This is the nineteenth part in a series, so if you have not already done so, you might want to read Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V, Part VI, Part VII, Part VIII, Part IX, Part X, Part XI, Part XII, Part XIII, Part XIV, Part XV, Part XVI, Part XVII, and Part XVIII before continuing.
“I’m the only one who’ll love your sins
“Feel the way my voice gets underneath your FUCK!”
Charlie giggled. “I should have known you’d like K-pop Demon Hunters.”
“Since you’re the one who introduced me to musicals, yeah, you really should.” It came out harsher than I had intended.
Charlie held up both hands, one with the palm facing out to show she was unarmed. The other was wrapped around the neck of a bottle of bourbon. “Easy, tiger. I come in peace.”
I glanced at the bottle. “But not in sobriety?”
“I don’t think this is a conversation I can have sober.”
“And why’s that?”
Charlie took a deep breath and seemed to contemplate the floor of the stall I had been mucking out before saying, “Because it’s going to involve a lot of groveling on my part, which is hard for me on the best of days. And I haven’t had a good day for a long time.”
She kept her head bent down as she looked up at me from the tops of her eyes, waiting for my reaction.
Despite my best efforts, I felt myself wavering. I couldn’t say all my anger at her vanished, but it started to melt.
I reached over and took the bottle from her, opened it, and took a swig. Then I stared her down and said, “Better start groveling.”
She took another deep breath before diving in. “I’m really sorry I didn’t stay in touch. It’s not that I didn’t care, and I certainly didn’t forget about you. I still think about you all the time. It’s just that, every time I thought about calling or emailing you, it was never to tell you just one thing. There was always a list of things I wanted to talk about with you, and I assumed you had a bunch of stuff you wanted to talk about with me. So I told myself I’d reach out when I had more time, but the longer I waited, the more stuff happened that I wanted to tell you about. It just became so overwhelming that I guess I just gave up on it.
“But that’s not an excuse. I should have reached out, and I’m very sorry I didn’t.”
I took a moment to let her rant sink in. I hadn’t thought there was anything she could say to make it OK that she had gone radio silent on me. And she hadn’t, she was right that her excuse was just that: an excuse.
But it was an excuse I understood.
I took another swig of bourbon, then passed her the bottle. She immediately took a long swig and I raised my eyebrows.
“I told you, it’s been a while since I’ve had a good day,” she said as she wiped her mouth. “And you could have reached out, too, you know. I’m not the only one who went radio silent.”
“No, but you’re the only one who moved to the big city and left all us little people behind.”
Her brow furrowed and her eyes narrowed. “Is that what you think?”
I spread my arms out to my sides, “What am I supposed to think?”
“That there aren’t any marketing jobs out here.”
“And since when do you want to be a marketer?”
“Since 2012.”
“What happened to the little girl who just wanted to write books and ride horses?”
“She grew up.”
“Well, that’s too bad. Because I really liked her.”
“What about the boy who wanted to go to a concert that wasn’t held in a barn?”
“His dad died.”
“And so did my mom.”
Fuck.
Charlie turned on her heel and stomped out of the barn.
I definitely could have handled that better.
To be continued…