“Sister, shoulder, daughter, lover, healer, broken halo, mother nature, fire, suit of armor, sole survivor, holy water, secret keeper, fortune teller, Virgin Mary, scarlet letter, Technicolor, river wild, baby girl, woman, child, female…”


Charlotte did eventually make it back to bed that night. It took awhile though to get through her list of friends to fill them in on their good news and fortune. But by the time she made it back to bed, Darcy had put his underwear back on. He looked over at her and smiled when he saw her in his t-shirt, which he’d discarded in the living room. He had been on his phone, texting someone by the looks of it, but he set his phone on the nightstand before rolling over onto his side to cuddle.

And when she turned over and reached her arm out, trying to grab onto Darcy, she felt nothing but the sheets. Her eyes shot open and then immediately closed again as the sun shone in from the window and right into her eyes. That was another perk of being in a relationship. She always slept better when she was sharing the bed with someone, which was the opposite of what she would’ve thought. Sharing a bed meant less room for her to sprawl out recklessly, but there was something about the heaviness of someone’s body against her that helped her sleep a little bit better.

She lifted her head and looked at the clock on the nightstand. It was just past seven. Charlotte figured Darcy had gotten up sometime around five to go for a morning run. And judging by his voice in the other room, he was already back and starting the rest of his day. Charlotte turned over and got out of bed, looking around aimlessly for her underwear from the night before. When she couldn't find it, she gave up her search and just continued out to find Darcy.

He was in the kitchen, sitting at the small table with his back towards Charlotte. He was staring out the window, lifting his cup of coffee up to his lips every so often in between comments on the phone. She stood behind him as quietly as possible, just to eavesdrop on his conversation.

“Nothing, just hanging around…” Darcy picked up his cup and took a long sip. “No plans yet. What’re you up to?” He leaned forward to set his elbow on the table and then rested his head against his hand.

No part of Charlotte should've been nervous about this conversation. It wasn’t logical at all to be nervous about it. But just a few months ago, he had been texting her what're you up to. And for all Darcy knew, Charlotte was still sleeping. She normally wasn’t up before eight unless she had to be out of the house for work. She could’ve gone up behind him to let him know that she was up, but now she was intrigued to eavesdrop more.

“I miss you a lot, too… yeah…” he laughed and took another sip of coffee, “I know, I know… I’ll see you soon… I love you too… alright, bye.”

As soon as he hung up the phone, Charlotte walked into the kitchen and went immediately for the pot of coffee he’d made. She poured herself a cup just so she wouldn't have to face Darcy just yet. “Who was that?” As soon as the words came out of her mouth, she knew she sounded a little bit sassy for this early in the morning. But who would he be talking to this early in the morning if he wasn’t trying to hide it?

“What?” He giggled, pushing back from the table to get up.

Charlotte stayed turned away from him, and immediately felt him come up behind her. He wrapped his arms around her waist and pressed his lips against her neck. She tilted her head to the side towards him to nudge his lips off of her. “You throw ‘what’re you up to’ and ‘I love you’ around pretty easily,”

“Charlotte,” he said as he put his coffee cup down on the counter. “Is it so hard to believe that I really do love you?” He tilted his head to the side to be able to look her in the eye, “Huh?”

She picked up her own cup of coffee and held it between them, “well you almost proposed to a girl, so I don’t know if that’s just something you throw around.”

“Someone’s fuckin’ sassy this morning,” he fished his phone out of the pocket of his sweatpants and held it up to her. “Go on, look through it,”

She pushed away from him and took a sip of her coffee, sitting at the table. “I’m not gonna go through your phone,” she crossed her arms over her chest and looked up at him.

He let out a sharp chuckle and tossed it on the table in front of her. “It was my mom,”

When he turned and left the kitchen, Charlotte put her head in her hands. He wasn’t lying. She knew that. He left his phone in front of her, knowing she knew the lock code, practically inviting her to search through it. And she knew what she would find; that his most recent phone call was his mom. Charlotte knew she was in the wrong, and once again like with the drawer incident, she knew this was just one more thing that came from the fear she held within her.

