“What?”
“Jane,” he explained. “Charles isn’t speaking to Darcy right now, so instead he’s been calling me to moon over Jane every night. He can’t find her.”
“Oh,” Charlotte said, not sure how to take this information. “He’s taking it badly?”
“He’s crushed, Char.” Richard’s voice held sympathy for his friend. “I’ve never seen him like this.”
“That’s too bad,” Charlotte replied. She felt an awkward pause in the conversation and asked, “So what else have you been doing?”
Richard chuckled. “You’re not going to believe this.”
“Tell me,” Charlotte replied.
“I’ve written a song.”
“Really?” Charlotte was surprised. “Can I hear it?”
“That depends on if you come back on tour or not,” Richard said in a deceptively easy way.
“Ooooohh, I see a carrot dangling before me.”
“Char,” Richard’s voice was relaxed and sincere, “the song is not worth you coming back for, but I do hope you come back. I miss you.”
Charlotte’s lip was trembling as she heard him speak. “You do?”
“I do. More than I can tell you. Please say you’ll come back.”
“Richard,” she said, her voice ragged.
“I know,” he hushed her soothingly. “It’s not just your decision. I’m sorry; I didn’t plan on calling you to ask you to come back. It just slipped out.”
Charlotte nodded, even though he couldn’t see her. She pulled herself together and tried to think of something safe to say. She opened her mouth, and her heart defeated all the rational plans her mind had made. “I miss you too,” she whispered.
“Char,” his voice was heavy with emotion. He wanted nothing more than to drop the phone and run to her.
“Richard?”
“I’m here,” he said. He took a deep breath and blew it out. This was so hard, but every second convinced him it was right. “Can you just talk to me a little, Char?”
“All right,” she said, oddly touched. It was so infrequent for him to ask her for anything. “I almost got into a fight Saturday night.”
Richard listened to her dear voice as she talked about her adventure at the local bar. He smiled as he pictured her face, telling her story. He was breaking his promise to himself by calling her, but he had to. He had missed her too much, and he was terrified she and the others would not return to the tour.
He’d promised himself at Hazelden that he would remain celibate for three weeks. He figured that if he could do that, he could then go to Charlotte, tell her he loved her, and ask her, hell, beg her to forgive him. He wished he could offer her more. He was hardly a prize. She deserved so much more. But he had tried to let her go, to push her away, and still she loved him.
What else could he do? He had wanted so badly to tell her how he loved her that last day of the tour. But he couldn’t then. First he had to prove to himself that he could love her, that he could stop sleeping around and be true to her.
But he was weak. Seeing her at the VMAs had been his undoing. She was so beautiful that night. All he wanted to do was hold her and kiss her again and again. Instead, he had been terrified by the idea that LBS might be leaving the tour.
In the end, it didn’t matter. He still would go to her, even if she didn’t come to him. But the fear had haunted him and he had, in a moment of loneliness, called her, to hear the sweetest voice he knew. And now he knew he was hooked. She had told him she missed him!
If his new addiction was phone calls to Charlotte, he could live with that. It was certainly less destructive than drinking or sleeping around, and if it helped him, helped them get back together, he was frankly all for it.
They spent the rest of the evening talking and laughing, until their eyes drooped and reluctantly they said good-bye, promising to talk again.
“Jane, I just wanted to tell you that you got another dozen roses,” Mrs. Bennet sounded delighted over the phone.
“Oh?”
“Yes, these are pale pink. I guess the florist ran out of white ones.” She laughed at her own joke. “They’re really pretty. Exactly the color your hair used to be.”
Jane felt a tightness in her chest. “Could you read the card to me?”
“Certainly, dear; it says, ‘Please call me,’ and there’s a phone number.” Her mother recited the digits. “Hmmm, funny, no name again. Do you recognize the number, Jane?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “Thanks, Mom.”
“Are you okay, Janie?”
“Yes, I just have to go, Mom.”
“You take care, Janie dear. Bye now.”
“Bye, Mom,” Jane replied automatically and clicked off the phone. The number was one she would never forget: Charles’s cell phone. She bit her lip, fighting back tears. It was supposed to be getting easier, not harder. Yet every day she found herself missing him more and more. She seemed to be on the verge of tears all the time, and last night a nightmare, in which Charles rejected her, woke her up and left her in a panic. In truth, she hadn’t been able to relax all day while she waited to see if this day’s flowers would arrive.
Now she knew. The flowers had come, but with what? A request? A command? Jane knew the pink roses had been no accident. She knew Charles picked them deliberately to match her hair color from the night they first met. He was going back, trying to start over and make it right.
Without her knowing quite how it happened, the phone was at her ear again and it was ringing, although Jane could not remember dialing. “Jane?” a desperate voice answered.
“Charles?” she choked out.
“Jane! Oh God, Jane, oh my God! Did you get my flowers?” He was panting with relief.
“I got the message,” Jane said with a weak watery smile. She couldn’t believe how much she missed his voice, or how good it made her feel to hear it again. “You asked me to call?”
“Jane,” Charles breathed. “Jane, could I please, please come and talk to you?
There was a sharp pain in Jane’s chest and tears were falling down her face unnoticed. “Okay,” she whispered.
“I’ll come right now!”
“No!” Jane exclaimed. “No, you can’t. I’m at my aunt and uncle’s, and now would not be a good time.”
“Tell me when.”
“Could you come tomorrow?” she asked softly.
“Yes, I’ll come anytime, angel.” She could hear the desperation in his voice. “Tell me where you are.”
The Gardiners lived in Kent Cliffs, a small community about forty minutes from the Bennets. Jane gave him directions and listened as he read them back. “I’ll be there, first thing tomorrow,” Charles said soulfully. “How have you been?”
Jane bit back her response. She wanted to tell Charles that she had been horrible and let him comfort her, but she couldn’t. Not yet.
Instead she ignored his question and just said, “I’ll see you tomorrow,” and hung up.
Elizabeth found her, crying helplessly on her bed. “Jane, what happened?”
Jane tearfully explained everything, from the flowers to the phone call. Elizabeth’s heart went out to her sister. Jane was trapped in a world of hurt, surrounded by thorns on all sides with no clear path to get free. Elizabeth understood exactly how she felt. Her own way was blocked with pain too, so she focused instead on Jane.
