Chapter 125 Time
Chapter 125 Time
Chapter Twenty-Six
Cade
Realizing I want something does not suddenly make me brave enough to reach for it.
That would be easier.
Cleaner.
More romantic, probably.
Charlie’s question follows me through the weekS, slipping into the quiet spaces between classes and errands and the ordinary routines I have built my life around.
What about me?
I understand it now.
He wasn’t asking why I refused to think about him. He wasn’t demanding that I put his feelings above Jordan’s or ignore every complication standing between us.
He was asking why I never considered myself at all.
The answer should have changed something immediately.
Instead, another Monday arrives, and I still wake alone.
I shower.
I dress.
I pack my lunch.
I drive to school through streets lined with old snow and salt.
I stand in front of twenty-three fourth graders and teach fractions while one of them insists that three-fourths is larger than four-fifths because three is bigger than four when viewed upside down.
The explanation takes twenty minutes.
By the end of it, I am too tired to think about Charlie.
At least that is what I tell myself.
The truth is that I think about him while drawing circles on the whiteboard.
I think about him while separating two students arguing over a blue marker.
I think about him during lunch duty when someone drops an entire carton of chocolate milk, and every child within twenty feet reacts as though a bomb has gone off.
Charlie would laugh at that.
Not at the children.
At me.
At the way I would stand in the middle of the mess with my hands on my hips, silently questioning every decision that led me to this moment.
He would tease me about the tie I am wearing.
He hates this tie.
He once called it an attack on the color green.
I look down at it during afternoon recess and nearly smile.
Then the ache returns.
Another Friday comes, and I have done nothing.
I have not called him.
I have not texted.
I have not gone to his apartment.
I have not even asked Jordan if he has spoken to Charlie.
I know they still message. Jordan’s phone lights up often enough, and sometimes he laughs in that absent way people do when they are reading something ridiculous.
I never ask what Charlie said.
I tell myself it would be intrusive.
Really, I am afraid.
Afraid that Charlie is fine.
Afraid that he is not.
Afraid he has decided waiting for me is no longer worth the pain.
Afraid he is still waiting.
That one is worse.
Waiting means I am hurting him every day I remain silent.
Saturday morning, I wake with a headache.
It sits behind my eyes, dull and persistent.
I blame the week.
School has been chaotic. Report cards are due. Two parents have requested meetings. One child has discovered knock-knock jokes and apparently believes I should hear every one ever invented.
Stress.
That is all.
I lie in bed for another fifteen minutes before forcing myself up.
The house is quiet.
Jordan is still asleep, which is unusual but not impossible. He stayed out late with friends and sent me a text sometime after midnight to say he was home.
I make coffee.
The smell turns my stomach.
I stop in the middle of the kitchen.
The nausea rises quickly, an unpleasant wave that has me gripping the edge of the counter.
For several seconds, I simply breathe.
In.
Out.
The coffee maker gurgles behind me.
The scent grows stronger.
I turn it off.
Silence follows.
“What the hell?”
My voice sounds small in the empty room.
I open the window over the sink despite the cold. Winter air rushes inside, carrying the clean scent of snow and damp pavement.
The nausea eases.
Not entirely.
Enough.
I stand there until my fingers begin to chill.
When Jordan eventually comes downstairs, I am eating dry toast at the table.
He pauses in the doorway. “Are you sick?”
“No.”
“You look sick.”
“I have a headache.”
He squints at me. “You’re eating toast.”
“Yes.”
“Plain toast.”
“I’m aware.”
“That’s sick-person food.”
I sigh. “Good morning, Jordan.”
“Morning.”
He moves toward the coffee maker, then frowns when he finds it empty.
“You didn’t make coffee?”
“I wasn’t in the mood.”
He turns slowly.
His expression is so suspicious that I nearly laugh.
Nearly.
“You always want coffee.”
“Apparently not today.”
He continues staring.
“Stop looking at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you’re trying to diagnose me.”
“I’m not qualified.”
“At least you’re aware.”
Jordan shrugs and starts making a pot for himself.
The smell hits me again.
I push back from the table so quickly that the chair legs scrape against the floor.
Jordan looks over. “You okay?”
“Fine.”
The word comes out strained.
I grab my plate and carry it to the sink.
“You don’t look fine.”
“I said I’m fine.”
He raises both hands. “Okay.”
Guilt comes immediately.
“I’m sorry.”
Jordan studies me for a moment. “Do you want me to open another window?”
