Love and Other Unknown Variables (13 page)

3.9

W
hen most people think of explosions, they go for the Hollywood special effects version, with lots of noise and fire and people’s limbs flying everywhere. In actuality, the silent ones are more devastating. An exploding supernova can create enough radiation to outshine every star in a galaxy, but no sound. Greta’s fury unfolds like that.

Once the bathroom door closes, Greta remains still for a few seconds. Her chest rises and falls in measured breaths. With each inhale, the color from her face fades.

“Gret?”

She turns like she’s in slow motion. “Your sister’s new friend isn’t Cyclops. She’s a Finch.”

“Yes.”

“I notice she has a tattoo.”

“Yes.”

“And you didn’t tell me you knew her?”

“Yes.”

“Will she help us?” James asks.

“Sabotage her sister?” I ask, still looking at Greta. “Yes.”

Greta’s next question isn’t a question at all. “You like her.”

“No?”

“Liar.”

I take a deep breath and hold it in.

“She likes you.”

“You think?”

“I wouldn’t say it otherwise,” Greta says, folding her arms over her chest.

She seems to be fighting a silent war in that head of hers. I’m surprised when she laughs. It’s a hollow sound, but still a laugh. “You’re a real piece of work, Chuck.” She retrieves her bag. “We’re done here, right? So, I’ll see you guys on Monday.”

She brushes James’s cheek with a kiss before turning to leave. At the top of the stairs she turns around and tosses out, “Don’t forget to hit send, Chuck,” before disappearing down the steps. I hear the front door open and my muscles tense up in anticipation of a shuddering slam, but it closes with a silent whoosh, like an exhale.

Leave it to Greta to be looking out for me even when she’s pissed at me. I’ll send the application. I just want to read over my short answers one last time.

James takes off after her, but returns within minutes. “She left me here,” he says, slouching back into my room.

“I’ll take you home,” I say. I can’t look at him any longer. Instead, I study his big feet standing in a pizza box.

“No. I’m not going back to Estro-pallooza.” He takes a big breath and sits on my bed. “You should’ve told us. You could’ve told me.”

“I know, but this girl, she messes with my brain functioning.”

James cracks a smile. “Yeah, it’s called testosterone, you horn-dog.”

I roll my eyes and sit across from him in my desk chair. Actually, I’m well past testosterone. I’m into adrenaline, dopamine, and seratonin territory now. This is way worse than simple lust. “Now what?” I ask, and the question nearly swallows me.

“Get your coat,” he says.

“Why?”

“We’re going out,” James says, grabbing his sweatshirt.

“Where?” I ask.

James stops in the middle of tugging his sweatshirt over his head. “Good question,” he says, muffled from inside the fabric. Pulling his head out he asks, “Where do teenagers go, and why don’t we know this?”

“Mall?” I suggest.

“Uncool after the age of twelve.”

“Because you’re the king of cool?”

“No, C-Man. That’s your gig.” James finishes messing with his sweatshirt and grabs his backpack. Looking at it, his face brightens. “I’ve got it,” he says. He knocks on Becca’s door.

“Hell’re you doing?” I try to pull him away from the door, but it’s like a rowboat trying to move an ocean liner.

“I’ve got a fantastic idea. It’s going to make you happy, which will make Greta happy. And if Greta’s happy, then she’ll make me happy.”

“Ew.”

“Get your mind out of the gut—” Becca pops her head out her door. “Ladies.”

Charlotte is lying on her back looking up at the ceiling conducting the music with two charcoal pencils. She rolls onto her stomach and pushes herself up to join Becca.

“Anyone interested in a little star gazing?”

The girls look at each other. Becca smiles. Charlotte opens the door wider. “We’re in.”

“Meet us out back. I know a spot on the greenway.” James gives the girls one of his toothy smiles that can be seen from space before ducking down the back steps to the kitchen.

Charlotte leans against the doorjamb. “You mind if we join?”

“Yeah. I mean, no. It’ll be great.”

“C-man,” James hollers from downstairs. “A little help?”

“James!” Dad shouts from the master bedroom. “A little quiet?”

“Sorry!” James shouts back before we hear him mock-whispering, “You won’t hear a peep out of me again.”

I grin at the girls like an idiot, feeling my ears burn, and then bolt down the stairs. When I reach James, he’s rooting in the pantry. “You’re seriously still hungry?”

