The summer I met Charlie

part 11

The next few days were amazing. I would wake up and leave the house to race to my beach, which I now shared with a special person. Charlie. We would relax and talk for about an hour before I would leave and start the run back home. Mom and dad would leave and then Olive would wake up, I make her breakfast and then the two of us would meet up with Charlie at the beach. She loved him and he seemed to love being with her. He would take her swimming and jumped up at the opportunity to build castles with her in the sand. I was starting to feel the job was getting easier.

Mom invited him to dinner and I felt worried that he might be freaked out at the end of the night so I had to help her. We made Mexican. It was Friday Night, and he was getting here at seven. The clock shown 6:30. I was freaking out, as much as I knew that my parents would like him, I mean mom had shown that most definitely when he had picked me up for our first date. It seemed so long ago. The beginning of summer felt like months ago. And in reality I only had one month left. Before school started, and Charlie would leave. He had only come this summer for his sister, he still had a life outside of this. I was pacing back and forth on my carpeted bedroom floor. I stopped to look in my mirror, mom had done Olive's and my hair. Olive's with ribbons and braids. Mine on the other hand was a pain. Thick and a mess. Definitely hard to work with, but mom had managed to twist it and make it into this pretty up-do. Looking at it now in the mirror I wondered what would happen. After this summer. Would Charlie disappear as quietly as he had appeared? Or would I not be able to do it. 

I turned and jumped up on my bed. I was still only a kid. I would be fine. But I had to start letting go. It was the only way. Other wise it would be a bigger problem when he did end up leaving. One month, that is all I have. One month before he leaves, before Carla and I have to go back to being Juniors. One month, and Olive will be gone. It didn't seem right. I was beginning to actually enjoy myself. I had always loved Olive, but now she seemed like she was my sister, my responsibility. And it didn't help that one of the reasons for it was because Charlie was so good with her. 

I closed my eyes and heard a "ring". He was here. 

I waited, I don't know what it was exactly but I didn't want to be the one to great him at the door, I wanted it to be my dad or mom. In the last ten minutes I had managed to get in a pretty bad mood about the situation that he was leaving and everything was coming to an end. The feeling that most people have the last few days of summer, but I was starting to catch way to in advance. 

I started to descend the stairs and could hear them talking in the kitchen. The smell of the Mexican food was incredible. It was like some powerful blast of spices and peppers. It almost hurt my noise as I walked into the living room. And there he was. Nope. It was official, I would not be able to get over him. It was that simple. He made me hold my breath every time I saw him. I could see out the window behind him, and his motorcycle was parked in the drive way. How could I have not heard it?

He looked up from the painting that my dad was showing him as they sat on the couch. He smiled and looked at me for longer then normal, before looking back down at the details that dad was pointing out. Something about how the piece was suppose to show this complected idea. Needless to say, I never got art. Even if it was my dads. I thought they were pretty, but when getting technical I didn't care for it that much. I felt bad for Charlie, sitting there and having to listen to my dad carry on and on about this and that. Until he said "I should bring some of my stuff. I'm more into portraits myself but I would love to get your advice on them. Iv'e only been working on them since I got here. No one has seen them."

"I would love too!" You got to be kidding me, was all I could think. He was into paiting? This had never come up in our conversations. How was that possible, and he had never showed me. Had I ever asked? I was starting to feel guilty that I hadn't given him enough time to talk about himself. But whenever we did start to talk about what we liked to do, and the life we had outside of summer, he was always asking me. 

I couldn't help staring at him. He had just introduced this new idea that he was some secretive art guy and I had no idea about it before. Just then Olive ran in from the kitchen and jumped up on his lap. He hugged her and then mom came in with glaces of water. "Lena, can you help me in the kitchen, I think I might have done something..."

"Sure mom." 

Sure enough, in the time that I had gone upstairs, she had managed to burn some of the meat. I took it off the stove and put it on a plate for dad. He had heard this crazy idea that if you burn your food ever so slightly it will be better for your body? For his "hypothesis" it was still too burnt, but he would just have to deal with that. We didn't have enough for every one else.

I brought in some cheese and bread and set it down on the coffee table in front of the couch, and took a piece.

I couldn't help but stare at him, until mom gave me a bit of a push. I guess she had caught me in the act. A crime that was a little more then embarrassing in my opinion. 

Dinner seemed to drag on. I should have been really happy that my parents loved him so much, but was it weird that I was almost jealous that he seemed to have more in common with them then with me? I mean that is what it actually felt like. By the end of dinner, I heard many new artists names I had never heard of before. Dad had invited him up stairs to the mayhem of his art room. Charlie seemed bewildered by all the paintings stacked and hanging around the room. I guess I had lost some of the respect I had for my dad's art. It was something that he had always done, but now I could really see how much he was missing his studio. This was so much smaller then what his gallery had been. No space to really work. He had always been painting on canvases that were about the size of walls. Selling them to wealthy families or businesses. But I could still not hide my disappointment from my face because when I was walking Charlie out, he turned and said " I wish we could have talked more." 

"Eh It's ok." He adjusted his helmet on his head. And leaned his bike. 

"I'm going to be leaving town for a few days tommorow. Have some things I have to do." I felt like someone had punched me. That feeling where you loose all your breath. Something I was not used to feeling. What I had always guessed to be made up, like out of movies. But my chest was screaming a different feeling. 

"Oh... I mean... I just..." He took off his helmet and leaned in to me. Our faces only inches apart. He moved in and pressed his lips to mine, the warmness of them gave me shivers. The good kind. 

I hugged him and told him I would see him off at our beach. He climbed on his bike and waved as he drove off again into the night.