“Jeez, Brian.” Alex took his first hit of coffee and felt more awake. “Did somebody pour itching powder in your pants or something?”
Brian shook his head as he craned his neck and searched the dining hall. “Nope. I’m just so happy today! Where’s Charlotte? I have to tell both of you how the date went last night!”
Alex sighed. “Charlotte’s in bed where she’s supposed to stay all day today.”
“What? Why? We have to go to the commencement ritual at the reservation. Is she skipping out on another one of our plans? God, what has gotten into her lately?” Brian folded his arms and frowned at his eggs.
“Bri, she was in the hospital last night, okay? I had to go pick her up because she was loopy off the meds they poured into her, and you had her car.” Alex poked at his sausage and decided it was edible enough. “She’s supposed to sleep today, especially since she’s got some more drugs in her.”
“What happened to her? Why was she in the hospital? Is she okay?” All thoughts of his night with Theresa vanished in his concerns over Charlotte. “Why didn’t you call me last night and tell me all this?”
Alex shrugged. “I didn’t want to interrupt your date, and Charlotte asked me not to call you. She didn’t want to bother you.”
“Why the hell not? She’s my best friend! How could I not worry about her?” Brian pushed away from the table. “We’re going to go see her right now. I need to see her and make sure she’s okay.”
Before Brian could rush off, Alex grabbed his arm and tugged him back into a chair. “Bri, relax. She’s probably sleeping right now, and you don’t want to wake her up. She just burned herself pretty badly.”
“Burned herself? How? With what, an iron, matches? What happened?”
“You are full of questions today, aren’t you?” Alex lifted the mug of coffee to his lips. “She spilled fresh-brewed coffee on her hand. It was mostly superficial, but parts of the burn are second degree. The hospital wrapped her hand up in gauze and put her on meds because it’s pretty painful. She was loopy last night and probably will be all day today.” He glanced at his watch. “We can stop by and see how she’s doing before we head out to the reservation. How’s that sound?”
Brian took a moment to process all the information, but his mind focused on one thing: Charlotte was okay. “Okay,” he said finally. Then, his mind bounced right back to Theresa and their kiss. “I kissed Theresa last night.”
“What?!” Alex nearly choked on a bit of sausage and thumped his hand on his chest. “For Pete’s sake, Brian, why didn’t you say anything before? That’s pretty important info, you know.”
Brian grinned hugely. “I know. It was amazing. I didn’t really plan on kissing her last night.”
“Yeah, it doesn’t exactly follow your rule of no kissing until the fifth date.” Alex winked and had a piece of scrambled egg fly across the table onto his tray. “Good shot. Too bad you missed.”
“I meant to. Anyway.” Brian’s eyes grew distant as he remembered his date with Theresa. “We went to the movies, went to Luciano’s, and then, outside of Luciano’s, I kissed her. It was pretty amazing.”
“On a scale of one to ten?”
“Definitely a ten,” Brian stated definitely.
Alex’s brows rose. “Really?”
“Seriously.”
“Wow. Congrats.” Alex high-fived him. “So, now what? Are you guys going to go out again or what?””
Brian’s smile was slow and triumphant. “We’ve made plans for every night until Friday. Friday’s the garden party, so we can’t really go out. But I plan on keeping her with me the whole time.”
“So that’s five more dates. Nice.” Alex wondered what Charlotte would say if she were there at the moment. One thing was certain. She would be pissed as she didn’t believe Theresa deserved Brian. Good thing then, Alex mused, that she wouldn’t know. “So what about after commencement? She’s going back to New York, and you’re going to Boston. Are you going to try to keep up a relationship that way?”
Brian leaned back in his chair and contemplated Alex’s question for a few moments. “I haven’t thought about it too much, but I’d like to keep up a relationship with her, long-distance or not. I feel like she’s the one, Alex. She’s the one I’ve been dreaming of since I was little, and I can’t believe I’ve finally found her. I’m going to do everything it takes to keep her by my side. No matter what.”
“No matter what, huh?” Alex was afraid of that last part, but he kept his reservations to himself. It wasn’t easy to be caught between the opposing forces that were his best friends, but he didn’t say anything.
“Yeah. I’m not going to let anything or anyone get between us.” There was a determined gleam in Brian’s eyes, and his mouth was grim. “Theresa’s the one I want. The only one.”
Melanie opened the door and let Brian and Alex into the room she shared with Charlotte. She had a small smile on her face in greeting and gestured towards Charlotte’s bed.
“She’s been in and out all morning, but she’s pretty foggy whenever she is awake.”
Brian brows flew up at the pallor of Charlotte’s face and the enormous amount of gauze on her hand. “Wow,” he whispered. “That must have been quite the burn. It’s not like Charlotte to spill coffee all over herself. She’s one of the most careful people I know.”
“Yeah, well, things change,” Melanie murmured. If she’d understood Charlotte’s mumbled, half-asleep words right, it was because of Brian that she was in the pain she was in—emotionally and physically.
Alex slid an arm around Melanie’s shoulder. “Did she keep waking you up in the middle of the night?”
“No.” She let herself lean against him. “She was fine. I guess the drugs really knocked her out. This morning, though, she keeps floating in and out. I don’t really want to leave her alone, you know?”
“I know.” Alex brushed his lips over Melanie’s forehead. “You’re a good friend, Mel.”
Brian continued to stare at Charlotte as she slept. He simply couldn’t believe how sick she looked. In all four years that he’d known her, she’d been ill a total of one other time. It just wasn’t like her to be sick, and it made him feel guilty to know that, while he’d been having a great time, she’d been in the hospital, in pain.
