Worthy to Think the World Of

They were sat on the beach near the house, watching the sunset. Viola was racing along the shore, trying the bite the incoming waves. If she looked along the shoreline to the cliffs, Charlie could guess where she and Forrest had been a few hours earlier. Since then, they’d gone to Sleepy Monk for hot chocolates. When he dropped her off, insisting upon walking her to the door, Rebecca insisted that Forrest stay for dinner.

“Your mom seemed pretty surprised to see me,” Forrest said casually. They’d been talking about nothing in particular since coming out onto the beach, mostly school and other inconsequential things.

“She’s not used to seeing me with friends,” Charlie explained, with a shrug. “When she met Piper, I think she had to sit down from the shock.”

“So you didn’t have any good friends back in Vegas? I wonder why,” Forrest joked. Charlie frowned at him, not understanding. “Well, you’re just so open and easy to get along with.”

She finally picked up on the sarcasm in his voice and sighed. It was getting quite tedious, him not knowing. The joking about her lack of social skills only made her feel worse. Forrest had opened up to her today, shown her something nobody else knew about, so what was stopping her?

“I used to have friends,” she admitted quietly. Forrest’s head immediately whipped toward her, his eyes wide. “Best friends. But…um, things change,” she finished quickly, cowardice and fear stopping her from telling Forrest the whole story.

“Misunderstanding?” Forrest guessed.

After a moment, Charlie nodded. “I guess you could say that.”

They fell back into silence, and Charlie could feel Forrest’s eyes on her. She wondered what he could possibly find so interesting — was it her freckles? The way they splattered across her face like paint? Maybe she had something in her hair; things tended to get caught in the wild blonde curls, and she’d find little bits of leaves or fluff later sitting in the drain of the bathtub after a shower. After their hike, there were undoubtedly pine needles in the mass of tangled gold.

Charlie cast a surreptitious glance over when she sensed that Forrest had looked away. The yellow light reflected in his green eyes, making the little gold flecks she’d never noticed before shimmer. His lips were pulled into a content smile; the sort of smile you didn’t even realize you were making. Charlie realized she’d never really looked this closely at Forrest; usually she was making a point of not looking at him. But now she could see the bump on the bridge of his nose where he’d broken it, probably doing something stupid, and the almost imperceptible birthmark on his cheekbone. Charlie had stopped looking at boys a long time ago, but something inside her said that it might be okay to start again.

Her heart was hammering as she reached over, her fingers brushing across the sand as they searched for his. The moment their skin touched Forrest’s head whipped toward her, smile widening unabashedly. Charlie let Forrest do the rest, adjusting his hand so that their fingers could interlock. She kept her expression blank, not wanting Forrest to read too much into things, but for once Charlie wasn’t worried about what was going to happen.

The next day, Charlie met Braden on the stretch of sand just outside her house. When she slipped out the back gate at half past eight in the morning, a tumbler in hand, Patch rushed up to meet her. Charlie smiled and ran her hand down the border collie’s back, then watched as the two dogs chased one another toward the shore.

“Good morning,” said Braden, pulling the cigarette from between his lips. A lazy swirl of smoke drifted from his mouth, disappearing into the atmosphere. “Sleep well?”

She’d been up half the night thinking about Forrest. “Great,” she replied, rather than confess that bit of information. Charlie didn’t think that Braden would want to hear about how she couldn’t get his younger brother out of her head.

“How was your week?” Braden asked, taking another drag from his cigarette.

“Okay.”

“That’s it? Nothing interesting happened?”

“I got an A on my English assignment.”

Braden cast her an unamused look. “I thought we were finally getting somewhere. Now you’re back to short and boring responses.”

“There’s just other stuff on my mind,” she replied with a shrug.

“So tell me about that stuff.”

Charlie groaned. “Why do you Lynches need to know everything? I get your mom, it’s her job to ask me stuff. But you and Forrest are relentless.”

“You see my mom?”

“Uh—“ Charlie stammered, realizing the slip-up. She hadn’t been all that open with Braden, albeit a little bit more trusting than she was with Forrest, but the whole therapy thing she’d kept to herself. The only reason Forrest knew was because he’d shown up at the office, after all. Charlie hadn’t been planning on telling anyone about it, not even Piper. “Yeah. My parents make me go.”

Braden stared out at the ocean, his expression pensive. “I used to go to the psychiatrist down in Tillamook every week with Forrest, because we couldn’t exactly see our mom, but it’s only once a month for me now.”

“For you?” Charlie echoed.

“Forrest still goes on a weekly basis,” Braden said. Charlie nodded, absorbing this new information. “Aren’t you going to ask me why?”

“Why would I do that?”

Braden managed a halfhearted smile at her bewildered expression. “I guess you were right about us Lynches being more curious than other people.”

Although she did want to know more, Charlie didn’t think it was right for Braden to be the one to tell her. If anyone, it should be Forrest. And only once he wanted to tell her, because asking seemed too hypocritical.