Remembering Phoenix Read online

  The screen flickers on and instrumental music starts floating throughout the reception area. I scan the room with my eyes, but all eyes are deadlocked on the screen. Photos start floating across the screen.

  The first picture is of a baby, swaddled in a tiny little airplane blanket. The sadness in the air is palpable. You can nearly feel everyone’s ache. The second photo floats across the screen, then stops. It is of a little boy, maybe two. He’s got blonde hair and the greenest eyes I’ve ever seen. He’s beautiful.

  He looks just like…

  Charlie.

  I turn my head towards Charlie, but she’s only focused on one thing—staring directly at the screen in agony. Her hands clutch her chest as she watches the slideshow and listens to the beautifully heartbreaking music. I flick my eyes back to the screen just as a photo of Charlie and who I now know is Phoenix are in a warm embrace. There is nothing but pure, brazen love shining from their faces. Charlie’s hair is shorter, her face bare of the scar. But she doesn’t look any more or less beautiful than she does now. She just looks…happy. There’s a smile spread across her face, one that isn’t forced or fake. It’s real, and absolutely stunning.

  I quickly look back to Charlie as tears quietly stream down her face. My chest constricts as I watch her fall apart in front of everyone. I’m torn between giving her space and getting her out of here.

  What do I do?

  I act, grabbing her hand and lightly tugging it. “Come on.”

  She looks at me, then back towards where Lizzie sits. Lizzie watches her with sorrow on her face. Charlie mouths to her, It’s okay. I have to go. Lizzie nods in understanding.

  I squeeze Charlie’s hand a little tighter as we weave our way through the maze of tables and chairs until we reach the exit, not caring if I’m leaving my brother behind on his wedding day. He should understand. Apparently he knew about this and failed to mention it to me. Not that he had any reason to. I damn sure would have appreciated it, though.

  “Shit,” she whispers as she digs in her bag. “I forgot I didn’t drive my car, and I need to go. Now.”

  She takes the back of her hand and wipes under her eyes, black mascara smearing with it.

  I pull my keys out of my pocket, dangling them on my finger. “I’ll take you wherever you need to go.”

  She looks up at me apprehensively before looking back towards the church. “I don’t know. I just can’t stay here.”

  “Alright. My truck is this way.” We walk over to my truck and she hops in as I turn the ignition. “Where am I taking you?” I ask.

  She laughs bitterly. “I don’t know. I don’t have my apartment keys, so I’ve got nowhere to go.”

  “Not true,” I reply as I pull my truck out onto the road. “You can go to my house.”

  She looks defeated, worn down, and absolutely heartbroken as she looks up at me. “This isn’t some ploy to try to get me to sleep with you, is it? Because that isn’t happening.”

  She looks like her world is crumbling, but she still finds a way to let her dry sense of humor sneak through. “No. I would never take advantage of anyone when they’re down.”

  She looks at me with appreciation. “Thank you.”

  She’s been in a catatonic state for hours just holding on to a tiny picture.

  I don’t know what to do. Stetson and Lizzie have both called and tried coming over to check on her, but I told them I had it. It’s the night of their wedding, they’re not coming to check on Charlie.

  Not when I can take care of her. I hope.

  I fix the fourth glass of cold ice water and bring it into the living room, hoping she’ll actually accept this one. She is curled up on the couch, her head barely peeping out from above the blanket as she stares off at the lit fireplace.

  “Water?” I ask. “I also brought you some Advil. I’m sure you have a headache.”

  She blinks a few times and looks up at me through her tear soaked eyes. She takes the water. “Could you get me my clutch?” she asks, pointing to the tiny bag on the coffee table.

  I grab it and hand it to her. She quickly rustles through and pulls out a pill bottle, opening it and taking one out. “I get awful migraines. It’s prescribed. Promise.” Her voice is so soft and broken.

  I hold my hands up. “I didn’t say a thing.”

  Sitting up, she throws the blanket off of her. She brings her knees up to meet her chin, smoothing the fabric of her dress down her legs. She looks up at me, staring blankly for a beat, she says, “Sorry.”

