"And if I refuse?" Brianna asked wearily. Charisma cocked her head thoughtfully.
"I don't think you will. You wrote them for a reason, Brianna, and you sent them to Mama for safekeeping. Some part of you wants me to read them... maybe even needs me to. I don't know. But I do know you wouldn't have kept them if they weren't important to you... and to me."
"I'd like to talk first," Brianna said frankly. "Privately. I've put myself out there, Charisma. I'd like to know where we stand before...."
"All right," Charisma agreed without hesitation. "Come for dinner...." trailing off when Brianna shook her head.
"No, you come to my place this time. I'll cook."
"Tonight?"
"Six-thirty."
"I'll bring the wine?"
"Bring bottled water. I want to be sober for this."
Charisma nodded. "Okay. I'll see you in a little while, Bri."
Brianna smiled, but didn't answer. She merely disappeared into her office once more.
************
"So things are going to change between us regardless, aren't they?" Charisma asked as Brianna ushered her into the small apartment. Brianna took Charisma's coat and motioned her to the sofa.
"Yes," Brianna confirmed. "It doesn't mean they'll be bad changes though. But we need to be on more even footing than we are right now. I know you're probably still processing... still trying to figure out what all of this means to you and for you and about you. But I've been left kind of hanging - blowing in the breeze as it were. And I know you've been busy and I've been busy and this really isn't something we want to discuss over the phone in between meetings and strategy sessions and office work. But...." Brianna finally looked up and noticed an amused spark in Charisma's eye and she frowned. "What?"
"I haven't seen this side of you in twenty years, Bri. It's... refreshing. It makes me feel young again."
"Charisma, you *are* young," the words muffled as she hung Charisma's coat in the closet.
"Not THAT young," she muttered, but she was smiling. "It's been a long time since we met in that dorm room and you swept Daddy off his feet. Truth be told...." Charisma broke off brusquely.
"Truth be told what, Charisma?" Brianna demanded when the silence continued, only to be met with a shake of Charisma's dark head and eyes that studiously avoided hers. Brianna crossed to the couch and curled her fingers under Charisma's chin, lifting it and nudging gently until blue eyes rose to meet green. "Truth be told what, Charisma?" she asked again, her voice soft and filled with understanding.
"Don't make me," Charisma whispered. "Please don't make me."
"Charisma, I promised to tell you the truth when you asked the right question. I think I deserve the same consideration." Silence. "If you can't be honest with me, can you at least be honest with yourself about this?"
"Please don't make me."
Brianna sighed. Here then was the biggest reason she had left - the reason she'd never shared the truth with Charisma. As difficult as it was for Charisma to acknowledge the fact the Brianna loved her, she would never be able to accept the truth of the reverse... that she was in love with Brianna and had been forever.
Brianna leaned down and brushed a kiss of benediction over Charisma's forehead, not surprised to feel the stiffening and slight flinch under her lips. She felt the tears gather in her eyes, but bit them back, knowing Charisma had no right to her pain anymore. She took a deep breath and looked up at the ceiling.
"It's all right, Charisma - I won't make you. No one will."
Brianna released her grasp on Charisma's chin, and moved to step away from the couch and towards the kitchen. At least dinner preparations would give her... give them both... a chance to compose themselves. She figured Charisma would try to maintain the status quo they had already established, pretending they were still friends. It would take some effort on her part, but Brianna figured she could manage to pretend friendship for another year and a half or so. Then it wouldn't matter. She would be away from Washington and Charisma and it would be simple enough to disappear from the public eye. And she felt confident that like before, Charisma would be content in allowing Brianna to walk out of her life... because it was easier that way.
All this passed through Brianna's mind in the mere seconds it took her to drop her hand from Charisma's face and take her first step away from Charisma. Then a touch on her hand caused Brianna to freeze.
"Don't go," the words a bare whisper.
Brianna kept her eyes on the kitchen. "I have to, Charisma. I can't stay."
"I can't lose you, Bri... not again."
Brianna smiled sadly. "You can't lose what you never had, Charisma... what you never wanted to have," the harsh words tempered only by the pain she felt. "And we'll always be friends, right?" seeing Charisma shrug uncertainly and knowing she felt exactly the same at the moment. "But right now I'm only going to the kitchen. Dinner, remember? I need to get it started if we're going to eat before it gets too late."
"I'm not really hungry," Charisma confessed, swallowing the lump in her throat.
"Would you like to leave then?"
Charisma shook her head. "I thought I had this all figured out. I thought we could be friends again - go back to the way things were before... before you left. When we were best friends and had the world at our feet and our whole lives in front of us. It wouldn't matter that you loved me because friends love each other, right? Especially best friends. And we could work around the fact that loving someone and being in love with them are two different things because it would mean we had our friendship back again. But that's not going to happen, is it?"
Brianna kept her eyes on the far wall, unwilling to let Charisma see the tears and pain in them. She shook her head slowly, the slump of her shoulders conveying her sadness and defeat.
"No, Charisma - it isn't. I've been as honest with you as I know how to be. But if you can't be honest with yourself, you'll never be honest with me. And without honesty between us, we'll never really be friends again - not like we were before. Oh, we might be able to keep in touch... exchange gossip and Christmas cards and recipes now and then. But it will never be like it was." Brianna paused and glanced down at the bowed dark head. "One thing we always had between us was honesty, Charisma, right until the very end. That lack of honesty is what brought us here."
"Your lack of honesty," the words practically spit out in frustration.
"My lack of honesty with you - your lack of honesty with yourself," was the sharp retort.
"And you think that would have mattered??" Charisma asked with venom, jerking her head up to meet Brianna's eyes with angry blue ones. "You think it would have mattered if I had...??" breaking off her words and biting her lip until it bled.
"If you had what, Charisma?" Silence... again. "If you had what??
"I can't," her voice once again so low that Brianna could barely make out the words.
"Can't? Or won't?"
"Everything changes if I say it."
"Everything has already changed, Ri... and it will change again. It's up to you how it happens. Time to decide whether you live by your rules... or everyone else's."
Chapter LXXI
Charisma drew herself up tall though she remained sitting on the couch. "You haven't been in this business very long, Brianna, so I don't expect you to understand. In your business, it's all about truth - your job is to pursue the truth to the best of your ability and ensure that the truth works for you to put the bad guys away and make the world a safer place to live. But here - we're all bad guys, and the truth doesn't matter. It's all about perception - even a lie is okay as long as it's presented in a way that people find acceptable."