“I’ll be there next time,” he murmured. “I’ll make sure you don’t hurt yourself again. You can’t make us worry like this, Char.” He brushed his fingers over her hair.
Charlotte’s eyelids fluttered a bit at the sound of his voice before she fully opened them. Her eyes were glazed with, Brian figured, pain and the drugs. It took her several moments to focus on him. “Brian.” Her voice was a paper-thin whisper. “You’re here.”
“Yeah.” He kissed her cheek. “Where else would I be?”
She pushed herself into a sitting position slowly, as though her bones would break if she moved at normal pace. “You were with Theresa. Why aren’t you with her now?”
“Char, that was last night. It’s morning now, and Alex, Mel, and I are right here. With you.” He tapped his finger lightly on the gauze decorating her right hand. “I can’t believe you spilled coffee on your hand. What were you thinking?”
Charlotte glanced down at her hand before meeting Brian’s gaze again. In her eyes, he saw anger that hadn’t been there an instant before. “It was your fault, Brian.” Her voice was very controlled, as though she would scream if she didn’t control it. “You shouldn’t have gone out with Theresa. You shouldn’t have gone anywhere near her! Why couldn’t you just listen to me, for once?”
“What the hell? Where’d that come from?” Brian stood and frowned down at her, trying not to be annoyed and reminding himself that she was on painkillers and probably didn’t know what she was saying.
“If you hadn’t gone out with her, if you hadn’t taken her to Luciano’s, and then freaking kissed her outside on the sidewalk, then I wouldn’t be stuck in bed, in pain like this!” Her voice rose hysterically, and Melanie was at her side in an instant.
“Charlotte, you shouldn’t be getting this upset right now. Brian, she doesn’t know what she’s saying,” she began, but Brian cut her off.
“Leave her alone, Mel. She’s obviously clear enough to say what’s on her mind.” His furiously cold blue eyes met Charlotte’s pain-filled and equally furious ones. “What does me kissing Theresa have anything to do with you being hurt, Charlotte?”
Charlotte’s good hand fisted in the bedsheets. “You shouldn’t have done it! For crying out loud, Brian, you don’t even know her! You just think she’s perfect for you, that she’s the one you want to be with, but she’s not what you want her to be. Why the hell can’t you see that? Open your eyes, Brian, before she rips your heart out and stomps on it!”
“You’re wrong.” Brian’s voice was oddly calm. “She’s everything I want, and she will make me happy. If you can’t support that, if you can’t be happy for me, then I must have severely overestimated our friendship.”
“Damn it, Brian! Why the hell are you so narrow-minded?” Charlotte shook her wounded hand at him in frustration. “I saw the two of you kissing, and it pissed me off because you can’t see that she’s not good enough for you! I spilled my coffee because I was startled and then angry at you, at her! Why can’t you just listen, just once, to me on this one? Trust me?”
Brian stepped back from the bed. “Because, for the first time, I can’t. I know what’s in my heart, and I know what’s in Theresa’s.” He couldn’t believe this was happening. How could his best friend not understand his heart, his feelings? Was this what their friendship had come down to? A lack of understanding and loyalty? “If you can’t accept what will be between Theresa and me, then it hurts me to say that I can’t be friends with you for much longer. I thought you understood me, Charlotte. I thought you knew what it was I needed, but I can see I was wrong. You’d better choose, right now, what it is you really want. I don’t want to lose our friendship, but if you can’t accept my relationship with Theresa, then there’s nothing left between us.”
“Brian-” Alex stepped forward in protest, but Brian waved him away.
“This is between Charlotte and me, Alex. Stay out of it.” His eyes stayed steady on Charlotte’s. “Choose, Charlotte.”
She stared at him for long moments as pain began to slowly pulse through her arm again. But the pain in her hand was nothing compared to the ripping pain in her heart that made it difficult for her to breathe. Her heart was breaking, and she couldn’t stop it.
“I wish I could find something about Theresa that would make me able to accept her, Brian.” Charlotte blinked the tears out of her eyes, determined to see Brian clearly. “But I can’t. I’m sorry, I can’t.”
“No.” His resolve was firm, but the sight of tears on her cheeks—something he’d never witnessed before—nearly undid it. The image of Theresa in his mind’s eye, though, made him stick to his decision. “I’m sorry. I guess this is the end.”
“Brian.” Her voice was tiny.
Brian forced himself to look away, to turn and walk towards the door. He opened it and, without looking back, he paused in the doorway. “Goodbye, Charlotte.”
Not waiting for a reply, he left. He needed to be alone, he realized. Somewhere where he could relieve the horrible pressure in his chest because he’d just left behind one of the most important people in his life. There was no going back, and his heart ached at the loss.
Charlotte watched the door shut behind him and, after several long moments, buried her face in her hands and wept. She’d depended on him for four years, loved him for four years, and now, because of the woman he thought he loved, he’d thrown her out of his life.
“Oh, god.” Her voice cracked as tears flowed down her cheeks. She could barely make out the sympathetic looks on Alex and Melanie’s faces. “How could this just happen?”
Alex knelt beside the bed and took her uninjured hand in his. “Char, he’s just mad right now. You just gotta give him a little bit of time, and he’ll come around.”
“No.” She brushed at the tears on her cheeks. “Alex, you know better than that. You know when he makes up his mind, he’s harder to budge than an elephant.” She tried to smile at the silly analogy that had sprung up in her mind and ended up sobbing instead. “It’s over now. It’s really over.”
Alex held her hand and said nothing. Could say nothing because he knew she was right. It was over.
