I stare at Chuck. He shrugs, so I take it upon myself to share the insanity our life has become.
“It all started two weeks ago, when Chuck and I had to come home for the holidays and he rented the wrong car—”
“What was wrong with the car?” a girl interrupts.
“Couldn’t fit half my stuff in the tiny trunk.”
“I don’t think the girls are interested in this level of detail,” Chuck cuts in.
“You tell them what happened, then, if you’re such a better storyteller,” I say.
“Right,” Chuck says. “Girls, the story begins two weeks ago, when Kate and I came home for the holidays. Period.”
Chuck puts extra emphasis on the last word.
“What’s the big deal about coming home for the holidays?” an Asian girl with pin-straight black hair asks. “Everyone does that.”
“Ah, but we were carrying a secret with us,” Chuck says in a mysterious tone. Guess all the hours spent on role-playing games with his friends gave him augmented narrating skills.
The audience of small girls ooooohs at this. And a chorus of questions follows.
“Really?”
“What secret?”
“Who were you keeping it from?”
Chuck sighs. “We’d been hiding the truth from our parents.” And, pointing at the back window, he adds, “The ones we just shook off.”
“But what was the secret?” a redhead with cheeks covered in tiny freckles insists.
I scoff. “It was that we’d broken up,” I say. “Okay?”
A collective gasp echoes through the bus.
“You broke up?” the blonde girl with the pigtails repeats.
“Technically, she dumped my ass,” Chuck says.
“I thought we weren’t being over precise,” I say while another shocked intake of breath shakes the bus.
“He said ass,” someone whispers, accompanied by a chorus of giggles.
The Girl Scout troop leaders glare at us, and one of them snaps, “Language, young man. This isn’t a hooligan bus going to a tailgate party.”
“Sorry, Ma’am,” Chuck apologizes. “Anyway, we had to share the bad news with our parents, which was no easy task since they’re not only best friends but also business partners.”
“Wait, wait. Wait,” a girl with brown curls interrupts. “You haven’t told us why you two broke up.”
The blonde girl with pigtails stares at me. “I bet he was being insensitive to your needs,” she says in the most natural tone.
“Exactly,” I say. “That, and a good deal of other stuff.”
“I imagine he never bought you flowers,” another girl says.
“No, never,” I confirm.
“And that he never surprised you with romantic weekends,” another girl adds.
Chuck stares at the girls, dismayed. “Are you all part of some man-hating cult or something? Come on, maybe I wasn’t the best boyfriend, but I wasn’t that bad.”
The redhead speaks again. “Boys can be so selfish sometimes.”
Pigtails speaks next. “Was he at least any good in bed?”
I almost choke with embarrassment. “Do you know what ‘being good in bed’ means, Sweetie?” I ask, while the driver not-so-subtly coughs from his position behind the wheel.
“No,” Pigtails admits. “But my big sister always asks her friends if their boyfriends are good in bed, so…”
My cheeks flame beetroot red. But, since they have no idea what it means… “He was good in bed,” I admit, truthfully.
“Oh, what a relief,” Pigtails replies. “My sister says a relationship has no chance of working otherwise.”
“Anyway,” Chuck says, distinctly hassled. “Let’s stay focused on the story, girls. So, we’re coming home to tell our parents we’ve broken up.”
One of the girls in the front raises her hand. “Excuse me, sir?”
“Yes?”
“Aren’t stories supposed to begin with once upon a time?”
A murmur of agreement spreads across the bus.
Chuck sighs. “Fine, once upon a time two weeks ago, we were coming home for the holidays when—”
“No, no, that’s not right,” another girl says. “The story has to start before that.”
“Where should it start?” I ask.
“How about when the two of you fell in love?” she says, and gives a longing sigh like she’s experienced heartbreak the rest of us could only dream of.
Chuck exhales. “Do we really have to—”
“Yes!” they chorus.
