only annoying part about this day, then you know what? I was fine with it. The pencil was full of lead, so it wasn’t like I’d be unable to finish this test.
An exam, really. My last one of the semester. Summer break started as soon as I was done with it. I had the same job as last summer, at the local indie bookstore fifteen minutes away from my parents’ house. Things were the same as they’d always been.
But they were also so very different.
Let’s start with the big one, shall we? Brett. A month and a half had passed since he’d come back to me, since he’d helped me take care of Dave. A whole month and a half, but it had felt like no time at all. He’d moved out of the treehouse and rented an old, tiny ranch not too far from where I lived.
Old and crusty, it was in need of a big renovation—which Brett was doing on his own to show the owner that he had some skill. If the owner was impressed, he’d hire Brett to renovate his other rental properties. An under the table job, all cash for Brett while the owner didn’t have to deal with taxes and health care for a legit employee.
It was a good deal. As good of a deal as a man who was technically still wanted by the law could get.
And he was still wanted; we kept his hair dyed brown. As much as I wanted that blond hair to peek through, we couldn’t let it yet. Maybe in the future, but not now. Not while things were still so recent.
The second thing that was different? No stalker.
Yep, that’s right. Ever since Brett took care of my uncle, things had gone quiet on the stalker front. No breaking into my house and drawing me while I was sleeping. No messages from obviously new and fake accounts online. No restricted calls with a voice modulator. Nothing at all.
Brett had once told me he suspected Dave was my stalker, and I’d initially resisted the idea. I mean, why would he go through all that hassle? That man had already had me every which way he wanted me. Sure, the stalking kicked up right around the time that Zak and I broke up, which, not too much later, was the last time I’d seen Dave until he’d moved in. To me, it just felt like a whole lot of coincidences that Brett was trying to put together.
But then nothing happened, and nothing continued to happen. Brett never brought it up again, but I caught myself wondering every now and then if it was true. What were the odds my stalker would go radio silent the same time that Brett killed Dave? That particular coincidence was almost too big to ignore.
It made sense, though. Uncle Dave liked tormenting me, and he always thought he was in the right. I was his—something my stalker had said on the phone. The more I thought about it, the more the pieces lined up.
Enough about that, though. Let’s move on to the third thing that had changed: I didn’t want to die. Yeah, yeah, I knew that one was probably an obvious one, but ever since that day, when Brett had come back to me for the second time and told me that he loved me, that I’d never have to worry about Uncle Dave again, I hadn’t once thought about ending it.
No suicidal ideations. No scarring my inner thighs. No more goodbye notes.
