Yeah, I stole the title from Smashing Pumpkins. Oh well.
I decided to give it a shot to add more to the story I had begun to tell months ago. Instead of being linear, I picked a different point in the story to share. I'm reprinting my original piece for a reference point, as well. Enjoy. Leave comments criticizing or praising. This story is a piecemeal of different things I've encountered over the past 6-7 years. I think it makes for a great story. This has nothing to do with retribution, airing dirty laundry, being therapeutic, or anything of the ilk. I just think it makes for a particularly interesting story and anyone else I've told it to agrees. So if you plan to comment to that matter, please, keep it because I'm not interested. With that said....the new piece is first, the older piece is below it.
“The Beginning is the End is the Beginning”
It had been a wonderfully emotional night for Charlie. The way he had been brought up, the way he had held himself over the years, emotions were just unnecessary things that creeped up inside him and made him feel awkward. There wasn’t much he could do about it besides deal with it, but he often tried his hardest to suppress or hide them.
Tonight had been different though. He knew his time in college was drawing to an end. It was the first week of his senior year.
His little sister, whom he had gotten along with okay, but by no means did they have a great relationship, had decided to follow in his footsteps and come to his college. He didn’t let on much about it, but inside he had been crazily happy that she chose to come with him, hoping it would be a friendship he had hoped to have with her over the years.
That night, in an orientation program for freshman that Charlie helped put together, they had a moment. Its a moment that only brothers and sisters can have, when they finally connect on a higher level than just ‘that other person that calls them mom and dad and pisses me off all the time’. It was visceral. It was real. It shocked him.
He cried in front of over 100 people. It was the first time he had done so since his uncle had died of cancer 6 years prior.
As Charlie walked down the street, still dressed in his now wrinkled and tear stained black suit, blue shirt, and loosened red silk tie, the smile across his face showed a young man at peace.
It had been embarrassing, at first. He never wanted to show a weakness as large as openly crying in front of people. After the fact, though, it made him feel better.
It was as if a weight had been lifted off his shoulders. His mind was racing with a million thoughts. Where he could take this new found happiness...how he could expand upon it....just what he had been missing by being so devoid of real emotional depth...
He had to share it. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and crafted a text message for Ashley. He thought it would be a perfect start to the semester, considering his plans.
“Hey sweetheart. I had a really great night tonight. I just wanted to say I love you and I can’t wait to share our final year of college together. I’m so excited to see what our future brings.”
Over the summer, Ashley had begun to bring up wedding plans. Nothing specific, just conversation in hypotheticals.....and leaving up websites of wedding dresses she had been looking at.
It was hard for Charlie not to get the hint. At the same time, it was hard for Charlie to be okay with it. They had talked about engagement and marriage before, but was he really ready for it?
Up until tonight, he wasn’t sure. He had started saving for the ring already, knowing it was where he thought he wanted to go.
Tonight, however, it all made sense. She was definitely the one for him. The outburst of emotion with his sister tonight had brought up and subsequently answered a lot of questions for Charlie.
As he keyed into his room, his pocket buzzed to life. He checked excitedly for Ashley’s response, but it was just other people on campus looking to go out to the bar that night.
Charlie sat at his desk and hit the button on his laptop, illuminating the room with the light of the screen. He pulled up his bank account and checked the numbers again. One or two more paychecks and the ring was covered.
He couldn’t help but lean back in his chair, toss his hands behind his head and smile.
For once, things were going right. For once, he felt he deserved for things to go this smoothly.
He closed his eyes, still smiling, and all he could do was picture her, smiling back at him. They had their ups and downs, but Ashley was the one constant Charlie always wanted in his life, through good times and hell. He thought she brought out the best in him.
As he was getting lost in his thoughts, his cell phone buzzed again, rattling off the hard top of the desk, jarring him out of his daydream. It was the return text from Ashley.
“Umm...thanks. We need to talk. I’m not sure this is right for me anymore.”
