Breathless (12 page)

"Maman!" Charlotte screamed. She thrashed around in the water. "Papa!" Her voice grew hoarse as she screamed their names over and over again, but no one was answering. An explosion had blown them out of the boat that was carrying the whole family from France across the English Channel, and now she couldn't find anyone in the chaotic waters.

"Maman! Papa!" she shrieked again. She began to swim through the water, pushing past other frenzied passengers to try and catch a glimpse of their hair, their coats, anything.

"Maman!" There she was! Charlotte knew it was her mother. No one else would have worn such a lavish red and fur coat just for a little trip across the English Channel. And no one had hair as inky black and shiny as her mother's, but there it was, drifting in the cold water.

Charlotte scrambled to swim over to her mother. "Maman!" she called once again, in relief, turning her mother to her. But then she had to suppress a scream. As she turned her mother, she could feel that it was just dead weight, somehow propelled in the water. Her mother's skin was clammy and pale and cold to the touch. Her green eyes were wide and unseeing. Blood dripped from her head. There was an open wound in her chest. "Maman!" Charlotte sobbed, falling away from her dead mother and backing into another body-her father's, which was just as lifeless as her mothers, with a wound to his neck.

Fear flooded Charlotte now. She cried out hysterically for the person who mattered the most. "Luc!" she screamed. "Luc! Luc, where are you?" She whipped her body around and around, trying to catch sight of him. And then there he was, only a few meters from Charlotte, with bulging eyes, thrashing in the water as he sank underneath the surface, only his arm above it. He was drowning.

"Luc!" Charlotte treaded to her brother as fast as she possibly could, faster than she even knew how. He was underwater by the time she reached him. Ducking underneath the surface, Charlotte grasped for her brother, finally catching a bit of his sleeve and yanking him with her to reach air once again. But as she tried to keep a hold of him, there was something else pulling her back.

"No!" she tried to shout to whoever was trying to save her, but they didn't listen. Charlotte grabbed a hold of Luc's arm and pulled him with her as the was brought up to the surface and dragged onto a piece of wreckage. "My brother! Save my brother!" she cried to whoever had yanked her from the water. And they did. Charlotte sobbed harder than ever, in relief, as the man dragged Luc from the water onto the piece of wreckage. "Luc!" Charlotte cried. "Thank God!" But her words had barely left her mouth when the men began to shout.

"He's not breathing!"

"Underwater for too long!"

"What?" Charlotte asked breathlessly, not wanting to believe it. He had only been in the water for mere moments before she had gotten to him! She shoved past the men to reach her brother. "Luc!"

But he was gone. He lay sprawled on his back, his eyes wide open but unseeing, his mouth gaping like a fish.

"No," Charlotte cried, crawling over to him. "Luc, wake up! Wake up!" She laid her head on his chest, but everything was cold and still. "Luc, please. Please. Please don't leave me. Wake up! Wake up!" And then there was another tug from behind her. "No! Leave me with him! I need to be with him!" she screamed, fighting against whoever was pulling her away from her brother. "Wake up, Luc! Luc! Wake up! Stop! Leave me alone! Let go of me! Let go of me!"

"Let go of me! Stop!" she shrieked, thrashing against him.

"Charlotte, stop. Charlotte, wake up. It's just a nightmare. Charlotte."

Charlotte opened her eyes, tears still streaming down her cheeks. But she wasn't in the English Channel, and Luc wasn't beside her. Only Jack was there, looking very tired in his pajamas, and with a distraught look on his face as he held Charlotte's arms from hitting him.

"It was all a nightmare, Charlotte. Everything's okay," he told her, staring straight in her face.

Charlotte shook her head as her hysterics returned. "No. No, Jack, it's not okay. I don't know where my family is or what's happened to them. I don't know if they're alive or dead. I don't know anything! I don't know anything!" She sobbed harder than she thought possible.

