I gritted my teeth. “So, me?”
She nodded.
“What the hell did she say?”
Charlie looked around us, like the conversation wasn’t safe to have in public. Then, she tugged me off to the side, to a back corner behind a booth that was vacant, looking around once more before she spoke in a hushed tone.
“She said you had taken high interest in a particular student, and she worried that it might not be a professional one.” Charlie paused, eyeing me like she was looking for some sort of tell, some sort of reaction from me. “She said she ran into you and Sarah Henderson in the park one day… that you were both acting strange… and that she spoke with someone here, at the restaurant, and they confirmed her suspicions.”
I scoffed, shaking my head. “That’s bullshit. No one here knows a fucking thing.”
Charlie’s shoulders fell, brows folding inward as she covered her mouth with one hand. “Oh, Reese…”
And I realized then that I’d confirmed the story without even realizing it.
“It’s true, isn’t it?” Charlie’s eyes widened as she shook her head. “I thought… I was so sure there had to be a mistake. I was so sure you could never do something like this.”
“What do you mean like this?”
Charlie looked around again, lowering her voice even more. “She’s a girl, Reese. She’s twenty-one. You’re her teacher, for Christ’s sake. And she’s the niece of the man who signs your paycheck. Do you not understand how grotesquely wrong this all is?”
Indignation rolled through me like a tidal wave, swallowing all rational thought as I stared at the woman I once loved. And I knew it then, in that moment, that it truly was past tense.
I loved her, but I didn’t love her, anymore.
“How dare you, Charlie.” The words came out in a whisper, like my voice wasn’t caught up to my brain yet, like it didn’t want to betray my heart that once beat for only that woman in front of me. “It’s not wrong. It’s not grotesque,” I said, spitting her word back at her. “You don’t know anything about Sarah, who is not a girl, by the way. She’s more of a woman than anyone I’ve ever met.” I stood taller, each word giving me more strength. “And you don’t know anything about me anymore. Or what I have with Sarah.”
The look of pity Charlie gave me in that moment made me want to smash my fist into the nearest wall.
“Reese…”
“No,” I said, holding up one hand to stop her from saying anything else. “I know what you must think, what all of you must think, but you don’t know anything about us. And honestly, it’s none of your goddamn business.”
“This isn’t you,” she said, reaching for me. “I know you’re hurting, I know—”
“JUST STOP.”
I tore away from her before she could touch me, and a few patrons glanced our way as Charlie offered a smile and a soft apology. She watched them until they turned around, pulling her gaze to mine again, then.
“You don’t get to do this to me, Charlie,” I said, keeping my voice as low as I could. “You don’t get to say that you see me hurting, or look at me with pity, or feel like you have any fucking say in what I do or who I spend my time with. I’m healing. I am finally moving on.”
“But—”
“You already broke my heart,” I said, cutting her off as I took a step toward her. My nose stung, but I sniffed back the emotion, shaking my head. “Isn’t that enough, Charlie? Haven’t you had enough?”
The kitchen door swung open, and I turned just as Charlie’s eyes shot over my shoulder at the person who was behind us now.
Sarah.
She glanced at me first, then Charlie, and when she looked at me again, her eyes were cold as ice. She didn’t so much as nod as an acknowledgement of our existence before she balanced the bin in her hands on one hip, making her way toward the bar.
Shit.
“I have to go,” I said to Charlie, already on my way after Sarah.
“Wait, Reese. Please.” She tugged at my sleeve, holding me in place as she pleaded. “I never meant to hurt you. You know that. I never meant to… everything just got so…”
Tears flooded her eyes, and just like always, the sight of her hurting broke me.
But she wasn’t mine to comfort, anymore.
And she wasn’t the one I wanted, either.
“I know,” I assured her, scrubbing a hand back through my hair on a sigh. “I know. Okay? I do. But whether you mean to or not, you do hurt me, Charlie. Every time you look at me like that, or ask me to come to dinner, or pretend like we can still be friends when you know good and well that it’s impossible.”
Her shoulders fell. “I didn’t…”
“It’s okay,” I said, not letting her finish.
It was my turn to talk, to say what I’d needed to for two long years.
“It is. Truly. We loved each other, no matter how fucked up the circumstances were, and that will never change. But you have got to let me go, Charlie. Just like I have to let you go. And I can’t do that with you inserting yourself in every aspect of my life.” I shook my head. “So, please. Please, Charlie. Leave me alone, and let me finally stop loving you.”
Her bottom lip trembled, her delicate fingers reaching for it as she nodded against the tears flooding her eyes. “I’m so sorry, Reese.”
“Me, too,” I whispered. “Me, too.”
I reached forward, pulling her into me and kissing her forehead before I let her go — physically, mentally, literally, and figuratively. In every sense of the word, I let Charlie Pierce go in that moment.
And I ran to the woman I loved.
The realization flooded me as my feet carried me across the restaurant, chest swelling with the surprise of it while I shook my head, knowing I should have realized it long ago. How something could feel like such a revelation and also like something I’d known my entire life was beyond me, but there it was, pumping blood into every vein in my body.
I loved her.
I loved her.
And I couldn’t lose her now.
Sarah glanced at me from where she was clearing dishes when I rounded the corner into the bar area, but her eyes fell quickly, back to her hands as they worked. I slid up beside her behind the bar without her acknowledgement, without a greeting, without a prayer in hell that she’d talk to me.
But I had to try, anyway.
“Sarah, please,” I said, eyeing the patrons at the bar to make sure they couldn’t hear us before I spoke again. “Can we go outside and talk?”
“I’m working,” she said firmly, holding up the dish rag she was wiping the bar down with as proof.
“Take a break.”
She sighed, shaking her head as she slapped the damp rag back on the bar and began scrubbing vigorously. “There’s nothing more to say, Reese. I called your guy. I’m leaving for New York in two weeks.”
Her words knocked the air from my chest, a tornado of mixed emotions set loose in a snap. I was so happy for her. This was what she wanted. This was what I wanted for her.
But I didn’t want her to leave like this.
“Why do I feel like no matter what I say to that, there’s no right way to respond?”