He stared at me. "What the hell are you talking about?"
I pulled my hands from his grasp and closed my eyes. "I don't want to talk about it, Pat. It's . . . it's personal." His face relaxed a little, and he sighed.
I watched him stand up, and pushing his hair out of his face, he said, "I should probably call Maria." I curled up in the chair and hugged my knees. I watched him absent mindedly and didn't notice that he was sitting in front of me until he said, "Charlotte."
I zoned back in, and sighed. "What?" I was hungover, so I kind of had an excuse to be crabby.
"Are you sure you're okay?"
I waited for a minute, trying to avoid the question. When he wouldn't stop staring at me, I bit my lip and shook my head. "No, Pat. I'm not. It's just so freaking hard."
He sighed. "I wish you'd tell me what the hell is going on."
I shook my head again. "I told you I can't."
He licked his lips and pressed them together. "Would I be able to guess?"
I stared at him like he was stupid. "Probably not."
He tilted his head to the right, and said, "um, did you . . . kill someone?"
I scoffed. "Okay, um, does it have anything to do with . . . uh . . . what happened in our junior year?"
I buried my face in between my knees and said, "sort of." I could just picture Pat's face freezing in shock. I lifted my head up again when I couldn't breathe, and I looked at him. His face was straight, waiting for another answer. "What else do you want, Pat? I told you."
He shook his head. "Not all of it. You said 'sort of.' That's not the answer I wanted."
I clenched my jaw and put my hand on my temple. "Can we talk tomorrow, or some other day when I'm not hung over?" We locked eyes, and he stood up.
"Yeah," he said. "But I'm not leaving this conversation in the dark." I stood up slowly, just to see what would happen, and he hugged me. I wrapped my arms around his waist and held him tightly. "Think about it, Charlotte."
He let go, and was gone.
After I was done puking my guts out, I sat down at my desk and pulled out a piece of paper. The pen in my hand was my favorite. I never paid attention to what kind it was; I just knew that it was my favorite. I scribbled the date on the top left corner and sighed. This would take a lot of thinking.
June 18, 2007
Patrick-
I don't know any other way to tell you what's been going on. It's really personal to me and yes, it does involve you. But somehow, it just won't come out of my system. I think that this is the only way to let you know.
When you asked me if it had to do with what happened between us, all I wanted to do was start bawling. It made me think of it immediately; how you treated me afterwards, even though we're only friends. I mean it's not like
I stopped. I wanted to rip the whole thing up and burn it. I was about to tell him everything on a little piece of paper. I sighed deeply and tried to get back to writing, but it just wouldn't come to me. Instead, I started to think about what happened.
It was the biggest party of the year. Patrick and I had been invited, and we were stoked about it. I'd never been to a party this big, and I was trying to fit in as much as possible. Beer, drugs, sex, anything that would get people to accept me was what I would be willing to do. I was drunk, but sober enough to know what I was doing and what was going on. I found Patrick trying to impress some of the popular girls.
I'd been in love with Patrick already, so I became a little jealous. I caught his attention and he smiled at me. "Hey, Charlotte!" He was drunk too. I could tell by his slurred speech.
I clutched his shirt and dragged him to a more private room. "Whaad are choo doing?" He asked. I pressed my mouth to his and fell backwards onto the couch, with Patrick crashing on top of me. Surprisingly, he kissed me back, and it felt good.
And I'm sure you can figure the rest out. We were curious seventeen year olds who'd never had sex before. We wanted to see what it was like.
On Monday, I showed up at school feeling fuzzy. I wasn't sure if Patrick would remember what happened. He was probably more drunk than I was if he didn't stop. I saw him at his locker and I caught up with him. "Hey Pat," I said sweetly. He looked at me, and froze.
"Oh . . . hi, Char." His voice was hesitant, like he didn't know what to say to me.
I looked up at him, and said, "what's wrong?"
