Selling the Drama (24 page)

He smiled, his face dimpling in each cheek
perfectly. Apart from the lack of a job, he really was a bit of a
catch. "We hooked up one night and found that we hit it off in
other ways too. So we kept seeing each other. And here we now are,
living happily ever after." He grinned, amused by Charlotte's
sceptical expression. "Jenna is very special. I've never met
another woman like her."

Charlotte softened at that. Jenna was indeed
a special woman. She wore her heart on her sleeve and was
constantly having it broken on account of always giving it away too
quickly. "I'm glad you recognise that in her. She's not had much
luck with relationships."

Chad nodded at that. "Neither have I."

"And why is that?" Charlotte ate some of her
salad then, overcome once again by how he could turn anything at
all into something that surpassed delicious.

"I'm not exactly an easy person to live
with," Chad said, assessing her carefully.

Charlotte rolled her eyes and gestured to
her salad with her fork. "Yeah, I can see how living with you would
be torture. Gourmet food and a kept house and yard. Jenna must be
going out of her head."

Chad smiled thinly at her but it seemed
forced. "When I was twenty I got hit in the head with a piece of
pipe. It was a random attack. I was with friends coming home from a
nightclub and we got jumped. I have an acquired brain injury from
it. It limits my employment opportunities. I get these seizures,
they can happen at any time, I just go down and they can last
anything from two to twenty minutes. If you see me having one, you
don't need to call an ambulance, I'm alright; it just needs to run
its course. But I forget stuff a lot as well. Sometimes really
important stuff. It's not the type of thing that everyone wants to
live with." He returned his attention back down to his salad,
picking the tomatoes out of it and eating them first.

Charlotte watched him wordlessly, tears
welling in her eyes, unable to articulate a reasonable response.
She ate some more of her salad before asking him, "Isn't there any
medication you can take to prevent the seizures?"

Chad nodded. "I take some pills for it.
Nothing makes it go away completely though. My brain has been
permanently damaged. I'm kind of lucky really, I could have ended
up so much worse. Anyway, Jenna is the first woman who's ever stuck
it out with me. She's also the first one I've ever wanted to have
stick it out with me, so I'm winning all round at the moment. I
can't support her financially, but I try to do everything else I
can for her. We're working it out as we go."

"Did the person who attacked you get
caught?" Charlotte was appalled at the thought of someone getting
away with inflicting so much harm onto another person.

"Oh, yeah, he went to jail. He wrote to me
after he got out. A letter of apology for what he'd done to
me."

"How did you feel about the letter?"

Chad shrugged, his expression non-committal.
"I figure it was probably a lot harder for him to write than it was
for me to read. You know, nothing he could say to me will ever
change what's happened. I have to live like this for the rest of my
life. But in saying that, hanging onto anger and being bitter about
it won't change the outcome either. Some things just are what they
are." He finished off his salad and gestured to her near empty
plate. "Still hungry? I made a cheesecake as well."

Charlotte groaned. "I am going to get so fat
while I'm here."

"Darl, you're about to get fat anyway, so
you might as well enjoy the ride." He stood, holding out his hand
for her plate.

"Good point." She stood then, taking his
plate from him. "I'll clear up while you get the cheesecake."

They both paused then at the sound of a car
pulling into the drive. Charlotte turned from the table and crossed
over to the front window, peering out through her grandmother's old
lace curtains that Jenna still had hanging over every window.
Turning back to Chad, she passed him the plates still in her hand.
"I'll have to take a rain check on the cheesecake. That's
Toby."

"Baby daddy?" He took the plates from her, a
look of sympathy settling onto his face.

She nodded.

"Are you afraid of him?"

Charlotte was surprised by this question.
She looked at Chad carefully and he dropped his eyes to her arm,
the faded mark from where Toby had grabbed her still evident. She
felt her cheeks flush at the implication. "No. No, definitely not.
He's not like that."