“Nope, but I am thirsty,” he says, pulling down a bottle of bourbon that’s been there, untouched, for maybe two years. Dad can’t metabolize alcohol well; he ends up completely smashed after three sips, so Mom hid the bottle.

“Uh, no,” I say, trying to grab the bottle.

“Uh, yes,” James retorts. “I’ll be your wingman.”

“Bad idea.”

“No, it’s a brilliant idea.” He puts the bottle in his backpack.

“Midnight snack?”

I turn around as James drops his backpack and kicks it toward the back of the pantry. “Dad. Hey! Uh, we were—”

“Just going to bring these out to the greenway for some star gazing, if that’d be okay?” James is holding out a can of Pringles and a bag of cookies. “Star gazing makes me hungry.”

“Hold on,” Dad says, his face pulled in a stern grimace, but he’s wearing an old Muppet Babies T-shirt so it’s hard to take him too seriously. “Are those my cookies?”

I peek at the bag. “We can’t take those, J,” I say, grabbing the bag. “These are the gluten-free ones. They taste like cardboard hockey pucks.”

“Hey,” Dad says, grabbing his precious cookies. “It’s all I’ve got.”

James grins. “Sorry, Mr. H.”

Dad wanders back to the bedroom with his cookies.

“Too damn close, man. This is not good.”

“You’re right,” James says, and I let out a sigh. “This is great. Let’s hit the greenway.” He walks out the side door assuming that I’ll follow.

I follow.

---

“
T
his is a very bad idea,” I whisper to James as we crash through the underbrush to get to the greenway with the girls a few feet behind us. James lets go of a branch too soon so it smacks me in the face. The trail winds throughout the whole neighborhood, but this section follows a creek and opens up in a glen with picnic tables less than a mile from my house.

I watch him unscrew the cap and take a swig. He swallows and makes a face like he’s licked a dirty diaper.

Coughing, James shoves the bottle at me. “Drink.”

I hold the bottle up and swirl the brown liquid. In the moonlight, it looks like molten amber.

“It’ll do you good,” James says quietly. “Guaranteed to grow you balls big enough to ask out a certain girl.”

I sniff at the open lip of the bottle and feel the inside of my nose heat up from the fumes. “This stuff is toxic,” I say, holding the bottle out.

Charlotte comes up behind me. “I believe that’s the point.” She takes the bottle and tips it up to her lips. She takes a sip, and I can tell she’s trying to be cool, but as she swallows her eyes water and the muscles at the corners of her mouth pull into a frown. “Oh, God. That really is awful,” she says, her voice sharp like razors.

I take a swig, and it’s like ingesting fire. I spew the liquid out in my best impression of a sprinkler.

James jumps back laughing.

“You okay, Charlie?” Becca asks.

“Don’t drink this, Bec. It’s poison.”

“You’re not the boss of me.”

“True,” I say and take another drink. I force myself to hold the flames inside.

By the time we make it to the glen, we’ve all had a few big gulps of the stuff. My whole body is warm and my fingertips feel electric. Also, my teeth feel fuzzy.

James excuses himself to go water a tree, and I flump in the grass near the creek. The dew soaks through my clothes, cool against my hot skin. I set the bottle down in the grass beside me. I can hear the low whispering of the creek, the slight breeze in the tops of the trees, and a chorus of crickets.

Becca tosses pebbles in the creek. They go
plink, plink, ker-plonk
.

Charlotte stretches out beside me. There’s maybe a single blade of grass separating our fingertips.

When I open my eyes to watch the branches sway above me, a feeling of complete contentment washes over me. Followed by a feeling of nausea. I close my eyes again.

“See, I thought you had to keep your eyes open for star gazing.”

“I can see them just fine,” I say, my voice a timpani in my head.

Charlotte’s laugh crashes around me. “You look a little…unwell. You okay?”

I shake my head. It makes a soft, scratchy sound in the grass. Inside my head, it sounds like a landslide.

“You’re kind of a cheap date, huh?”

“Wha—” I stupidly open my eyes and turn my head to look at her. The movement sends a ripple of panic down my spine. It wraps around my stomach and squeezes. I hold my breath.

“Close your eyes,” she says, sitting up and moving so she can place my head in her lap.

I try to sit up, but my head feels both hollow
and
heavy. How is that possible?

Her cool fingers find my temples. “Don’t yak.”

“Okay,” I say, laying my head back again. “No yakking. I promise.”

“Good because these are Jo’s shoes and she’d be pissed if you ruined another pair.”

