“Hi” she said smiling pulling Beau close stopping her from jumping up though it was only her way of greeting him, of greeting anyone.
“Hi” he mimicked pulling her in for an unexpected hug, “Hi Beau” he added kneeling down and stroking Beau, pulling her in for a hug too, she licked at his face,
“Beau!” Leigh scolded
“It’s fine” Charlie confirmed and smiled once again, the same infective smile he always held.
“Charlie honey why don’t you sit up front with me” Mary said as they reached the car. She had blanketed the back seat to protect the expensive upholstery from Beaus feet and hairs,
“No its fine I want to sit in back with B” Charlie said pulling open the door, “come on Beau” he said, Leigh passed him the lead and opened the passenger door she climbed into the hot car which had filled with the sweet sickly scent of the air freshener attached to the dash board. They rode in silence all the way to Charlie’s apartment, which luckily wasn’t along drive away and once they were inside the dram that unfolded soon wiped the dyer awkward silence from their minds.
Leigh’s things were being delivered later
that day along with Beaus belongings to allow Charlie to settled back in before
being overwhelmed with moving Leigh in, as they rode up in the life to his
fourth floor apartment he stood close to her knowing how much she hated elevators,
this made Leigh smile and it made her feel secure in the moving metal box. When
they reach the fourth floor and were finally in the warm apartment everything
erupted,
“Things
aren’t right” Charlie said walking into the apartment and looking around,
“Sweetheart
everything is fine, you probably just forgot because of the accident” his
mother cooed
“No I
remember my apartment and things have moved, been moved by you, is this what
you do? Interfere with things, move things around when people haven’t asked you
to!” he turned, anger furrowing his brow and yelled the words at her,
“Charlie
please I was just...” she began clearly flustered
“No!, get
out, I didn’t ask you to come here and change my things around this is my home,
one of the things that I do remember and you come in and change it!” His anger
had grown and Leigh felt as though she should step in, she moved to him placing
her hand on his shoulder,
“Charlie”
she said simply and he fell quiet
“I think it
is best I leave” Mary Winters, Leigh smiled and walked her to the door,
“I’m sure he
just needs to settle in” Leigh reasoned
“Hmm, thank
you Leigh” Mary winters said as she closed the door behind herself. For the
next hour or so they replaced the things that Mary Winters had moved and made
space for both Leigh and Beaus things something that Charlie seemed quite happy
to do. Though once they had done this things fell quiet and Leigh wasn’t sure
what it was she should do; she had spent time thinking about what might be good
for bringing Charlie’s forgotten memories to the surface if they had in face
simply sunk down beneath his mind and not disintegrated in the accident
entirely. She had considered his facebook and the photographs that might hold
memories of friends, birthdays, night outs but then she reconsidered, Leigh did
not want to over load Charlie’s mind with images of things he couldn’t remember
she knew that this would only make him retreat even more. In the end she
decided that the best thing to do was nothing,
“Do you want
to go out?” she asked Charlie who was half laid on the sofa with Beau
“Not so
much” he replied
“Want to see
what on the TV?” she tried again
“Sure” he
said with a sweet smile, he lifted the remote from the coffee table and pushed
in the red button, the TV flickered to life, apparently how to use the TV was
something that had not fled from his mind when the cars had collided, along
with his address, his birthday, his middle name and of course Leigh and Beau.
They settled for a channel that showed old games shows all day and with-in a
few minutes both Leigh and Charlie were shouting out answers, to anyone on the
outside looking in it would seem as though they had lived together for
years.
After
a few hours the sun was high in the sky and was flooding the room with bright
white light and heat, Leigh pulled the curtains to block out the intruding
light however this only lead to the room heating up which lead to them feeling
lethargic and eventually falling asleep. Leigh dreamt of very little other than
snow as though her mind was transmitting what her body wanted to feel in the
heat of the room and these dreams did not last long for she was woken by the
sound of rolling thunder in the form of Charlie who was suffering from a
nightmare. Beau had been woken too; she was now sat at Charlie’s feet with a
look of worry and concern in her almond eyes. Leigh took a moment to wake fully
and then she grasped his hand and shook his arm gradually building in force
until he jolted awake, a look of relief on his face. Beau jumped up instantly
to comfort him,
“You okay?”
Leigh asked, he took a moment to consider his answer and then he offered only a
nod in reply. For the remainder of the day they continued to watch whatever
they could find on the TV from old black and white movies to day time chat
shows; soon the time had flow by and out beyond the thick curtains the sun had
begun it descent down behind the horizon casting the land in a bloody red hew.
Leigh check her watch, realising that Beau would be hungry and then realising
that she too was hungry,
“You hungry
Charlie?” she asked him as she sat up on the sofa motivating herself to move,
he looked over at her, absently stroking Beaus ears
“I could
eat” he said
“Alright
what do you fancy because you don’t have anything in other than dog food, so
we’ll order” she replied, he fell silent and she knew why,
“I don’t
know” he said,
“Alright
well I’ll sort Beau out and see if I can find some menus” Leigh said, she did
not want to make a big deal out of it, drawing attention to what he couldn’t
remember didn’t seem like it would be helpful. She stood and moved to the
kitchen pouring a half tin of dog meat mixed with cat meat into Beaus dish and
then Leigh began to look for menus, this task did not take her long. She would
often order in and knew that usually there was only two places to find take out
menu’s, either in one of the kitchen draws or in a draw of the table holding
the phone however Charlie’s phone sat atop a bookshelf and there were no take
out menus stored on it amongst the books and so she figured they must be in one
of the draws and there were only three draws in the kitchen, one held cutlery,
the other towels, cloths and bin bags and in the third she found the take out
menus amongst pens and note books.
