Charlotte's Story

Life Update

Renee's POV:

Ryder in the present was more challenging to think through than the past Ryder that I knew. Now the man standing in front of me, I don't know how to feel about.

If I dare to allow myself to dream once again...

He walks out of the study; I hear the back door shut; he left without answering my question.

My feet follow without thinking...

January 1, 2011
Title: New Years Resolutions Suck
Writer: Charlotte

What is with New Years Resolution lists?
Does anyone really stick to them?
I feel like it is a list to show all of my faults from the year before, so I will not participate in them.

However, I do enjoy waking up on the first day of the year with a gift sitting on my bed. I was scared at first to open it; I looked, hoping it was from my parents. I had received a call on Christmas day, my dad wished me a Merry Christmas. My mother did not take the phone when he had asked her to. Other than that, I had received zilch, not even a Christmas card. I sent one to them; it had a dog on the front with a red Christmas hat on; my mother hates dogs, I guess I found it comical. She would not.

I opened the box, noticing the wrapping was off skew. "For all the typing you do - Ryder" Sitting under parchment paper was a brand new laptop.

So today, this post is all because of him. Did I mention I dropped my laptop, shattering the screen last week? Oops...

- Charlotte

I ran out of the room. Ryder was sitting there yet again with a friend of his. "Hey," he nods at me, his eyes following to the box in my hand.

"Don't hey me," I was fuming. His friend with black hair looks at me and then at him. "What is this?" I lift the box up.

"A Christmas gift?" He looks at his remote, un-pausing the video game.

"I cannot accept this," I say, feeling guilty, knowing I so wanted to accept it. If I didn't, I would be at the computer lab without a laptop at all hours of the day. Since I was not about to call my parents and gravel to them, asking for a computer.

"Don't be such a girl." His friend looks back up at me after he pauses the game, then looks down at his phone; he stands and picks up, saying hello; even though his phone had not gone off, he steps out to the hallway. "I kept your gift that you left on my bed." I had sat my gift in his room last night.

"Mine was a gag gift and a t-shirt." I had bought him a do not disturb sign for his door handle and a nice black polo; I thought picking a color other than black would be pushing the limits; we would take baby steps, to begin with.

"So?"

"So... My gift to you was not an expensive laptop."

"Can you just say thank you, and we be done with this?"

"No." He stood. "Where are you going?" I asked to his retreating back.

"I'm going to go get you an etiquette book so you can learn how to act when someone buys you a gift" he walks out of the apartment, leaving me gaping at him with my present in my hands.

He returns after midnight, his keys jingling outside; it took him three times to get the key to fit; he pushes the door open, it flies against the wall. By his third step, it was easy to tell he was wasted. He spots me sitting on his recliner, reading a book with the lamp on. I had told myself I would go to bed, but I wasn't done with him yet.