Every One Of Me (11 page)

But Charlie. Charlie was something else. He was gorgeous
kneeling on the ground in front of me and looking down at the tender moment in
his hands. He looked happy.

I could barely take in a breath and realized I was gasping
loudly for air when my mom put her hand on my back and rubbed up and down.
"I… I don't… what happened? Tell me… please." I clutched my chest and
kept staring down at Charlie.

I had to get a hold of myself.
Deep breaths, clear head,
don't switch, don't switch, for the love of God, don't switch.

He nodded and glanced at my mother. "It's time, Sarah,
but I think we need to be alone."

She stood quickly and ushered Trevor and Ellie through the
kitchen and to the back deck before I could process what he had said.

"Time?" I breathed.

"Yes. It's been too long." He shook his head and
irritation flashed over his face. "I want you to know that I begged your
mom,
begged
her, to let me tell you. She made me promise, though. I keep
my promises, Tess." His hand had moved to my knee and he squeezed gently.

"I know that," I said confidently. He did keep his
promises. Every single one of them. Never made a promise he wouldn't keep and
it's one of the reasons I loved him so much.

"We had gone to the lake late that morning," he
began nervously, "and spent the day swimming and just doing whatever. No
one else was out there and it was really the first time we had ever been
completely alone out there. You wore this white bikini with pink polka dots and
I couldn't take my eyes off of you all day." He paused and looked back
down at the picture for a minute before closing the album and setting it aside.

He moved closer until my knees were pressed against his
stomach and grasped both of my hands in his, lifted them to his lips and kissed
my knuckles softly. My stomach fluttered and I fought the urge to close my
eyes. Charlie was always a touchy feely kind of guy, but the way he held my
hands, the way his warm lips moved over my knuckles, it was almost too much.

"I had been in love with you for years, Tess. I told
you that day," he said huskily.

I felt my eyes widen and my mouth gape open. "You
did?" I could barely hear my own voice as I processed the one thing I had
always wanted to hear him say. 
He had been in love with me?
How could I
have missed that?

He nodded, "Yes, I did. I told you that ever since I
saw you in the 4th grade playing hopscotch with Amanda Jones, you had me
wrapped around your finger. I told you that the day after Michael Stower pushed
you down and I saved you, I found him and thanked him for being a jerk because
it meant I got to be your friend, then I punched him in the nose and told him
that if he was ever a jerk to you again, I would do more than make him eat
sand."

My lips twitched, begging me to let them form a smile, but I
refused them. I couldn't take my eyes away from the green ones that were
holding me in place. His jaw flexed and his throat contracted as he swallowed.

"I told you that it killed me every time you went out
on a date with some jerk, but that it killed me even more when that jerk broke
your heart, like it wasn't the most precious thing in the world. I told you
that I would do anything to make you happy and I wanted to be the one to make
you happy for the rest of your life." He dropped his head and gripped my
hands tighter for a moment before he twisted the ring on my middle finger
around  over and over again. "And when you told me that you had felt the
same way and that you were just too scared of ruining our friendship… and that
you loved me, too… I
promised
to love you forever."

I let the tears that I had been holding back for so long
finally fall and dropped my head into my hands. Defeated. How in the world
could I forget something as beautiful as this man telling me all those
wonderful things? How could I forget finally working up the courage to tell him
how I had felt for so long? Then I thought of what
not
remembering meant
for him.

"Did we… What happened next?" I asked
breathlessly.

He hesitated and shut his eyes tightly as if he were trying
to get through the pain he was feeling. "I kissed you. We kissed… a
lot." He opened his eyes and I could see the memory flicker through them.
"We held hands, we held each other. Talked about our plans. A couple hours
later, we watched the sunset and your mom picked us up and took me home. You
walked to the door with me pretending you had to get something from my house
and we kissed goodnight."

The tears fell faster and harder. How could I forget that?
We only had a couple of hours together and my mind wouldn't even allow me the
memory of such a short period of time. The loss ripped through my chest.

It had to have been Lydia who got that time with him and
apparently, she had known what was going on inside my head. Or she felt it,
too. It was something she would have done either way, I'm sure. It
had
to be her. Or I had been too deep in the middle of a switch I had no idea I was
having.

I felt his hand cup my cheek and swipe away a tear with his
thumb. His hand was so warm and strong and it only made me feel worse.
"I'm so sorry, Charlie," I said through a sob. "I'm so, so
sorry."

"Shhh, Tess. You didn't do anything wrong. You couldn't
do anything about it. I'm sorry you don't remember, but I'll never be sorry
that it happened. I found out that you loved me that day." He lifted his
other hand to cup my other cheek and continued to swipe my tears away.
"Right?"

I nodded, slowly.

His eyes were filled with relief and hope, but there was a
trace of fear that lingered and I knew there was more for him to tell me. More
that I probably wouldn't like.

"Tell me what happened next, Charlie. When did you find
out that I didn't remember?" I wrapped my fingers around his wrists and
held him to me tightly. I didn't want him to pull away before I knew
everything. His touch was the only thing keeping me grounded at the moment.

He sighed and his eyes grew dim, but he didn't pull his
hands away. "I came over the next day. We had planned to go out on a date,
as a couple. When you came to the door… God, you looked so beautiful, but so
confused. I thought you were messing with me, trying to tease me, but when I
realized that you were actually getting upset that I kept saying we had plans,
I knew." He dropped his hands and grabbed both of mine resting them in my
lap. "You had acted that way once before after we got drunk at Danny
Danko's birthday party."

Memories came slamming back to me, "I remember waking
up with a hangover, but not remembering how I got it."