Chad looked as though he did not believe a
word of it, but even so, he left her to it, disappearing into the
kitchen with the plates in hand, off to clear up and then do his
yard work into the afternoon. Charlotte could not help but wonder,
in light of his disclosure about his injury, if he mowed so often
and trimmed the trees every day because he had forgotten that he
had done it all the day before. The sadness of that thought was
entirely overcoming. Toby's footsteps could be heard on the
creaking stairs leading up to the veranda, so Charlotte went to
open the door before he had a chance to knock.

He stared at her through the mesh of the
screen door and to her complete mortification, she began to cry
before he even had an opportunity to say anything.

As she stood there crying on the other side
of the door, Toby was gripped with a feeling of profound sadness,
this place they had found themselves in was somewhere he had never
envisaged for them. He had seen Charlotte cry plenty of times
before, yet not many of those times had been because of something
he had personally done to her. His eyes travelled over her and came
to rest on the mark he had made on her arm. He stared at it,
another feeling taking place within him. He had not realised he had
grabbed her so hard; another thing for him to chalk up in the tally
of shitty things he had done to deserve her leaving him.

He let himself into the house and cautiously
approached her, still weeping just inside the door. He wanted to
apologise, but sorry seemed nowhere near enough of a platitude to
convey all that he was feeling in this moment of confrontation. As
he stood there wavering, unsure about what to say or do, a guy Toby
had never seen walked into the room and headed directly over to
Charlotte, wrapping his arm around her shoulder and steering her
away, disappearing up the hallway with her, not a word being
exchanged between them the entire time. He returned moments later,
alone, approaching Toby with his hand held out.

"Chad. I'm Jenna's boyfriend."

Toby took the proffered hand cautiously,
relieved at finding out he belonged to Jenna, yet still wary of
this guy's involvement with the situation at hand. "Toby."

"Cheers, shame we couldn't meet under better
circumstances. I'm going to head outside, I've got some work to do.
But I just wanted you to know, I've told Charlotte that I'll be
within hearing distance."

Toby bristled with indignation, Chad's
unspoken accusation causing his defences to raise, along with his
temper. "That mark on her arm was an accident." As the words
slipped out though, he was reminded of how many times he had heard
that very same excuse proffered in the past, and it grated against
his conscience that he had just uttered it himself.

Chad shrugged. "You tell yourself that all
you like."

"I don't think any of this is your
business." Toby had timed this trip with the intent of avoiding
Jenna, yet instead, he was facing off with this meddling
arsehole.

"Maybe not. But Charlotte is very vulnerable
right now and I think she needs someone in her corner. I'm the only
one here right now besides you, and you haven't done much from what
I can tell to make her feel all that safe."

Toby took a step back, conceding defeat. The
guy was completely right. He would just look worse if he kept
arguing with him and possibly ruin any chance he had of seeing
Charlotte without Jenna standing guard over her. The longer he
stood here with this guy, the closer it got to the time Jenna would
get home and he needed to see Charlotte alone; it was his only way
of possibly getting her to leave with him today.

Chad nodded to him. "She'll be out in a bit.
Help yourself to a cuppa, there's some cheesecake in the fridge if
you're hungry."

Toby watched him leave, marvelling at the
lunacy of a person who thought he could possibly sit down and have
a cuppa with a piece of cheesecake while his entire fucking
universe was disintegrating around him. The guy was perfect for
Jenna.

Charlotte sat opposite Toby in the lounge
room, feeling only a small measure of composure in the wake of a
jagged fifteen minute crying fit. Neither of them seemed to know
what to say.

Toby leaned forwards, gesturing to her arm.
"I am so sorry I did that to you. I didn't mean to grab you so
hard."

Charlotte looked down at her arm for the
second time that day. "I seriously haven't given it any thought. I
bruise easily, you know that." She sat back into the couch with a
weary sigh, assessing Toby openly. He did not look his best right
now. In fact, he looked like he might not have slept at all since
she had left. He certainly had not bothered to shave or comb his
hair. "Are you trying to look pathetic so I feel sorry for
you?"