He rolls his eyes. “Okay, fine, let’s do it your way, girls. Once upon a time, there were a boy and a girl who lived in a chocolate factory…”
I smile as I listen to Chuck tell the story of the little boy and girl who grew up together in a chocolate factory and would get into all sorts of trouble. Like that time they wanted to pull a prank on everyone and switched sugar with salt in the factory machines. That’s still the official story of how our world-famous salted-caramel bars were born.
“Then the boy and the girl grew up, and they eventually moved out of the chocolate factory,” Chuck continues. “But they always remained friends, and they kept getting in trouble together for many years. Until they fell in love, and on a cold winter night they kissed for the first time.”
The girls all giggle in approval, except for one girl who puts her hands over her ears, saying, “I don’t want to hear the rest of the story.”
“Why not, Sweetie?” I ask.
“Because if the prince and the princess don’t live happily ever after, I don’t want to know.”
“Ah,” Chuck says. “But the ending of this story hasn’t been written yet.” Then, looking around the bus, he asks, “Who wants to hear about the cruel king who tries to steal the princess away?”
“Me!”
“Me!”
“Me!” the girls chorus.
“Seriously?” I ask flatly.
Chuck grins. “Gotta give the people what they want.”
I roll my eyes but let him move on with the story—if nothing else, for the entertainment of our little saviors. “The evil king’s name was Marco…” Chuck intones, and the girls all lean forward in anticipation.
Marco comes out of Chuck’s narration a little worse for wear, as he tells the girls everything—the various misunderstandings, Marco’s surprise visit, the fake baby—until Chuck reaches the end and gets to the part about our dramatic confession and subsequent flight from the church.
Our young audience is hypnotized. Entranced. A few girls are gazing at Chuck as if he really was the prince in a fairytale—and I have to say, dressed in his best suit and groomed to perfection with his blue-black hair drawn back, it’s easy to believe he could be a prince who’s leaped off the pages of a storybook.
A brunette with a short fringe has a different reaction, however. She stands up and walks back a few rows to go hug Chuck.
“Hey, what’s up?” he says, patting her back. “You okay?”
She cups his ear with one hand and whispers something in a slow murmur so that only he can hear. Then they exchange a look. Chuck nods sadly and ruffles her bangs. She hugs him again, kisses him on the cheek, and goes back to her seat.
I stare at him with my eyebrows raised. Chuck waves me off, like it’s nothing.
But it’s not nothing. Chuck wasn’t just telling them our story—he was telling it from his perspective. And while most of it was what I experienced, some of the things he said, particularly whenever he was talking about how things used to be with us…
An incredible sense of loss is weighing on my chest. And, if I’m being honest, it has been oppressing me since Chuck came to pick me up in the Nissan Versa ten days ago. I wasn’t ready for the avalanche of emotions seeing him again unleashed in me. That’s probably why I picked a huge fight with him right off the bat—to fuel my anger, to remind myself why we didn’t function as a couple. But the more time we’ve spent together, the more we’ve had to work as a team. Until today and this final, ridiculous escape in a Girl Scouts bus.
And his words at the church today, I love you, Kate, and I’d love nothing more than to marry you one day, but not today, not like this.
In the rush of the moment, I didn’t have time to process what he said. But now that we’ve stopped for a breath, I can’t help but wonder again. Is Chuck still in love with me?
And what about me? What do I feel for him?
I look over at him, and there goes the now-familiar ball of warmth that spreads from my belly to my chest, reaching up to my cheeks. Well, if gut reactions are to be taken as any kind of sign, I’d say I’m pretty screwed.
My reverie is interrupted by Pigtails. She leans against the backrest and looks me straight in the eyes. “May I ask you something, Princess Kate?”
“Sure,” I say.
“Was the cruel King Marco any good in bed?”
My cheeks flame even redder, and I dare a side-glance at Chuck.
He, too, turns toward me. “Please don’t answer that.”