“Okay do you
want, Chinese, Italian, Indian or good ol’ British?” she said as she returned
with a handful of menus, she passed them to him and watched as he read and
re-read each one and then he closed his eyes, he was trying to remember,
“How about
we order a few dishes off of each and then we can try them all” Leigh offered,
“Okay” he
said with a smile “what about the leftover food?” he asked as though he had
never before eaten cold pizza,
“We save it
and we eat it tomorrow” she said “what shall we try, 2 dishes from each, any
two” she said happy to let him choose, though he insisted she chose one from
each and he chose one from each.
They ate until they could not eat any more
and it had been a very amusing meal time, watching each other eat a little from
each dish, laughing at the faces pulled over dishes that were not what they had
been expecting and each trying to win the last spoonful of the dishes they did
like, things that weren’t eaten that were liked were stored to be divvied out
for breakfast the next morning and once again they all settled down. This time
they chose to watch a film from Charlie’s vast collection, one he chose out at
random,
“I think I
love this film” he said suddenly when after they had watched near half the
movie, a grin had spread across his face,
“What makes
you think that?” she asked
“I just get
this feeling of excitement even though things feel very familiar with it, it’s
almost like deja vu” he said still grinning,
“That’s
good” Leigh smiled “we’ll start off small and work our way up” she added now
too grinning like a crazy fool. That night they slept mostly on the sofa having
once again drifted off to sleep, around 3:30 Leigh was woken, not by Charlie’s
nightmares for he seemed to be sleeping soundly but by beau who was nosing at
her arm, she wanted the bathroom. Leigh snuck out quietly, the night was warm
and quiet and so she stood for a while watching Beau sniffing at patches of
grass and odd fallen leaves, she felt over whelmed by the ‘job’ she had been
given though she couldn’t imagine what he was feeling.
As time passed between them many
insignificant things resurfaced though not one significant memory was regained;
the things he had spent half his life loving, the friends and his family, those
memories were still all AWOL. Leigh was lost for ideas, Charlie and herself
were getting along well, he loved Beau, Leigh knew this for sure, almost if not
as much as she did and they had also started to venture out more often to the
cinema or bowling or for food; Leigh had managed to get him to participate in
normal activities once again. However in spite of all of the good progress
Charlie was still suffering from sporadic mind splitting headaches and he
refused to go and talk to a therapist and then one very bad decision led to Charlie
becoming with drawn again. His mother had come up with the idea that a dinner
party with his friends would be a good thing though she had not mentioned this
to either Leigh or Charlie. She had invited them around under the premise of a
family dinner; Charlie had refused to go if Beau was not invited and so she had
gone along to much to his mothers’ dismay. However when they had walked into
the dining room the cliché long mahogany table, with its two twin silver candle
sticks that had been set up for ten and around it sat ten of Charlie’s friends,
friends he could no longer remember. They laughed and smiled and greeted him with
awkward hugs that Charlie didn’t want though accepted out of politeness and
then they went back to discussing things that Charlie didn’t remember and that
Leigh had never known.
“You’ll have
to introduce yourselves” his mother announced with a smile as she backed out of
the room, Leigh looked over at Charlie, already she could see the panic
starting to fill his eyes.
“We can go”
she offered with a whisper
“No” he shook
his head in response and began to walk toward the table, he turned “maybe give
it an hour” he added with a slight uneasy smile. They sat down with Beau underneath
the table at their feet, they listened to the list of names as they were given one
after the other as though in some form of attendance.
The night began okay, Beau had eventually
curled up next to the fire and Leigh had managed to make awkward conversation
with people she had never met and would likely never choose to meet and Charlie
for the most part sat quietly occasionally passing Beau unwanted tid-bits of
food, he did not start any conversations nor did he carry them on for very
long. They were just finishing the fourth course of six when things fell to
pieces or rather they shattered sending shards of glistening glass across the
room and Leigh was surprised that Charlie had lasted for so long. Once the
awkwardness of the situation had dissipated the group barring Charlie and Leigh
had erupted into conversation regurgitating tales of Charlie and bombarding him
with memories that he had managed to loose and this was when he snapped. He
stood forcing his chair backward with a long and ear bursting screech,
“Look as
much as I appreciate this and I’m sure we were all very close but I do not
remember you and I do not remember the things that you are talking about, the
things that we did together, this-this is too much” he said raising his voice
only an octave and then he walked out with Beau close at his heels. Leigh stood
a second later; she offered a nervous smile,
“I’m sorry,
I’m sorry he just can’t handle this yet, I’m sorry that he doesn’t remember
you, you all seem great and I’m sure he will remember you he just needs time to
heal” with that apology Leigh left. She found Charlie and Beau outside, he had
called a taxi and soon they were home and he felt secure and safe again.
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