Page 111 of Degrees of Control

With that his sister walked away, leaving him alone on the porch waiting for her.

Chapter 5

Charlie was exhausted, her body was aching and her fingers were sporadically twitching with the aftereffects of way too much caffeine. Still, if someone offered her a million dollars to go to sleep, she wouldn’t have been able to do it. She had too much work to do.

She could see James sitting on Kelsey’s front porch. He looked as awful as a ridiculously attractive person in a fitted t-shirt and designer jeans could look. Charlie clutched the leather notebook and inhaled deeply, deliberately.

Focus,she told herself.Focus.

She’d found her presence again last night; looking into the mirror in Sophia’s bathroom. She’d felt her abandonment so acutely it was like being stabbed, and then she remembered a night six months ago. She and James had just finished having sex and she was lying on top of James’ bare chest listening to the thump of his heart. She’d thought about what a miracle it was, this beautiful clockwork that allowed him to live and love and talk to her. She thought about how the beating would one day stop, separating them across space and time. It made her love him so much more in that moment because he was there, making her life so sweet.

She’d looked into Sophia’s mirror and remembered her own life was ticking away one second after another. That was the agony of being human, knowing everyone you loved would die and so would you, knowing that you were never really safe but that closing yourself off to sidestep loss was pointless. She understood that James was doing that now, that he wasn’t leaving because he didn’t care, but because he cared too much, about hurting her, about leaving and about making her vulnerable. He didn’t want to live in the paradox; that hurt came to everyone regardless of their choices, and that while part of love was bearing the pain of your partner, she would always, always be better with him in her life.

So she drank three Red Bulls and set about trying to make this situation better.

“Okay, so we’re still here,” Frances the Uber driver said. “Can you like, get out, please?”

“Sorry!” Charlie scrambled out of the Nissan, the leather notebook clutched in her arms. “Thanks for the ride.”

“No problem,” Frances said. “Good luck with whatever’s gonna go down with you and that guy on the porch.”

“Thanks.”

She opened up the app, tipped the girl twenty percent and then turned to face James. He who hadn’t moved or said anything, he was just blinking at her from the porch as though she might be a mirage.

“Hey,” she said, not wanting to launch right into her ‘love me in the paradox’ speech. “That Uber was crazy expensive.”

He said nothing.

His tan was still golden brown from the Australian sun, but there were heavy shadows under his eyes and he looked slightly drawn, as though no one had fed him his usual amount of carbohydrates and animal fats.

“Charlotte…” He cleared his throat. “Why are you here?”

It wasn’t an accusation, it was more like wonder.

She walked a little closer, unnecessarily smoothing down her jacket. “I came to find you. You had to know that I would.”

“After the way I treated you, I wasn’t expecting anything.”

Charlie gave him a rueful smile. “Oh, you mean after the way you lashed out at me on purpose, hoping that I’d dump you because you refuse to accept that I love you?”

James had the decency to look chagrined. “Darlin’…”

She held up a hand. “Before you say anything else, I have something to give you.”

A glimmer of his old shit-eating smile. “Is it a kiss?”

She laughed and it felt so fucking good she laughed more. “It’s not a kiss, but it’s crazy-important to me. If it goes well, kisses might come later.”

She stepped up to the porch and presented him with the leather bound notebook she’d spent the last few months putting together. “I wanted to give it to you for Christmas, but I had to get some photos off Sophia first.”

James took the notebook, his lips moving as he read the words she’d embossed on the front cover.‘The Book of James.’“What’s this?”

“It’s something to remind you,” Charlie said. “Don’t read it in front of me, I’m gonna go inside and talk to Kelsey while you look through it.”

“But—”

“I mean it. Just open it and see for yourself, try to keep an open mind though and remember that I’m not super great at crafts.”

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