The Space Between Us (38 page)
“I want you to know—” he said in the driveway, standing next to my car as we both shivered in the frigid, late December air.
I lifted my chin and put my hand over his mouth to cut off his words. I didn’t want to hear him say he loved me, not when I was walking away and he didn’t really want to stop me. I stood on my tiptoes and kissed him. Charlie kissed me back.
I stepped away. “Things end, Charlie. It happens. Maybe…maybe she’ll get over it and come back to you.”
He pulled me close and kissed me, long and lingering, taking his time, but I didn’t let myself get lost in it. The kiss broke the way we had, suddenly but not surprisingly. He leaned in, maybe meaning to kiss me again, but again I stepped back.
“Do you have to go?” he asked.
“If you really wanted me to say no,” I told him, in a voice only half as bitter as the wind, “you’d have stopped me from taking all this shit out to my car.”
He didn’t smile.
“Everyone has a story,” I murmured, opening my car door and climbing inside. “This is how this one ends.”
Chapter 44
S
tories end, but life doesn’t. Not just because you lose the person you love. Life keeps going. You might cry yourself to sleep every night and wake up in the morning still weeping, but life moves forward in seconds that turn to minutes, minutes to hours, hours to days.
Three weeks after I left Charlie standing in his driveway, I moved into my own apartment. It was within walking distance to the Mocha, a third-floor walk-up in one of the brownstones lining Second Street. It had a minuscule kitchen, a claw-foot tub in the bathroom, two bedrooms just big enough for double beds, and an enormous living room with window seats and built-in bookcases I quickly filled with all the books I’d been stashing in boxes for years at Vic’s house.
I’d heard nothing from Meredith, though I’d left her a couple messages telling her I just wanted to talk. I wasn’t surprised and could barely be hurt. After all, Carlos had said it—I’d already told her all the stories. There was nothing left to say.
Charlie, on the other hand, called me every day. We never spoke for long. Tentative conversations about work and the weather, carefully avoiding anything that might smack of seriousness. It was nothing like it had been, but I don’t think either of us expected it to be.
It took me another week after moving in to unpack everything else. I opened one of the boxes Meredith had sealed up for me. I was looking for an old pair of boots, but what I found was a set of gold-rimmed dishes with roses on them. She’d taken the time to pack them carefully, at least, even if she hadn’t labeled the box, and I lifted out one of the dinner plates and held it in my hands, feeling how fragile it was, how breakable if I wasn’t careful to keep it safe.
There were other dishes in other boxes. The gravy boat, tucked up tight with bubble wrap. She’d given me the entire set of wedding china.
Someone should use it, she’d said.
They looked just right on the dining room table I’d taken out of storage, the one that had been my mother’s before she went to California and left everything behind. I used her linens, too, a lovely old lace tablecloth that had belonged to my grandmother. I set two places. Dinner plate, bread plate, knife, fork, spoon, glass.
I invited Charlie to dinner.
He brought me flowers.
In four weeks, he’d changed. His hair looked mussed, as though he hadn’t been bothered to cut or comb it. The faint lines at the corners of his eyes had grown deeper, and ones at the corners of his mouth, too.
He still looked beautiful to me.
We made small talk so strained it hurt my heart. I urged him to sit, and took the spot across from him to serve up the simple pasta dish I’d made. I wasn’t hungry, but I forced myself to take a bite.
“She wants to come back,” Charlie said, without even picking up his fork.
I put mine down. “I’m sure she does.”
“I said no,” he told me.
Then he reached across the space between us and took my hand. His fingers squeezed. He kissed my knuckles.
“I love you, Tesla,” Charlie said. “And I know I can’t expect things to be the way they were before. But I really hope that maybe we can just start over and give this…us…another chance. Because even though we got started wrong, I’d like to try to finish it right.”
What, I was going to turn that down? Hell, no. Laughing, I leaned across the table to kiss him, not caring if I dipped my shirt in pasta sauce or squashed my garlic bread.
“All anyone can ever do is try,” I said.
Everyone has a story.
This is how this one begins.
* * * * *
Acknowledgments
S
pecial acknowledgment to Vicki Vantoch, author of
The Threesome Handbook: A Practical Guide to SLEEPING WITH THREE
, which I found as an invaluable resource while writing
The Space Between Us.
As always, I could write without listening to music, but I’m so glad I don’t have to. Below is a partial playlist of what I listened to while writing this book. Please support the artists through legal means.
Can’t Get it Right Today—Joe Purdy
Closer—Joshua Radin
Come Here Boy—Imogene Heap
Early Winter—Gwen Stefani
Ghosts—Christopher Dallman
Glory Box—Portishead
I Think She Knows—Kaki King
Is Your Love Strong Enough—Bryan Ferry
Journey—Jason Manns
Look After You—The Fray
Nicest Thing—Kate Nash
No Ordinary Love—Sade
Reach You—Justin King
She’s Got A Way—Billy Joel
Stiff Kittens—Blaqk Audio
Use Somebody—Kings of Leon
Your Song—Jason Manns
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ISBN: 9781459241183
Copyright © 2012 by Megan Hart
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
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