Page 61 of What He Doesn't Know

“He forgot.”

She said the words when my hand was on the door frame, ready to swing me around and into the hallway, but I stopped cold in my tracks.

“Cameron…” she clarified. “He forgot yesterday was our anniversary.”

Son of a bitch.

I turned slowly, taking in the look on her face as I debated what to say.Sorryfelt cheap and insufficient, and everything I really wanted to say would only upset her more.

“He’s been so busy with work, I guess the days must have gotten away from him,” I said after a moment. I held her gaze, pinning her with my eyes, hoping she heard what I really meant.

He’s an asshole. He doesn’t deserve you. You could be happier.

I could make you happier.

“I’m sure he feels terrible,” I added, just for good measure.

Charlie forced a small smile. “Yeah. He said he’ll make it up to me.”

And maybe I was just making it up in my head, but I thought her eyes said more than her words in that moment, too.

I’m so hurt. He doesn’t appreciate me. I feel stupid.

I want you.

“I’m sure he will.”

I watched her for a moment longer, wishing I could just take her out of school and hold her in my arms for the rest of the afternoon. I’d never longed so much for time — time to be with her, time to hear the dark thoughts that kept her up at night, time to tell her my own.

Time to love her.

I didn’t see Charlie at lunch, nor did she stick around long enough after school for me to make sure she’d made it through the day okay. Robin said she’d left as soon as the kids had, and I wondered if she was already curled up in her bed for the evening.

I smoked three cigarettes on the way home, all the while considering turning my car around and driving into Pittsburgh. I wondered what Cameron’s face would look like if I just showed up, bought a ticket to get into his section, and laid him the fuck out in front of the entire complex.

Part of Charlie’s sorrow that morning had been from her bird, but part of it had also been from his blatant disregard for her.

He didn’t deserve her, and it killed me that he still got to have her, anyway.

I took a steaming hot shower once I was home, settling in on the couch afterward with a beer and mindless television. I thought numbing my brain would help to ease the anger stewing underneath my concern for Charlie, but it only made it worse. So, I abandoned the TV and made my way to my piano, flipping the black wood up to reveal the keys underneath.

My hands moved over the keys automatically, finding their home in the notes that echoed through the room. I closed my eyes and found a sigh of relief as I began to play an old favorite song, one from my youth. Sometimes it made me think of my mom, of her sneaking in when I wasn’t paying attention and listening to me practice in our old house. She’d bring me food occasionally, but mostly she just sat there and listened. Sometimes I’d move her to tears, other times she’d get up and dance.

I missed her.

Each song took me further from my aggression, my hands bringing music to life in a slow, adagio tempo. I started with playing songs I knew, and eventually drifted into playing music I’d only heard in my mind before that evening. Sometimes I would stop to write it all down, to capture it and create — but other times, like tonight, I just played. I just existed within the keys, within the notes, within the music.

It was almost eight when I took my first break from playing, stopping only to throw a frozen dinner in the microwave. But before I could open the packaging, there was a knock at my door.

Through the window at the top, I saw Charlie bundled in a coat with a snow cap pulled over her ears.

My heart picked up speed as I crossed my living room, staring at the little ball of yarn on top of her hat. I opened the door slowly, watching her through the screen door still between us.

She held a takeout bag from the taco place down the street in one hand, and a small bird cage with a yellow Budgie inside it in the other. It sat perched on the little swing inside, chirping softly, and I could hear the heartbreak in its song.

Jane.

My eyes swept over Charlie, taking in her messy hair, her tired, puffy eyes, her chapped lips. I almost forgot I’d invited her, almost asked her what she was doing here. My stomach flipped at the realization that she was on my front porch, that she had come to me to make her feel better. And in that soft light from my front porch, she looked just like the sixteen-year-old girl I’d left behind on a cold night just like this one fourteen years ago.