Page 68 of The Spider & the Storm

And, hell, maybe it wasn’t about her at all.

Maybe I just didn’t want to admit that it was my baggage to begin with.

“What, are you ashamed of us?” Luke jabbed, and I looked up to see the hurt darkening his gaze.

“I’m notashamed,” I defended myself. “I just don’t know that I’m ready to bring her here.”

“I get it,” Melanie was quick to interject. “You don’t want real life to burst your happy little bubble.”

Exactly.

I offered a small smile her way, but said nothing.

“Bullshit,” Luke replied angrily, shaking his head. “Life is a shit show, Charlie, okay? Don’t pretend like you’ve forgotten that just ‘cause you've been getting your dick wet by some chick you really like. And the sooner you rip off the Band-Aid and show her who youreallyare, the better. It’ll suck a lot less if she finds out she doesn’t like what she sees.”

He winked and dived back into his dinner. Rotisserie chicken, carrots, mashed potatoes, and gravy. It was one of Melanie’s quick and easy dinners. Everything was either prepackaged or frozen, but it always tasted good, and I never complained.

Tonight, I couldn’t find it in me to eat.

Because what if he was right?

What if I was just prolonging another inevitable heartbreak? What if I’d been spending months thinking I was protecting her from my chaotic life when, really, I'd only been trying to protect myself from being hurt?

I was beside myself with the revelation, and I sat at the table, staring into a puddle of canned gravy as it spread between the island of instant mashed potatoes and pile of canned carrots.

What if I just never tell her?I wondered in foolish desperation.What if she never knows what things look like here?

I glanced up from my plate and looked at the old clock on the wall. At some point, it had stopped ticking. None of us could remember when it had happened, and we would comment on it occasionally, yet none of us seemed to care if it was frozen at 10:22 forever or not. Just like none of us cared enoughto do anything about the peeling paint in the living room, or the cracked crown molding around the basement door, or the upstairs bathroom mirror that had been broken since one of Luke’s black-out-drunk nights three years ago.

For fuck’s sake, the carpet in the basement was still stained with the bloody evidence of Luke’s fight with Ritchie the day of my parents’ funeral.

We had allowed the place to go to hell, and why would I want Jersey to bear witness to that when her little apartment was clean and pretty and nice?

But maybe Luke’s right, I thought, rolling my lips between my teeth, while he and Melanie jumped into a conversation about her father’s auto shop and how Luke’s work schedule conflicted with his next AA meeting.Maybe I should just call her up, invite her over here, and rip off that crusty, old Band-Aid.

So, that was exactly what I did.

I left the table without ceremony and hurried through the living room and out the front door with determination. The moment I was standing on the stoop, I pulled my phone out and dialed Jersey's number.

She let it ring twice before she answered. “Hey, babe!”

She always sounded happy to hear from me. I closed my eyes and pictured her contagious smile. The way her crystal blues twinkled with joy. The way her lips curled upward, as if attempting to reach the crinkles at the corners of her eyes.

I inhaled deeply, wistfully, at the ache pulsing through my chest, spreading outward through my limbs and anchoring in my gut.

When it came to Jersey, I was completely fucked. Both literally and figuratively. And how I was supposed to survive the wreck she'd undoubtedly leave in her wake, I had absolutely no clue.

“Charlie?”

“Y-yeah, hey,” I stammered, pulling myself away from thoughts of a breakup that hadn't even happened yet. “Sorry. Hi.”

She giggled. She always laughed whenever I sounded nervous and stupid, as if I'd done it to be cute or something. “What's up?”

“I, uh …”God, just fucking say it. It's not a big deal. Invite her over and get it over with. “I was just thinking, um … you've never been to my house, so …”

“Babe, are you finally asking me to meet the family?” she teased, that smile still evident in her voice.

“It's just my brother and his fiancée.”

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