The phone fell out of his hands, smacking against the tile floor, scattering the back of the phone and the battery across the room. He continued to stare in the direction of where he had been holding the phone a few seconds previously.
After a few seconds of blank stare, he calmly picked up the pieces of his phone, put it back together, and turned it on.
He mustered the only weak response he could...
“......what?”
Gently, Charlie puts the phone on the desk, removes his suit and sits on the edge of his bed in shorts and a t-shirt.
Tears begin to roll down his face, but Charlie was so numb he was completely unaware he had begun crying again.
After all that positivity tonight, this was going to happen now?
He stared down at his hands, which had been gripping his shorts and legs so hard that the indentations had turned white. He pulled them palm upward and continued to stare, expecting them to give him an answer.
The phone began to ring. He glanced over at the screen...it was Ashley.
That was not a good sign.
He puts the phone up to his ear and attempts to quickly compose himself...
“Uhh..hello? Ashley”
“Hi, Charlie..........”
Prologue: Cold Sweat
In the grand scheme of things, everybody has the generally the same game plan. At some point, we all plan to find a career, get married, have kids, attempt to enjoy life, retire, and die. That was Charlie’s game plan, too, until somebody came along and fucked the whole thing up.
Charlie sat on the corner of his bed late one balmy June night, his sweat soaked head in his hands, peering down into the darkness at the beige carpet in his room. He had just suffered the same nightmare he’s had for years past, only this time there was something more real about it. His nightmares weren’t actually dreams, it was him asleep thinking about things that actually happened. He had gotten good at getting past it, something his therapist called “Cognitive Behavioral Therapy”.
He ran his hands through his wet light brown hair and opened his eyes wide. It had been a very crazy three years for him, sometimes he had to check to make sure he was still living in real life and hadn’t shipped himself off to the loony bin. As he stands, his chest heaves with deep breaths and his heart beating hard- the perks of standing too quickly after laying down for too long. His tall frame creates a silhouette against the moonlight shining in through the windows above his bed.
Walking to his bathroom and trying to walk silently enough so as not to wake his housemates, he shakes his head a couple times. It was another bad night, he thought to himself. Just another bad dream. Splash some water on your face to cool down, head back in the room and throw some music on and everything will drift away....
Charlie turned the light on in the bathroom and stared at himself in the mirror, his hands holding firm on the edge of the sink. He splashed some water in his face and quickly toweled it off before returning to his bed.
As he laid down, the sound of his favorite singer, Norah Jones, began to echo softly from his computer. Any time he had a bad night, Norah could put him to sleep. Her voice was familiar to him by now. Charlie stared up at the ceiling, trying to coax himself back to sleep...
It all started three years ago.....that one fateful day....
Chapter One: Dragon Pants
It was 2004. Charlie sat in his dorm room, wearing ridiculously brightly colored pajama pants, looking at his roommate. Part of him was cussing the school out. He had came here to escape everything about his high school and his hometown of Cleveland. Instead, the school put him in the same room with some slob that went to high school with him and put his name down on the reserve list.
Russ smelled terrible. He was fat and used steroids, but was dumb enough to use them incorrectly. He’s the kid who thought that just by injecting the sauce into your ass on a daily basis, it would make you bigger. Instead, he grew more rotund. He was your usually wannabe baseball jock. Loud, obnoxious, and believed he was God’s golden gift to the game of baseball and to all those around him with the luck to be around him.
“Come on man, the third and fourth floor are chick floors! Welcome to college, bro! Let’s go get us some fuckin pussy!” said Russ as he changes out of his practice uniform and into a pair of gym shorts and a cutoff tee.
“Umm...don’t you need to shower first? You just got back from a four hour practice...” was Charlie’s response. “Nah, fuck that, I’m cool.” Russ walked over to the bolted in dresser and grabbed his bottle of cologne, spraying himself down a good seven times, including two good luck squirts on his crotch.
“Come on, bro. Don’t make me go up there alone. This is college! This is what it’s about! Put the fuckin book down and let’s go grab us some snatch!”
