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Chapter 29

Tyler Emery

Charlie sat at her desk, typing on her computer. She was using her Braille keyboard and had her earbuds in so that the computer could repeat what she was typing back to her. I sat on her bed, my arms crossed angrily across my chest, and watched her through hooded eyes.

I'd been in a foul mood for two days, ever since she let the talking garment back into our lives. After his lame and substandard apology, he stayed at the studio for the rest of the time we were there, telling Charlie about how he kept trying to contact her, and even considered coming to her house, but couldn't handle it if she rejected him to his face. I screamed at him, hollering that if he hated rejection so badly, maybe he shouldn't force himself on defenseless girls. Stella had flinched at my outburst and asked Charlie to kindly keep her guests in happy spirits. I was surprised when Ric didn't mention that Charlotte had only one guest and he was incredibly happy, but Ric didn't even seem to hear the owner of the art studio. His eyes were only for Charlie, never even bothering to look at her sculpture or notice that one strand of her hair was being tugged while all the rest stayed still. It infuriated me and made focusing my energy easier and less draining.

 "I know you're angry with me," Charlotte said suddenly, her fingers now motionless and one earbud on her desk, as if we were about to have an actual conversation. As if I was still a person and we could have conversations in the daylight.

I ignored her, looking down at my hands and inspecting my nails that hadn't grown in two weeks. I warned her. I begged and pleaded with her to let me fight this battle and for her to keep away from this creep that obviously didn't have her best interests at heart. But no, as soon as he brought her second-rate cupcakes and a speech written by a third grader, she became as moldable as the clay she was sculpting with.

Of course I was angry with her. I wasblistering. I felt like a fried egg in a pan, bubbling and spitting as Icooked. She knew that he didn't love her for the right reasons, that he spentmore time watching her lips than actually listening to her. I felt like I hadwasted my time trying to warn her, that I had wasted my time pushing him off ofher and saving her that night.     

I wanted to scream at her that this whole situation wasn't okay, and it wasn't something that could be fixed by the 'Legrand family's secret recipe' for cupcakes either. I was the one who watched her wake up screaming from nightmares, with the blanket clenched between her teeth to muffle the noise. I was the one who watched her make excuses to her parents as to why she left his house early, all while her hands shook like dying leaves and her face was pale as a corpse. I thought that I would be able to stop her from going through that pain again, that I could keep her happy and safe away from this one thing. But Charlie was working against me, working to keep this 'friendship.'

I stood up from her bed and walked to her window, where the last traces of the sun were fading from the sky. Across the way at the next house over, Ric sat at his desk, leaning back and utterly relaxed. In the silence of the O'Brien house, I thought I could hear Ric's music distantly, full of drums, shredding guitars, and screeching voices. He sat at our lunch table the past two days, happy as a clam to be back in her good graces, and they discussed whether the fourth of July was the United States of America's birthday or if its actual birthday was when the Constitution was ratified, ten years after we won the war. I promptly ignored them, choosing to focus on the carrot sticks Charlie had placed in front of me, trying to push them a specific distance before my energy fizzled out. When he came to Charlotte's first period this morning to drop off a thermos of hot chocolate and a hug, I took the same approach, ignoring Ric's shameless flirting and Charlotte's off-hand remarks as I focused on pushing an older gum wrapper for as long as I could hold the energy. The furthest I got was about two feet.