My throat tightens unexpectedly. “No. I’m going upstairs.”
“You want medicine?”
“I have some.”
“Want me to—”
“Jordan.”
He stops.
“I’m okay.”
He doesn’t believe me.
I can see it.
But he nods anyway.
I retreat upstairs before the smell of coffee makes me embarrass myself.
The nausea passes after an hour.
The headache remains.
By afternoon, I feel almost normal.
Normal enough to convince myself it was stress.
Normal enough to avoid wondering whether my body is trying to tell me something.
That night, Patrick calls.
I almost let it ring.
Not because I don’t want to speak to him.
But because Patrick has an unsettling ability to notice things over the phone that I have not yet admitted to myself.
I answer on the fourth ring. “Hey.”
“You sound cheerful.”
“I’m tired.”
“You always say that.”
“I’m a grade school teacher. I’m always tired.”
“That’s fair.”
I sit on the edge of my bed and rub my forehead. “How was your week?”
Patrick exhales. “One of my students submitted an essay arguing that deadlines are a form of institutional oppression.”
“Were they late?”
“Three days.”
I laugh.
It comes out weaker than I intend.
Patrick goes quiet.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Patrick.”
“You sound strange.”
“I have a headache.”
“Are you sick?”
“Jordan asked me the same thing.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“It’s a headache.”
“And?”
“And what?”
“Cade.”
I close my eyes. “Coffee made me nauseous this morning.”
He is silent long enough that I sit straighter.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“That was not nothing.”
“It could be a stomach bug.”
“It is a stomach bug.”
“Or stress.”
“Yes. Stress.”
His agreement is too careful.
I know that tone. “Do not.”
“Do not what?”
“Whatever you’re doing.”
“I’m sitting in my living room.”
“You’re thinking something.”
“I’m always thinking something.”
“Patrick.”
He sighs. “Have you had any other symptoms?”
“No.”
That is mostly true.
I have been tired.
More tired than usual.
But it has been a difficult few weeks.
I have not slept properly since Charlie left.
My appetite has been inconsistent.
I have cried twice while standing in front of an ordinary white mug.
None of those things count.
“Then it’s probably stress,” Patrick says.
Probably.
The word settles strangely.
I shift on the bed.
“How is Charlie?” Patrick asks it quietly.
My chest tightens. “I don’t know.”
“You haven’t spoken?”
“No.”
“Cade.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
The answer comes sharper than I intend.
Patrick doesn’t react.
That makes me feel worse.
“I understand what he meant,” I say.
“About what?”
“What about me?”
Patrick remains quiet.
I explain anyway.
“He wasn’t asking me to choose him. He was asking why I never choose myself.”
“I wondered when you’d realize that.”
I stare at the wall.
“You knew?”
“It was obvious.”
“To you.”
“To everyone except you, probably.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
Despite myself, I smile.
It fades quickly.
“I don’t know what to do with it.”
“You do.”
“I don’t.”
“You want me to tell you?”
“No.”
“Good, because I won’t.”
I lie back across the bed.
The room feels too warm.
“I thought understanding would make everything easier.”
“It rarely does.”
“That seems unfair.”
“Most personal growth is.”
I close my eyes.
For a moment, neither of us speaks.
Then Patrick says, “You don’t have to race toward him just because you finally understand yourself a little better.”
I open my eyes.
“I don’t?”
“No.”
Relief and disappointment twist together inside me.
“You do have to stop pretending time will solve this for you, though.”
The relief disappears.
“That sounds more like you.”
“I’m your brother. I’m allowed to be irritating.”
“You take advantage of that.”
“Constantly.”
When we hang up, I remain on the bed.
The nausea doesn’t return that night.
Neither does the headache.
By morning, I feel well enough to dismiss the entire thing.
Stress.
Poor sleep.
Too much coffee.
Not enough food.
Anything except the possibility I refuse to name.
A possibility that should be impossible.
A possibility that is not impossible at all.
I do not think about it.
Not consciously.
I go to work on Monday.
I teach.
I grade.
I answer emails.
I tell myself I’m giving Charlie space.
I tell myself I’m gathering courage.
I tell myself there’s still time.
And every morning, before I open my eyes, my first thought is the same.
Charlie.
Every night, when the house settles around me, my last thought is of him too.
The days pass anyway.
Time does not care whether I am ready.
It moves forward.
Quietly.
Steadily.
Carrying me toward an answer I have not yet realized my body already knows.