CHARLES

The setting seemed all too familiar to me, with one exception. Willow.

The last time I was in a hotel room like this she was with me, and I was wasted. I sat on the sofa in the hotel room Peter had booked for me before returning to DC to handle some business. The visit to her parents’ house hadn't gon at all as planned. I had wanted to apologize but we just got off on the wrong foot to begin with. She was so angry with me, and seeing her large stomach was a shock to my system. When Peter told me she was pregnant I hadn't expected her to be that pregnant.

So, I drank. exclusive content.

The bottle of Black Velvet was a third of the way gone already, and I had been nursing it for about an hour or so. The game was on, Knicks vs. The Magic in Orlando, but even that couldn't hold my attention. All I could think about was finding a way to reach Willow. Everything I had tried had blown up in my face.

I laid my head back on the couch, closing my eyes, trying to push away the nagging thought that I should get in my car and drive to her parents’ house to demand that she listen to me. I'd get picked up on DUI offense or worse, kill someone, but if she listened, I'd take the risk. The problem was, even when I'd come to her calmly, ready to listen to her, nothing had gone right. Our emotions were too high to listen to each other. If there was one thing that Willow and I both did well it was speaking our mind and back those words with passion. It made us great lovers, but the fights were over the top.

In my drunken stupor, I called Peter, leaving voicemail after voicemail. I blamed him. He had been the idiot with the idea to marry me off just to move up in the polls. I'd had my thoughts about it from the beginning which I had made very clear, but none of that mattered. Peter had micromanaged everything about my life since the moment we started campaigning and look where that got me. I was in the job I wanted, but the rest of my life was f****d up.

I punched his number into my phone, suddenly furious, and called him again. This time he picked up.

“Charles, you need to get some coffee and lay off the alcohol.” I could tell by the tone Peter took with me that he wa: not feeling patient. I didn't care. He was the one I blamed for all of this. I let him have it with both barrels blazing. “No, Peter. I'm done doing what you tell me to do. You're fired,” I slurred out. If he was in the room with me, I likely would have thrown a few punches too. My desire to remain in control and mature flew out the window hours ago. “You can't fire me, Perish. The election is over. You won. I already finished my job. The fact that I'm still in your life is because we are friends. You don't fire friends either. You have arguments and then you work things out, but you don't fire them.” Peter chuckled and it made me angrier.

I stood up, wobbling toward the bottle of whiskey perched on the dresser across the room. I knew I didn’t need any more but if the only thing I could do to ease my suffering was to drown it in alcohol until I passed out then that was what I'd do. The woman I loved was less than a I5-minute drive across town and even if I walked it barefoot with no coat on my back to prove my affection, she'd still turn me out. It was ruined.

“This is all your fault” I poured another drink, three fingers in the glass. It went down smoothly in two swallows as Peter responded.

“My fault? How?”

“Your stupid marriage contract. You did this. I told you I didn't want anything to do with it. You forced it. Now you made her hate me.”

“I did nothing of the sort, Charles. I didn’t do anything that you didn’t agree to. We even outlined the terms of the agreement very carefully to make you both comfortable. If anything went wrong, it was your fault.” Peter sighed loudly. “Look, I have another call. Call me when you need a ride back to town.”

“I—" I started to speak again but the line went dead. He had hung up on me. Angry, I growled my frustration and poured another drink, this time slinking off to the bed to collapse. It didn’t matter who was to blame, or how things got this way, unless I figured out what to do, things between Willow and I were over.

I rehearsed in my mind everything that led up to her leaving. The gift I gave her for our Labor Day anniversary had gone unopened that night, but later she was wearing it at an event. She was ill on that flight, and angry with me that I spent time with Nina—but that was part of my job. I couldn't help that Nina put the moves on me. And even on election night, Willow was in the toilet throwing up. She lied and said it was nerves, but it was morning sickness. She'd gained a little weight too. I had noticed that, but I chalked it up to not sticking to her running schedule. She was a runner, but she never took time to do that.

Or maybe she didn't have time.

My heart sank. The campaign schedule had been so packed that she'd had to put all her business onto Mel's shoulders. There was no time for her to exercise or practice self-care. None of that had occurred to me that entire time. I was focused on my job and the election. I hadn't even paid attention to her.

I finished the glass of whiskey, seeing my bottle was now half gone. If I drank any more, I'd black out and not even remember the night. The thought tempted me, but I chose to put the glass on the nightstand and flick through my phone instead of pouring more. I scrolled until my phone gave me a low battery signal. When I got up to plug itin, it rang—my mom calling.

“Yeah,” I slurred, relaxing back onto the bed.

“Charles, it's your mother. How are things going? Did you do what I said? Have you talked some sense into her?” Mon was just being mom, but she had no idea how much pressure it put on me.

“I talked to her. She screamed at me. It's over, Mom. She wants nothing to do with me.”

Mom clicked her tongue in that way mothers do when they are about to scold you. I deserved it. Willow's swift departure from my life proved that.

“Have you apologized?”

“I couldnt. She wouldn't let me get a word in edgewise.” I was beginning to wish I'd filled my cup again instead of scrolling my phone.

“Well, you have to find a way to make her listen then. Speak louder... Do you want me to call her mother? I can do that. It wouldn't be the first time I spoke to Pam.”

I sighed. Mom was doing that thing she did when she felt like my life was out of control and I needed her intervention. Only I was a grown man, not a child anymore. She couldn't step in and fight my battles for me. Even het voice wasn't loud enough to make a difference. If Willow would turn away my calls by telling her parents to send me away, she'd never listen to my apology through my mother and hers.

But if there were a way to “speak louder,” as Mom had said, then maybe I could force her to listen. That had my wheels spinning.

“Well, do you?” Mom's question interrupted my thoughts.

“No, Mom. I don’t want you to call Mrs. Suthers and tattle on Willow. She's a grown woman. Okay? I just want her to give me a chance. I need to find a way to speak louder than anything else in her life” I could write a letter, but that would just go unread or discarded. I could send a gift, but that didn’t work out so well last time.

“Does she watch a lot of television?”

“What? Mom, I'm trying to think.”

“I know, dear. I'm trying to help. I just had an idea.” I heard some rummaging in the background of the call. Mom covered the receiver and mumbled something, probably to Dad. “Oh, here it is.”

“What?”

“I have the solution for you and a way that Willow will really listen, but you're going to have to be really humble and in a very public way."

The way she said that made me doubt everything I thought I knew about my mother, but if she had an idea that would work. I'd try it. What's the worst that could happen? Even another failure to reach her couldn't make it worse, but not trying would mean certain defeat, and I wasn't giving up. Not yet.