He nodded and continued, "I thought it was just because
you got drunk, but after the lake, I realized that there was too much about
that night you didn't remember. And the similarities… you were so blunt that
night at the party, so talkative and loud, so unlike you. You had acted so
strange all day and it was the same that day at the lake. It was more subtle,
but thinking back to it, I could see the similarities. There were lots of
people at the party wondering why you wouldn't respond to your name. You kept
telling them you weren't Tess. We all thought it was just you being
funny."

"What happened when you realized…?"

"I looked up everything I could find on every kind of
amnesia there is. Everything that matched up to how you were behaving just
seemed too farfetched to be true. I didn't think it was possible and I didn't
really believe that kind of thing existed." He glanced over at the kitchen
door, then got up from his knees and sat beside me on the couch, still
clutching my hands. Our eyes locked and I felt a buzzing in my arms, traveling
to my chest. "I talked to your mom, told her that some things had happened
between us, but you didn't remember any of it. I told her I thought something
was wrong and that we should talk to you about it.

"She made me promise to wait until she could find you
some help. She was sure it was all because of the anxiety you were having about
school and everything else. You were having a tough time, Tess. We all saw it.
You were just too stubborn to admit it." He slowly caressed his thumb in
tiny circles on the back of my hand, making the buzzing sensation stronger, but
not unpleasant. My reactions to him should not have been surprising by now, but
come on… who feels this stuff with just a simple touch?

"That's when she sent me to the therapist?" I
remembered how against it I was and how Charlie convinced me to go.

"Yeah. We were hoping he could somehow find out some
answers for us, but again, you were stubborn. Then things got better…
mostly."

"Mostly?"

He shrugged his shoulders, "Well, I don't know if
anything happened when you were with me, but there was one other time that you…
well… don't remember."

There were lots of things I didn't remember. Classes and
tests, parties and shows. I left because I realized it was more than just being
stressed. I was losing my mind. Charlie waited for me to run through my
thoughts until I was ready for what he said next.

Something I knew I didn't want to know.

But I
had
to know.

Charlie

I knew she had no desire to hear about that night, but she
wanted answers, and I was going to give them to her in the hopes that she would
give some to me. Mainly, one.

"What happened, Charlie?"

I was still holding onto her tiny hands. Her skin was so
soft, softer than I remembered, and her eyes were a beautiful rich brown and
still glistening with tears. I hated seeing her cry, but everything about her
afterward seemed so vulnerable and open. I wanted to kiss her more than I
wanted to take my next breath, but that would be taking advantage of her and
she was still so confused and scared.

"You remember, a few weeks later, that morning we woke
up in your bed?" I asked.

She went stiff and squeezed my hands briefly before nodding.
"I fell asleep during the movie."

"Yeah, but not really," I replied. When she didn't
respond, I reached out and swept a piece of her hair behind her ears, the same
piece that always fell in front of her eyes. "We had talked about an
assignment in school, your father came up in our conversation and you shut
down. I wasn't sure what to do so I just started a movie thinking it would get
your mind off of things.

"When I realized you weren't watching the movie, I
started to ask if you were okay. You just sat there and stared at me with this
look on your face… I didn't know what to say or do. Your eyes looked so dark
and angry and I got nervous. I thought maybe you were mad at me for not leaving
or that I had said something I shouldn't have. I kept asking you questions, but
you never answered me. You were just so cold and withdrawn."

I felt a shudder run through me picturing her face that
night. She had looked like a completely different person. Not my Tess.

"Camryn," she whispered.

"Who?"

"Camryn," she said a little louder. "One of
the alters."

She hadn't explained much to me herself, but I knew what she
was talking about. "You still haven't told me anything about them,
yet."

"I know. I'm sorry. I will, Charlie, but please finish
telling me what happened? I need to know."

She was terrified, but I knew she wouldn't let it go. I
kissed her hands again and heard the catch in her breath as I entwined our
fingers and held her gaze.

"Out of nowhere, you started screaming at me, telling
me I didn't know you and that I could never make anything better for you. At
first, I thought you remembered me telling you how I felt and you were upset
that I hadn't said anything more. Then you said something about staying away
from you and that you wouldn't let me ruin you, that you wouldn't let me hurt
you, like he did."

From what she had told me when we were kids, her father was
a mean bastard. He was a drunk and an absolute asshole. From what Sarah had
told me, he always spoke to Tess like she was nothing and that she would never
become anything. She told me that the first time she saw a bruise on her arm,
she kicked him out of the house and never saw him again.

He had never touched her sexually, but he had done enough to
make her miserable for a long time. I remembered how reserved she had been when
we first became friends. She was jumpy and constantly apologizing for the most
ridiculous things. It took a few years for her to realize that, with me, she
could just be herself.

"I tried to calm you down, but you were hysterical and
then you punched me in the eye. Hard. I saw stars for a few seconds before you
came at me again."

"Oh my God!" she covered her mouth with her hand
and started crying again.

"No, Tess. Please don't cry. It wasn't
you.
"
I held her face between my hands again and pleaded with her.

"How could I do that to you? It was still my body, my
mind. How could I do that to someone I loved?" she sobbed.

I pulled her to me and she pressed her face into my chest
and fisted the front of my shirt. It was the first time since the day she
couldn't remember that she admitted, out loud, she once had feelings for me.
The feeling was indescribable

I couldn't go any deeper with her and still have a chance of
coming out alive, not unless she was there with me.

"Finish, Charlie," she sobbed into my chest. My
shirt was wet with her tears, but I held her firmly against me.

"Okay." I took a breath and tried to remember ever
detail about that night. "I got my arms around you, just like this, and
held on to you for what seemed like hours before you calmed down. You never
cried, but you finally started breathing normally and all the muscles in your
body shifted. Next thing I knew, you were asleep in my arms. I couldn't leave
you after that. Your mom was helping Trevor move in to his apartment at
college, so she wasn't coming back that night."