abyss ↣ joe sugg au

fifteen

[Trigger Warning: mentions of depression/suicide]

Andrea's bump is big now. Charlotte likes to visit her and Kian and the bump once in a while because she can pass the time without asking questions as the couple tell her everything without a breaths space in between. She wonders if she should jack in her job at the office and become a professional actress, because Andrea and Kian had been her life long friends and they can't see how broken she is. It shouldn't surprise her, it has almost been a year since Charlotte gave up, since she lost the battle with herself and they hadn't noticed for the entirety. She couldn't ever blame them though, as she watches Andrea sprawled over Kian's lap, rolling her eyes fondly as Kian coos at the bump she's sporting. Charlotte agreed that if that was her, she too would be oblivious.

She wonders if Joe is happy, if that girl he took home made him quit smoking or made him get a job. She wonders why he hasn't tried to call but she knows why, he's burning bridges with hope it leads him in the right direction. She realizes she hasn't said anything for at least an hour, but Andrea and Kian haven't seemed to mind.

Cas: ur late for our dinner date cinders xxx

And Charlotte kisses Kian and Andrea goodbye, pats the bump and grabs her jacket from the coats peg. Charlotte stops a few steps short of the last step to catch her breath because although she hasn't uttered more than a few words all day, she feels like she's spoken the energy out of her. When she arrived at their normal restaurant, Caspar was in their normal corner, their normal drinks order on the table in front of them, Caspar's already half empty.

She kissed him on the cheek before sliding in opposite him and trained her eyes into admiring him in the dim light. He cradled her hands in his and brought them to his lips and her fingers itched, her palms began to sweat but she smiled. They made hushed conversation and watched intently as a couple argued over their three course meal, and Caspar kept nudging Charlotte's leg with his own and Charlotte couldn't help it if she felt her leg burn every time.

They walked home arm in arm, Charlotte's eyes concentrated on the stars because as she looked at them she could maybe forget the elbow digging into her side, or the life she's living and the boy she is maybe, most certainly in love with but who feels a million miles away. It's the same sky. The same sky she saw when she sat on the bridge, attached to Joe by earphones and hands and the same sky she saw when she looked out Joe's bedroom window and it was the same sky she saw when she felt alive.

Caspar is walking silently beside her, in tune with her silent moods. She offers him a slight smile when he realizes she's staring and she wonders why a kiss was enough for Joe to forget her, was she really that insignificant?

Caspar kissed Charlotte up against the front door as soon as it was shut, whispering sweet nothing's into her ear and she shrivelled, her rib cage expanding.

"We can't. Work tomorrow. Early night." Charlotte breathed when Caspar's lips weren't enveloped around hers and he held her close but stopped, pressed a single kiss to her shoulder and squeezed her hand before nodding, looking at her with honest eyes.

"I'm going to get some water, and then I'll be in." Charlotte smiled when Caspar made for the bedroom. He just smiled again and closed the bedroom door. Charlotte's body erupted into shivers almost immediately, cold fingertips tracing her lips, desperate to wipe off the remnants of Caspar's.

As Charlotte sipped her water, she remembered how she thought she'd die. That cold river water matting her hair. Then she thought maybe she'd die by lying on crinkled sheets, smoking her life away with a boy who'd already lost his. But now, stood in her kitchen, bare feet cold against the tiles, she thinks maybe this is what would kill her. This wrecking feeling of guilt and loneliness and want and anger, because she was Charlotte, incapable of being loved and incapable of loving yet she was so infatuated with a suicidal boy who had just fallen silent, that even after four months of nothing she still wants him.

And Charlotte's unsure when it exactly got this hard. It may of been when Joe left Charlotte at the Christmas party, or when he didn't call, or when she allowed herself to believe she was in love with someone that had always been out of her reach but it was most definitely when she walked up to the hooded figure on the bridge and asked for a cigarette she'd convinced herself was to be her last, but instead led to this.

"Charlotte?" Caspar's sleep thick voice came from the bedroom and right. This was good, this was okay this was so far from what she wants but it's something, and it's a lot and it's Caspar and he's just--wonderful and caring and patient and definitely not a lip-ringed, black-clothed wearing said-to-be murderer and well, maybe that was the problem.

PLEASE VOTE AND COMMENT I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH