Page 49 of Charming Like Us
“If I were giving you the silent treatment, I would be the five-year-old,” I refute. “I was waiting to talk to you in private.”
He lets out a brittle sound. “No one has been on this fucking road for five blocks.”
Sure enough, the bridge is asleep. I only hear the sound of a violin off in the distance. Maybe on the other side of the river.
I give Charlie a look and then nod to Jack.
Jack raises his hands. “And I’m fine with staying out of this. I can go on ahead and leave you here to talk—”
“No,” Charlie snaps. “You’re filming my life; who the fuck cares if you’re here or not? I don’t.” His eyes bore into me. “Vrai?”True?
“Fine.” My voice grows coarser. “You haven’t disappeared on me like that inmonths. And all day, I’ve been going over it and over it in my head, and I need you to tell me the truth. Tell me if this whole fucking ‘show’”—I use finger quotes—“isn’t some elaborate plan to distract me and make it easier for you to go motherfuck-knows-where. Get yourself in troub—”
“Did it look like I was in trouble?” His eyes flame, and he points towards where we left with the cigarette still pinched between his fingers.
“That was one minute out of three-hundred,” I tell him coldly. “I don’t know what happened…” My voice trails off when he starts unbuttoning his shirt.
“Charlie, stop,” I say, my tone tempered. Hand outstretched.
“You want to know what happened in those two-hundred-fifty-nine minutes. I’m going to show you.” He tosses his shirt off to the side, pale chest in view. His fingers nimbly unbutton his pants.
“Charlie, what the hell,” Jack curses and swings his head around the bridge. No one is here to look or take photos.
“Oscar’s worried I let someone lay a hand on me,” he explains.
I intake a tight breath through my nose.
The air stills.
Deadens again.
Jack looks to me for answers that I can’t give him. All I know is that Charlie could have phrased that a million different ways, but he went with the truth.
No one reallyknowsCharlie but Charlie, and probably his twin brother and father. But I have one of the best windows into his life. He’s enigmatic and alluring to the world, but what they don’t realize is that he’s just as destructive as his brothers.
He’s simply better at fooling people.
Charlie drops his pants, only in a pair of black boxer-briefs. He extends his arms like he’s about to be measured for a suit.
I scan his body out of habit. Not a bruise. Not a scratch. He turns around. His back and legs are just as blemish free.
When he rotates to me, he says, “Satisfied?” He’s not mad or angry or anything at all.
“No because I didn’t ask you to do that.”
“You didn’t have to ask,” Charlie replies casually and then steps back into his pants. “And you’re wrong, Oscar.” He fishes the button through and his eyes meet mine. “I’m not doing this show to ditch you. If I wanted to, I could find a better way to do that.”
Round of applause goes to this little Houdini.
I let out an unamused laugh. I’m grimacing and I wash away a scowl with the roll of my eyes.
Off my anger, Charlie says, “I’m doing it for you, you know. The show, the one about my life.”
Jack shifts his weight, lips parted in confusion.
My brows knot, head cocked. “You did the show for me?” I sound skeptical because I fucking am.
He looks heavenward. “Well…one of the reasons I did it was for you. The more selfless reason, you could say.” He picks his shirt up from the bridge.