She got up from the table and walked through the living room, not seeing Darcy, and pushed open her bedroom door. Darcy was pushing his things into his overnight bag, and Charlotte walked up to him, reaching for his wrist to stop him. He took a deep breath in and let it out quietly as he stopped putting his things away and paused to look down at her.

“I love you, Charlotte. I don’t know what I have to do for you to actually believe that.” He looked absolutely crushed that she would ever assume he’d be talking to another girl. “Yeah, I almost proposed to a girl. I loved that girl, Char, and she broke my heart. So I know what love is, and I know how it feels, and I know that I love you, but I don’t know how to make you believe me. I don’t know what to do. Tell me what I should do.”

Charlotte looked down at her feet like she was a child being reprimanded by a parent. She didn’t know either. Last night when he first told her that he loved her, she really believed him. She really believed that he loved her. And she still believed that. “I don’t know, I just…” She sat on the edge of the bed and peeked up at Darcy to find his eyes locked on her. “It’s in my nature to believe there’s someone better than me for you, for my career, for everything.” As he began to move, she paused to wait for him. He knelt in front of her, putting his hands on the bed on either side of her. Again, Charlotte looked down at her lap. “No guy’s ever told me he’s loved me before. And I do believe you, Darcy, but I’m scared.”

Darcy set his forehead down on Charlotte’s knee and sighed. Then he lifted his head back up and looked at her, “I don’t mind that you’re scared. That’s totally reasonable. But you can’t keep lashing out out of fear. That's not conducive to our relationship… to any relationship. I need you to be able to talk to me, and to tell me what makes you scared, or nervous, or whatever, so that I can figure out a way to help you, and help us.” He put his hands over her thighs and squeezed gently. “Charlotte, you’re an amazing woman. I need you to believe that as much as I do.”

She glanced down at his hands and gritted her teeth, “can I tell you a story?”

“Yeah,” he nodded, not moving a muscle. He probably thought if he did, she’d end up shying away.

She furrowed her eyebrows together and pursed her lips, “In 1997, I was four, and…” she swallowed and changed her focus to her own hands. “I was just eating my cereal… Cinnamon Toast Crunch… trying to mind my own business. My mom and dad were screaming at each other in the other room, and I remember thinking, Charlotte you better just stay quiet. Listen to what mom told you, be like a mouse. They came barreling in from the other room, my mom’s hair just…” Charlotte paused and shook her head softly, “absolutely destroyed liked he’d just grabbed her by the head and shook her around. And she was screaming and crying, and my dad had a bag over his shoulder and was screaming back at her, so I started yelling and crying… And my dad turned to me, and there was so much rage and hatred in his glare… He pointed at me and at the top of his lungs yelled, ‘you shut the fuck up’!.” She could feel Darcy’s eyes locked on her, absorbing every word. She sniffled and wiped her fingertips beneath her eye to swipe away a tear, “that’s the only memory I have of my father. And I shut the fuck up for the next twenty years,” Charlotte looked back at her fingers and dried away the tear she’d caught on them. As that memory caught up with her, she couldn’t keep the other tears back, “who tells a four year old to shut the fuck up?”

Darcy wrapped his arms around her tightly, and cradled her head against the base of his neck. She reciprocated his hug and cried a little bit harder, knowing he couldn’t see her face. She’d been holding onto that for twenty years. At some point, she figured her dad had told her mom that he loved her. And as he said that, he also said all those horrible things to his wife and daughter. And if that was what love was, then Charlotte was terrified what was to come for her and Darcy. He set his cheek down on her temple and began rubbing her back, which only served to make her cry harder. There wasn’t a part of him that liked this one bit. Darcy had never seen Charlotte cry, and now that he was, he hated it. He hated that someone so unworthy of her had shackled her to a shitty memory. He hated that someone who couldn’t care less about her still had power over her.