The irony of the statement caused Charlie to grin a little. He looked back down at his book, one of the required summer readings, but then closed his eyes and put the book on his desk, shaking his head. If he didn’t go up there with Russ, Russ would do it alone and invariably offend every girl up there, thus making it impossible to bring a girl back to the room, if he ever got lucky like that.
Charlie gets off his bed and walks over to his closet to find a pair of shorts.
“What the fuck are you doing? Lets go man! Times a-wastin and you aren’t getting any prettier!”
“Let me put some shorts on man...let me get out of these pajama pants...”
“Nah, fuck that, bro. They’re good. You need a sticking point. Something they’ll remember you by. If you leave an impression, no matter what it is, bitches remember.”
Charlie laughed once more.
“You really thing multicolored dragon pajama pants are gonna do that? These things are hideous man....I never wore these out in public...”
“Dude, seriously, you’ll be fine.”
“Well...whats your gimmick, Russ?”
Russ quickly looked around the room before grabbing the sombrero from Charlie’s trip to Mexico off the wall.
“Russ, get the fuck out of here. My sombrero? You look ridiculous!”
“That’s the point, bro! Girls love that ‘sense of humor’ bullshit. You know they don’t give a fuck what you really think! As long as you show and pretend you’ve got a quote unquote good sense of humor, panties drop like manna from Heaven.”
Charlie stared blankly at Russ for a second. He didn’t know whether to question how Russ knew a parable and was able to use it correctly, or why Russ connected manna to panties.
“Come on, dude. You ready? Pussy awaits us, my friend!”
Charlie rolled his eyes, lowered his head and walked out of the room behind Russ. This was a huge mistake, but at least Charlie could play the straight man. Russ would invariably make an ass out of himself, which meant as long as Charlie stood there, smiled, and played the shy but respectful type, he would probably meet some girl he could stand talking to.
Most of the rooms were the same. Russ would jump in and introduce himself and start the conversation, while Charlie politely introduced himself and talked to some of the girls he met at orientation. They were all perfectly nice, but none of them really stood out to him. Then again, he spent most of high school playing sports and hanging out with his teammates instead of pursuing girls 24/7. He had his fair share of girlfriends, but most of them came from the team. Needless to say, his skills were a little lacking.
They had made it up to the fourth floor, where all the quads were. Russ stopped Charlie outside of the first one.
“Look, bro. I met one of the girls in this room earlier. She is SMOKIN fuckin hot. Don’t fuck this one up, alright? I wanna bone her.”
Charlie rolled his eyes at Russ.
“Im serious, man! Don’t fuck this one up for me!”
“Yeah, yeah. I got you, Russ.”
Russ knocked on the door and a tiny Asian girl opened it.
“Heyyyyy! Sophie!! How the fuck is it goin?! I haven’t seen you in hours!”
Russ clobbered Sophie with a bear hug as Charlie watched behind him in bemusement as he can see Sophie’s eyes bug out once she catches Charlie’s after-practice musk.
“Hi, Russ. What’s up?”
Sophie removed herself from Russ’ grip and smiled at Charlie, extending her hand for a handshake.
“Hi. You must be Charlie? I’m Sophie. Russ and I met today at orientation.”
Charlie shook Sophie’s hand and smiled. She was cute, sure, but he would hardly call her “smokin fuckin hot” as Russ deemed her.
Russ barged past the door and into the room to meet the rest of the girls. Charlie walked behind him...
And then stopped. She stood in front of him in a pair of green basketball shorts and a gray shirt, her hair done up in a pony tail.
“Hi, I’m Ashley. What’s your name?”
The words didn’t register with Charlie. He was absolutely caught in her beauty. She must have quickly noticed him staring, because she blushed and smiled.
“Do I have a booger or something? Because that would be really embarrassing...almost as embarrassing as those pants..”
Charlie snapped back to reality and looked down. The fucking dragon pants. What an embarrassment. He told himself to remember to kick Russ in the balls later on for suggesting he walk out of the room in these goddamned pants.