  I sit down on the other end of the couch, my gaze never leaving hers. “Sorry for what?” I ask.

  She shakes her head. “For going off the deep end. I’m sorry. I just wasn’t expecting it to affect me so much,” she admits. Her eyes cast down, like she’s ashamed, embarrassed maybe. But she has nothing to be ashamed or embarrassed about.

  “I get it,” I tell her. “Is Phoenix your son?” She cuts her eyes towards me and nods ever-so-slightly. “He looks just like you.”

  “Looked,” she corrects me. Her face flashes with so many different emotions that I can’t decipher them.

  “Why talk about him in past tense?”

  She stares at me angrily. “Past tense? Because he’s dead. Gone. Buried.” She looks down at her fiddling hands. “And I don’t even remember,” she whispers, barely loud enough for me to hear.

  Remember?

  “What do you mean, you don’t remember?”

  She laughs bitterly as tears start to stream down her face. “This scar,” she runs her fingers over the raised skin on her cheek, “I got it the night we got in the accident. October fifteenth was two years ago. The only memories I have are from the past two years. Absolutely nothing before. Doctors call it retrograde amnesia. Fancy name for such a shitty problem.” She pauses for a few seconds, wiping her tears, before looking back at me. “I ache, I hurt, I die inside everyday over a little boy I don’t even remember. A little boy whom I birthed. I know, because I have pictures and a C-section scar to prove it. I know, because even though my mind doesn’t remember him, the pain and hollowness in my soul is more real than anything you could ever fathom. The mind might forget, but the heart never does.”

  It hits me like a ton of bricks. The night we first met. The night I was so consumed with my own grief over losing Claire, a child that is still alive, and pissed with having to live with only the memory of her, she was mourning the anniversary of her son’s death. A son she doesn’t even know.

  I am a huge asshole.

  “Charlie…”

  She holds up her hand. “Don’t, okay? Don’t say you’re sorry. Everybody says sorry, and all it does is pour salt into my already gaping wounds.” She hangs her head in defeat and her tangled hair falls in her face.

  “I wasn’t going to say I’m sorry.”

  “What?” she asks, never picking her head up.

  “I wasn’t going to say I’m sorry,” I repeat. “I was going to say that really sucks, and I wish I knew what I could do to make it better, but I can’t. But I am really sorry for being a self-absorbed asshole the night at the bar. I thought my problems were insurmountable. I thought nothing could get worse, so I went to the bar to drink my sorrows away. I stole your shots, but in my defense, I did pay for them, plus the rest of your fifty-dollar tab. So if you think about it, you really owe me fifty dollars. I’m not counting though, because you’re hurting and I’m a self-absorbed asshole. That’s all I’m sorry about, though.

  “I’m not saying sorry because life has been really shitty to you. Even though it has treated you like the world’s toilet paper.” She picks her head up and looks at me. Tears brim her bloodshot eyes, but a smile spreads across her gorgeous face, and something inside of me twists.

  God, Charlie. Quit smiling.

  “Did you just compare me to shitty toilet paper?”

  I shrug. “Maybe. But you’re much prettier than shitty toilet paper, and you smell better too.”

  She smells her shoulder. “Good
to know.” She reaches for her phone and clicks it on. “Crap. It’s really eleven o’clock?” she asks in disbelief.

  “It really is,” I assure her.

  “I have to be up so early in the morning.”

  “Early? On a Sunday?”

  She looks up at me and rolls her eyes. “Some people have to work on weekends.”

  “What do you do?” I ask. I’m curious about her.

  Why am I curious about her?

  “I’m a photographer.”

  Photographer. I could see her behind a camera. She seems the reserved, creative type.

  “Nice. Why photography?”

  “Are you interrogating me? Because I feel like I’m being pried for information.”

  “If that’s the way you want to see it, then yes,” I reply, propping my elbows on my knees.

