Chapter 6

Charlie

It’s been terribly cold these past few weeks. If it had been just a few degrees colder, all that rain would have fallen as snow. The only good thing about this weather is that the restaurant where I work is unusually empty.

It’s Friday night, and the weather outside is keeping most people from leaving the house. Only a few brave souls had fought their way through the wind to the restaurant.

I’m in the middle of drying a few glasses with a towel when the door opens again. I have my back to the door, so at first I don’t see who is entering the restaurant. But that’s not my concern right now anyway.

The Ledbury is very formal and has a set order in which we approach the guests. At the door, guests are first greeted by Harry, who, if they have a reservation, shows them to their table. That’s when I or my colleague Elena usually step in.

We go over to their table, welcome them to our restaurant, and bring them the food and drink menus. On special occasions, we even have a wine and spirits expert on hand who is happy to help our guests make their selection.

We also have a strict dress code. I don’t think anyone has ever walked into this restaurant wearing jeans and a T-shirt.

The waiters wear crisp white shirts with a black vest and either black pants or, for the female staff, a black skirt. The staff behind the bar wear almost the same, only in dark red. I’ve never really understood why, but that’s how our boss wants it.

I assume that, first of all, this is intended to help distinguish between the different roles of the staff and also to maintain a certain color scheme.
The entire restaurant is decorated in warm shades of red and black. A red carpet on the floor and heavy dark brown wooden furniture. The lamps on the windowsills cast a warm glow. Everything has a very rich, dark yet pleasant appearance.

I hear Harry asking our guests to follow him into the dining room—that’s my cue to fetch the menus and get ready to approach them. I dry my hands on another towel before checking once more to make sure my uniform sits properly.

My boss had originally tried to talk me into wearing the skirt that came with my uniform, but I shot that down pretty quickly and opted for the black pants instead.

“A table for two,” says Harry as he walks past me back to his seat by the door. “I’ve seated them by the window, table eleven.”

I nod and take two menus. They’re quite heavy, bound in thick leather and embellished with gold lettering.

On my way to table eleven, I stop by a few other tables to see if they need anything or if everything is okay.

As I walk toward the window seat, I see a blonde woman with her back to me, and sitting across from her is another woman with red hair. Not the same kind of red hair as Ellie’s. It’s darker, more of a chestnut brown. She’s around forty and smiles at me when she sees me coming.

“Good afternoon and welcome to ‘The Ledbury,'” I begin, reciting my usual greeting, but something catches my attention. It’s the other woman, the blonde, who lets out a strange sound that makes me look up.

It takes a moment for me to recognize her, but when I see her, my eyes widen in shock. Stella Anderson. Of all the restaurants in London, she had to stumble into mine, of all places.

I try to hide my surprise and carry on.

“I’m Charlie, and I’ll be your waitress tonight.”

I notice the other woman’s gaze shifting back and forth between me and Professor Anderson, but I try to ignore that too. I place the menus on their table and light the candle between them.

I can feel Stella’s gaze on me and the blush rising to my cheeks. I don’t even know why I’m suddenly so nervous. I’ve been doing this job for at least a year and have found myself in plenty of awkward situations, but this one was somehow different.

“Do you already know what you’d like to drink, or would you like to look at the menu first?”

They both opt for the latter, so I turn around and walk away as quickly as I can, without letting on too obviously just how uncomfortable that made me feel.

Isn’t it bad enough that I have to put up with this woman every Monday and Friday, with her lousy mood and her hatred for all of humanity? Ever since she threatened to kick me out of the class if I didn’t behave (as if I were five years old), I’ve done everything I can to keep a low profile.

I always arrived at least five minutes early to neatly lay out my things on the table, then sit down and remain still until she came in and began the lesson. I only spoke when asked to. I did everything I could to avoid drawing attention to myself and did everything she asked of me without complaining or grumbling (unlike my classmates, whom she naturally didn’t reprimand for their behavior).

And that had been working really well—until this morning.

