Page 45 of The Charlie Method

I’m surprised to feel a tingle between my legs. It’s too bad I don’t have time to hit up my sexy Swedes, indulge in an orgasm or two while Lars or B tell me all the things they want to do to my body.

But I have somewhere even better to be tonight.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHARLOTTE

Better than orgasms and straight A’s

BLAKE’S DORM IS IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION OF WHEREINEED TO GO, but she thinks I’m going home too, so I’m forced to make the drive to campus, then turn around and drive right back to Hastings and the interstate. I punch the directions into my GPS, even though I know the route by heart. Dante and I are old pros at this.

Since it’s October in New England, the one-lane highway is pitch-black, and it suddenly occurs to me that if I get into a car accident right now, nobody will know why I’m all the way out here in the middle of nowhere. At least until they comb through my phone messages and see I was going to meet Dante. I don’t even tell Faith about these midnight excursions. She supports me to a point, but I have a feeling Faith wouldn’t approve of this.

I load a pop playlist and blast the first song, an up-tempo Mollie May track that has me drumming my fingers on the steering wheel as I sing along. Normally I’d listen to one of my audio textbooks, but the last thing I want to do right now is think about school.

It’s been a stressful week. Midterms were more difficult than I anticipated, and I studied my ass off for them. I always do. But I’m worried I messed up my paper on the development of artificial organs. I don’t think I included enough detail.

I can’t afford to let my grade slip in that class, especially since I’m already finding my instrumentation lab a challenge. That one is even more terrifying, because my capstone project is directly tied to it; I’m designing a medical device not unlike the ones we test in the lab.

I was convinced my capstone would involve something in biotech. Hell, the syllabus for the bio lab had me atcloningandgene editing. I was solidly invested in that direction—until I developed a fascination for the signal-processing techniques used in designing medical devices. I thought I’d be bored with all the diagnostics, but somehow, instrumentation ended up being one of my favorite courses. Underperforming in that class is not an option.

When the next song comes on, I turn up the volume. I can’t let the stress get to me. I need to drown out my thoughts before—

Too late.

I feel the wave rising. It comes whenever I feel overwhelmed, but it’s not quite a panic attack. No racing heart, no damp palms. Rather, it’s a suffocating sense of pressure engulfing me from all directions. I call it the pressure wave.

And right now, it’s cresting and threatening to carry me away as I remember all the things I need to do.

Maintain my grade point average.

Nail my capstone.

Run the Delta Pi finances.

Plan the gala.

Apply to grad schools.

God, I haven’t even started on that last one yet, putting it off to the very last minute. I need to write three personal essays by next week.Three. Why is a personal essay even a requirement, damn it? I already did that for undergrad. I wrote about being an adoptee, the challenges of being disconnected from the culture I was born to but never got to experience. I suppose I could write something similar and then tailor it to fit the essay requirements for each program—

Contain it, Charlotte!an inner voice shouts as the pressure becomes more acute. Stifling.

I suck in a breath that doesn’t quite reach my lungs. Usually when the pressure wave hits, I rely on a containment method. Just one of many different methods I utilize in my day-to-day life. It’s nerdy, but they help.

With another inhalation, I visualize the wave and begin to gather it up. I push every ounce of pressure and heaviness into the little gray box in my mind’s eye. I cram it in there, this enormous wave that I manage to squish and compress into the box until it’s all contained. Then I pick up the box and place it in the microwave.

Yes, there is a microwave in my vision.

The screen doesn’t feature any numbers, only a button that says BLOW IT UP. I press it, and as the screen counts down from five, I pick up the microwave and throw it into a swimming pool.

The heavy appliance sinks to the bottom and promptly explodes. All the pressure inside it dissipates into calming ripples that shoot through the pool in all directions, and I feel a pure rush of relief that I swear is better than an orgasm.

I’m not sure this is what my high school therapist had in mind when she encouraged visualization, but it works for me, and that’s all that matters. I feel considerably lighter as I near the end of my ninety-minute drive.

It’s so eerie coming here at night. Driving up in the dark, the first thing I always see is the towering floodlights that loom over the grandstand, their glow visible from a distance. They cast a ghostly light over the building, illuminating the edges of the track and the empty parking lots that stretch out like dark, open fields. My headlights cast long shadows across the asphalt as I pull in at the entrance, which is marked by a huge, weathered sign with fading paint from years of exposure to the elements.

AMATO RACING

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