Someone Like You (Chenry)

Chapter Twenty

Charlotte really didn't want to go inside Henry's house for his welcome home party. She knew it wouldn't be a good idea to just skip it since she was Henry's best friend and Piper's friend, but she wasn't sure how she could go in there and act like everything was normal. Nothing was normal with her anymore. She had fallen in love with her best friend. She had been kidnapped by Dr. Minyak. She had defeated Dr. Minyak with Henry's help. No one at work seemed to care about none of these things, and she was left to fight everything alone.

She wasn't even sure how they defeated Dr. Minyak. Henry's plan was that he would act as a diversion while Charlotte would crawl around and knock the death machine out of his hands. It actually worked, and then they called the police, who took him away. Charlotte and Henry brought the death machine to the Man Cave and gave Schwoz a big talking to about talking to random people on the internet, and then they destroyed the death machine. Ray was finally at peace and went out that night, not bothering to check on Charlotte. At least Jasper walked her home and made sure she was alright, especially since Henry was avoiding her. After that day, she hardly spent any time at the Man Cave.

Even though it had been a month since she and Henry had defeated Dr. Minyak, she hadn't done anything else besides go to school and go home. She knew that there was nothing out there that could get her anymore, but she still had the fear that she was going to get taken away by people in masks with chloroform cloths. The fear was slowly drifting away from her, though it still haunted her dreams almost every single night to where she wasn't really sleeping again. That was fine with her because she could do a lot more schoolwork than she ever did while she was dating Kid Danger. 

What was even better was that she had gone back to being basically invisible at school as everyone soon forgot about her after she broke up with Kid Danger. The first few days of their breakup had been rough since people were questioning her on why she broke up with him in the first place, but after that, she was left all alone. Well, besides Jasper annoying her, but that was an everyday kind of thing. She was so grateful for that because she hated all the attention on her. No one cared about her anymore. They weren't leaving her nasty little notes in her locker about how Kid Danger didn't deserve her after she "cheated" on Jack Swagger. At least that part of her life had gone back to normal.

"Char, are you coming inside or what?" Jasper asked her from his spot on the front porch. He looked at her with a frown on his face as he held the door wide open. She had to be careful about what she said because she didn't want his family to hear her doubts. "Henry's coming home today, and we both need to be there for him and his family."

"We've been there for him this whole time," she muttered. 

However, she followed him inside the house even though her heart was screaming at her not to. Everything about his house looked the same, but the people standing in the house looked a little worse for the wear. They had been through so much in those three months, and she felt so bad for them. At least Henry was coming home today. That way, they wouldn't be put through the heartache anymore. 

"It's so good to see you," Mrs. Hart said to Charlotte as she pulled her into a tight hug. She had the widest smile on her face, and Charlotte immediately felt bad for keeping the secret that Henry was alive and well the whole time they thought he was dying. But it came with her job, and she knew that. "I'm glad you could make it. Henry's going to be so excited to have everyone he loves here."

Charlotte didn't answer her. She pulled away from the hug and made a beeline for the kitchen, where Piper was standing with a drink in her hand. She smiled at Charlotte like she couldn't have been happier. There was so much happiness in this house, and it felt like Charlotte was going to suffocate here. She didn't know what she was expecting, but it sure wasn't this.