I just didn’t have time to go to the bathroom before class, and I really tried to hold it in, but I couldn’t, so I got up in the middle of class to go. But I hadn’t even pushed my chair back properly when her icy stare met mine and she asked me what I was doing. I told her I
needed to use the restroom, and as if we were still in middle school, she lectured me, saying I could go before or after class.

In the end, I had to apologize for interrupting her class, and she told me that if I left now, she would wait until I returned and add the time I needed to the end of the class.

It was just embarrassing, and thinking back on this morning still gives me a throbbing headache in my temple.

Hopefully, now that she knows I work here, she’ll just never come back after today. I don’t need her around outside the classroom, too.

“Are you okay?” Harry asks as I walk past him.

“Yeah,” I sigh, running my fingers over my temple and massaging it to ease the pain.

I go back behind the bar to finish drying the remaining wine glasses. When I look up and see Professor Anderson standing in front of the bar, I flinch slightly.

“Jesus,” I murmur, placing my hand over my heart.

“No,” she says, almost smiling. “Just me.”

I force myself not to roll my eyes.

“How can I help you?” I’m surprised at how well I can maintain my distance and sound professional, even though there’s nothing I’d rather do than yell at the woman in front of me because of today and everything that’s happened over the past few weeks.

“Could you perhaps show me where the restroom is?” Her expression is kind of scary. I think she’s trying to smile—or at least not look like she’d love to shove me in front of a double-decker bus.

“Sure,” I say, placing the towel I’m holding back on the counter. The lounge is on the right side of the restaurant, while the kitchen, staff room, and restrooms are on the left.

I don’t say anything else to her and just head toward the restrooms.

We walk down a small, dimly lit hallway. On the right side of the hallway are the kitchen and other private rooms, such as Daniel’s office. At the end of the hallway are the staff lounge and the changing rooms. The restrooms are on the left side of the hallway. There are separate restrooms for male and female guests, as well as a shared restroom for staff, which is always locked.

I stop in front of the ladies’ room door, but before I can turn around to say anything, my professor reaches out and grabs my wrist. Her fingers feel cold against my skin, and the sudden touch gives me goosebumps. I look at her in disbelief, unable to comprehend what’s just happened.

“What are you doing—”

“I just want to talk,” she says.

“Talk?”

“About,” she begins, seeming to struggle to find the right words. “About today. How I treated you.”

I raise my eyebrows.

Just today? What about the days before that? What about all the other times she’s humiliated me in front of the whole class?

“I’m trying to apologize here,” she says.

“If stating the obvious is apologizing to you, then you’re really bad at apologizing.”

The forced smile on her face disappears at my words. She lets go of my wrist, leaving warm marks where her fingers were.

I clench my fist to maintain the composure I had just a moment ago.

“Besides,” I continue, “if you’re going to start apologizing for things, you might as well start at the beginning. What about all the other times you called me out in front of the whole class to embarrass me?”

“I didn’t mean to embarrass you.”

“You didn’t?” Because it really was embarrassing.”

“I’m sorry about that.”

“Really?”

“Yes,” she hisses suddenly. I take a step back from her; my back is now pressed against the cold wall.

I see her hand reaching out toward me again, but it stops midway. Instead, she takes a step toward me.

As I can almost feel the heat radiating from her body, the air becomes trapped in my throat. Her scent envelops me, lingering in my lungs, burning itself into all of my senses. I fear I will never smell anything else but her again.

Her closeness robs me of all thought, and never in my life have I been so aware of someone’s presence as I am in this moment.

Our eyes meet, and instead of the fear reflected in mine, hers reveal nothing but sincere self-confidence.

Yet there is something hidden behind the intense blue of her eyes. Something gentle and endearing.

There is something about her eyes that awakens a desire to fathom the deepest depths of her soul. The blue captivates you and won’t let go, not without leaving its mark on your very being.

She is so close now that I can feel her breath on my skin.

“What is your goddamn problem?” I breathe. I don’t know what happened to my voice, but it’s betraying me. Just like my heart, which is pounding wildly in my chest, or my ragged breathing, which is making me dizzy.

