Charthur: Part II

She wasn’t taking the dress. Arthur stood there, waiting for her to start agreeing with him and taking her stuff back. He didn’t except for her to care that much. He looked to her hands, to her eyes, and then back to her hands. She looked angry. Weird, but she was probably just angry he was ruining her sex life right now. That was all he ever amounted to for her. If she was going to care so much, she could just go buy a damn dildo or something. He felt the bitterness beginning to take route in place of anything else. He didn’t want to get his hopes up that she might actually want him, not just for the sex.

When she questioned his motives Arthur narrowed his eyes. What, like it was weird for him to do this? This was a long time coming!

”I’m almost 30, that’s where this is coming from.” He said. When she expressed that there was no warning or anything he looked away from her and at the hall behind her – down which he’d been dragged many times before, towards her bedroom. He looked vacantly at a spot on the wall. No warning? He finally focused on Chardonnay, feeling a twinge of irritation. ”I want to be more to someone than sex! This, what we’re doing – sneaking around, hooking up – this isn’t serious! I want to be able to introduce someone to my family. I want to have kids, I want to get married, and you don’t!” he said. He didn’t want to get mad – he wasn’t mad – he was just sad. Frustrated. Angry but not at her.

”No, I haven’t found anyone else. We made a promise that we wouldn’t pursue other people while we were hooking up, right? So I didn’t.” He said. ”I don’t want a fuckbuddy anymore. I want to mean more to – to the person I’m sleeping with – than sex.”

Arthur exhaled when she finally seemed to agree with his desire to end this whole thing. But the fact that she didn’t refute anything he said – that she didn’t say she cared about him, that she didn’t insist they were more than just fuckbuddies – stung him. He tried not to let it show on his face. She really didn’t care. She was willing to let him go and not even try to hold on. He felt the lump for back in his throat as he took in her angry expression. When she said this whole thing was overdue anyway that was just rubbing salt into the wound. He forced the dress into her arms and then moved past her, acting angry, but really just trying to mask the hurt that was beginning to simmer in his chest. Why had he expected any different? Why had he expected for her to tell him that she actually would miss him?


He didn’t say anything in response to her and opened up the drawer his things usually were in. He didn’t look at the bed – all he did was gather up his clothes. Underwear, pants, shirts, sweaters – he put it all into the suitcase. ”The rest of your things are in my car; you can go down and get them or just wait for me to do it. Knowing you, you’ll make me do it,” she probably wasn’t ever going to text him again. No more stupid emojis. She wasn’t dub enough to get stranded on the side of the road anymore. No picking her up at 3 AM when her car broke down. No more going to her restaurant (not that he ever did that before), no more sex, no more going to gourmet buffets. No more protecting her from Andrew and creeps like that. That thought was the only one that gave him pause as he thought about how she had no friends. How after this, she wouldn’t even care about him as a friend.

He slammed the suitcase shut and clicked it shut. He blinked rapidly to hide the emotion from his eyes and finally stood – adjusting the suitcase in his arm.

Her last comment made him sigh. This has been fun? She wished him luck in finding someone? He was glad he wasn’t facing her because that made all the emotions appear across his face – most of all hurt. He shook it off and by the time he turned towards her he was forcing a smile on his face. Unlike the other one it looked slightly more natural – but it was all an act and there was something off about it that still didn’t make it to his eyes. ”Right. Yeah. You too. You can call me if you need anything, but... if I get in a relationship, my partner probably wouldn’t like you very much,” he shouldn’t have said that and regret it the second it came out. But he couldn’t take his words back and walked towards the door. He rolled his eyes then. ”I take it by the fact you haven’t left, Princess, you want me to bring your shit up here?”

Arthur walked into the elevator. He knew that Chardonnay would never need to call him. But that didn’t bother him as much as he knew she would never want to call him. He really didn’t mean anything to her. His friendship, his concern, meant nothing to her. Those times she’d said she was comforted by him, those were lies or exaggerations. She didn’t want to stay friends with him if there were no benefits involved. He felt so disgusting, and so used. As she went to his car and gathered her things, he got himself into the drivers’ seat. He started up the vehicle, his keys clanking together as he rustled them. A few people looked in their direction but no one seemed too concerned. Arthur didn’t care about any of them. He wasn’t ever going to be back here, right?

