Chapter 33: Unchaining Angels

Charlotte got up after a while to change the movie. The credits had run themselves out and there was some FBI warning lighting up the room in blue.

"What'd ya wanna watch now? Let's watch-"

She stopped when she saw me standing there at the top of the basement stairs. I was just leaning up against the door frame, staring at the way her hair wiggled above her ass as she stepped up to the TV. I snapped out of it though, when she saw me, and straightened up my posture a bit, hoping to look like I'd just gotten to the top of the stairs just before she'd turned around. She wasn't fooled for an instant.

"Heya, Ant. All done down there?"

Amy turned around and looked, as surprised as Charlotte was.

"Yeah. All done," I said.

"Amy tells me you two had some adventure last night."

"She had the adventure. I was mostly just a prop."

"Never mind denying it, boy. You must remember. You must have enjoyed at least some of it."

She winked at me, and nodded toward Amy behind her back, urging me to spare the young girl's ego.

"I remember a very sweet crushing sensation that had me blasting like Old Faithful. It was very intense."

"Well, lucky for you, the dear girl started her period today. Apparently you guys took no precautions."

"I wouldn't have done any of it, if I'd had a choice. That was the precaution I'd planned to take."

"I told her it was a reckless and silly thing to do, but young girls do reckless and silly things sometimes, don't they?"

Amy was staring at me from over the back of the couch, looking like she would die a thousand deaths just to understand how anyone could think I was anything less than an angel in the flesh. The look in her eye burned me in my guts; I was nowhere near worthy of such adoration.

"So you guys are just watching movies up here?"

"Wanna join us?"

I wanted to tell her that the only thought in my heart was to take her upstairs and lie her down in her bed and cover every inch of her in sweet worshiping kisses, but I couldn't. I just forced myself to look away from her and put on a phony smile.

"I gotta run home for a bit. My room's still kind of a mess and I wanna clean it up before my mom gets home."

"Yeah, you should ... go do that," Charlotte said. I stood there for a moment trying to figure out whether or not she sounded sad that I wanted to leave. Everything inside me wanted nothing more than to know she was in as much agony as I was. Somehow that would validate all my feelings. If she was in any pain though, she was doing an excellent job of hiding it.

My gaze slid over to Amy. Amy blinked twice, still looking awed.

"You girls'll be alright? You can call me if you need me."

"We'll be fine. Go on and get your cleaning done, dear boy."

I wanted her to argue with me. I wanted her to beg me to stay. I wanted her to drag me upstairs and tell me she loved me with everything inside her and beg me to take her back, which I would do in a heartbeat, in spite of everything. Foolish maybe, but I was madly in love with her, in the least cliché sense of the term. I felt like I was half insane. Honestly. Which was why I had to get out of there, and in a way, even if she had begged me to stay, I don't think I would have.

"Will you be alright?" Charlotte said. "Honestly?"

No, Charlotte. I feel like I've been ripped in half at the waist and twisted around like an old rag. I feel dizzy and sick and lost and alone, and you're the only cure, but there's poison in the cure at the same time, so I can't win. How do you feel? I hope you're at least a little bit as messed up as I am, because if you weren't, I'd feel even worse. I love you so much it feels like hell burning inside me. Ever been there? Ever felt that?

Yet at the same time, I didn't want her in any sort of hell. I wanted nothing but for her to be happy and free to just be who she was without feeling guilty about hurting me. Who was I? I was nobody. She, in spite of her flaws, was an angel.

You're looking the wrong way for your angel, Aims. She's right behind you.

"Anthony?" Charlotte said again. I'd been staring into space.

"I'll be alright. Take care of each other. Make sure Sheila eats something."

And then I left. The next time I set foot in Charlotte's house, it was to watch the final draft of the movie.

I drove home and sat in my truck in front of my house for the longest time. I didn't really want to go in. Mostly I just wanted to get out of Charlotte's place, away from all the oppressive tension that had built up. So after about thirty minutes I started up the truck again and went for a drive. It felt like the longest drive of my life.