Darcy leaned forward until Charlotte was laying back on the bed, and he was on top of her, using his weight and embrace to try and lull her into a calmer state of safety. She sniffled as he kissed her temple and began scratching his fingers against her head. He could feel her breathing becoming less and less ragged, and she took deeper breaths in an attempt to steady herself. Darcy backed away just slightly to look down and see if she was okay.

To which, Charlotte covered her face with her hands and sniffled again, “no don’t look at me.”

He took her wrists in his hands and gently pulled them away from her face. He managed to place them above her head and held both of them with one of his hands, bringing his free hand down to her face. Darcy wiped his thumb beneath her eyes softly, “why? You’re beautiful,” he whispered and pecked her lips softly.

She looked up at him and sniffled again, shaking her head. He giggled and nodded, reassuring her that she was indeed beautiful. “I’m sorry,” he whispered again, releasing her wrists. He put his hands on either side of her face and brushed his thumbs over her cheeks.

“For what?” Charlotte whispered back and brought her hands up to Darcy’s wrists, grabbing hold of them gently.

He smiled weakly and bent down to kiss her lips a little bit longer this time. “That you had to carry that for all these years… That I got worked up with you and…”

“That was you worked up?” Charlotte interrupted with a small smile of her own now.

“Well yeah… I…” He smiled wider now, realizing that with what he knew about the boys in Charlotte’s life (Travis, her dad, and the other guys), what he called “worked up” was really just mild frustration. “I don’t like it when people talk to you like that. At any age. I hated it when Travis talked to you that way… Point is, that’s not love, and I hope you really know that.” He paused and nudged her hair away from her face, “Love is… respectful,” he pressed his lips to hers quickly. “Unselfish,” he kissed her again, lingering a bit longer than the previous one. “Unconditional,” he kissed her once more, this time staying put.

Darcy parted his lips, thankful for the quick reciprocation on Charlotte’s end. He pressed his tongue into her mouth to meet hers. Gone were the days of frequent make out sessions. Those stopped being a thing somewhere around twenty and got replaced with things a little more graphic. But when you could work in a make out session with gentle to mild touching, it felt like the best thing ever. Especially after an emotional breakthrough. If they could spend even just fifteen minutes like that, it might’ve even been better than sex. Well, probably not, but it’d be pretty damn good.

Charlotte bent her legs and planted her feet into the mattress, cradling Darcy’s hips between them as he rested his weight on her. Their breathing intensified and she reached for the hem of Darcy’s shirt, tucking her fingers beneath it, feeling only his hot skin and the ridges of muscle beneath. As much as Darcy’s mind was focused on the making out part, Charlotte’s mind wandered elsewhere, albeit still thinking about an aspect of youth that had gone by. Darcy rocked his body against her, pushing his hips forward into hers. He braced himself on his forearms for a different angle and as they kissed, he rubbed his growing erection against her. In an earlier time, this probably would’ve ended with sloppy handwork on both of their ends. Now, this sort of action almost always ended in sex.

She thought that was where it was going to lead today, and in all honesty, she wouldn’t have blamed Darcy. She had kind of put him through the wringer today, after having had such a fantastic time the night before. It wasn’t fair, and if Darcy wanted sex at the end of it, she would have more than willingly obliged. But to every ounce of her surprise, when they ended the make out session panting and with his shaft pressing uncomfortably against his pants, Darcy kissed her once more, told her that he loved her, and went into the bathroom.

Charlotte turned over onto her side and rested her head against her fist as she stared at the closed bathroom door. Only a couple seconds later she heard Darcy from within the bathroom. She knew exactly what he was doing, regardless of how hard he tried to quiet his groans. And she wondered why when having a woman beneath him, he chose to finish himself off in the bathroom. But it didn’t take long for her to guess the answer. He didn’t want to exploit her vulnerability in order to achieve a primal high. Or at least he didn’t want her to think he was exploiting her vulnerability. And she loved him a little bit more for that even if that would never have been her first assumption.

Notes

"Female" by Keith Urban.

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