After she got her shit, Arthur didn’t hesitate before pulling away from the lot. He watched Chardonnay as she marched away, her back to him. He left her condo and approached the highway. His hands were still shaking as he did so – and the image of Chardonnay turning around and marching off without a glance back at him kept implanting itself in his mind. He drove for about twenty minutes before he started swerving and he pulled over, at that spot he used to like by the ocean. He turned the car off and slammed his forehead against the wheel. He didn’t care that the horn blasted, loud and proud. He just sat there, on the side of the road, with his shit in the backseat. He didn’t stare at anything and an overwhelming feeling of loneliness came over him. He was never going to text Chardonnay again, talk to her, banter with her, or have sex with her. The feeling was almost like drowning and he stayed there, on the side of the road, for what felt like hours. The sun eventually began to set behind him, but still, he didn’t move. He was there so long someone must have been concerned about the man hunched over his steering wheel, because a cop pulled up behind him and knocked on his window. Arthur turned to look at the cop and slowly rolled the window down. The conversation was mostly pleasant – the officer asked him where he was going and Arthur said home, that he just wanted to pull over for a few minutes because he didn’t want to drive. The officer asked if everything was okay and he nodded, but wasn’t believed. By the time the officer finally agreed to leave him alone, the moon was up in the sky. Arthur grabbed his phone from beside him and glanced at his chat log with ‘Spoiled Princess’. He scrolled up from his last message to her throughout years of past conversations. Of him agreeing to go over, or her agreeing, of confirmations of her being safe and his smilies. He tried to blink away the tears, as he thought the whole time, she didn’t care. She never cared about him. It didn’t work and he started to cry – burying his face in his hands and just staying there for another hour. That time she’d comforted him after his nightmare was just guilt, just discomfort. She invited him to the gourmet festival and that was just so she wouldn’t be alone. She didn’t want something serious with him. Even if, at some point, she had enjoyed his presence she didn’t want something serious with him. What, was he just a two cent whore? A booty call to her? A dick to sit on?

Unfortunately, the answer to all of that was yes.

Arthur finally made it back to Salem around 9 PM. He went into his apartment and curled up on his bed, alone. He faced the side of the bed Chardonnay used to occupy and felt a wave of regret come over him. Maybe he should have just held on for a few more days. Maybe one more week. He stretched his hand out and touched the spot her head usually rested at. He didn’t know when it happened, he didn’t know why it did, but he knew he felt more than friendship for Chardonnay. If nothing else, this proved it. The fact he could barely function after she so bluntly stated she didn’t want him proved it. He felt incredibly hurt, and incredibly alone.

The next weeks were no better. Arthur became a shell of himself. At work it was easy to fall into his usual act – he feigned like nothing was wrong to all his employees, including Jasmin. No one suspected anything. Even with Erin and his friends, no one suspected anything was different. There were two people who had their suspicions: Maxine and Susan.

He told Maxine what had happened; she knew the full story. She’d known he and Chardonnay were fuckbuddies ever since that time she’d walked in on them, anyway. But Susan didn’t. Arthur did his best to put on a front in front of his sister, but she always could see right through him. She tried asking him what was wrong but he didn’t divulge the information. So, assuming it was something he wouldn’t be comfortable telling his mother figure, Susan asked Adelaide to see what was wrong.

Adelaide had not suspected anything. To her, her uncle was the same as before. He was nice, caring, protective, and silly just like her momma. But when she was told to keep an eye on him, she noticed how his face fell when he thought no one was looking or how he didn’t seem interested in anything anymore. One night when Adelaide went over to spent the night she pretended to go to sleep early and caught her uncle just sitting at his kitchen table at 12 AM, spinning a book around in his hands. When she came closer, she saw it was the cookbook Chardonnay had given him forever ago. Since Susan already had a copy, he’d been forced to keep it. Adelaide pouted at that and cleared her throat. That got Arthur to slam the book down and frown over at her.

”She’s a total bitch,” Adelaide said, hands on her hips.

”Adelaide! Watch your mouth. Who are you talking about?” Arthur said.

”Chardonnay.” Adelaide made a face as she said her name. Arthur’s face fell to a neutral face. He sighed and then turned back around to face his window.

”You don’t have to worry about that. I’m not talking to her anymore.” He grumbled. Adelaide looked excited.

”Really?! Why!?” She asked, as though he bought her a present and she hadn’t anticipated it. Arthur didn’t look at her.

”She didn’t care about – just – look, Adelaide,” He finally turned to look at Adelaide. Her happiness just made him even more upset at the situation. Of course she was ecstatic. He stood up and grabbed the book, chucking it behind the toaster oven. Adelaide watched this with a confused look. ”It’s none of your business. Go back to bed.”

With another week of no improvement from her uncle, Adelaide grew annoyed. ”Why are you so mopey!? She was so mean!”

