Babes Stripping For Love

It had been more than a week since the attack and Seamus was getting better. He was still weak but pretended that he was healed then got sneaky by popping painkillers for his shoulder. He didn’t get to a hospital for an operation but he did get the friendly local doctor well known in the underground crime organization to illegally operate on his shoulder in the privacy of his own home. Just like the good old days, his dad told him after he was awakened from his anesthesia.

That day Charlotte was as white as sheet, one might think she also had gotten shot. Her eyes were puffy and her hands were so cold when he touched her. But she smiled only for a couple of seconds before she was back to pouting and ready to demand assurance from her fiance.

Two days after the incident Charlotte started having nightmares. She would wake up sweating, shaking, and screaming so loud that Seamus’s heart ached every time he cuddled her until she got back to sleep. And almost two weeks in she was still having nightmares every night. Seamus felt bad for her that he convinced her to see a doctor and get him to refer her to a sleep specialist.

“The same doctor who treated you with your gunshot wounds in your bed without proper instruments and probably ignored more protocols than a good licensed doctor would ever do to jeopardize his career? But yeah sure go on and call him, might as well talk with the man and see if he can prescribe me the same pills that you popped when you think no one noticed.”

There, it was more words than Seamus had ever thought Charlotte would throw at him. He knew that she was frustrated, but he didn’t know that she would be this frustrated.

“I’m sorry, this all happened, baby. But I love you and I want you to be okay.”

She laughed softly with disappointment in her eyes and moved to the opposite of the room. Her eyes gaze out to the peaceful garden outside of his mansion. “Well, I’m not okay, if that frustrates you I hate to break the news that it’s how I felt since that night. After you got beat up in jail and shot twice in your own home.” She wrapped herself in her arms and rest her back on the wall after she turned around to face him.

“Do you think it’s okay to lie to someone who loves you? Someone who saw you get hurt, someone who will probably see you get hurt again in the future? That same someone who paced in the same room while some crazy doctor operated on you and everyone assured me that everything would be okay? Tell me, would that someone be okay and not have nightmares every damn day because she thinks she might lose the love of her life?!” Even the veins on her neck looked equally frustrated with him and his shoulder slumped knowing that he does owe her an explanation.

“You know they can’t admit me to a hospital. There will be questions for a man of my stature, it could be used against me in the future…”

“I thought so too. So no, I don’t want to go blurt out that my fiance got framed by the chief of police, jailed, beat up, and his house was raided by unknown people who get shots while I was shoved into a panic room almost suffocated from worrying about the love of my life. No, I know my triggers, I don’t need some doctor to hold my hand and tell me everything is going to be okay. Because it’s fucking NOT okay!”

“Charlotte…” Seamus tried to reach out to her but she slapped his hand away from her.

“Don’t, I’m going out with my girls. I need to vent.”

Seamus was about to tell her not to share too much with the girls when she shook her head at him. “I’m not stupid, Braddock. I know my girls. I won’t out you. This is what I’d do for you. Now, you have to let me do my thing.” She let him hug her, but she didn’t hug him back. Her heart was fucking up with her mind, she felt betrayed, feeling belittled, and needed her friends to help her center her thoughts.

Charlotte was puffing her cigarette thirty minutes later. Everyone was still on their way, she knew she was way too early but she just needed to get out of the house. Charlotte was too agitated to order alcohol not wanting to let anything slip. So she went to the small convenience store and buy a pack of cigarettes. It was an old habit she started picking up again after she start having nightmares. Along with her Anorexia which she thought she had managed to stop doing since ballet school. Back then she was doing it for her figure and some of her friends were doing it also. It was pretty harmless, she thought. But now, she was back to her old habit because she needed to control her life since it was suddenly out of her hands. She understood that with her emotional rollercoaster, she needed to stop and start eating healthy again, but first, she needed her friends. She was tired, too tired for her mental state of mind.

“Sindy?” Her stage name made her head turn to see Lexie carrying what looks like bread and instant ramen peeking from her grocery bag.

“Lexie, hey… it’s Charlotte. Sindy’s my stage name.” She finished the shitty cup of convenience store-bought coffee before dumping it in the trash can along with her cigarette bud.

“Are you okay, Charlotte? I know we’re not friends but you look like you needed someone to talk to?” The red-haired woman didn’t mention that Lexie was not her real name too. But in this town, no one knows her real name, just like no one from her past knows that she has a son and she intended to keep it that way.

Charlotte let out a tired laugh telling her thank you. “We should be friends if you’re willing to stop and talk to me with groceries in your hands.”

“You want to sit down somewhere?”

“Yes, I’m actually meeting Dee, Bree, and Cassidy but I’m early… um, I know I’m early. I needed to get out to smoke.”

“You can smoke again if it’ll make you let out some stress.”

“Are you a smoker?”Property of Nô)(velDr(a)ma.Org.

“Used to, I stopped since I had my son,”

“I shouldn’t then,” Charlotte smiled at Lexie and she put her pack of cigarettes in her small designer sling bag and they both walk one block to the coffee shop where she was going to meet her friends.

“People do damaging stuff to their bodies, mine was alcohol and cigarettes. Others do pills, some even cut themselves. I go to meetings and still do to this date though not quite as often. Sometimes there’s something liberating about talking it out with strangers, you know?” Lexie paused to give her order to the barista after they entered the coffee shop. She then resumed when they both sat down with their cups of coffee in front of them.

“The talking, you can join us if you’re interested. No details are necessary, just your feelings. I don’t like prodding questions from some Doctor. With other people around, it soothes me, thinking that I’m not alone and listening to their problems grounded me.”

“Hmm, I think you sold me on that,” Charlotte’s shoulders visibly relaxed after days of tension from the nightmares and the stress.

“You want to come with me to the next one?” Lexie asked with a warm smile and they exchanged phone numbers as she told her that she wanted to come and see before she commits to anything. But the way Lexie explained everything Charlotte knew that she finally  knew how she was going to talk her feelings out.

Lexie stayed until her friends arrived then she excused herself telling everyone that the babysitter hour was almost up and she needed to get back to her son. Charlotte and the rest of her friends catch up about their lives. She did share about meeting up with Seamus’s parents but nothing beyond that.

The little talk she had with Lexie triggered her need to connect with strangers. She had made up her mind to go to one of the meetings. Maybe when she hears someone else’s problem she would realize that everyone’s had their issues and she should suck it up and be a big girl about it.