Selling the Drama (19 page)

"You and me," he whispered. "Okay?"

Charlotte nodded once again, her face still
held within his hands. "Okay."

Charlotte and Ellie were stretched out side
by side, each getting a pedicure at the cheap Tuesday trainee night
in the salon down at the local shopping village they frequented. It
was a bit of tradition for them, to treat themselves every so
often, yet funds between them never usually ran far enough to go at
a normal time and pay full price. They were finally alone; their
toe nails drying while their trainee moved on to repeat the process
with another bargain hunting customer.

Charlotte turned to Ellie, deliberately
keeping her voice low. "Are you alright?" This was the first time
since Charlotte's release from the hospital that they had been
alone together.

Ellie turned her head on the side, regarding
Charlotte for a few moments before answering. "I'm fine."

"Really?" Charlotte found this hard to
believe. Ellie was such a soft girl, she always had been. The fact
that she had even picked up that rock, much less bashed it against
Porter's head with enough force to kill him, still astounded
Charlotte. She had to be feeling guilty, possibly having nightmares
about it. She just had to be.

But Ellie looked back her with a serene
expression that seemed entirely genuine. "Really."

"I think you're shitting me just to make me
feel better."

Ellie pulled a face at that. "No, I'm not."
She sighed then, heavy and drawn out. "You're acting like Mum. She
thinks I should be permanently hysterical, rocking in a corner
while chewing my own fingers off. But I'm fine. Maybe, I don't
know, could be that it just hasn't hit me yet, but when I think
about what happened, I just don't feel guilty at all."

Charlotte looked at Ellie with interest.
"What do you feel?"

A pause. Ellie's eyes stared back at
Charlotte's, wide and sincere. She reached over to take a hold of
Charlotte's hand. "I feel relief. That I came looking for you when
I did. That I heard you scream out. That I wasn't afraid to fight
for you. I'm not sorry I hit him, because if I hadn't hit him, he
might have killed you, and that would make me feel a whole lot
worse than what I feel now. I didn't intend on killing him. But it
happened. One day I might feel differently about it, but right now,
I'm just focusing on the fact that you're okay and that's all that
really matters to me."

Charlotte squeezed Ellie's hand with
affection, so grateful for her ability to see something so terrible
in such a positive light. She should not really be surprised
though; Ellie was always the eternal optimist, the one to rally the
troops when everyone seemed to be dragging their feet, the one to
tell a joke at an awkward moment just to break the ice and get
people to relax. Swallowing back tears, Charlotte kissed the back
of Ellie's hand before saying to her, "I love you to bits."

Ellie smiled widely. "And I you. Please
don't worry about me or feel guilty on my behalf. It's not worth
it, Charlotte. We need to move on."

"I know. It's hard though, when I see him
every time I look in the mirror."

Ellie didn't make any reply to that, for
which Charlotte was grateful.

"Jake thinks I'm a total badass now. It's
awesome, you should see him, fawning over me, doing every single
thing I want him to. It's hero worship in action; I don't think I
will ever get sick of it." Ellie started laughing, relaxing back
into her seat. "I'm going to marry him, you know, one day, not yet,
but definitely one day."

Charlotte jolted with surprise at that
declaration. "Jake?"

"Yes. Jake." Ellie rolled her eyes at the
look on Charlotte's face. "No need to look so surprised. I didn't
say I was going to marry him tomorrow."

"Yeah, I know that. I heard you." Charlotte
chewed on her thumb nail for a moment, considering Ellie's
declaration. "But, how do you know?"

Now it was Ellie's turn to cue the
disbelief. "How do you not know? I mean, Jake is an idiot ninety
percent of the time; but that other ten percent?" She put her hand
over her heart. "I just know that no one else could be more in sync
with me and that no matter what we do in the next few years between
now and then, we'll still be together. He gets me and I get
him."

Charlotte sat, staring at Ellie in quiet
contemplation. She could scarcely believe what she was hearing, yet
there was a conviction to Ellie's tone that brooked no
questioning.

"Do you not feel that way about Toby?"