”Drop it, Adelaide. Just tell your mother I’m stressed about work,” Arthur said, when Adelaide informed him of Susan’s desire to find what was bothering her brother so much. Adelaide did not look impressed, but obliged him anyway. Susan seemed reluctant to believe that.

The theater was actually in fairly good shape. Arthur threw himself into work to try and forget about Chardonnay and the termination of their fuckbuddy relationship. His phone, now devoid of any texts from her, didn’t get as much action as it used to and half the time he felt anticipation that maybe she texted him – only to be disappointed. The movies coming out this month were all highly anticipated ones, so sales were extremely high for the theater.

Arthur even went to a movie festival with Jason one weekend – leaving the theater, of course, in the hands of Jasmin. That was actually on the weekend of the 4th of July – he and Jason would up watching the fireworks together from their shared hotel room. For one weekend his thoughts were completely void of Chardonnay, as he filled his phone with pictures and Jason tagged him in about a million images on Facebook. At the festival, Arthur met a few people from Jason’s community who seemed interested in him. One guy even gave him a business card with a wink – Jason teased him about it – but that incident left Arthur in a sour mood. He appreciated it, and he knew he should have been happy about it, but... he wound up scrolling through his phone under the covers that night, focused on the chat logs between him and Chardonnay. How was he supposed to move on like this?

At one point, he downloaded Tinder again, but never got anywhere beyond talking to people. He seriously considered just hooking up with someone for the sake of it – to see what sex with someone other than Chardonnay would be like. But no matter how much he wanted to, he could never bring himself to really meet up with any Tinder dates.

He came home and Susan was excited to see him again. He was just in time for Adelaide’s 14th birthday, and he was surprised to hear Adelaide broke up with Caroline – but wasn’t surprised to see she was together with Annabelle. That was one thing that he was glad to see.

By mid-august, Arthur felt a little better. He casually mentioned to Erin that he was considering dating someone and she tried to hook him up with a few blind dates – which ended badly. After one particularly bad blind date, Arthur had Adelaide over and she slowly approached him, as he sat at the table playing with the damn book again.

Adelaide asked how the date went and he shrugged. She rolled her eyes and sat down beside him, and she told him Chardonnay was an uncle-breaking jerk.

”I’m not broken. I’m fine.” Arthur emphasized. Adelaide pouted and nuzzled into his side. He put an arm around her and pat her on the shoulder, and finally was able to smile naturally for what felt like the first time since the separation. ”I love you.”

”Gross!” Adelaide complained, but when he leaned down to give her forehead a kiss she giggled and thrashed playfully. She trotted off and Arthur took a deep breath.

He had to stop worrying his family. He made a choice to stop screwing Chardonnay – and she made hers, to let him go. He needed to accept that.

On this particular Sunday morning, Arthur was wearing a plaid, dark green button down shirt and jeans. He had given himself the day off to get some chores down around the apartment. He cleaned the kitchen, living room, his bedroom, his closet. He had to run to the store later – he was going to cook something for his sister and niece later that day for dinner. He was finally starting to feel better about not being in a fuckbuddy relationship anymore. He just wondered, most of the time, if Chardonnay was okay. Was she making more friends, screwing another man? That made Chad’s face pop into his head for a second. He paused, shook his head, and then heard something odd. A knock!

He rolled his eyes and headed towards the door.

”Susan, I told you not to come until 5 – “ He opened the door and froze, completely. In front of him was not his sister, but Chardonnay. Immediately he thought she might be in danger or hurt or something and he gave her a quick once-over. Normally he would have been angry, at her just popping up like this, but the expression on her face terrified him. ”What’s wrong?”

Arthur didn’t know what she was doing here. Had she forgotten something? Had something happened to her parents? He thought of the news – he’d heard nothing about anything happening to a chef. But then again Thomas lived far away, didn’t he, with Olivia? And Jason would have of course told him if that happened. If that happened, if he heard something happened to Thomas or Olivia, Arthur knew he’d call Chardonnay or go to see her even if he called this whole thing off. They meant the world to her and if something happened to them she would be a wreck. A total wreck, like she looked now. He felt like his could have been avoided had he never called this whole thing off, for some reason -- he just had to take the blame somehow.

Her eyes began to water and he bit his lower lip, reaching out to grab her shoulder. He wanted to gently pull her inside – but when he saw the tears begin to fall from her eyes all he wanted to do was pull her into his arms. He almost did, actually, until she spoke.

I’m pregnant.

Arthur froze completely, his eyes widening and face falling. She... no, he heard that wrong. She wasn’t pregnant and if she was, it wasn’t with him, was it? It was with some other guy, a new fuckbuddy, who turned his back on her? But she was staring right at him, looking right into his eyes, and he felt something in his chest – was that his heart breaking for how she looked right now? He wasn’t sure. Maybe.

