Chapter 9: I couldn't lead her on

ERIC

Friday afternoon marked a week since I left my apartment on the Crane Division Navy Base for the final time and completed my move back to Morrow Falls. Just a few weeks earlier, I'd been planning for reenlistment, never imagining that my month would end with an application for a hardship discharge, raising my sister's son, or living in my parents' rental house.

I rubbed my forehead as I paced at the end of the driveway, checking my phone for at least the fifth time. It was Charlie's second full day back to school since the accident and I'd been hesitant to send him on the bus, but his counselor insisted that getting him back to his regular schedule and activities would be the best start. Maybe so, but watching my nephew - who hadn't said a word since the day of the accident - climb onto a school bus was one of the hardest things I'd ever been asked to do.

I'd done my training on computer systems, not child psychology, so all I could do was hide the ticking in my jaw as I followed doctor's orders. For most of the school day, I'd worked around the house and managed not to lose my mind. Having been used to a more intense and demanding schedule, I could handle the hectic days and hours much better than the idle ones. The last twenty minutes were about to undo me.

I crossed the driveway again. Checked my phone again. Spun on my heel and kicked a rock across the road, where it landed in the thick grass without so much as a satisfying thud. Four years of NROTC and six as an Information Professional Officer had done nothing to prepare me for this. Nothing.

The school had given me an approximate time for the bus, but it was already ten minutes late. Under normal circumstances, I figured that wouldn't be out of the ordinary or cause for concern, but nothing about the last couple of weeks had been normal. And what the hell did I know about school bus schedules or raising a six-year-old? Let alone one who had just lost the two people who made up his entire world.

I twisted my neck and stared up at the cloudy sky. It's bullshit, I thought, just in case there was anything up there beyond the clouds to hear me. Fucking bullshit.

I regretted not going down to the school and picking him up myself. Surely one bus ride would be enough for day two. I rolled my shoulders and tilted my neck side to side. To be honest, the motivation behind finding an excuse to hang around the elementary probably wasn't that admirable. With everything I had to concentrate on, the thought of finding another way to run into Miss Lena Kline seemed to pop up every few hours.

I don't have time for that, I reminded myself. I couldn't lead her on. But, fuck, all the things I could imagine myself doing to her could keep me occupied for a while. If I allowed myself to do it. Every time I thought of her and started down that path, I just couldn't bring myself to spoil the reality of her with some fantasy that would never stand a chance. I longed to twist those golden blonde curls around my fist and savor every perfect inch of her. I wanted to taste every delicious imperfection, too.

Lena Kline was about to turn me into a stalker.

Finally, the bus came around the curve and squealed to a halt at the end of the driveway. One minor incentive to taking my parents up on their offer to live in the rental was that it put Charlie on the same bus route, so he had the same driver and familiar faces on the bus. We all hoped that might help him open up again, but as he descended the steps on the bus and jumped to the ground, his head remained lowered and shoulders hunched with his wavy chestnut hair falling over his forehead, messier than when he'd left that morning.

I waived at the bus driver, then slipped Charlie's backpack off his shoulder and hoisted him up. "Hey, buddy. How was school?"

He exhaled and dropped his head against my shoulder. Like every other day, all I saw was an emotionless void where a lively little kid had once been. The doctors hadn't found any evidence of lasting physical trauma, but his silence was killing me. I wanted to fix it. An evening hadn't gone without the urge to fall on my knees and beg him to say anything.

The counselor said he had to process in his own time and open up when he was ready. I knew it wouldn't change overnight, or in a week, but ten days had passed since the funeral and in many ways, it felt like we were still right there. The hospital. The funeral home. The cemetery. Each event blurred together, and if I was having trouble processing the whole thing, I couldn't imagine being six years old and in the back of that van when it all happened. I couldn't imagine losing my parents like that and the world simply moving on.

I carried Charlie inside, pushed an empty cardboard box out of the way with my foot, and sat Charlie's backpack on the end table. The house remained as unorganized as I felt with cardboard boxes stacked in every room. I hoped that once I finished getting it together Charlie and I might both relax just a little, but even with him at school, I hadn't made much headway. So, when Dad offered to take him for a night so they could spend some time out on the lake before it got too cold, I practically jumped at the offer and hoped it wouldn't set my mother off on another tear about how I wasn't ready to raise a kid.

In a lot of ways, she was right.

My sister, Ashley, had once mentioned in passing that she'd named me Charlie's guardian should anything happen to her and Gerald. But I hadn't given it a second thought until I got the call about the accident and by then, she was already gone.

Within hours of that call, I was sucked up into a whirlwind of paperwork, travel arrangements, calls with the lawyer and my parents, calls with Gerald's family, Charlie's school, doctors, therapists, a double funeral, discharge arrangements, multiple trips between base and Morrow Falls. And finally, learning to live day-to-day with a silent little boy who I'd mainly watched grow up online or via text message. I couldn't understand how, by any stretch of the imagination, Ash would think I was the most suitable person for this. But for whatever reason, she did. Like hell I would let her down.

But I needed a night to get my head on straight and get a handle on the mounting to-do list.

"You excited to hang out with Grandpa at the lake this evening?" I asked.

Still nothing. What if he hated the idea? What if it made everything worse?

"Charlie." I sat him on the end of the couch and knelt in front of him. "Do you want to spend the night with Grandma and Grandpa?"

He closed his eyes, and when I thought I'd have to go without an answer once again, he nodded twice.

A single knot of tension untwisted. Okay, I thought, maybe I'm not completely screwing this up. I ruffled his hair. "How about you grab some clothes and anything else you want to take with you for the night?"

Charlie slid off the couch and headed toward his room, while I collapsed where he'd been sitting. My body wanted to sleep. My brain wanted to fix things. Neither seemed to be attainable goals.