Salt Lake City, Utah
Zoe stripped a long, taut line of packing tape along the seam of a cardboard box, smoothing out the creases just so. She stood, cracking her back, and took a look around her near-empty apartment.
Most of her furniture was gone, en route to Salt Lake City. The couch remained, her bed, and a few of her most precious items that she preferred to pack herself. The movers were coming back tomorrow. Charlie was coming over to help put away the last of her memories.
The mere thought of him pulled at that familiar pain, heavy and sharp that had kept her company ever since she received the order of her transfer. Salt Lake City, Utah. Effective immediately.
Six words, but they had changed her life so profoundly, an efficient sweep of a scythe, harvesting everything she was and transplanting her to…to what she didn’t know.
All she knew for sure was that she would be without.
Not having Charlie at the center of her world seemed an anathema…ludicrous to imagine. He had been her axis, the center of her orbit for so long that to imagine a job without him there, a laugh without him answering it, a sentence without him finishing it, well it just seemed—
A knock pulled her from her thoughts, and she hurriedly looked at her watch. It was passed two…Charlie was right on time, and she hadn’t even showered. She frowned at her rumpled clothes, grimy from rifling through boxes. He had seen worse.
She opened the door, a rush of relief washing over her as if someone else could be on the other side.
“Hey,” he said rather sheepishly. “I brought these hands,” he said as he held them up comically. “Thought you might could use them.”
She wanted to laugh, but nothing would come. She just smiled at him and gestured him inside.
Charlie helped with things on the top shelves of cabinets, his lips pressed tightly together. He play-acted with dolls, his eyes strangely warm and his shoulders rigid.
They were two hours into packing when Zoe put a hand on his arm. “I’m ordering us pizza,” she said. “We’ve still got a few more boxes.”
Charlie said nothing, just nodded tightly. He wrote “Salt Lake City” in black Sharpie on one box and then tossed the marker down with a heavy sigh.
The pizza arrived and they settled on the couch, balancing the box in their laps because the coffee table was gone.
They ate mostly in silence. Charlie ate two pieces and then held the box for Zoe.
She frowned, a cute crease between her eyebrows. “Is that all you want?”
He pursed his lips. “Not hungry.”
She nodded, chewing slowly and trying not to meet his eyes.
“Is this what you want, Zoey?” His voice was rough and low.
“It’s pepperoni. I ordered meatlovers,” she said flatly.
Charlie brushed his hair back from his forehead. “I’m not talking about the fucking pizza.”
She swallowed the last bite and closed the box, taking it from Charlie and sitting it heavily on the floor.
“You know I didn’t have a choice,” she whispered.
He chewed the inside of his cheek. “You didn’t exactly try to fight it.”
Her eyes narrowed. “That’s bullshit and you know it.”
Charlie turned away, his eyes glittering. “You’re happy to be rid of me.” His voice was thick, and he wouldn’t look at her.
Zoe placed a hand on the back of his neck, feeling the tension there. How could he think that, when her world was this upended without him?
“Charlie, look at me.”
He did, and there were tears in his eyes, and the sun through the curtains only made them gleam.
She didn’t think…she had thought enough. About Utah, about the transfer, about things she could have done or should have done. She just did, and leaned into his slightly parted lips.
He jolted softly, a startled sound coming from him before responding, lips moving against hers in the sweetest kiss, only parting to whisper against her mouth. “Please stay. Please stay, Zoey.”
She swept a hand through his hair, shushing him. The dull throb of pain in her chest subsided some the more she touched him, the closer she got to him, so she pressed into the heat of his mouth, her tongue darting out to taste, to touch, to feel.
He moaned, his body finally waking up, and pulled her roughly against him. His hands drifted over her face, down over her shoulders to settle at her small waist. Charlie’s lips left her mouth, lathing over her neck, peppering soft kisses over the tender flesh there.
“I can’t lose you again,” he murmured into her throat. “I can’t…I won’t.”
Zoe sighed, boneless in his arms, the helplessness inside her that had raged ever since news of the transfer somewhat quelled by Charlie’s reassuring touch.
“You won’t,” she soothed, her hands toying with the collar of his t-shirt. “It won’t be like that, Charlie. It—”
He pulled away from her, and she immediately missed his warmth. “What will it be like then, Zoe? Will we be pen-pals? Will you call me every night when you get off work?”
She flinched at the acid in his tone, at the pain that she realized he must be feeling too.
He tenderly held her hand, brushing his thumb over her knuckles. “I don’t want to do life
without you, Zoe. I don’t think I can.”
Zoe’s eyes widened, realization dawning on her face. “You want to come with me.”
“I can put in for work. You can open that tea shop you always wanted. Our own side project.” He pulled her hand up where he still held it, pressing it to his lips. “And we’ll be together.”
She felt warmth bloom where the pain still lingered, something fresh and new and hopeful settling in its place.
“Say the word, Zoey, and I’ll pull up stakes first thing tomorrow.”
She went up on her tiptoes to kiss him lingering and slow. “Yes,” she whispered against his lips. Maybe this was what they needed, she thought as Charlie rested his forehead against hers. A fresh start, something new and unfettered…a blank slate where they could write their own future…together.