Jack sighed and quietly straightened the covers on her bed, which she had mangled during her sleep. He took the book she had been reading as she fell asleep from her side. "Hamlet," he said quietly. "Charlotte, Ophelia's suicide isn't exactly light reading for before you sleep. No wonder you had nightmares," he told her. But Charlotte kept shaking from her sobbing. Jack shut the book and put it on her nightstand. Then he looked back at her. "Charlotte, I promise you. It was all a nightmare. You're alright. I came as quickly as I could-you scared me straight from my bed with your shrieking. But it's alright, I don't think Helen or Lewis or any of the others heard. Just me. Do you need anything?" Jack looked at Charlotte's miserable, devastating face and sighed again. He gently put his hand to her forehead and swept away the sweat-soaked fringe that stuck to her forehead.

"Charlotte, do you want anything?" he asked her again, softly, stroking her hair with his palm. But it just seemed to make Charlotte feel worse.

"I want Luc," she finally mustered, before breaking into sobs once again.

Jack sighed. "I know," he told her. He reached up and turned off her lamp. And then he gently lifted the covers and crawled into bed beside her, cradling her from behind, and hugging her with a reassuring hold, still stroking her hair the whole time. "Shhhh, shhhh," he murmured to her. But he wasn't trying to make her be quiet. He was trying to soothe her, to make her feel better. And it was working. As he cradled and held and stroked her, Charlotte began to feel more safe. She liked how she felt in his arms, as though he could protect her from anything. She liked this feeling she had with him. She liked that she could sob in his arms, and that he would be there to make her feel better. Charlotte drifted off to sleep finally, hours later, without Jack having ever stopped his soothing.

But when she awoke to the sound of her alarm clock the next morning, Charlotte was alone in her bed, leaving her to wonder if it had all just been a dream.

The days passed and May was soon upon London. The heat was nearly unbearable, and Charlotte could hardly sit still in her sickly sweaty school jumper and stockings. On these days, she nearly ran out of her classrooms when the bell would ring, escaping outdoors where she could at least feel the sun on her cheeks and the breeze against her skin. She could shed her sweater and pull her hair from the tight, sticky braids that she had grown accustomed to wearing during the school day. But feeling her hair loose against her cheeks as she scampered down the pavement was a welcome feeling after being cooped up in the classrooms for so long. She had even begun to ask Topher not to pick her up from school, so that she could have the opportunity to walk home in the wonderful weather. Sometimes Celia walked with her and stayed to do some homework, which was always nice. Charlotte enjoyed Celia's company more than she had ever expected to, and could tell that Celia valued their friendship just as much. But at the same time, she was sometimes glad when Celia decided to stay at the dorms or visit her brother. It saved Charlotte the trouble of getting angry when Jack and Celia flirted, something that Celia never seemed to understand.

Charlotte pushed these thoughts from her mind as she hauled her schoolbag over her shoulder and began to walk down the pavement toward home, but then caught sight of a familiar black car pulling up along the curb.

"What are you doing here?" Charlotte asked in surprise, a happy smile breaking across her face.

"I got out of class a little early today and thought you might like a ride home," Jack said with a grin as he leaned out the window to talk to her. "Topher said that you've been walking home, but this heat is way too stifling to even bear. Come on. Is Celia with you?" He leaned to look around Charlotte for little Celia, who could very well have been hiding behind her.

"No, she's not," Charlotte replied curtly, folding her arms in front of her chest. "Is that why you came for me?" she asked accusingly.

"No," Jack replied, rolling his eyes. "My motives were as stated, and I don't feel I need to repeat them. So can we please get on the road and out of this heat?"

Charlotte smiled and opened the door to the car, throwing herself into the front seat. "Thank you," she told him gratefully, brushing her bangs from her forehead.

"Mhm," Jack replied. He looked relaxed and happy as he drove through the city that he knew and loved so well. Charlotte loved it, too. She hoped that one day she might know it as well as Jack did, every nook and cranny. But at the same time, she didn't want to stay in London forever. She wanted to go back to Paris, even if just for Luc and her parents. But right now, all she wanted was for them to come to London, so she could introduce them to the city she had fallen so in love with.