  She rubs her hand over her eyes, then looks directly at me. All the ease stripped from her demeanor. “Because pictures stayed when my memory didn’t. Pictures are a moment stamped in time that can’t be undone, can’t be relived. They’re a story, the truth. With one click of the camera, you can say a thousand words without saying anything at all.” A tear trickles down her cheek as she stares off into the flames in the fireplace.

  “Yeah. Pictures definitely keep you holding on when that’s all you have,” I reply, looking up at mine and Claire’s photo on the wall.

  “Can I ask you another question?”

  She nods her head. “Sure.”

  “Phoenix’s Dad. Where is he?”

  Her shoulders sag. Defeat washes over her. Shame, maybe. “I have no idea who he is,” she admits.

  “He hasn’t even spoken up after the accident?” What a fucking sorry piece of shit.

  “No,” she says, “you don’t understand. Even before the accident, I didn’t know. I read my journals. I asked my parents, Lizzie, everyone. I had no clue who the father of my child was.” She drops her chin to her chest, covering her face with her eyes. “I was a whore, Slayter.”

  “Hey.” I tug her into me. “We’ve all been people we weren’t entirely proud of. It doesn’t make you any less of a person.”

  “Maybe not,” she whispers. “But it made me less of a mother.”

  “Not true,” I say. I pull her chin up so she has to look at me. There is no way I’m about to let her think who she was is any indication of the type of mother she was, she is. I know I didn’t know her then, but all I have to do is look at the pain in her eyes to know she was the best damn mother. “There is nothing you’ve just told me that made you less of a mother.” Tears glimmer in her eyes, and she closes them to keep the saltiness from falling over her lids. “Did you continue doing what you did before after you were pregnant?”

  She shakes her head no. “Everyone said I changed completely the moment I found out. They said it was like a light switch. In one moment I was this wild party girl, and the next I was home every night, taking care of myself.”

  “See?” I say, “Stop beating yourself up over something that isn’t even true.”

  She opens her eyes. We stare at each other for a moment. “You have no idea what it’s like to not remember anything, yet feel this constant pain of every memory I lost. It’s the loneliest feeling in the world to mourn a person you don’t remember.”

  Charlie is ripping me apart with every word she says. It’s like she speaks with a purpose, and every word etches into me, burying themselves deep inside.

  It’s too much.

  She’s too much.

  I need to think. To breathe.

  I’m torn between needing to get away from her and never wanting to let her go. It’s a battle of wills, but I’m not sure I’m strong enough to push her away.

  “I need to get going,” Charlie says.

  Well, I guess that solves my internal conflict. “I’ll need you to take me to my parents’ house though.”

  I nod. “I’ve got you, Charlie.”

  One month ago I was broken with the thought of having to live without a little girl I’d spent nine months loving.

  Then something happened. I stole drinks from a girl at a bar. Then, that girl happened to be my new sister-in-law’s sister. Then, I find out that girl has gotten the shittiest end of the stick life has to offer, and it’s made my problems seem so small, so miniscule in comparison. I’m still angry over the lies Jodi spit out, making me fall in love with Claire, just to rip her out of my life in an instant. I proposed. Promised a forever, and I planned on giving it to her. But she cheated, and I should have known when she said she wanted Claire to have her last name until we were married. I should have seen the flags at every corner, but I didn’t.

  They say love is blind. I was exhibit A.

  I don’t hate Jodi for it, I don’t blame her. Well, yeah I do, but I’m not holding a grudge. She gave me nine months with Claire, and that’s nine months no one can ever take from me. I’m not Claire’s father. It hurts, but I’m starting to come to terms with it. Becoming at peace even.

  I just hope wherever she is, she is loved and living the life she deserves. Jodi is a lot of things, but she was always an amazing mother to Claire.

  “Take a left up here,” Charlie instructs quietly from the passenger seat, breaking me out of my thoughts. “Then go straight until you see mailbox number 7681 on the right. The gate will be open, so just drive right in.”

