“No.” She waved me off and rolled her eyes. “She thinks this trip will be good for me. Something about spreading my wings.”
Some of the tension eased out of my shoulders when I was assured Charlie was still blind to our mom’s true nature. But if it wasn’t our mom, it was someone else. Cocking my head to the side, I asked, “Then what changed all of a sudden? I couldn’t get you to shut up about this trip, and now I’m ready to go talk to whoever made you look like this.”
Charlie snorted softly and set her blue eyes on me. “Easy there, Jag. No need to go beating anyone up. I was just thinking about . . . well, I was just thinking about something. But it’s not a big deal.”
“If you’re thinking it, then it’s a big deal. Tell me.”
Her round eyes pinched with worry, and she bit down on the inside of her cheek for a minute before taking a shuddering breath. “Do you think I should go on the trip?”
My head jerked back and a strangled huff blew past my lips. I don’t know what I’d been expecting her to say. She’d found someone—probable. My shy sister was pregnant—doubtful. Mom had started coming after her too—possible, even though Charlie had already shown she was still clueless about it all. But this? “Do I think you should go on the trip? Of course I do!”
“Really? I’m just not sure about it. I mean, I want to go. I haven’t hung out with those girls much since they all left for college a couple years ago. But I just—I don’t know. I feel like I’m waiting for someone to tell me it’s a bad idea.”
“Why would it be a bad idea, Charlie? Are you worried about something happening on the trip?”
She rolled her eyes. “No, not that. It’s just, Keith is here, and someone needs to watch him.”
My eyes narrowed and my hands fisted on top of the counter. “Keith is not your problem, Charlie,” I growled. “Mom’s the one who got knocked up again, it’s her son, she can take care of him.”
Charlie’s eyes flashed over to mine and hardened. “But you never know when Mom’s gonna just pick up and leave. She’ll be gone for days, and when she goes, she leaves Keith behind!”
“You think I don’t know that? I didn’t have to be here for the last year and a half to know that about her. She used to leave us all the time too once she thought I was old enough to fend for both of us for a few days. The only reason she leaves Keith right now is because she knows you’re home and you won’t leave him there alone.”
“I just don’t know, Jag.”
“Charlie. He is not your responsibility. You need to go on this trip, you need to get out of Thatch for a while.” I laughed agitatedly and shook my head. “Shit, what you need to do is actually go to college.”
“I do go to school!” she argued back.
“No. You take classes online, that’s so different.”
“How is that any—”
“Because you’re a f**king genius, Charlie!” I yelled, cutting her off. “I know you have money to go to school. You have the test scores to go pretty much wherever you want. I want you to get away from here, and I don’t understand why you don’t want that for yourself. You’re cheating yourself out of the life you deserve away from Thatch.”
“You came back. Why is it so bad that I wanted to stay?”
I groaned and ran my hands over my face. “Because I want to live here. There’s nothing wrong with living here, this is a great town. But I want you to have the experience that going away to school will give you. Not only are you not giving yourself that opportunity, but you’re making it incredibly easy for Mom to make you raise her kid.”
Charlie just stared at me for a few minutes—hurt taking the place of the hardness in her eyes. “You raised me, Jagger. Are you saying you felt like that held you back from your life?”
“What?” I asked on a breath. “Are you kidding me? That’s so different. You’re two years younger than me, you went everywhere with me anyway. Taking care of you was as easy as taking care of myself—it was not a hardship.”
“Well, someone needs to take care of Keith the way you took care of me. And despite what you think about me not giving myself the opportunity of living the ‘college life,’ I don’t want that for myself. I’ve never wanted that for myself. I’m smart because you made me study all the time, but that doesn’t mean I like school or want to do anything that a degree from an online school can’t give me. This is what I want to do, and it’s so hard when you’re constantly on me about doing something different—something that you think would be best for me.”
I rested my hands back on the counter and hung my head. “Okay, I’m sorry. I just—I’m sorry. Yes, I think you should go on the trip. You’re excited about it, it sounds fun, and I agree with Mom . . . I think it’ll be good for you. Can we just talk about something else?”
“Sure,” she replied softly, but didn’t say anything else until I looked up at her again. “I hung out with Grey today.”
“I know. She was excited to see you, that was all she talked about this morning before she left to meet up with you.”
“Yeah, it was . . . fun. I’ve missed her, I loved hanging out with her again.”
My eyebrows shot up at her tone. “Then why do you sound like a robot?”