Charlotte hovered in the doorway, biting her lip. “Thank you for everything.”
They hugged. Charlotte rubbed her sleeve across her face when Jackie finally let go. “Come to L.A.,” Jackie commanded. She tapped Charlotte’s nose. “You hear me?”
“Yes, boss.”
Jackie poked her in the nose again before she turned and started toward the lobby. “You coming?” she called back to her.
“I think I’m going to hang out here for a bit,” Charlotte said. “Breathe in the nostalgia some more.”
Jackie shook her head. “You’re a freak.” She put on her sunglasses even though the hallway boasted no natural sunlight. “Byeee!”
Charlotte watched her wheel down the corridor. They waved to each other one last time before Jackie turned the corner and left her alone.
Charlotte leaned against the closed door and sighed. Her shoulders sagged with relief. She was overdue for an introvert recharge, her brain waterlogged. This was the first time she’d been alone for hours and she appreciated the moment while it lasted.
Even now with Jackie gone, she wasn’t truly alone at Hein. Music leaked under the door of the room across the hall. A crowd of people chatted in low voices the next hallway over, just around the curve in the corridor. She could hear footsteps overhead as people packed, doors swinging open and banging shut. The campus perpetually hummed with company, no matter the time or the day.
Tomorrow it would fall silent for the summer when the grads packed up and moved out, and its halls would lie dormant until students returned at the end of August. But during the school year, you were never truly alone if you didn’t want to be.
College life played out in constant overlaps and gentle collisions. Her years at Hein were full of connections. Some were mundane, like listening to Phish with Terry during weekday lunch shifts. Some were complex and ugly, like her relationship with Ben. And others were the steady heartbeat of her life, vital and sustaining and rare. Jackie, Nina, Jio.
She closed her eyes and tried to separate the sounds. It calmed her to sort the footsteps above from the laughter echoing down the concrete walls. Car horns squawked in the distance as parents navigated the parking lot. Someone thundered down the stairwell to her left, their sneakers pounding on the rubber-topped steps.
Maybe she could stay like this for a few hours. Just rest her head against the door and soak up the daily soundtrack of the university before returning to Brooklyn’s impersonal roar.
Charlotte didn’t want to go back to college. She really didn’t. She didn’t want to sleep on narrow mattresses or wake up at noon or drink away her trauma. What she missed about life at Hein wasn’t the parties or the gossip or even the challenging, cozy classes. She missed this. She missed a dorm full of people who said hello to each other while brushing their teeth at three a.m. side by side. She missed being part of a community.
She didn’t want to be alone anymore, bubble-wrapped by isolation so that no one could hurt her or let her down. She wanted to look at life with the same optimism she had at age eighteen, already scarred by her family’s rejection but still venturing forth to find people who understood her. She missed knowing others and being known.
She didn’t want to go back in time. She couldn’t go back, she couldn’t even start over. She could only go forward.
“Charlie?”
Reece emerged from the stairwell, a backpack slung over his shoulder. He’d showered and changed into clean clothes, his damp hair shining under the fluorescent lights. That stupid single curl licked at his forehead, begging to be coaxed back into place with her fingers.
He really was so handsome, the rough cut of his jaw balanced out by his smile. She wondered again how she’d not seen his perfect imperfection before. Now there would never be a day when the sight of him walking toward her didn’t send her heart racing.
Charlotte leaned against the door, her hand curled around the handle. She pressed her other hand palm-flat against its wood surface.
Reece stopped in front of her. The humor evaporated from his face as he devoured her inviting posture. They were exactly where they were on Friday night, give or take a few yards of carpet.
“Hi,” she said. It was a pleasure to flirt with him like this, to tease and watch as heat flared in his green eyes. He was an open book to her now, willingly so. She understood the courage it required for him to love her so transparently. She would never take it for granted again.
“Hi,” he repeated, a playful bend to the word in his mouth. He dropped his backpack on the carpet and crowded her against the door. Charlotte squirmed up to reach his mouth and he smiled, just beyond her reach. “We gotta get on the road, Charlie.”
“Not fair,” she whined, narrowing her eyes.
His laugh was rough and husky. Reece caught her jaw in his hand and tilted her face up to examine her. She shivered as he cataloged the purple bags under her eyes and the creases running across her forehead. One of his fingers traced her hairline, detecting the silver strands among the blond.
“You are so beautiful,” he breathed, his voice thick with disbelief.
Finally he kissed her. She melted against him as his index finger traced below her chin and down her neck. She adored him. The emotion almost hurt, the force of it in her chest.
Their lips parted. He leaned his forehead against hers, eyes falling closed as he breathed unevenly. “We have to go if we want to avoid traffic,” he said, his voice racked with regret.
She placed a kiss on his lips, chaste and sweet. “Reece…”
He opened his eyes. She nearly tumbled into them, green as sea glass. “What?”
“I meant what I said. I want to be with you. I love you.”
She wished she could elaborate. She wished she could make him endless promises and keep every single one. She wished she could list the reasons why he broke through her walls and cemented himself into her foundation. His kindness, his self-awareness, his character, his plush mouth that said so many unadorned, incredible things. But her throat was thick with tears, and she wasn’t as good at this as he was, goddamn it.
Instead, she kissed him again, pouring the intensity of how much she felt for him into every touch and tease of her lips against his. She gasped as he pressed her to the door. Charlotte wound her arms around his neck and reveled in his solid strength, in how much he smelled like home.
She loved him. It broke her open and gave her the strength to start over, to change and try and grow. She loved him and it scared and delighted her in equal measure.
Their lips parted. He leaned his forehead against hers, his eyes falling closed as he breathed unevenly.
“We’re really doing this,” he whispered against her lips, his fingers delving into her lion’s mane. “I trust us to figure it out. I love you too much not to, Charlie.”
They stayed like that for a long minute, his nose butting against hers, her arms circling his waist. Charlotte pressed her palm to the small of his back, just over the notches of his spine.
She deserved this kind of love. They both did.
—
TEXT MESSAGE FROM JACKIE SLAUGHTER TO REECE KRUEGER, 4:37 PM: hi loser, charlotte’s phone is still off so I’m texting you. I think I left an earring on the bookshelf, any chance she grabbed it on her way out??