He smirked. "I am pathetic. I don't need to
try for it."

She smiled sadly in return, a heavy pain
within her chest. It came from too much crying, yet she could not
help but think this was possibly how it felt when a person's heart
was breaking, and that just brought on a whole new welling of tears
to be suppressed, increasing the pain further.

"I want you to come home."

Of course he did. Instead of addressing that
statement, Charlotte decided to address the actual problem between
them. "I didn't have an abortion." She watched him carefully as he
processed this, and she saw it, a tiny flicker, but it happened,
and as it did, she felt the hope she had been nursing disintegrate
into nothing but sorrow. "You thought I went and had it done?"

He sucked in a deep breath and held it for a
few moments before releasing it harshly. He stood up and paced
around for a bit, agitation all over him. Charlotte watched him in
silence, knowing how much he was struggling in the moment,
understanding, yet not sympathetic. This had ceased to be about his
comfort. This was no longer about what suited him.

Turning, he faced her, placing his hands
onto the back of the couch he had just been sitting on. "I just
wish you could see this from my perspective."

Charlotte rose to her feet angrily. "What
about my perspective?!" The anguish within was deep. "I have your
baby growing inside of me! I love you! That you could even ask me
to do this!" Tears spilled over her cheeks. "I am four months
pregnant, nearly half way there. Your perspective doesn't even
count. Your perspective is the most hurtful thing I have ever
encountered and the fact that you came here today still thinking I
might have done it shows just how out of touch with me you really
are." Charlotte collapsed back onto the couch, her tears
degenerating into sobs once more, the kind that tear through and
pull at every part of you.

Toby stared at her, a stunned expression on
his face. "How have you gotten so far in this pregnancy without me
knowing?"

Charlotte looked up him, dragging her hands
across her face to rid it of the tears that seemed to have no end
within her. "That's a valid question, Toby. Why didn't you
know?"

He shook his head then, a bitter laugh
escaping him. "And here we go with that again."

"With what? With me whining at you that you
don't make any time for us? That you don't listen to me when I
talk? That you barely look at me for days on end because you're too
busy looking at books and papers and whatever the hell it is you
consider more important than us? Is that what you're referring to?
Maybe if you'd looked at me, really looked at me, you might have
seen. Maybe if you actually listened to me when I talk to you, you
would have heard me on one of the five occasions I told you I was
pregnant." Charlotte dropped her head into her hands, breathing
heavily, the high emotion bringing on a wave of breathlessness that
was leaving her somewhat dizzy.

"Don't you dare sit there and tell me that
you told me you were pregnant and that I ignored you. That's
fucking bullshit. You might have tried to bring it up in that
roundabout way you have of saying everything and nothing and then
getting pissed off because I'm not responding, but if you had stood
beside me and actually said those words, I can tell you now I would
have heard you loud and clear and you would've known about it." He
came around to the front of the couch and sat down heavily onto it,
casting his gaze across to Charlotte, who was still sitting hunched
over, hidden behind her own hands. "So, we're having a baby
now?"

Charlotte lifted her head and looked back at
him angrily. "No, I'm having a baby. You're becoming a lawyer. You
can't do both of those things at the same time, apparently."

Toby made no reply to that. "You know that,
in about six to eight months' time, things will be different-"

Charlotte cut in over the top of him.
"Things will never be different with you. You'll just trade
studying for working. I've lived inside your plan for years now. I
know the intricacies of it. I know how you operate. And I don't
want my baby to be something you pencil into your break time. I've
had enough of that for myself."

"That's not fair. I have never regarded you
as a part of a schedule. If you ever needed me, I have always been
there for you. This year has been particularly busy, I'll
acknowledge that, but that doesn't mean I haven't been available to
you if you needed me. You're just twisting things after the fact to
suit your argument now." Toby regarded Charlotte in silence for
several moments. "Do we have to do this here? Just get your stuff
so we can go home. We can work things out as we go along."