Selling the Drama (22 page)

Heading out to the shops, he picked up some
cold and flu tablets for her before heading to the supermarket to
buy some orange juice and the ingredients to make up a pot of
chicken soup. Cooking was not one of Toby's strongest talents, but
he was usually able to manage the whole one pot combo, and he
figured if Charlotte really did have a cold, then her taste buds
would most likely be shot to pieces, so it wouldn't matter if the
soup tasted less than perfect. After he had all the food he needed,
he called into a bookshop on the way home and bought her a couple
of novels from the new release section by authors he knew she had
read in the past.

Things had been rough for them these last
few months. Toby was not that wrapped up in himself to have missed
the signs completely. Nor was he under any illusions that the fault
was not his. Yet knowing this, and changing it, were two entirely
separate ideals. This was his life right now, and there had never
been any illusions presented to Charlotte about the way it was
going to be for a time. He figured that next year, when the bulk of
this study was behind him, things would improve. They would both be
working then, him probably a whole lot more than her, but still,
they would both be at the same stage at the same time. They would
be able to continue like this for a few years until they both
decided it would be a good time to get married, and then when they
were in their thirties, they could talk about the idea of having
kids. When you stuck to the plan, life had a way of working out
just fine. A rough patch was nothing if you kept your eyes on the
prize.

Tasting the soup he had made, Toby was
surprised to find that it had turned out just fine also. Switching
the stove off, he put the lid on top and went to check on
Charlotte.

Charlotte woke to find Toby sitting beside
the bed staring at her. "Why are you sitting beside me like a
creeper while I sleep?"

He grinned. "Just making sure you weren't
dead. You've been asleep for a really long time. I got home at four
thirty and you were out cold. What time did you lie down?"

Charlotte stretched. "About one." She rolled
onto her side and threw back the covers. "What is that smell?"
Sitting up on the side of the bed, she faced him, letting him take
hold of her hands, his fingers threading with hers.

"I made you some chicken soup. I bought you
some cold and flu tablets as well, just in case you feel that bad."
He pulled one of her hands up to his lips and kissed her fingers,
smiling at her while he did so.

Charlotte stared at him, tears threatening
behind her eyelids. "You made me soup?"

He smiled proudly at her. "Yeah. I tasted it
and it's actually pretty good. I got you a couple of books too,
just in case you get stuck in bed for a bit."

"You think I'm sick?" Her voice wavered a
little, the threatening tears now working their way towards
constricting her throat.

"Well, you're in bed in the middle of the
day and there were all these tissues beside you. You didn't look
all that great either, although you do look much better now, so
maybe you're just fighting something off, hey? Either way, you're
probably due for a little pampering." He released her hands and
stood over her. "I'll go and get you some soup."

Charlotte looked up at him through blurred
eyes. "I'm not sick." Was he that oblivious? Yes. Yes, he most
certainly was. How could someone so incredibly intelligent be so
hopelessly ignorant? She didn't even look the same anymore.

He smiled down at her. "You know you don't
have to be tough all the time. It's okay to just curl up and let
someone else look after you every now and again." Reaching down, he
tucked a loose lock of her hair behind her ear, stroking his hand
down the length of it before letting go. "Do you want to eat your
soup in bed or on the couch?"

"I don't want to eat it at all." A tear
slipped down her cheek. She brushed it away only to have it
replaced with several more, all of them slipping down her face now
of their own accord. She buried her face into her hands and gave in
to them, crying more steadily by the minute.

"What's wrong? Do you feel that bad?" Toby
crouched before her, his hands gently pulling hers away from her
face. "You don't have to eat now if you don't want to. It will keep
until later."

"Shut up about the soup!" Charlotte looked
at him through her tears, dreading this moment all the more on
account of having delayed it for so long. "I'm not sick. I'm
pregnant."

Toby dropped his hands and stared at her,
the shock on his face almost comical.

