Charlie Hastings @throughamillstone-blog - Tumblr Blog

Tragical-ish Ill-Advised Romantic Backstory

The spring of Charlie's senior year of high school he decided that, in addition to being pressed into work at the Lodge alongside the rest of his siblings (as it's the lot of Lodge owners' children everywhere to wind up helping out around the place from time to time, whether or not it's in a formal employment capacity of just as able bodies assigned "chores" that happened to be related to the family business) he was going to take a part-time job at Book Ends, a bookstore, bar, and cafe down on Main Street in town.

Book Ends was always one of his favorite places in Millstone, a slightly overcrowded shop with overstuffed bookshelves everywhere, slightly battered armchairs and loveseats scattered throughout the rooms of the three-story house, a dozen nooks and crannies where a book-loving kid could curl up with a spiced hot chocolate and read. It didn't hurt that Lynn Wyatt, the owner of the bookstore, was beautiful and always had a smile for him, and didn't seem to mind -- or at least kindly pretended not to notice -- when he found himself unable to tentatively flirt with her shortly after he started driving.

Lynn Wyatt, who'd been separated from her husband for about a year the spring she put up a help wanted ad in the window, was perfectly happy to hire Charlie part-time to help out with the shop. She was nearing thirty, feeling a bit restless as she looked back on the last ten years of her life wasted on a man who'd run out on her, but if she'd been harboring any thoughts of playing Mrs. Robinson to the handsome young man who flirted inexpertly with her more often than not when he came into the shop these days they were passive thoughts at best, and certainly nothing she *intended* to act on.

But as the days went by, and Charlie started working more shifts over the summer, stocking away some spending money for his upcoming freshman year of college, those passive thoughts of *probably shouldn't* slowly changed, becoming *why not* and then *when*. They started lingering over closing, pouring stiff drinks from the shop's small bar before heading out to the little back patio to talk and listen to music under the strings of fairy lights hung over the scattered chairs. Books at first, and what Charlie was planning to study at school, life in Millstone in general; moving slowly, in an almost careful dance, around to topics like her life growing up in Seattle and how she'd met her husband and why their marriage had fallen apart, and their thoughts on anything and everything until she finally leaned over and kissed him.

Charlie, all of eighteen years old and completely infatuated with the gorgeous older woman whom he'd gotten to know over the past few months, fell head over heels for her -- though, at her insistence, he agreed that they should keep things casual. She was separated but not legally divorced yet, after all, though her husband had moved back to Seattle without her the previous fall. And he was leaving to go away to college in a few months, and that wasn't exactly the best start for anything serious. Unspoken was the idea that explaining their age difference might have been an issue as well, especially for his parents. Charlie nodded, agreeing completely, even as he kissed her under the fairy lights and wondered if it was actually possible for someone to be this in love and not die of it.

They might have agreed that things between them were going to be "casual", and perhaps Lynn might have even meant it, but as the summer wore on Charlie spent more and more time with her, even sneaking out to spend the night with her a few times instead of coming home to lay awake and alone in his bed after having just been wrapped around the woman he loved in hers. It was heady stuff, for a young man with a strong romantic streak, this clandestine romance with a beautiful older woman, and while he agreed, the night before he left for college, that they were both free to see other people -- since, Lynn told him, she didn't want to be the reason he missed out on his college experience -- he knew that he wouldn't. He loved her, though he couldn't tell her that yet -- but maybe, by Christmas, he'd have worked up the nerve to say as much, to ask her to give it a shot, even with the age difference and the distance. Because love was worth the struggle, and the hardships; because if they had each other, nothing else mattered.

Charlie enjoyed his first few months of college, though he missed Lynn dreadfully. He tried not to be *that guy*, though, texting occasionally and sending her some emails here and there, worried about coming across as too clingy. She replied more often than not at first, then slowly less and less as the fall wore on, leaving Charlie torn between storming home one weekend to sweep her off her feet and take her in her arms and declare his love and counting out the days between his texts so as not to seem like a creepy desperate stalker. Her texts were a bit more frequent in the days before Thanksgiving break, and when he came home for that week he found, to his relief, a smiling Lynn happy to see him, and while he'd told himself he wouldn't haunt her shop every night seeking attention, he found himself coming over right around close every evening, helping with close-up and having a few drinks before falling into bed with her again. They joked about the state of the place, boxes everywhere, books piled up all over the store like a tornado had hit it, but she told him she was switching over inventory systems and that's why it was such a disaster, and how she was sure she'd be happier once it was over but right now just pretend it wasn't such a mess.

Charlie was happy to pretend all manner of things, now that he had Lynn in his arms again. It might have been better for him, in the long run, if he hadn't been.

Charlie went back to college more in love than ever, and even though he didn't really hear anything from Lynn over the next few weeks other than the odd text here and there about being busy with the shop, he didn't think too much of it. He had no idea that Lynn's husband had showed up back on the scene in October, determined to win her back and convince her to come back to Seattle with him. He had no idea that she'd gotten tired of Vermont and small towns; no idea that she was looking at her upcoming 30th birthday bitterly wondering what she'd done with her life. He'd had no idea, when he'd come home for Thanksgiving, that the reason the store was a mess was because she was already, quietly, going about the business of packing the place up and liquidating her inventory -- something she kept secret in town, because she didn't want anyone knowing her business, and because she wanted one last, long tryst with her young lover before going back to be with her husband as a little *fuck you* for what her husband had put her through.

She didn't *intend* to be cruel to Charlie while doing so, but then she'd never really thought all that much about what Charlie was really feeling in the first place. He was young, she thought, and he'd be fine -- when she thought about how he might feel about it at all, which was something she rarely did, if she were honest. To Lynn, Charlie was just the beautiful boy she'd found during a strange time in her life, and nothing more; even when she'd started to think that he might be falling for her, she decided to ignore it, because she *deserved* this, after what her husband had done. Besides, he was eighteen years old, he'd be fine.

Charlie came home for Christmas break excited to see his family, catch up on some sleep after exams, and to tell Lynn that he loved her. He stopped in town on his way to the Lodge, intending to casually drop by Book Ends for a quick drink and a hello, only to have his world come to a crashing stop when he pulled up in front of an empty storefront. Book Ends was gone -- and so was Lynn.

The rest of that day passed in a daze, as he made his way home and somehow managed to casually ask what had happened to his bookstore. No one was really all that sure -- it had been open the day before yesterday, they were pretty certain, and then all of a sudden it was gone. He shrugged along with them, before going up to his room and texting Lynn, his heart pounding so fast he thought he might faint, and after two horrible hours he received a reply that she'd gone to Seattle to be with her husband, and that it was for the best if he never texted her again.

Charlie made it through the holidays somehow, though he spent a lot of his nights brooding in his room and wondering what he'd done wrong if Lynn had chosen her estranged husband, whom she'd sworn up and down she loathed, over him -- not realizing how much of that protestation had been Lynn trying to convince herself, by way of Charlie, that she was over her ex. The holidays were a thousand years long and were over in a blink, and when Charlie went back to school for the spring term he was a bit more subdued, and determined not to ever be such a fool again, or to let anything matter so much that it could hurt like that, ever again.

Since that time he's had his share of flings and one night stands, and has never been shy about flirting with a girl across the bar and taking her home if she seemed interested -- but nothing ever went further than that. He didn't sit down and decide that he was never going to fall in love again, not out loud or in so many words, but it was there, in his mind, and has been for the last eight years.

He let himself be hurt once, by someone he loved, and that was more than enough for him.

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