He stared at her for too long, blinking, taking in her face. ”Hey – you – you’re not...” he glanced down to her stomach, which still looked flat, and then at her face. His expression changed to a softer one and he pulled her inside the apartment, shutting the door behind her. ”You’re pregnant?” he asked. And, stupidly, he asked ”...w—with – I – it’s, mine?”

Arthur continued to look at Chardonnay, now that she was inside his apartment and leaning against his door. She had cut her hair, he noticed – but otherwise she didn’t look different. She was crying, bawling her eyes out, and he’ only last seen her like this when she had that nightmare all those years ago. Arthur knew how she felt about family, pregnancy, people... she wanted no part of it. So how did they get in this situation? He felt awful for agreeing to sex without a condom – if it was going to result in this. But, even still, she was pregnant. Pregnant! With his kid! There was no way that happened! There was no way she could possibly be pregnant. It just wasn’t them! They’d fucked for almost ten years and only had one scare. One! And now, she was really, she... was she actually pregnant or did she just get a false positive and assume the worst?

Arthur flinched when she tried – and failed – to yell at him. He looked at her, unlike her looking away from him. She was completely serious. She was here and she was pregnant and he didn’t know what was going on. Was this a dream? Was he being punked? No, he wasn’t. His jaw opened but he closed it, again, and his heart began to race. He wanted a child someday, but like this? So unexpectedly, with someone who didn’t want to have a family? His hand, which he’d removed slowly from Chardonnay’s shoulder, was trembling with fear.

”No, you... don’t be sorry,” He said, almost whispered, as he looked at her. She was pregnant. She had come here and she was pregnant. Did she want to dump the kid on him and leave like Maxine had done to her baby daddy? Did she want his opinion? Did she want to have an abortion? The thought of her doing that sent a wave of dread throughout him. He knew it wasn’t ultimately his decision but he begged for a no to be the answer on that one. He opened his mouth and looked at Chardonnay. He wanted her to keep the kid. He wanted to keep the kid, even though he was terrified. He closed his mouth. Then opened it again. ”I – y – you,” he stuttered out. She was shaking and hugging herself and all he wanted to do in that moment was reach over and pull her into his arms and hug her.

”H--how long have you known?” he asked. Was it immediately after they stopped fucking? Was it only a week ago? Did she just find out this morning? Had she answered that already? He wasn't certain -- he was confused about everything and had so many questions. It was hard to force out the next question – he was terrified of her answer – but he asked anyway. ”What are you... what are you going to do?”

Arthur watched her wipe her face with her sleeve and wanted to go and grab a box of Kleenex, which he had in his room in his drawer. But he also didn’t want to leave in case she freaked out, cried more, or said anything that he wanted to hear that she wasn’t willing to repeat.

She was really pregnant. When she explained how she knew, he knew this wasn’t a scare. He took a sharp breath when she mentioned the doctor – not some pregnancy test – was what told her she was pregnant. She said that she was planning to keep the baby and Arthur felt a glimmer of hope. He knew she wasn’t keen on the idea – her lip quivered when she said that – but he knew she was serious. She loved her parents so much that she’d be willing to keep the baby. And when she mentioned him, what he’d probably want, like she’d actually thought about it, the glimmer of hope turned into a beam. And she said she – no, she said we – had to deal with it. That united them, sort of, didn’t it?

”Will you be my girlfriend?” He blurted out – too suddenly, too loudly, and he felt his cheeks redden at that. Jesus fucking Christ. Had he really blurted that out to Chardonnay? He bit his lip and looked away from her. His palms were clammy. Shit. Was that what he was supposed to say? Probably not, probably not. He felt himself going into a panic mode and before she could say anything he continued, ”I mean, if you’re going to keep the baby then we should – I mean well, it’s not just for the baby, because I miss – I miss more than sex, I miss, I miss you, and just – everything. But uh,” she didn’t seem like she was going to say anything so he kept rambling. ”But if – if you do want to keep the baby then – then – well I mean we should probably, probably try because I, I don’t want to not be around, and I miss you – so –“ Stop. Talking. He brought his hand up to rub the back of his neck and braced himself for her to scoff and say that wasn’t what she wanted. That she was going to raise the baby and demand child support, or she was going to give him half custody and it’d be a situation like that. Her parents, too, knew about the baby apparently – she’d have them for help – she didn’t need him. To try to make him sound not desperate, he tacked on ”Just – an option...”