I peek up at her. Her cheeks are pink and the moonlight is tangled in her black hair like a halo. “You’re so…”
Beautiful, funny, talented, smart, sexy…
my tongue sits like a weight in my mouth.

“Uh-huh.
You
are so drunk.”

I manage a thumbs-up sign. Charlotte’s fingers now curl through my hair, brushing it away from my forehead.

“You’re a good guy, Charlie.”

“Are you using me?”

Charlotte’s cheeks pale a little, but her lips twist into a smile. “A little.”

“It’s okay if you are. I let Carmen cheat off me in organic chemistry last year. But she wasn’t as pretty as you. Greta says we should double date.”

“Oh, she does?”

“Yes.”

“What do you say?”

“What do I say to what?”

Charlotte chuckles. “I’m going to give you a pass on that invitation.” Her fingers massage my skull making my mind blank out. “Where is Greta?”

I can’t even remember who Greta is for a second. When it comes to me, I manage to murmur, “Mad.”

Charlotte’s fingers freeze in my hair. “At whom?”

“Me. Always me. I’m kind of a huge disappointment as a best friend. She kinda saved my life, or at least my future life, one time. I owe her a lot, but this year feels different. I haven’t told her certain things.”

“About me?”

I nod. “Which sucks because she’s smart, not just about school stuff. She’s people smart. She helps me figure out my next steps, you know. Without her help, I may end up stepping in a land mine.”

“You should definitely talk to her if she’s mad,” she says, her fingers moving through my hair again, behind my ears, along my neck. It feels so damn good. “A sincere apology wouldn’t hurt.”

“She could finally get that video footage she wants.”

Charlotte chuckles. “Yeah, I don’t know what that means.”

“We should definitely double,” I say just as Becca yells for Charlotte to come see something.

Charlotte leans so her lips are just above my forehead. “Ask me when we’re sober.” She lays my head on the grass where I instantly pass out.

4.0

J
ames smacks my shoulder. “Hey, we gotta go. I hear someone coming.” He’s trying to pull me to my feet. Either he’s slurring or my ears are stuffed with cotton.

When I stand up, the trees around us do a funny jig. “Oh, God. Dancing trees are not good.” Charlotte buoys me up from one side, while James holds the other. We all lean into each other for stability as a lone figure comes around the corner.

“What the hell’s going on?”

Busted.

Greta stops five paces before us and puts her hands on her hips. Becca yelps and hides behind James.

“It’s Greta! Hey, guys! It’s Greta!” James shouts and barrels toward her. Charlotte catches me before I face plant. “I didn’t know if you got my text, but you did! And you’re here!”

Greta eyes the mostly empty bottle in James’s hand. He holds out the bottle toward her. “I saved some just for you.”

Greta grimaces, but it turns into a lopsided grin. “Um, wow, I’ll pass on the alcoholic backwash, but thanks.”

James nods. “You sure?”

She laughs. “Yep.” When she looks at me, leaning on Charlotte, her expression gets grim. “You okay, Chuck?”

I don’t answer. My brain feels like it’s wrapped in a fur coat.

“He’s fine,” James says, wrapping an arm around Greta. “I did good, huh?”

“Good?”

“They look cute.”

“They look wasted.”

“We can hear you,” Charlotte sings.

Greta glares at her.

I’m concentrating on keeping my feet under me. I must have Dad’s sucky-alcohol-metabolism-disorder. James seems to be better off. He can walk and talk at the same time.

“No one’s wasted,” James says, demonstrating his amazing walking/talking skills.

Just then my legs buckle, and Charlotte can’t hold me up. I sit down on my ass and end up pulling Charlotte down with me. Greta eyes us, folds her arms over her chest, and then glares at James.

“He’s tired is all,” James says.

I groan. Becca helps Charlotte up, but I just roll over on my face. The cool grass feels exquisite. Yes, I said exquisite.

I silently pray.
Please, lord of drunken night stupidity, let me get out of this with just a shred of my dignity.
I think I asked Charlotte on a date. Unfortunately, I don’t remember her answer. Now Greta is here making her mean face. And I get why she’s mad at me, but why’s she looking at Charlotte like that?
And dear lord of drunken stupidity, also could I not puke on anyone right now? Thanks.

“Oh-kay.” Greta stomps over and pulls me to my feet. She leads me away from Charlotte. “Let’s go. I came back to talk to Charlie, but I can see it’ll have to wait.”

“You can talk, G. We’re listening,” James says, pinning my other arm in his grip.