  I look over to her. The streetlight’s glow in the cab of my truck shines across her face. The scar residing on her cheek is raised and red. Maybe it’s one of those that get angrier as your emotions get higher. Whatever it is, I don’t mind it. That scar makes her a part of who she is.

  Wait. Stop, Slayter.

  I don’t know why the hell she is affecting me like she is. I’m not that guy. I don’t get drawn in this quick. It took me two years to ever say “I love you” to Jodi and look where that got me. But there’s something different about Charlie. Maybe it’s that she doesn’t see the world from the eyes of naïveté. Maybe it’s because she’s emotionally scarred and I feel a need to help heal some of them. Maybe it’s because she’s drop dead gorgeous, but doesn’t realize it.

  “Don’t stare at me anymore. It’s uncomfortable.”

  “I wasn’t staring,” I lie.

  I watch her out of the corner of my eye as she snaps her head towards me. “You were staring. I hate staring. It’s rude. You’ve been really kind to me today, so don’t make me regret thinking you’re a nice guy.”

  I pull into the driveway with mailbox number 7681 and stop. I turn and look at her. The moon shines on her skin. “I am a nice guy.”

  “For the day? Yes. A nice guy in general? I’d say you’re most definitely full of crap.”

  “I didn’t take advantage of you while you were on my couch. That makes me a nice guy.”

  She laughs. “No. That makes you not castrated, because I would have done just that had you tried. Not that you would want…” She trails off like she wants to say more, but she doesn’t.

  “Not that I would want what?” I ask.

  She looks at me, placing a piece of hair behind her ear. “Not that you would want to take advantage of a girl like me,” she admits.

  I scoff. She is absolutely insane. “What exactly is a ‘girl like you’?”

  She shakes her head. “Nothing. Can you just continue up the driveway so I can get a shower and get to bed? It’s been a long day.”

  “Sure.” I press on the gas and slowly head up the paved driveway, to the two story brick house.

  She opens the door when I park and hops out of the truck. “Thank you for getting me out of there today when I needed it. Thank you for giving me a place to crash while I fell apart.”

  “Are you okay, now?”

  She laughs lightly. “I’ll never be ‘okay’, but I’ll make it…I guess.”

  “If you ever need someone to be not okay around, you know where to find me.”

  “Slayter Beck, you are such a bullshitter. It’s not even funny.”
r />   I watch her as she watches me. There’s pain and loneliness swirling around that pretty face of hers.

  Shit. I can’t do this.

  “Hang on.” I hop out of the truck and jog around to her side.

  “What are you doing?” she asks, panic in her voice.

  “You said I wasn’t a nice guy, so I’m going to take advantage now.”

  I grab her face between my hands and bend down until our lips connect, smothering her words with my mouth. She kisses me back, grabbing on to the front of my coat. Her soft lips meld perfectly to mine. The heat from our kiss mixes with the coolness of the November air, and damn, this feels good. Our tongues collide with each other in a battle of passion. Everything inside me screams for her. To be around her. To be there for her.

  Suddenly, she pushes away from me, shoving on my chest. Her eyes wide, she yells, “What the hell are you doing?”

  I’m still on a high from the damn kiss. “I was kissing you. It was a damn good kiss, too, I might add.”

  “No. No. No. You were just being nice. I don’t do… this.” She flails her arms between us.

  “Don’t do what?” I ask amusingly.

  “I don’t kiss. I don’t allow myself to feel.”

  “What’s so wrong with feeling?”

  She looks at me as if I should already know the answer to the question. “Because feelings lead to hearts breaking and I’ve had my heart trampled on, my soul ripped in two, because of life. I just don’t do feelings.” She wraps her arms around her to ward off the cold. I shrug my coat off and drape it over her before she has time to object. “Don’t do that,” she says. “I don’t need you to be nice and pretend to like me or whatever the hell it’s called.”

  “Who’s pretending?” I look around, looking for this pretender, because if I’m being honest, I don’t want to like this complicated, yet beautiful, mess of a woman. But I do, and dammit, there’s nothing that’s going to stop it from happening.