Behind His Lens (30 page)

I grip the side of my black granite counter top. “Is your real name Clarissa? You told me Charley wasn’t a nickname, so is it your middle name? At times I feel like I know nothing about you and it scares the shit out of me. I’ve show
n you every demon in my closet, and yet you keep yourself hidden away from the world like a porcelain doll.”

“Jude…” she murmurs, but my name hangs in the air. She still doesn’t answer my questions.

Silence fills my apartment and my heart starts to sink all over again.

“I don’t
want to be with someone who can’t be honest with themselves, Charley. I don’t expect you to trust me with everything right away, but I walk on eggshells around you. That’s not what relationships should be like.”

There. I said it.

My hands relax enough for blood to start flowing back into my white knuckles once again, but it takes a few minutes before I can look up at her. When I finally lift my head, her eyes are distant and focused a few feet above me. Her features are relaxed: soft eyes, tan poreless skin, rosy cheeks— but I know there’s a war raging behind that facade.

She doesn’t protest or even offer a rebuttal. She doesn’t have a sudden epiphany and tell me every sad memory from her past. Charley nods her head slowly
. Just once. Then she turns and walks out of my apartment and out of my life.

Charley

I couldn
’t run fast enough. I knew I was playing with fire, but I couldn’t stop. I should have stayed away from the very beginning, but I didn’t because I’m selfish and depressed and I wanted someone to heal me.

I wanted him to be enough to take away the blackness, but he’s wasn’t, and so for his sake, I walked away.

My mother said it best. “
No one wants a depressed girl”.
I’m flawed at best and Jude needs someone strong and happy. He’s already had too much sadness in his life.

I have to fix myself, not in hopes of getting Jude back, but in hopes of living a life worthy of his love.

So, it’s time to finally face the past.

Jude

I almost fool myself into thinking that the last few weeks didn’t even take place. After all, it’s not like I have to avoid our favorite restaurant or that one park bench where we’d sip our coffee on Sunday mornings.

Nope. Charley and I never got to find our favorite places; she made clean work of that.

So I go about my life as normal, returning to the routine and pretending that the status quo is good enough. It’s strange how the brain works, though. Charley shouldn’t weave her way into my mind since our lives were never completely intertwined. Yet, I find myself constantly wondering what the answers would be to questions I would have known if we had actually worked out.

What does she look like when she loses herself in a painting?

Does she listen to music while she works?

What recipe would she have made for me at my apartment if we had never been interrupted by her mom?

…

Charley

I scroll through the search results, rereading archived articles again and again. When it happened, I clipped every newspaper and printed out every online publicat
ion I could find on the subject. I kept everything in a neat folder with no label and no description of what lay hidden inside. But it’s been four years since I ripped everything up.

When I read about him back then, the wounds were fresh and I could hardly process the written words in my mind
without sliding back into the dark void. Now, the articles seem less severe and I can process them with a hardened perspective. Certain words still jump out at me — criminal, father, life imprisonment. But I hold my breath as I read each one and push forward, past the pain.

A hard knock on my apartment door jars me away from the middle of an article.

“Charley!” Naomi yells from the other side. She’s been by every day this week, but I can’t talk to her right now. She’s my best friend, and I hate ignoring her, but if I let her in, she’ll do what she always does— make me forget. Right now, I need to keep up my momentum or I’ll never dig up my demons.

“Charley! Please, let me in. This is ridiculous.” Her anguished tone pierces through the oak door
, but I can’t let her in.

It would be too easy to fall back into old habits if I did. My nails run across my bottom lip anxiously as I try to decide what the best option is. I know I’m doing the right thing, but I shouldn’t ignore her either. I don’t want her to have to worry. With a resolved sigh, I shove my computer off my lap and pad across my apartment toward the door.
My socked feet thump softly across the wood floor and I know she’s probably relieved to hear movement; to know that I’m alive.

With both of my palms pressed against the oak surface, I lean in and console her. “Naomi. I’m
fine; I just need some privacy for a few days. Don’t worry about me. I love you, and I’ll text you when I can.”

“Charley, that’s not good enough.”

“Please,” my voice cracks with the plea, and I pray she doesn’t keep fighting me. There’s so much weighing me down; I just need her to understand.

“I’ll give you a week, but not a day more.”

In spite of everything, the edges of my lips curl at her loyal persistence. One day, I know I’ll be just as good of a friend as she’s been to me these past few years.

…

Jude

Bennett stalks into the living room and slams a six pack of beer onto the coffee table. I barely flinch. I’ve had the TV on for the past few hours even if the noise has
n’t actually been registering. Bennett raises his eyebrows as he steps over an empty pizza box that’s a few days old.

“I see you’ve been taking good care of the place,” he mocks, taking a seat in the overstuffed arm chair adjacent to the couch.

“Fuck off,” I snap back, although most of my words are lost in the cushions pressed against my mouth.

“That bad, huh?” he asks, popping the top of his beer.

“You don’t want to know.” I push my upper body up off the leather couch cushions and reach for one of the beers.

