Charlotte sat against a pillow wedged between the small of her back and the wall, legs crossed on the disheveled bed, waiting for a phone call or a knock on the door that would never come. The hotel room was surprisingly nice. Sure, the air smelled chlorinated, the wallpaper looked decades old, and the neighborhood seemed suspect, but there were two full beds and a kitchenette, and a balcony, too. Not bad, all things considered; one could expect much worse from a $90 hotel room in Waikiki. She scrutinized a small crack in the ceiling.
She had a vague headache, which she concluded was from dehydration, but she couldn't bother to sit up and get a glass of water. She sat there in the still quiet, immobile, unblinking. Two dried streams of salty tears streaked her face, and her eyes stung. It was only hours before she had to get on a plane back home to California, when she would have to start fresh, post-Amir. It occurred to her that this might be a moment she would remember vividly; a particularly significant day in her life that would change everything. She wondered if this is what shock felt like.
Just minutes before, Charlotte had been leaning against the door with as much force as she could muster with her 95 pound, emaciated body, tears welling in her eyes. "Admit it, please. Just admit it. Please?" Given the gravity of the situation, one would expect her to be forcefully demanding an explanation--but she pleaded quietly and politely, as if she owed him the courtesy. Amir kept insisting that there was nothing to admit, responding in increasingly implausible excuses. The game was over. Charlotte held up her phone and showed him the picture, irrefutable proof that it had all been a lie. Amir barked back, threatening to throw her phone off the balcony if she didn't get it out of his face. After a moment, he grabbed the phone and threw it against the wall anyway.
Charlotte didn't budge. "Tell me so I can accept it and move on. Just let me go. Please." Amir had made it abundantly clear that he had no intention of admitting anything, certainly not in a way that would result in him letting her go.
She looked in his eyes. They were foggy, and tired, and slightly sad. He was drunk--very drunk. Amir had always been good at hiding his drinking, particularly from Charlotte. If she could tell, then he had to be pretty far gone.
"Don't make me do this, Charlotte. I don't want to put my hands on you." He stated it matter-of-factly, in a monotone, stern voice. She kept leaning against the door. He yanked it open from behind her back and put his hand in the jamb. She continued pushing back, crushing his hand as he winced in pain. "Do you want to break my hand? Is that what you're trying to do?" Charlotte stared at him blankly, and asked again quietly, almost sweetly. "Please, just admit it." He shoved her away and flung the door open.
-------------------------------------------------------
It had been just a little over six and a half years since Amir and Charlotte had met. It was Christmas Eve, and she was home from grad school across the country. Having both grown up in conservative Jewish families, neither celebrated the holiday. Christmas had always been that day of the year when nothing was open and there was nothing to do, and everyone else was annoyingly cheerful. Amir and Charlotte would joke years later that they had the perfect "meet cute"--two Jews meeting and falling in love on Christmas Eve. A perfect holiday movie scenario.
There was a coffee shop open on Christmas Eve. Amir spent most of his free time there. Charlotte would stop by infrequently, on occasions like this, when there was nothing else to do and nothing else was open. That coffee shop had an odd social ecosystem. It was barely large enough to fit four tables and a walkway, so the majority of the clientele enjoyed their mediocre coffee on the sidewalk. There was an AA meeting next door, and the coffee shop was open until whenever the patrons cleared out--usually 3 or 4 am. It made for an odd mix of sober addicts and young adults under 21--people who wanted to stay out late and maybe find someone to take home, but couldn't go to bars. It was a strange dynamic.
Amir would remember their first conversation vividly. He had been sitting with Jonathan, a mutual friend--well, really, an acquaintance to her. Charlotte sat down and confidently introduced herself and joined their conversation uninvited, though the two didn't seem to mind. Amir was quiet--very quiet. He seemed kind, and nervous. She could tell he liked her right away, and she was in the mood to taunt him. He was only 18, and she was 23. He was cute. He came across as older than he was, with olive skin and dark, beautiful eyes, and a distinctly Middle Eastern look. He seemed vaguely troubled. Charlotte liked people who seemed vaguely troubled, whether or not she wanted to admit it.
After a couple of hours of unremarkable conversation, the three companions decided to find a place to eat. It was 2 in the morning on Christmas Eve, but they found a pho place a couple of miles away. Jonathan drove a two seat car, so Charlotte had to sit on Amir's lap, which she did, knowing exactly what she was doing. Amir seemed terrified the entire time. At the end of the night, they exchanged numbers.
In the following five years, Amir and Charlotte saw each other precisely four times: the first time was the most notable. He picked her up from her parents' apartment in his dad's Audi late at night, and they sat by the ocean in the dark. They made out in his the car, parked in an alley off of Main Street--an intense experience given that they were only kissing while keeping their clothes on. Charlotte felt terribly guilty about it later because he had a girlfriend--albeit one who was away at college and rather unfaithful herself. When Amir asked to visit Charlotte in Connecticut, she said no. He went to the east coast anyway just in case she had a change of heart, and when Charlotte didn't budge, he went to visit his girlfriend instead. Amir would joke that Charlotte was the only girl who could ever motivate him to cheat, which would turn out to be an odd lie, placed there deliberately to preemptively refute the truth.
The other three instances were unremarkable: a run-in at a house party, a brief visit on Amir's 19th birthday to return a belt she had borrowed from him, and a chance encounter when Charlotte was walking down the street with her then-boyfriend while Amir was smoking a cigarette on a bar patio. She nodded hello, politely asked him how he had been, and kept walking. Little did she know that Amir would return to that same bar every week, going out on the patio to smoke a cigarette at the same time of night, just in case Charlotte walked down that same street again.
In fact, little did Charlotte know that any of those minor events were significant at all. At some point, he added her on Instagram, but she couldn't remember when. In the meanwhile, Amir had not gone a day without thinking about 23-year-old Charlotte for five years, while Charlotte's life continued on in a linear fashion, oblivious to the impact she had on that 18 year old boy she had met a long time ago. The coy, flirtatious, and slightly reckless girl she had been evolved into a relatively level headed woman with a sense of consequence. In the meanwhile, Amir made even the most trivial decisions based on what imaginary 23-year-old Charlotte would think. For almost five years, Amir molded himself into the man he thought 23-year-old Charlotte would love, plotting to win over a girl who gradually ceased to exist.
It was August when 23-year-old Amir finally decided he was ready to make his move. He had a stable, prestigious job, he had graduated from community college, and he had just moved into a house in a nice part of town. He sent her a picture of an inflatable kiddie pool on Instagram, with the caption: "Want to come over and go swimming?" Charlotte laughed at the ridiculous proposition. "Sure."
