“REECE!” Garrett watched them from the field, his arms crossed over his chest. He didn’t look impressed by their tête-à-tête. “We need you, bro!”
At the sound of her owner’s voice, Misty leapt to her feet and bounded across the field. Garrett leaned down and ruffled her fur, his hostility dissolving. Asshole or not, the dude loved his dog.
“Oops. Busted.” Reece gave her a guilty smile.
Charlotte’s heart sputtered and lurched—he was hitting on her. Intentionally. Otherwise what would he have to feel guilty about?
“Good luck with the Post-it crisis.”
“Thanks,” she said as he hopped to his feet. “And thank you for the pup talk.”
Damn, his smile.
“Anytime.” Then he bounded off toward his friends, the back of his shorts grass-stained. “I’m coming,” he yelled at Garrett, who rolled his eyes and chucked the Frisbee in his direction.
Charlotte laughed as Reece missed the catch, and he turned to give her another clumsy bow before darting after it.
There was a snort to her right. Charlotte turned to find Jackie watching her with a blatant I told you so face.
“You’re a goner.”
Charlotte leveled her with a death glare. It did nothing to cancel out her blush. “I knew you weren’t asleep.”
Chapter 4
@RogerLudermore, 6:00 PM: I am honored to return to my alma mater and give the commencement address at #HeinRandC2018 this weekend. Go Falcons!
Charlotte had not purchased a ticket to the Class of 2013 Reunion Banquet because she kept a close eye on her budget. Jackie chose not to attend due to the myriad of disappointing ways Hein’s administration would spend her money.
“The school does not need another lacrosse field,” Jackie pouted as she fished out her credit card at the dining hall.
Instead of attending the banquet, they convinced most of the members of the Dead, Divorced, and Otherwise Disappointing Parents unofficial peer support group to join them at the undergraduate cafeteria, Cauldwell Hall.
This was a masterful change of plans, in Charlotte’s opinion. She made her favorite sandwich at the buffet: a BLT on rye grilled almost to a burn in a panini press. Then she loaded up her plate with fresh-baked potato chips and resolved to come back for an ice cream with Oreo crumbs. The all-you-can-eat plate was ten dollars for non-students and she intended to get her money’s worth.
There might be Tupperware containers in Jackie’s tote bag to smuggle leftovers back to the dorm. Charlotte was not at liberty to confirm this rumor.
The 3Ds took over a long table at the back of the dining hall. Charlotte dropped off her plate before doubling back for napkins and a soda. The cafeteria still used the same mud brown plastic cups designed not to break no matter how hard they were dropped—or thrown—by students. Strong nostalgia vibes.
She caught Jackie stealing one of her chips when she returned to the table. “I saw that.”
“I got these to share,” her best friend bartered, pushing forward a plate of fries.
“Is Reece joining us?” Nina asked as she stirred her spaghetti. Another rule of the 3Ds: If they were meeting over a meal, only comfort food was allowed. No kombucha or kale, period.
Jackie squirted an appalling amount of mustard onto her hamburger. “Nah, he’s hosting the class dinner. He said he’d come through for dessert.”
Amy, Jio, and Matt filled out the rest of the table, laden with plates of pizza. The six of them fell into an old pattern: Amy sat on Charlotte’s other side, with Nina across from Amy. Matt settled in next to Nina, flanked by Jio, who was in prime position to eat Jackie’s fries.
The 3Ds dated back to freshman year. The support group was born on the living room floor at Acronym after a disco when Matt, Charlotte, Nina, and Jio traded messy coming-out stories. It felt so good to talk shit and commiserate that the foursome ended most of their nights together, even after Nina and Charlotte broke up. As a teenager, Charlotte dreamed of conversations like this: honest and relatable and camp as hell. A strange sense of humor bloomed inside her as she basked in the safety of people who understood her.
Charlotte still listened more than she spoke, emotionally repressed and armed with a limited vocabulary for her feelings. But it helped just to learn that no family was a Norman Rockwell painting, no matter how perfect and peaceful it appeared on the surface. That was doubly true for queer millennials, whose boomer parents fell on a spectrum from tactless to cruel. Charlotte could hear her anger with her mother’s homophobia in Matt’s unsteady voice. She recognized her insecurity from her father’s neglect in Jio’s defensive humor.
When Jackie’s dad had a relapse near the end of freshman year, Charlotte invited her into the fold. Then in the fall, Nina brought her roommate along after her mother passed away. The group’s purview expanded to include Amy’s grief, and eventually Reece’s.
Jackie formalized the loose bitching circle into a real group after doing a psych project on peer-support therapy. The rules were simple: Don’t be embarrassed, and don’t be a dick to other members. For the most part that was all they needed. Others joined over time as word spread, but there were rarely more than six people at a meeting. They were a self-selecting bunch, most of them LGBTQIA+ and inclined to share their feelings.
The Dead, Divorced, and Otherwise Disappointing Parents support group taught Charlotte many lessons. First, it was not okay for her father to skip town when it became clear that baby Charlotte would not save her parents’ marriage. Second, Charlotte was not a show dog for her mother to groom and correct and compare with other daughters at her country club. Third, abuse took many forms, from violence to control to neglect.
The support group was the closest thing Charlotte knew to acceptance. Her friends helped her see that there was nothing weak about her grief, her resentment, or her fear.
When she started dating Ben in junior year, she hoped he would join the 3Ds too. On the night they met, they stayed up until sunrise talking about their conservative families and stifling hometowns. Charlotte had expected him to be an aloof player, but Ben asked thoughtful questions about her childhood in Maryland and listened intently to her answers. He understood the Thorne family dynamics with intuitive grace, and he didn’t need her to explain why she did everything she could to avoid going home between semesters. He kissed her bare shoulder and called her strong, and she felt that word all over her body.
Anytime she worried she had shared too much, Ben offered a parallel confession of his own. His parents were still together, but he wished they would separate for his mother’s sake. Ben inspected a paint stain on Charlotte’s palm as he mentioned his father’s temper. She curled her fingers around his thumb, hurting for this boy and the weight he carried alone.
When she joked that she usually wouldn’t hook up with someone affiliated with a fraternity, hoping to lighten the mood, Ben explained he only joined Sigma Delt because his father was a brother during his Hein days.
Even when I do whatever they tell me to do, it’s still not enough, he said around four in the morning, his head in her lap and his eyes glassy.
Charlotte marveled at the delicate, almost magical intimacy of the conversation. She was grateful for his trust even as she wondered how she had earned it so quickly.
Ben laughed like he couldn’t believe his own words. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be dumping all of this on you. I know we just met, but I feel like I can be myself with you.
I know what you mean, Charlotte said as she fell into something that seemed like love.
Her hopes were dashed during his first and only visit to Acronym. With Jackie away on study abroad, the responsibility of vetting Charlotte’s beau fell to Nina. The new couple ate dim sum with her and Eliza in the backyard, and Charlotte tried not to squirm as Nina asked Ben polite but pointed questions about his politics (leftist), his ambitions (congressman) and his intentions (I’m done with hookup culture. Aren’t you, Charlotte? I think I found what I’ve been missing all along).
Ben turned in a brilliant performance until the 3Ds came up in conversation. Eliza jokingly warned him that he should expect his girlfriend to bring their relationship issues to the group. Nina swatted her on the arm and laughed. I’m sorry that I wanted their help addressing my attachment issues!