"I adore Toby." Ellie seemed to be waiting
for more from her than this. "He wants me to go to Brisbane with
him next year. To live with him. Just the two of us."

"And?" Ellie probed.

"And I want to."

"So, what's the problem then?"

"There is none." Charlotte looked away,
scratching her arm absently, lost for words, yet really unable to
understand why.

"Do you love him?"

"I just said I did."

"No, you said you adore him."

"Same thing."

Ellie snorted. "Hardly."

"Yes. I love him. And I adore him. And I
want to go to Brisbane with him to live."

"But?" Ellie was persistent; she knew
Charlotte too well and could tell when something was not quite
right, and this entire conversation had been anything but right
from the very start.

"I'm afraid." Charlotte released the breath
she had been holding onto.

Ellie was most surprised by that; it didn't
appear at all to be what she had been expecting. "Of Toby?" she
asked, with just a touch of disbelief within her voice.

Charlotte closed her eyes and pinched the
bridge of her nose. "Not of him. Of what he makes me feel. It's a
dependency that's too big to contain. He has the power to break
me." She opened her eyes then, meeting Ellie's gaze.

"He's flipped it on you, hasn't he?"

Charlotte frowned with confusion. "What do
you mean?"

Ellie chuckled. "I know how you went about
getting him. And I know what you're like. But you don't have the
upper hand anymore and then there's all these feelings involved now
that you're not used to ever feeling for another person, so you're
shitting yourself. Welcome to the type of existence the rest of us
live, Charlotte. Where falling in love means opening yourself up
and taking a chance. Where being in a relationship transcends the
physical; where the physical becomes so much more. Took you long
enough."

"So, you feel that way too? About Jake?"

"What? Vulnerable?"

"Yeah."

Ellie rolled her eyes. "Of course I do! I'm
only a fake badass, you know."

Charlotte laughed at that. Ellie reached
over and grabbed hold of Charlotte's hand.

"He may have the power to break you, but you
also have the power to break him. We're all vulnerable, Charlotte.
Every single one of us."

Toby was trimming the hedge around the pool
with Royce when he turned toward the older man and decided that now
was as good of a time as any to declare his intentions regarding
Charlotte and their future.

"Royce?"

"Mmmm?" Royce continued with his trimming,
not even casting Toby a glance, yet Toby knew he was listening.
Royce was always listening.

"I asked Charlotte to move with me to
Brisbane next year."

Royce paused, the clippers hovering in
mid-air. He straightened and turned towards Toby, his head on an
angle, his eyes squinting on account of the bright sunlight. "What
did she say?"

"She wants to."

"Does she now?" Royce returned to his
branches, clipping efficiently, the off cuts falling at his feet
for Toby to scoop up into the gardening bag he was following Royce
around with. "What does Charlotte want to do down there while you
go to university?"

Toby frowned. "She'll go to uni as
well."

"Will she?"

"What else would she do?"

Royce straightened again, facing Toby, eye
to eye in height. "Now, that's the money question, isn't it? How
about you go and find out and then when you know the answer, you
can come back to me and tell me what you've learnt." Royce handed
the clippers over to Toby, taking the bag from his hands. "Shift
change. My hands hurt." He indicated with a nod of his head that
Toby should start cutting.

Toby found Royce later that afternoon
sitting on the large back deck with the newspaper spread out over
his lap. Flopping down into the chair beside him, Toby waited for
Royce to acknowledge him before speaking.

"Well?"

"She wants to do an arts degree but has no
idea what she wants to major in. No clue at all. And she wants to
continue with her gymnastics, to move into teaching it."

"Yes. I know."

Toby gaped at Royce. "You know?"

"Of course I know."

"Then why did I even have to ask her for
you?"

Royce cast Toby a heavy look. "Why indeed?"
He pulled the paper up again, covering his face.

Toby waited, and when it became evident
Royce had no intention of saying anything more, he realised that if
he wanted elaboration, then he was going to have to seek it out
himself. "So, is she allowed to move with me?"