"How was your day?" Jack asked. It was strange to hear him, a person with such confidence, try to make conversation.

"Good," Charlotte replied, leaning back and closing her eyes. "We're studying
Romeo and Juliet
in literature class. Again. I don't know how many times I'm going to have to read about them killing themselves."

Jack laughed. "What? You don't agree with the millions of other girls who think it's a terrific love story?"

Charlotte made a face and shook her head. "I think it's terrifically morbid. It might make for good drama, but I certainly don't think that's what love is like. Or at least I hope it's not really like that."

Jack turned onto their street. "I'd like to think it's more like
Les Miserables.
"

"What?" Charlotte asked with a laugh. "You think that love should be like the novel that is about the most miserable people of all?"

"Have you even read it?"

"Of course," Charlotte scoffed. "Every French student has read Victor Hugo. Personally, I thought
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
is even more morbid, but whatever's to your liking..." She looked at Jack, who seemed to be quite thoughtful about the matter. "You think that love is like Cossette and Marius? Love at first sight? They didn't even know each other and they loved one another. You can't tell me that's not unlike Romeo and Juliet."

"I wasn't talking about Cossette and Marius," Jack told her. "I was talking about Eponine and Marius."

"Eponine?" Charlotte asked. "The girl who wasn't loved back?"

"Isn't that how it normally is?" Jack asked her seriously. He pulled the car to a stop and looked at Charlotte.

This was all just too strange. It was as if he was playing right into her heart.
Of course that's how it normally is,
Charlotte thought.
Isn't that exactly what you're doing to me? Aren't you Marius, and Celia Cossette, and that leaves me as Eponine?
Charlotte frowned and looked down at her hands.
No, it's not the same,
she told herself.
I'm not in love with Jack. I can barely tolerate him. I barely know him.

"Come on," Jack said, turning off the car. "Let's go inside before we both steam to death."

As Charlotte and Jack walked through the doors, Mrs. Gates met them to take their school jackets and jumpers, commenting, "It should be illegal to make you children wear such heavy clothes on such hot days."

"I think you should say something to the school about it," Charlotte told her with a mischievous smile.

Mrs. Gates winked at her. "That'll be the day." She left with their clothing, and no sooner had she left when Lewis came into the parlor, with a massive smile on his face.

"You're home!" he greeted them, pulling Jack into an embrace before putting an arm around Charlotte's shoulders. "Just the person I wanted to see," he told her as he guided her toward his study, with Jack quizzically following behind.

"You wanted to see me?" Charlotte asked in mock shock. "I'm flattered, Lewis! With how buried in your writing you've been lately, I didn't think the rest of the world existed to you!"

"But that's just the news I need to tell you," Lewis told her. Charlotte and Jack looked at each other in confusion."I've kept myself busy the past few months because I've had such an inspiration for a new play. I finally sent it off to my agent last week and he gave me some wonderful news about it."

"A company's already bought it?" Jack asked in surprise.

"
The
Company's already bought it," Lewis said proudly. He grinned. "My agent already told me he thinks it's going to be a great success!"

"That's wonderful, Lewis!" Charlotte exclaimed.

"But really, when
isn't
your work a great success?" Jack asked, smiling. "Congratulations. Does Mum already know about it?"

"What's the play about?" Charlotte asked interestedly. She couldn't wait until she could have a bound copy sitting beside her bedside. Perhaps Lewis would even sign it for her, just as he had signed Helen's book.

"Actually...that's what I wanted to speak to the both of you about," Lewis said, his voice is quieting. "Charlotte, I hope you won't mind...but you gave me the inspiration for the story behind the play."

Charlotte's eyes widened. "I did? What do you mean?"

"The play is about a young, privileged Frenchgirl who is displaced from her home during the Great War. She loses everything and ends up in England, trying to make a new life for herself and her younger sister. I suppose it's a story of riches to rags, to riches again."