Greta searches my face and looks over her shoulder to where Becca and Charlotte are leaning on each other. “Nope. Let’s go.”

“Right,” James says, lifting the bottle in a toast and finishing it off. “Homeward.” He tosses the empty bottle into the creek. It makes a funny plunking sound.

Greta and James lead me off toward home with Becca and Charlotte trailing after us. I look over my shoulder once and catch Charlotte’s eye. I hope my expression tells her how sorry I am that my underage adoptive parents are psychos and all, but I probably just look like I’ve got alcohol poisoning.

---

I
wake to a distinct pounding. My mouth feels like I’ve spent all night sucking on James’s ratty Adidas sneakers. And my head—oh my God, my head. I wriggle further under my covers to get away from the thudding in my head.

Except it isn’t just in my head.

Thud! Thud! Thud!
“Better be decent in there, boys. I’m coming in.”

I peek from my covers. Greta promised she’d be back, first thing in the morning. Actually, she said, “I can’t talk to you when you look like you’re gonna puke. Sleep it off drunk-ass.”

The door flies open, but gets stuck when it jams into James’s body sprawled on the floor. It had to hurt, but he only moans and rolls over.

Greta stomps into the room and slams the door. My head erupts with another round of pounding, and I want to retreat, but I’ve been spotted.

“Get up,” Greta yells. Maybe she isn’t yelling, but it feels like it. She rips the pillow from under my head and whirls to smack James with it. “You, too, Sleeping Beauty.” She hits him again. He snuffles and grabs the pillow from her mid-smackdown. Snuggling up to the pillow, he falls comatose again.

Greta rolls her eyes and turns back to me. “You sober?”

The room tilts like a gyroscope as I sit up. My throat feels raw. “Maybe. I honestly don’t know.”

“I barely got you home last night. How much did you drink?”

I squint in the dim light. “I don’t know.”

“What were you thinking?”

“You were gone. We don’t do well without you.”

Greta slumps into my desk chair, like all the angry wind holding her afloat has died away. “Jesus, Chuck. What are you going to do next year when we’re at different schools?”

“Throw myself into my work?”

Greta’s smirk is grim. “As long as that work doesn’t involve the distillation of ingredients to produce C
2
H
5
OH.”

“Alcohol. Very funny.”

Using her foot, Greta rolls James onto his side. Watching him sleep, she looks so sad.

“I’m sorry, Gret.” I pause, swallowing hard. “Did you want to get your phone to video this?” Her right eye twitches a little. “Sorry for that, too,” I say, pointing at her eye. She smiles.

“I should’ve told you about Charlotte. It was stupid. I’m stupid. But, Charlotte’s like—”

Like what? The answer? I thought I had my future settled until I met Charlotte. Now, it’s all a blur.

Greta gnaws a fingernail. There are shadows under her eyes. Even her curls look tired.

“You’re my best friend,” I say. “I should’ve told you.”

She nods. “You’re not the only one with secrets.” She frowns at James. I think she’s going to chew on her fingernail again, but instead, she gives her finger a good lick before reaching down and jamming it in James’s ear.

“Arragag,” James sputters, sitting up and swatting at his ear. As soon as he’s vertical, his spit-soaked ear is the least of his worries. He grabs his head, smooshing his kinky curls. “Ohmygodmyhead hurtsIthinkI’mdying,” he mumbles before flopping back down.

Greta chuckles. “Good. I hope your head hurts all the way to next week, you drunk.” She nudges him again. “Stay awake. I’m about to confess some shit.”

James groans, but he’s paying attention.

Greta inhales, sitting up straighter in the chair. “We all know Chuck and baby Finch are buddies, and Chuck sucks for not telling us.”

James and I grunt because nodding would hurt too damn much.

“Okay, before I go on, Chuck’s got to be honest.”

“I will.”

“How much do you already know about Charlotte Finch?”

“Not much.” I pick at a grass stain on my pant leg. “She likes old movies where people randomly break into song, but also has an appreciation for comics.”

James gives a thumbs up. “Cool.”

“She sketches constantly in this notebook she keeps. She does this amazing hip wiggle thing when she dances. She smells like a garden of sugar-cookies—”

I shut up, my ears suffering a sudden heat wave.

“Ohh-kay,” Greta encourages me. “These are all super nice things, but what else?”

There are plenty of other things I can say, but they would all fall into the “super nice things” category, and Greta looks like she might punch me if I continue down that vein.

“I don’t know, G. What do you want me to say?”

