Page 114 of Your Fault

“You feeling bad may do something for you, Nick, but it doesn’t do shit for me. Now get out of here.”

I did so, but just before, I wrote a note and left it on Noah’s pillow. I’d made a decision.

47

Noah

I went straight from Leister Enterprises to Charlie’s. I didn’t want to see anyone who would try to convince me not to be angry at Nicholas; I didn’t want Jenna telling me that she understood where I was coming from but that Nick had a right to accept a job lots of people would kill for.

I wanted to be selfish. I needed to be selfish when it was about Nick. Two years apart…? It had only been a week, and we were almost going crazy.

I’d never been to Charlie’s home, but I had dropped him off before, so I knew the address. When I rang the doorbell, I heard a noise behind the door before he opened in a state I’d seen him in more than a few times: drunk as a skunk.

“Noah,” he said, slurring my name slightly. His eyes were bright red, and he stank of alcohol.

“Hey…you mind if I come in?”

Drowning my fears and insecurities in alcohol was the last thing I needed to do. But one drink never hurt anybody.

Charlie smiled and invited me in. We spent the day in his room sharing secrets over a bottle of tequila. I told him what was goingon with Nick, and he confessed that his boyfriend had left him. He was an alcoholic, he told me, and I felt immediately guilty: getting drunk with him was clearly a bad idea, then, but in my defense, he’d already been well on his way before he’d opened the door for me.

“If my brother saw me like this, he’d kill me,” he said. “He thinks his bullshit therapy can help me, but actually he’s the one who needs to be in therapy… He can be a real asshole, you know? You have no idea what it was like growing up with him when my mother died…”

It saddened me to see he really wasn’t the happy, carefree kid he appeared to be. I didn’t know about his past, and it made me realize everyone had secrets they didn’t want to reveal.

Since alcohol wasn’t going to solve anything, I said we should eat something and watch a flick. We put onShrekand cracked up, and I forgot all about Nick for a few hours.

It had been a long time since I’d had a friend I could share simple moments like this one with. Jenna was too out there; all she ever wanted to do was party or shop, and only a few times had we ever just sat on the couch and hung out.

It was almost nighttime when the door opened and Michael came in looking pissed. I didn’t expect to see him there, but I realized then that it was his apartment, too. Charlie lived with his brother because he barely had enough money for school.

I don’t know why I felt uncomfortable—maybe because I was used to seeing him in his office, maybe because he knew almost all my secrets, fears, and insecurities. He looked across the room and spotted me. Lines appeared in his forehead, and I sat up straight, almost as though I expected him to chew me out. We’d stopped drinking hours before. Charlie had even taken a cold shower and looked relaxed, so I prayed Michael wouldn’t guess at what we’d been up to.

Noting the tension in the air, Charlie said, “Hey, Brother, what’s up? You feel like watching something with us?”

Michael started unpacking a supermarket bag at the counter. “Have you eaten?” That was his only response. He hadn’t even said hi to me. Feeling strange, I got up, ready to go.

“I should leave, I think,” I said, picking up my purse.

Michael stared at me for a moment before saying, “I brought food for dinner. You can stay if you want. In the meantime, you can tell me why you decided to skip your appointment today. I was waiting until seven for you.”

Shit! I’d completely forgotten… That was why he was acting so weird, because I’d left him hanging.

Charlie glanced at me out of the corner of his eye and said he needed to go clean his room.

Some timing.

I walked over to the marble counter where he was laying out his groceries. “I’m really sorry, I totally forgot.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll catch up in the next session. You like mushroom risotto?”

He seemed so relaxed, so different from when he’d come through the door. All the anger in that look he’d given me before was gone. I nodded, dropping my purse in the chair and deciding it would be better to stay than to risk offending him after I’d already left him hanging.

I put on an apron and helped him with the mushrooms and the sauce. Charlie knew nothing about cooking, and when he came out, he basically just bothered us trying to stick his fingers in the sauce to taste it.

We sat at the coffee table and talked about nonsense while we ate. It was nice to see Michael so relaxed; it was also strange seeing him outside of work. He seemed younger, and he had a flair for cooking: the risotto was incredible. We exchanged recipes. He knew what he was talking about.

I had a smile on my face as I returned home that night. I’d feltrelaxed, good, in a way I hadn’t for a very long time. With Nick, everything was so intense, just one look from him electrified me, one touch of his lips made my stomach quake.

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