She stared right back at him, saying
nothing, giving him a few moments to process the news, thinking he
would have plenty to say once he had gotten over the initial
surprise. Yet he stayed like that before her, silent and shocked,
for an unending time. She refused to apologise to him for this. It
was unexpected, and completely went against his 'life plan', but
that was life as far as she was concerned. It frequently did not go
to plan. He would just have to suck it up and deal with it. And
while this pregnancy did not exactly fit into her own flimsy plans
either, she had no regrets. Not a single one, and she would be
damned if she was going to apologise to him for that, either.

Toby stood and backed away from her, running
his hands through his hair, a sure sign he was trying to get his
frustration under control. Charlotte rose from the side of the bed
and stood before him, her hands loose at her sides. She watched as
his gaze slid down to her belly before meeting with her eyes
again.

"How did this happen?"

"The standard way."

"Don't bullshit me! You're supposed to be on
the pill!" His anger was immediate, and not in any way
unexpected.

Charlotte shrugged. "I changed the type a
while back. I might have messed my cycle up a bit after. It
happens." She shrugged and went to walk past him. How it had
happened was no longer relevant.

His hand shot out, grabbing at her arm. "It
doesn't happen to me! For fuck's sake, why would you do something
like that? How could you be so bloody stupid to mess with something
so important?" His hand squeezed, the pressure constricting, and
she flinched back from him.

"Let go of me!"

He did so immediately, taking a step back
from her, a look of horror coming over his face, and he shoved both
of his hands deep into his pockets, as though he no longer trusted
them unrestricted. He looked at her intently for a few moments, his
efforts at getting himself under control evident. After an unending
period of silence, he said, "You need to get this sorted out. As
soon as possible."

Charlotte stared at him, the pain around her
arm where he had grabbed her dimming beneath the onset of a new
pain. "What are you talking about?"

"I am not having a baby now. That you would
even consider it tells me just how out of touch with reality you
must be at the moment. For fuck's sake, Charlotte, I am still at
uni! I have all this work ahead of me until I can actually work!
How am I supposed to concentrate on any of what I need to do with a
fucking baby around? This is the wrong time and you know it. Sort
it out."

He had a tone, a look in his eye, and a
stance to his posture that was all so unfamiliar, yet he wore it
well, as though it were an outfit he had been waiting to try on,
and in this moment, for all intents and purposes, it was the
perfect fit. The sight of him, so at ease within his rage, was the
most heartbreaking impression she had ever had the misfortune of
beholding. She felt as though she were looking at a stranger, an
imposter within his skin, a person she no longer knew inside out.
Before she could say anything in response, he walked out of the
bedroom, and moments later she heard the front door slam as he left
the flat altogether.

Dropping back down to the bed, Charlotte
curled into herself and pulled her pillow over her face, screaming
into it at the top of her lungs. This rapidly deteriorated into
tears again, and she gave into them, figuring she might as well cry
her eyes out for a while. There seemed at this point no other
logical way to deal with Toby's reaction.

He came home past midnight and Charlotte did
not need to see him to guess at what he had been doing in the hours
since his departure. The stumbles around the bathroom were enough
to tip her off, and then there was the sound of him puking in the
toilet, any residual doubts eliminated. He fell into bed beside her
silently, and she waited for him to roll over to her, to reach out
and say that he was sorry, that he had not meant what he had said,
that he was just surprised and needed time to get used to the idea.
But he started snoring instead, staying firmly in place on his side
of the bed, a great cold void giving way between them that was far
more poignant that even he could have intended.

He was gone by the time she woke up. There
was a piece of notepaper wedged under a cold cup of tea on the
bedside table. Picking it up, she let her eyes focus on his neatly
printed out list of places she could go to get an abortion.

Toby banged his fist on the door roughly,
his anger merging with a tiredness born out of driving for two
hours while furious. "Jenna!" Banging again, he was just about to
let himself in when the door swung open. "Where is she?" he
demanded.

Jenna stared at him with wide eyes. "What
the hell are you on about?"

