faster. You stay unemployed much longer, Dad is going to have a stroke and Mom’s probably going to sign you up for one of those online dating things.”
“I’ve had offers,” Charlie muttered.
“So take one.”
He let out a sigh. His relationship with Dell hadn’t always been an easy one, and it’d certainly never been one where they shared much of anything too deep. It would be easy to clam up, to say something snide and walk away.
But Charlie didn’t have the energy for that either. “So far the only jobs I’ve been offered are lower positions, less money, and...require relocation.”
“I’m guessing that means...far?”
“Yes.”
Dell was quiet for a minute. “And you don’t want to move?” he asked as though he’d chosen each word very carefully.
“I’m certainly not going through the hassle of changing my life for a job that isn’t up to my standards.” He sounded like a douche. He knew he sounded like a douche, but he didn’t know what this thing inside him was, just that it’d been there for a long time.
It was like he’d built armor over his real self, a shell the outside world, and even his family, could see, but it was impenetrable. He could only give people what they expected, because underneath this shell...he really wasn’t sure who he was.
Maybe he did need therapy.
Suddenly he thought about leaving. Ditching the party. He could go to the Shack. See if Meg would be there, still drowning her own sorrows. Why was that a fantasy? It wasn’t like he remembered much of what they’d done together. It wasn’t like he knew her.
He’d certainly made a very careful effort to avoid the market the past month. So, why did he still think of her at all?
“We’d miss you, if that’s what you decided to do.”
Charlie looked at his brother. They hadn’t always gotten along. In fact, there’d been some times they’d probably both felt they hated each other, but something about Dell having a kid had smoothed a lot of that over.
Still, the sentiment surprised Charlie, and maybe that was on him. So he’d offer some honesty even if it made him uncomfortable. “I don’t want to move. I’m not in dire straits quite yet.”
Dell gave a nod, looking over where the Wainwrights and Pruitts mingled in the yard. “Good. I mean, I’d offer help, but—”
“I’d tell you to shove it.”
Dell’s mouth curved. “Exactly. So...” He gestured to where Lainey was trying to ride one of Wes’s dogs. “I better get in there.”
“You’re lucky, man.” It felt odd to admit it aloud, to let some of that envy show. He’d spent so much of his life convinced he was better off than Dell, never made any bones about Dell’s choices being beneath him.
But Charlie had been wrong, and it felt imperative to say it. Out loud. To Dell.
Dell stared at him, a kind of deer-caught-in-headlights, who-abducted-my-brother look. But then he glanced back out at the yard, daughter and wife with another kid on the way. Then Dell simply shrugged. “Yeah, I am.”
“How’d you do it?” Charlie said, knowing it sounded like a crazed demand but not being able to help it. He wanted to know. What steps did he need to take? How could he build his own version of what Dell had?
Eyes still on the yard, Dell seemed to consider the question. “I figured out who I was. Who I wasn’t.” His smile went soft as Mia approached. “And I let the unexpected happen.”
Mia took the stairs of the porch before Charlie could answer. She fisted her hands on her hips and glared at them. “Are you two going to come help, or stand here and gossip all afternoon?”
Dell’s arm slid around his wife’s waist easily. “Just talking about how lucky I am.”
She rolled her eyes. “Sure.”
“He’s not lying. We were,” Charlie returned. Seriously, probably way too seriously.
Mia cocked her head, looked at him, then Dell, then back again. “Well, that’s...nice. I’ll feel a whole lot luckier if I can get something into my stomach before I feel like puking.”
“All right, let’s get you some food, sugar.” And they walked off, but not before Charlie heard Mia murmur to Dell, “Is Charlie okay?”
No. He wasn’t. Because he didn’t know who he was, or how to find out. And he certainly didn’t know how to let the unexpected happen.
* * *
MEG WOKE UP in a cold sweat. She grasped around in her bed for...for...what? She stopped, realizing she had no idea what she was trying to reach. She had no idea why she was breathing so heavily or why her heart was pounding.
“A dream,” she said aloud. “Just a dream.” It felt steadying to hear her own voice in the pitch-black of her room.
Three nights in a row. Ever since the little niggle of worry had sprouted in the back of her head. Every night it had grown, every night the dreams had grown more vivid and more disturbing.
Stress had always brought on nightmares for her, long before she’d understood what stress was. But now she understood, and she couldn’t keep pretending that idea wasn’t looming in the back of her mind...waiting.
She couldn’t put it off any longer. She couldn’t keep hoping it would go away. It wasn’t going to go away, and her psyche was going to drive her absolutely bonkers until she sucked up all her fear and acted.
She forced herself out of bed and into the little bathroom. She’d shoved the offensive box under the sink after running errands in Millertown yesterday. She’d been so determined and hopeful it was unnecessary, and that the moment she purchased the test and brought it home she wouldn’t have to use it.
But if she was going to get any sleep before milking the goats, having breakfast with Elsie, followed by an afternoon meeting with a local store that might want to sell her soaps, she had to suck it up and do it.
She pulled the test out of the box with unsteady hands, read the instructions and then followed them to the letter.
She waited the three minutes feeling exactly as she had upon waking up. Shaking, heart beating too fast, breath coming too hard. It just couldn’t be.
Except when the timer went off...there it was.
Pregnant.
Her breath whooshed out of her. Pregnant. Pregnant. She had fallen not just off the wagon, but utterly, completely. The condom wrapper either a false promise, faulty or possibly drunken user error.
It didn’t matter. The results were the same. She was pregnant with a stranger’s child. All those years she’d punished her body for some foolish insecurity inside herself, but she’d kept herself out of this kind of trouble.
Clean