Greta looks away, watching the dust swirl in the gray light from the blinds.

The pounding in my head ratchets up a notch forcing me to yell over it, “Greta, What? She’s a he? She’s wanted for murder? She has thirty days to live?”

“Oh, Chuck.”

I push myself up from the bed—too fast—the room sways, but I hold my ground. “Don’t you, ‘Oh, Chuck,’ me. What do you know?”

Greta holds her hands up, surrendering. “When I met Charlotte here last night, I was shocked to be face to face with the girl whose secret I’d been hiding. When I bailed on you guys, it was mostly because I was mad at myself. I’m supposed to protect you, Chuck, and I failed.”

“Secret?” I ask.

“Dr. Whiting called my mom a week ago.”

“What did that assbag want?” James growls from his prone position on the floor. “To threaten you some more?”

Greta looks down at him. “I wish.”

“What then?” I ask.

“I’m not supposed to know this. I overheard my mom’s half of the conversation and some of Dr. Whiting’s, too.” Greta pauses to gnaw what’s left of the fingernail on her index finger (not the one that was just in James’s ear). “Ever noticed how loud he is? I always thought it was the school’s loudspeaker system, but no, that man is loud.”

“Fortissimo,” says James, most of his face buried in his pillow.

“People,” I say, my patience draining fast. “This tangent is not interesting me.”

“Charlotte’s sick.” The words tumble out of Greta’s mouth.

“Sick?” I see Charlotte in my mind’s eye, staring out at the rain from my porch.

“Real sick, Chuck. Sick enough Dr. Whiting asked my mom to come meet Ms. Finch for a few therapy sessions.”

“Whoa,” James says. He sits up too fast and reels. “That’s why Whiting was being all protective.”

Greta nods. “He doesn’t care about Ms. Finch any more than he does about any of us though. I heard him say he was counting on her to turn around the school’s reputation. It’s all about the prestige. He’s worried Finch will let a little thing like her sister being sick get in the way of her performance at school.” This last sentence is so laden with sarcasm I fear the floor joists can’t hold its weight.

“This is stupid.” I can feel anger ignite in my blood, like I’m an explosive ready to blow. Charlotte and sick do not go together. These are realities that cannot coexist.

“What kind of sick?” James asks.

“Cancer.”

Monster.

“What kind?” I ask.

Greta shrugs.

I don’t know why I asked. Charlotte already told me.
Because I’m sick in the head.

My mind is racing. This can’t be true. I’m still dreaming some messed up, alcohol-induced nightmare. The inside of my mouth feels like something vile has crawled in and died. I attempt to spit out whatever is decaying. “Fuck.”

It doesn’t help.

I pace my room and smash the remaining Oreos under my heels, feeling grim satisfaction as they crumble.

“I’m sorry, man,” James says reaching a hand out as I pass.

Greta explodes, “Freaking Dr. Whiting has the loudest freaking voice ever. Why can’t that man regulate his volume?” Like our principal’s booming baritone is to blame.

“Yes, Gret,” James says, “
He
is the root of all evil.” He pats her knee.

Greta stands and delivers a quick punch to his shoulder before taking me by the hand and leading me back to my bed and coaxing me to sit down. “You doing okay in there, Charlie?”

She sits next to me, studying my face intently. When my mind broke before, Greta brought me to her mom. Dr. McCaulley taught me to look at stressful situations as triage. Scan the body and categorize the injuries: those that will heal on their own, those that will never heal regardless of the treatment, and those that treatment will immediately affect.

“I don’t know, yet,” I tell Greta.

We’re silent while I breathe and sift through my injuries. The churning in my gut will pass. The chaos in my head will need some work to sort through. But my chest, well, I feel like a grenade has blown that wide open.

I cling to Greta’s hand. “I don’t know how to solve for any of this.”

“So don’t,” she says. “Walk away. It’s not your job to solve anything for the Finches. They sucked you in, and this is going to chew you up and spit you out. Charlotte should have told you. She shouldn’t have pulled you into this. This is her fault. Walk away, Chuck.”

She makes it sound so easy. But when I think about walking away, all I can see is the desperation in Charlotte’s eyes as she sat in the rain on my front porch. Can I honestly make that better? Make things easier for her?

“I can’t walk away.”

Greta’s sigh is a mountain shifting down to its eons old core. “Then you’ll figure it out.”

“That’s a circular argument, Gret.”

“Yes,” she says, patting my knee. “And you just love circles, don’t you?”

I do. Circles are my favorite.