September 29
Charlie
Charlie sat up in bed for what felt like the thousandth time that night. He knew what he would do if he finally let himself get out of bed, and he knew it was the world’s worst idea.
Walking by Sarah’s house had been creepy. It brought back all the awful memories of what happened before she died and made all the cryptic things that had gone on over the past few weeks feel real. The VidBits had stopped for the moment, and that weird marketing person hadn’t responded to Amanda, but the fear was still lingering, like it might all pick back up at any moment. It was affecting everything. Amanda didn’t feel comfortable being too close to him at school in case someone was watching. Kit and Miller were totally confused about what was going on because Amanda insisted on keeping it a secret, and it just made Charlie want to retreat into his soccer life as much as physically possible.
But right now that wasn’t the thing that had Charlie’s mind spinning; it was Laura. She got him in a way that only one person in his entire life had before. This was not the same as the first time, of course. Laura was open and honest. They’d spent hours together. She was real. But if Charlie had fallen so hard once, could he make that same mistake again?
Charlie stared at the clock on his bedside table: 2:45 a.m. It had only been thirty minutes since he last checked. In five hours he would be on his way to school after the second sleepless night in a row. It was happening again. The sight of those glowing, red numbers made him think back to his sessions with Dr. Walters.
“Pain demands to be felt,” she’d told him during their first session together. It was six months after Sarah died, and over a year since he and Amanda survived everything that happened to them during freshman year. Charlie had certainly felt his fair share of pain, and he’d become an expert at pushing those feelings away. Of course, his mom thought that the cloud hanging over Charlie’s every move was because of what happened with Amanda, but that was surprisingly gone from his mind after everything with Sarah unfolded. It was like there wasn’t space for him to worry about two things at once. When she suggested he, “go talk to someone”—suburban mom language for “see a shrink”—Charlie didn’t refuse. He wanted help. He just didn’t know how to get it without telling Dr. Walters the truth.
“I can tell you’re very adept at pushing down your feelings, Charlie,” she’d said. “But where do you think they go?”
“I don’t know? Away?” he said.
“I’m afraid not,” she said. “They stay inside you and do damage elsewhere. Pain demands to be felt, and it will force you to pay attention in whatever way it has to.”
For Charlie, the “way out” for his pain had become insomnia. In the months after Sarah died, Charlie slept for two hours a night at most. He could barely keep his head up in class, he cancelled all his nighttime and weekend plans with everyone—Amanda, Kit and Miller included—and he trudged along the soccer field so much that Coach Stanley sent him to a doctor for a physical. It was brutal.
“Some of my patients find relief in just writing their feelings down,” Dr. Walters said once he finally admitted that he hadn’t had a good night’s sleep in weeks. “You don’t have to show anyone what you write, ever. But at least you’re taking the feelings from inside your body and putting them on the page. Why not try it the next time you can’t sleep?”
Charlie ran through that memory over and over again until he couldn’t hold himself back anymore. He got out of bed, shuffled over to the closet, and opened the door. On the top-left shelf behind boxes of old soccer cleats was the one Encyclopedia Britannica he’d saved from the full stack his grandparents gave him when people still opened giant books instead of looking up whatever they needed on the internet. It was the volume for the letter C. Charlie turned to the page where he knew the printout was hidden and slid it out from between the glossy sheets of paper. It wasn’t one of the dozen things Charlie had written after Dr. Walter’s suggestion. He got rid of every one of those in the shredder his mom kept in her bedroom closet the morning after he wrote them. This was the reason Charlie needed to do all that writing—the one love note he let himself keep of all the messages she sent him. It was the one that made him believe that no one would ever understand him the way that she did, and the reason it hurt so much when she told him the truth.
It was the final email she’d sent him, and it never got easier to read.
After that Saturday date, everything changed, and if Charlie was being honest, it hadn’t truly gotten better since. He needed to trust someone again, and he had a feeling Laura could be that person. But she was still controlling him—making him doubt his judgment, making him afraid to get close to another girl. It made Charlie furious. He couldn’t let Laura slip through his fingers because of the memory of some insane girl. What happened was a mistake, and the chances of it happening again were impossible. He had learned his lesson. Now he owed it to himself to put this all behind him once and for all. That’s how he’d truly, finally win.
Charlie ripped the printout into as many pieces as he could. It was over. She was gone. He didn’t need this memory any more. He would throw the torn paper in a dumpster somewhere tomorrow, but for now he slipped it back in between the pages where he’d never forget—the page featuring the disgusting gray fish with the flat mouth and the pointy whiskers. It was time to get some sleep.
When he woke up again, the red flashing lights said 7:00 a.m. It was the latest he’d slept in for as long as he could remember. He reached over and grabbed his cellphone off the bed stand where it sat plugged in every night.
Charlie blinked twice when his eyes hit the phone screen: 12 missed calls. Kit had been trying to reach him since six o’clock that morning. Charlie was afraid to find out what had her in such a panic, but he forced himself to call. Kit picked up after the first ring.
“Omigod, Charlie. Where are you? Can you come over to my house right now?” Kit gasped on the other end of the phone.
“Yeah, of course, what’s wrong? Is it Miller?”
“It’s both of us,” Kit said. “And it has to do with Sarah.”
The phone dropped straight out of Charlie’s hand.
“Hello? Charlie? Are you there?” he could hear Kit screaming on the other line.
He was too frozen to reach down and grab it.
It was as if someone had seen him tear up that letter and wanted to be sure Charlie knew it was not over. She would never really be gone.