Toby shook his head at her. "I am not in the
fucking mood. I've just driven for two hours in peak traffic."
Running his hand over his eyes, a heavy weariness began to settle
into him.

Jenna frowned, her eyes travelling over him
with concern. "What's going on? Why are you even here?"

"I need to see Charlotte."

Jenna looked at him as though he were very
stupid. "You live with her. Go to your own house and you might get
lucky."

Toby narrowed his eyes at her. She was
either fobbing him off, or he had just wasted two hours of his life
because he was too impulsive, and should have perhaps just picked
up the phone first. "Charlotte isn't here?"

"No! What's going on?" she asked again,
looking a little anxious now.

Toby exhaled and slumped against the
doorframe, suddenly deflated. "I think she might have left me."

Jenna's gaze grew sharp. "What makes you
think that?" Her tone was now suspicious as she regarded him, hands
coming to rest on her hips.

"Look, have you heard from her this
afternoon?" He avoided her question, not wanting to get into the
specifics of anything with her.

"What did you do?"

Toby hit the side of the doorframe with the
palm of his hand, his frustration mounting. "Don't fuck with me
Jenna!"

"No!" She pointed at him angrily. "Don't you
fuck with me! What the hell is going on with you and
Charlotte?"

Toby looked at her and was mortified to
realise he was about to cry. Jenna seemed to sense a change in him
and she softened towards him somewhat, a sigh escaping her as she
looked at him with wide eyes.

"I haven't seen her or spoken to her at all
today, or yesterday, or the day before. Okay?"

He nodded, rubbing his hand over his face.
"She has her phone switched off. I tried Ellie, but she was at work
and hadn't heard from her all day either. I don't know where she
is. She called in sick for work." He stopped then, unable to give
her anything more, unwilling to elaborate.

"Is this the first fight you two have ever
had?" There was a hint of amusement within her voice.

Toby straightened. "No! And this isn't a
fight." He took a step back, his fury at her, at the futility of
this visit, at the entire situation, it was all converging within
him and he was very close to losing it right now.

"Then what is it?"

"It's a mess. And I don't know what to do
about it." A very real panic was taking place within him in the
wake of a realisation that he may have inadvertently stuffed up the
greatest thing to have ever happened to him.

"Go home, Toby," Jenna said, not without
sympathy. "She'll turn her phone on when she's ready. Or she'll
just come home. Go on."

"She's taken stuff with her."

Jenna shrugged. "I've done that before. You
can always bring it back. Toby, I think you're just over
reacting."

Toby stared at her wordlessly. She would
think that. Because she had no idea what he had done. The full
gravity of the situation was only just beginning to make an impact
on him. He had not expected this. Not for a single moment. He had
expected Charlotte to be upset, to even hold it against him for a
time, but not to leave him. He had come to rely on her steady
acquiesce over the years and in its absence, he felt as though he
was running blind. Was it so unreasonable to just stick to a plan?
Taking his leave of Jenna, he got back into the car and drove away
from her little house. Braking at the end of the driveway, he
pulled out his phone and tried Charlotte one more time, to no
avail, before hitting the highway.

There was a soft knock on the hotel door and
Charlotte pulled it open, so grateful to see Ellie on the other
side of it that she instantly burst into tears. Ellie pulled her
into her arms as she stepped into the room, closing and locking the
door behind her. Charlotte sobbed onto her shoulder for a good ten
minutes before pulling back and attempting to get herself back
together while Ellie silently handed her tissue after tissue in
order to get the job done.

"What's going on? Toby rang me at work all
cagey, asking me if I knew where you were but not giving me any
reasons at all about why he didn't know himself. Then Jenna rang
telling me Toby had gone tearing up to her place demanding she tell
him if she had heard from you or seen you at all. He told her he
thought you had left him, which is more information than what he
was willing to give me. And then you call me from this hotel,
which, I might just add, is a pretty swish affair." Ellie looked
around the room in appreciation. "I guess that even when you're
fighting you still have access to his credit card."