"Charlotte can make her own decisions. I
respect whatever she wants to do." Royce turned the page, his face
still out of Toby's view. "I respect her enough to find out what
she wants to do without prompting."

Toby closed his eyes for a moment, letting
that sink in. "It hadn't come up," he protested.

"Mmm. Yet, when I asked her, she knew in
complete detail what your plans were."

Toby swallowed deeply, uneasy with Royce for
the first time ever. His point was valid; Toby did not need to
examine himself in too much detail to see where he had fallen
short.

"If you choose to live with my daughter in
an adult arrangement," Royce continued from behind the paper, "you
need to know that my expectations of you are going to alter. You
will cease to be the boy who lives in our house who I have grown
rather fond of, and become the man I trust with my only daughter."
Royce folded the paper precisely, tossing it onto the floor beside
him before addressing Toby directly. "In light of this, next time I
ask you a question about Charlotte, what are you going to do?"

With no hesitation, Toby answered, "Know the
answer."

Royce smiled then. "Good man." He stood,
clapping his hand down onto Toby's shoulder with affection.

Toby let himself relax. "Thanks."

"For what?"

"For everything. All that you've done for
me."

Royce's hand tightened in its grip,
squeezing Toby's shoulder before releasing him. "Ahh, now, don't go
getting all sentimental on me." He walked away, entering the house
through the laundry door and letting it close behind him with a
bang.

Toby turned to look out over the pool. He
could not help but think back to that day, nearly two and a half
years ago now, when he had touched Charlotte for the first time.
She had driven him mad from the very first moment he had laid eyes
on her. After that day though? Impossible to erase her. Impossible
to hide from the effect she had on him; the hold she had over
him.

He had assumed she would just come with him
next year. He had neglected to ask her what she wanted to do
herself, because he had in all truth feared the answer. What if she
had said she wanted to stay here? Or go somewhere else? Toby was so
thankful she was more flexible than he was with regards to her
aspirations; decisions were so much easier when they involved
someone who was willing to bend. He knew himself well enough to
know that if he was to strip himself back to the bare bones, the
drive within him, that burning need to succeed, to make a
difference, to effect justice; that would be all that was left. He
was aware of this entirely, yet he believed, with a conviction that
belonged to only the truly arrogant, that he would never have to
choose. Because Charlotte understood what drove him; she understood
the plan, the single minded focus that consumed him at times. She
understood without him telling her, that he could never stay here
for her. That if they were to be together, then it had to be on his
terms.

He loved her. Loved her beyond reason. How
lucky he was that she loved him just as much.

PART TWO

Three Years Later

The Inelegant Fall from Grace

While the disappearance of Royce Blackwell
had a cataclysmic effect on his family, it barely registered on the
radar of public concern. One day he was there, the next he was not.
His clothes were all gone with the hangers left bare; favourite
books were removed from the shelves with their spaces left behind,
gaping and dusty; a few tools were taken from the shed, the marks
on the walls the only indication of what was missing. He took other
items also, random things, but it would be months before any of
them had tallied up the full inventory. He did not drive away, nor
did he take any money, except for what he had in his wallet, and he
left no note. He had effectively and silently removed himself from
his existing life.

Iris was beside herself, convinced that he
had met with foul play. Charlotte and Toby flew home from Brisbane
immediately to be with her and to offer whatever assistance they
could. Police were called and questions were posed, many that had
no definitive answers. It was quite obvious though, right from the
outset, that Royce had left of his own volition, and given those
circumstances, there was really not too much the police could
do.

Charlotte pressed her mother for details,
insight into why her father might have left, but Iris seemed
genuinely baffled and completely heart broken. It was too soon for
these types of questions, her pain was evident, so Charlotte
retreated in her intrusions, understanding fairly rapidly that what
her father had done was perhaps more about him than about her
mother. Still, she found it so hard to believe that he could
disappear in such a manner. Just vanish. No contact. No regard for
her mother or herself. Disbelief quickly turned to anger, this bled
into sorrow, and then all of it merged together in a messy inferno
that tormented Charlotte intensely.