“How are things with Naomi?” I ask, not because I want to hear it, but because Bennett should be able to talk to me even if I’m a mess.

“Pretty good. We made it official while you guys were in Hawaii.”

“Wow. That was fast.”

“Not really. We aren’t twenty-one anymore. It’s pretty easy to tell if things can work.”

He leaves out the other part where it’s also easy to tell if things won’t work.

“I like her,” I offer, finally meeting his eye.

“Thanks,” he mutters
with a skeptical glance.

We sit in silence for a while after that, letting the football game on my flat screen take over our conversation. My mind
’s not really focused on anything. The game filters through my ears, but I don’t listen. The beer slides down my throat, but I don’t taste it.

“Dude
, what the hell is up with you? I haven’t seen you like this since you got back from overseas.”

I don’t answer
because I don’t know what to say to that other than the raw truth, which I haven’t even been willing to admit to myself until this very moment.

“I didn’t account for Charley.
”

Fuck, saying it out loud, putting the feelings out into the oblivion
, somehow makes it even worse, but my vocal cords don’t stop. “I wasn't prepared for her to wreck my life. You know that night at the club when Natasha came to meet me again? I could’ve slept with her, but I walked away and just left her hanging.”

“Why the hell did you do that?”

“Because Charley and Naomi were at the club. I saw them on the dance floor,” I declare, finally sharing that snippet of information with someone.

“What? They were there that night?”
He leans forward in his chair, intrigued.

“Yup.”

“You never told me,” he frowns, trying to piece together the new information.

I nod, staring into the dark ale, not willing to meet his eye.

“Did you talk to her that night?”

“No, but the moment I saw her on the dance floor I knew I wanted her. I had to have her. And instead of listening to logic and reason, I went for her.” I tip back the beer, drinking half the bottle in one long drag.

“How long has it been since you guys have talked?” he asks with a frown.

“Two weeks.”

He nods slowly, taking a sip of his beer, and then another.

Finally, he leans his head toward me and cocks a brow. “Well, chump, what
are you going to do about it?”

I shake my head, “Nothing. Charley has her own
shit to work through. I can’t force her to want to be with me.”

“So you k
new better than to fall for her and then you did anyway?”

“Looks like it.” I scrub a hand across my overgrown facial hair.

He chuckles regretfully. “Damn, I’ll drink to that.”

…

Charley

I decided to try to
work everything out without therapy. It didn’t work for me last time and I already know they’ll want to put me on drugs. We live in the era of ever-present and ever-available uppers and downers, but I don’t want either. I know I can fix myself. I know the root of my problem; I just never thought it was possible to overcome my past until I met Jude.

He taught me how to experience life through my senses, never holding back, never pushing feeli
ngs away. He didn’t let me hide; he told me I had to be honest with myself. Hearing him say that was the biggest wakeup call I’ve had in four years.

For the first time since
my father’s death, I lay alone in my room letting my mind wander. Will the memories even come? My head rests back on my pillow and my eyes study the white paint chipping above my head. For a little while I think of nothing at all, just white noise. Had I pushed them away for so long that they had disappeared completely?

But, then like a faint echo, I remember my father’s deep laughter.
The sound is faint and fades in and out like the reception with a bad antenna.

He was always laughing.

Before I realize my movements, I slip off my bed and pull a large blank canvas from the armoire beside my bed. My bucket of paints tumbles out after it, but I let them spill out onto the ground, not caring about the mess. I grab the colors I need, mixing them on my palette and letting echoed remnants of his laughter push me forward. As I let the memories overtake me, I begin to paint my father as I remembered him.

His image is hazier now, but the important aspects are still there. His strong jaw and angled cheekbones were always so prominent. And then I think of his dark grey eyes, starkly different from mine and my mother’s.

To the untrained eye, his facial features and expensive power suits appeared stern and unyielding. But I knew better. He showered me with love, much to the dismay of my mother. He was everything to me growing up. Every girl has a special love for her father and mine only grew with age. I never confided in my mother, but my father was an excellent listener, even about silly things like friends and drama at school.

He worked late and often took long business trips, especially as I got older, but we talked
every day. Even if he got home at midnight, he’d wake me up just to tell me he loved me, but then more often than not, we’d end up staying up late, talking and laughing.

Which is why his suicide
blindsided me.

My hand freezes mid stroke. God, I haven’t let myself actually think that word since his death. Suicide. My father killed himself and I saw him do it.

The thin palette slips from my fingers and then my paint brush tumbles through the air after it. Paint scatters across the hardwood floor, splashing my bare feet and my yoga pants, coating the unfinished canvas and the woven rug next to my door. My eyes lose focus as dark rings impinge on my vision. I pinch my eyes closed, trying to find a grip on reality, while simultaneously remembering why I have to let myself slip away from it.

The memories are so hard to
process; I’m afraid they’ll finally splinter my soul in two and leave me a hollow shell, even more so than I am now.

Tears stream down my cheeks as I clamor over the art supplies to find the half empty bottle of tequila Naomi left he
re the night we went to the bar; the night I stripped for Jude.