“Ahh..yeah...sorry. My best friend from home made these for me.”
“I see. I don’t know many guys who sew.....”
“Oh! No. She’s a girl.”
“Girlfriend?”
“Who, Sarah? God no. We go way back. She’s like a sister. Yeah, no. I definitely don’t have a girlfriend right now.”
Charlie started to blush, badly. He knew he was failing badly at talking to this girl, but he was just shellshocked at how attracted he was to her.
“Good to know. I don’t even know your name, but I know you’re single.”
“OH! Sorry! Sorry! My name is Charlie. What’d you say your name was?”
“Ashley.”
“Hi, Ashley. My name is Charlie.....”
He paused for a moment and smiled. Charlie knew he was going to hang himself later in his closet for biffing the conversation this bad.
“Ah shit. I already told you my name. Sorry.”
“Its alright, Chuck. Where you from?”
Ashley sat on her bed and patted next to her, motioning for Charlie to come sit next to her.
“Thanks. I’m from Cleveland, Ohio.”
“Oh yeah? What part of Cleveland?”
“The actual city of. I hate those people who say they’re from Cleveland, but it ends up being a suburb. If you live in a suburb, just say so. If somebody says they’re from New York, nobody actually asks them where in New York, they just nod their heads. But with Cleveland, nobody is actually from the city. Its dumb.”
Ashley smiled while Charlie just buried his head into his chest and shook his head.
“Ah...ah...I’m sorry. For real. Russ forced me to come out and meet people. I don’t know what I’m doing up here.”
Ashley laughed.
“It’s okay. It’s kinda cute.”
Charlie looked up to see Ashley smiling and brushing a piece of her brunette with blonde highlighted hair behind her ear.
“So, where are you from, Ashley?
“Avon.”
“Oh! I know where that is! That’s about thirty minutes from Cleveland, right?”
“Yep!”
“Oh wow, we don’t live too far from each other.”
“Guess not. Don’t start stalking me now...”
“Oh...oh no. I didn’t mean it in that way! Fuck....do you just want me to leave? I’m sorry.”
Ashley puts her hand on Charlie’s.
“You’re fine, Chuck. What’s got you so nervous?”
“Well, its just that I think you’re really, really pretty. Ohhhhhh....”
Charlie said out loud what he was thinking and only caught himself after he said it. He closed his eyes and tried to fight back the tears of humiliation he felt welling in his eyes. This was kick to the nuts number two for Russ later.
“Oh...well...thank you Chuck. I think you’re pretty cute, as well.”
He looked up again and he must have looked like an excited puppy dog with as wide as his eyes were, because Ashley let out a loud laugh.
“Well...thanks, I think.”
Charlie didn’t know what to do. He had never been in this situation before. In his head were a million different thoughts, none of which seemed like a viable option. However, he knew he got to this point by being open and direct, so why stop it?
“Well, you wanna hang out?”
As Ashley goes to answer, Russ cuts a loud fart from across the room, much to the delight of Sophie.
“Umm...if you keep company like that....”
“Oh no! He’s just my roommate. I DID NOT pick to live with that mongoloid.”
“Alright. We can hang then. You wanna watch a movie later?”
“Sure!”
Charlie was beside himself he was so excited. Is it really that easy? is all he could think to himself. He walked in there, made an absolute ass out of himself, and ended up with a pseudo-date later on in the night. They continued to talk for a few more minutes before deciding on a time to meet later that night to watch the movie. Russ and Sophie butted in and joined the movie plans as well.
As Russ and Charlie walked back down the stairwell to their room, Russ punched Charlie in the shoulder.
“See, ya motherfucker! I told you things were gonna work out! I’m totally gettin laid tonight! She’s a fuckin slam piece, bro! Totally!”
Rather than engage him in conversation, Charlie merely nodded hid head, still unable to get the smile off his face. Russ or no Russ, he had a movie date with Ashley tonight.