Not that it matters, because I have a feeling the woman in front of me can see right through me anyway.

“Believe me,” she begins. “It’s nothing personal.”

“Nothing personal?”

“It has nothing to do with you.”

„Then why is it always me who has to put up with your mood swings?”

Her fingers slide up to the bridge of her nose. I can tell she’s getting more and more frustrated because I’m not satisfied with her lame excuses.

She opens her mouth as if to say something but doesn’t.

I press my palms against the wall to steady myself. The air between us feels thick, heavy with tension.

Suddenly, footsteps echo down the hallway, their sound breaking the silence around us.

“Charlie,” I hear Harry’s voice. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing,” I call back, without breaking eye contact with the woman in front of me. “I’ll be right back.”

I push off the wall and step even closer to my professor. I let my gaze wander over her body, just to provoke a reaction from her.

She’s wearing a black pantsuit that hugs her figure perfectly. One thing I have to praise her for is how beautiful she is.

She effortlessly exudes sophistication and elegance.

It also seems to make no difference at all what this woman wears—she just looks effortlessly good.

I look up at her again and catch her just as her tongue glides over her lips.

“I’m so sick of your bullshit.” I push past her to finally escape this incredibly uncomfortable situation, but her hand reaches out and grabs my wrist. The second time today.

Again, I stare at her in disbelief.

“Listen,” she begins. “Ever since the night we met, I haven’t been able to get you out of my head, and then…”

“What?”

“Charlie,” Harry calls again.

“I’m coming,” I call toward the entryway as I free my wrist from her tight grip.

Walking down the hallway suddenly feels like an eternity, with her gaze burning into my back. I glance back over my shoulder at Professor Anderson one last time before reaching the end of the hallway. She’s still standing there, watching my every move.

Suddenly, my hands feel clammy and my heart is still pounding wildly in my chest. I feel as if there’s no air in the room, and my skin starts to burn. I dig my fingernails deep into my palms to calm the wave of fear and confusion.

What the hell was that?

⊹₊˚‧︵‿₊୨ᰔ୧₊‿︵‧˚₊⊹

Just after eleven, we finally leave the restaurant and step out onto the streets of London. It’s still pouring rain, and the wind is whipping around my legs, sending shivers down my spine. My teeth start to chatter slightly as the night’s cold completely envelops me. Daniel, my boss, turns the key in the lock twice and presses the handle down again to double-check before turning around, smiling at Harry and me.

“We’re done,” he says. “Harry, see you tomorrow, and Charlie, I’ll see you next week. Have a nice evening, both of you.”

I nod in agreement and say a warm goodbye to both of them.

It doesn’t take long before my thoughts drift back to Professor Anderson as I walk down the street. Stella.

This woman is so confusing that I don’t even know what to call her in my head. I met her as Stella, but got to know her as Professor Anderson.

Most of the time when I talk to her, I talk to her as Professor Anderson, but every now and then I see this other version of her—the version that helped me that night. Sometimes, even beneath the armor she wears, I can still see the kindness and warmth that Stella carried within her. She gave me so much comfort and a sense of security that night. Maybe the feeling I had at that moment was also because I was panicking, and she was anything but scary.

Every time I talk to Professor Anderson, I feel nothing but confusion, anger, frustration, and every other emotion that comes close to those. I just don’t understand what I did.

Nothing personal? Nothing personal, my ass. How can it not be personal when I’m the only one who ever gets snapped at?

Every time our eyes meet, something changes in the blue of her eyes. She doesn’t look at me the way she looks at the other students. When she looks at Hannah, Ollie, or Ellie, she doesn’t have that look on her face. She just seems bored and unimpressed.

When she looks at me, her eyes always sparkle at first, then she presses her lips together, as if trying to keep the emotions building up inside her from getting the better of her. It’s not just a simple glance; there’s more to it than that, something I can’t quite put my finger on.

It must be hatred. She hates me. I don’t know why, but she does, and she doesn’t even try to hide it.

