Charlie's Angel

28

Charlie

Lauren was dying.

Chris didn't know; his mother didn't have the chance to tell him before he stormed off.

We both stared at the front door for a few minutes, neither of us being able to accept that Chris just up and left. He didn't say where he was doing or what he was gonna do.

I felt awkward. I didn't know his mother or his sister, and yet here I was sitting on a couch with both of them looking at me. His mother was on the opposite couch crying and occasionally wiping her eyes with a tissue, and his sister was sitting in her wheelchair.

She was... smiling at me.

When I realized that Chris did in fact leave and he wasn't coming back, I trailed my eyes back to my hands and cleared my throat. His mother sighed and I felt her burning holes in my skin with her eyes. "Angel, will you come sit with me?"

I looked up and blinked, taking a second to figure out that she was talking to me. I nodded wordlessly and got up to travel and sit beside her. She immediately took my hands into her own and I tensed. But it lasted all of two seconds; her hands were so warm and soft, trembling and moist from her tears.

"You'll have to excuse Chris, he's taking this harder than I expected." She forced a gentle laugh and her face fell. I didn't know what to do or say because I didn't know these women. But here I was holding hands with his mother. I felt oddly warm inside. "I'm Joyce and that's his sister Lauren."

My eyes drifted to the beautiful lady in her wheelchair, still smiling at me.

"I'm, um, Charlie," I murmured, finally able to meet her eyes. Her and Chris were like twins. The same pale skin, same exact dimples and the same lines in their forehead. The only difference was that she didn't have freckles and her eyes were green. A forest green.

She beamed at me, "Oh! You're Charlie?" She giggled and squeezed my hands. I returned the smile shyly, not sure if this was a good thing or not. "You're the one with the little girl and the crazy husband, right?"

Wait, what? How much of my life had Chris told them? Was nothing safe anymore?

"Yes ma'am," I smiled. Detaching my hand, I unlocked my phone so she could see a picture of Paris. "Her name is Paris and she's three. And my husband... well, things aren't working out for us."

"Oh she's beautiful, angel," she murmured softly. "And honey don't worry about your husband. You don't know how many times I've wanted to smack mine silly."

She laughed at that and I faked one just for her; she didn't know what she was saying.

"So how old is Lauren?" I wanted to change the subject; I don't like discussing my personal life.

She glanced over at her daughter briefly, "She's twenty-seven. She'll be twenty-eight in two months."

April. "Oh yeah? When? Paris is turning four on the eighth."

"The ninth," she responded a little sadly. I could literally feel her heart drop from her chest. "She won't make it much longer."

Whoa, "What? What do you mean?"

She sighed, wiped her eyes, then resumed our earlier position, "Her officers say she won't live."

My blood pressure rose as those words rolled off her tongue, "They don't know that! She could prove them all–"