I drove around thinking about everything that had happened to us, from the first day we'd been paired up in English Composition class, until last night at the party. Part of me really wanted to hate Charlotte, for a while there. Part of me wanted to blame her for the whole mess. She was the one who'd fucked Vincenzo after all. She was the one who boned some guy at the party last night. It was all her. I was a victim. I wanted to hate her. But I couldn't. My brain kept going around and around in circles, like a dog chasing its tail. And the thought I kept coming back to time and time again was that Charlotte was only being Charlotte; to expect her to change would be to alter the very thing that I loved. There was poison in the cure indeed.

In the end I decided that it was better for me to let the dream die and let her go back to being who she was, the beautiful, carefree, vivacious and beautiful Charlotte Lawsen, the girl who fucked whoever she wanted whenever she wanted, and had been perfectly happy at it until she'd met me.

In the end, I realized that I didn't own her. To expect her to change would be to claim ownership of her somehow. I couldn't accept that. I liked her better free than simply another part of me.

And so I let her go. Once and for all I let her go. I drove down a busy strip of our city on that Saturday night, all by myself, crying my eyes out once again, but finally resolved. Finally sure about what I was supposed to do, what I had to do.

And then the dog turned around and chased his tail again—I changed my mind again. I loved her so deeply, so strongly, so completely, I couldn't bear the thought of not having her in her life. Her kisses, her touch, her giggles, her hugs, her voice in my ear, her hair on my chest, her eyes staring into mine with so much beauty I felt like I wasn't even alive. How could I let all that go? How could I simply give up? How could I ever love anyone else that much? How would I ever be happy again? She was everything to me, my whole universe, and to not have her with me, to let her go and watch her be happy with someone else, felt like death—worse than death: it felt like hell.

And so I cried some more and went a little madder trying to find some solution? Why couldn't things just go back to the way they were? Why couldn't everything just be perfect forever? Why is life always so full of confusion and pain?

I drove around, going crazier by the minute, crying and sighing, and crying some more, like a man in hell with no way out but different kinds of hell. And just when the blackness of insanity nearly took me, I finally gave up and cried out to God. I actually broke into a prayer to this God fellow I'd heard about, but had never really known. I didn't know what else to do. I prayed asking him to just fix everything for us, so we could be happy again, without either of us changing. I told him I would give up anything, if he would just answer this one prayer for me: if I could have Charlotte, once and for all and forever.

"Please, God. If you're up there, if you're listening, just let me have Charlotte Lawsen. I'll give up anything, if I can just have her love forever and ever."

With tears streaming down my face, bumping my head against the steering wheel over and over again, feeling like my soul was ripped in a hundred different pieces, I said those words.

He answered that prayer that night. He sent an angel and gave us Charlotte's Movie. And Charlotte and I did live happily ever after. But what a terrible price we paid...

I woke up Sunday morning to a ringing phone. It was Janine Best.

"You still asleep, lazy bones?"

"Yuh. Time is it?"

"It's after eleven. Get up! It's a beautiful day!"

"Eleven?"

"How late were you up last night?"

"I don't know. I was just driving around. I came home and did some writing in bed. Is it after eleven? Really?"

"Eleven-fifteen."

"Whoa. I must have been exhausted."

"You coming down here or what?"

"Where? Where are you?"

"We're all over here at Charlotte's. The movie's done. Sheila and Steve are just cleaning up the hard drives downstairs and then we're all gonna watch it. But if you're too tired, you can watch it later."

"I'll be right down," I said.

You've never seen a human being take a faster shower in your whole life. I was practically out again before the water even hit me. I was dressed and down at Charlotte's by 11:35.

There was food on the table. It was a mini party all over again. Music was playing. There was excitement in the air. Janine was practically bouncing off the walls.

"I'm so excited! I'm so excited! This is gonna be so awesome!"