To my dissatisfaction I was right about one thing; her perfume still lingers in my lungs. It’s like she’s still standing right there in front of me.

I pull my coat tighter around me as goosebumps break out all over my body. I’d rather blame it on the weather than on the fact that I just can’t seem to get our encounter from earlier out of my head. The way she looked at me. The slight roughness in her voice. Her hand around my wrist. I don’t know what it is about this woman that fascinates me so much, but this has to stop.

I can’t keep thinking about why she acts the way she does toward me. It won’t make sense no matter how long I try to figure it out because I simply don’t know her.

The night we met, she was nice, and then she wasn’t anymore, and I just have to live with that. That’s the only answer I’m going to get.

The buzzing of my cell phone snaps me out of my thoughts. I stop and pull my cell phone out of my back pocket.

It’s Sam.

Suddenly, my heart clenched painfully in my chest. Since I left him standing there on campus, I haven’t seen or heard from him, and to be honest, I wasn’t sad about it at all.

I don’t want to talk to him. I don’t want to see him. I don’t want anything more to do with him anymore. Or rather, I shouldn’t have anything more to do with him.

Sam was wrong for me in every way, and Ellie is right that I finally need to let him go. For my sake, and for his too.

I keep staring at the screen when I notice someone approaching me from behind.

“It’s not nice to ignore someone’s call,” his voice suddenly creeps up my neck from behind. I turn to face him.

His grin doesn’t seem as charming as it used to. In the glow of the streetlights, it almost looks a little creepy.

“Did you follow me?”

“No,” he says too quickly.

I look up at him suspiciously. “What do you want?”

“You,” he says dryly, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

“Sam,” I begin, nervously scratching my forehead. “I told you it’s over, and this time I mean it.”

He’s getting closer, and I want to take a step away from him, but my feet won’t move.

I’m scared.

For the first time since I’ve known him, I’m really afraid of him.

I don’t know why, but something about this whole situation feels wrong to me. Sam had never hit me or hurt me on purpose, but behind that smirk on his lips and the gleam in his eyes lies something that sends a cold shiver down my spine.

I cautiously scan my surroundings, hoping to spot someone who might be able to help me in an emergency. To my disappointment, the street is deserted, and the passing cars are moving too fast for anyone to notice me.

Panic rises in my throat.

“It’s been over before, baby.”

“I know,” I whisper. “But this time it’s for good. It’s over between us, Sam.”

“You can’t live without me. I know you can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m the only one who knows about the sickness in your head but loves you despite it.”

His words make me sick, and I feel the need to throw up. Sam knows things about me that no one else knows. Not even Ellie. Things I’m ashamed and disgusted of to the core. Things I never should have told him in the first place.

He reaches out, brushes a strand of hair from my face, and tucks it behind my ear. “Do you really think anyone could ever love you like that again?”

The answer is no.

No, I don’t think anyone could really love me. That’s my problem. I don’t think I’m worthy of being loved.

When Sam told me he loved me, even after I had confided in him about the worst events of my past, I could hardly believe he was real.

He knows exactly how I feel about this, and I know he’s trying to stir up this fear in me for a specific reason.

He’s trying to feed my insecurities about the end of our relationship with doubt. He wants to convince me that without him I’ll be all alone and that no one else will want me. And maybe he’s even right about that, but it won’t work. Not this time.

“It doesn’t matter,” I sigh. “It’s over between us anyway, Sam.”

I turn around and walk down the street. I leave him standing there. Again.

The more distance I put between us, the more a sense of relief washes over me. It’s over, and it finally feels like it’s actually over.

I’m so lost in my own thoughts that I don’t even notice the footsteps behind me coming closer.

I can already see the door to my apartment building when suddenly someone grabs me by the neck and slams my head against the brick wall with full force. A sharp pain spreads across my forehead. I can feel the blood pooling out and running down my face.

My head suddenly feels completely empty, and my legs grow heavy as lead. The only thing keeping me upright is the firm grip around my throat.

“You little bitch,” is the last thing I hear before the hand on my neck lets go and I fall to my knees.