He shoved a book into his locker and said, "what do you think is wrong, Char? We . . . oh God, never mind." He slammed his locker shut and walked away.
I looked at my paper. It wasn't helping to know that he was clueless, even though it was only about four years ago. I hadn't realized that I'd started to cry, and the paper was smudged with ink and tears. It was still legible, so I continued to write.
It took me five minutes to finish it. After my flashback I found it a lot easier to figure out what I wanted to write to him. I put the cap back onto the pen and re-read it.
June 18, 2007
Patrick -
I don't know any other way to tell you what's been going on. It's really personal to me and yes, it does involve you. But somehow, it just won't come out of my system. I think that this is the only way to let you know.
When you asked me if it had to do with what happened between us, all I wanted to do was start bawling. It made me think of it immediately; how you treated me afterwards, even though we're only friends. I mean it's not like you would've just decided we would have something, but Patrick, ever since the eighth grade I've been in love with you. You've always been there for me, no matter what the problem was, and I can't thank you enough for it.
You are the sweetest, most caring guy I've ever met, and if anything tragic happened to you, I'd be devastated.
You probably have no idea how hard it is to write this down, and give it to you. This is the hardest thing I've had to go through, and if you choose not to accept it, then . . . I don't know.
But I love you, Pat. You mean everything to me.
- Charlotte
I folded up the paper, smudged and inky from crying on it, and shoved it in an envelope. I scribbled his name on the back side of the pocket and threw it in a drawer that I randomly opened. I felt like screaming. That letter helped a little bit, but not a whole lot. I sighed deeply to help myself relax. I was planning on giving him that letter soon, anyway. I didn't want to tell him. I'd rather keep it a secret so that Patrick can be happy with Maria.
My hair was still wet from my shower this morning after my barf spree, but I still needed to change. I stood up and moved toward the closet. I pulled out my The Ramones tee shirt and another pair of baggy bermuda shorts, pulling them on as I headed toward the hallway.
The phone rang as I entered the living room and I answered it tenderly. "Hello?" I said softly.
"Char?" It was Patrick, and he didn't sound to good.
"What's up, buddy?" I didn't want to sound like I knew every fucking thing in the world.
"I need to talk to you." His voice changed from hurt to a little angry, and it felt like my stomach dropped.
"Uh . . . okay. About?" I heard him huff, and I closed my eyes.
"Maria told me." My heart stopped. Well, technically, no, it didn't. But it felt like it did.
"She told you what?"
"Oh, God, Charlotte. She told me what was going on with you. When I got home we got into a fight and she told me."
I couldn't speak. It was like he ripped out my tongue and stupified me. "Are you going to say anything?" He asked.
I shook my head, and then remembered we were talking through the phone. "Patrick . . ." I was on the verge of tears. I could feel them coming behind my eyes, and I bit my tongue.
"Charlotte, I - why didn't you just tell me?" I couldn't say anything. It felt like my whole body froze, and he said, "it would've been nicer to hear it from you than Maria."
I wanted to hang up so badly, but then he'd get even angier at me, and that's not what I wanted. "I wanted to tell you, Pat. I wanted to so badly, but I just couldn't. I didn't want to . . ."
". . . screw up our friendship?" He finished for me. "You wouldn't have screwed it up, Charlotte."
I sighed. "Are you mad?"
He was silent for a moment, and then said, "a little bit. Not as much as you think I am, probably."
I sighed. That's good. "Hey, Char. I have to go now. My battery's going to die. I'll talk to you later, though, okay?"
"Yeah. Bye, Patrick."
I hung up the phone and sank down to the floor. I hated Maria even more, now. If only I'd just kept the stupid thing to myself, and not told Greta, Maria wouldn't have ever found out. The only thing I was scared of now was seeing Patrick in person, and worse . . . Maria. I had no idea how she was going to react now that both of them knew. She was nice to keep it a secret for as long as she did, but now I was scared.
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