invisible string • Gracie Abrams

041 exposers

she glanced at her own lockscreen, which represented a picture of sadie blacked out on her bathroom floor wasted after a party. and even though she hasn't changed that from being her lock screen since changed it to that after she broke up with matthew when she was seventeen, she had no hesitation now in changed it to a different one. she replaced it with one she took last night of gracie sitting across by the fire with a cute smile and her head rested on her knees.

when she returned back downstairs, she noticed the majority of gracie's cereal was done which put another smile on her face, "here," she said, handing her the phone.

just as she did that, sadie and caleb returned with charlottes laptop and determined faces.

"alright, where do we start?" sadie asked, placing the laptop down along with two notebooks caleb brought in.

"what if we just dox them?" olivia offered, appearing back downstairs followed by matthew.

"i wanna make then realize how they're being, not cause a break and entry to my childhood home," charlotte replied.

charlotte slid the laptop towards herself and opened it up, cracking her knuckles and taking a deep sigh. gracie noticed her having that same look she would have when reading over a script. a wrinkled forehead from being deep in thought and her lip screwed to the side, a slight pout. to compete the look, gracie grabbed the hair tie off her wrist and used it to tie up charlottes hair in a comfortable messy bun.

"i think i'll just write it for now and get yours guys help in a bit. matthew, you and jude can go over the audio from last night if you can," charlotte said, instantly snapping into focus.

"i'll go make coffee," gracie said, pointing herself to the espresso machine.

"she was right, this is so planning a murder coded," olivia whispered to matthew with excitement who rolled his eyes in return.

_

the article draft was so far two pages long. charlotte had been sitting in the same spot at the kitchen counter for a couple hours, headphones on and grammarly account activated. matthew sat across from her, typing out the audio from last night into his own document. it was an excruciating rush, writting about all the times she's been hurt recently by her parents down to the wire. but the adrenaline she was getting from getting to re-illustrate the picture from her point of view for her parents was allowing her fingers to type at rapid speeds, not stopping unless she had to skip a song.

jude dipped in and out of the room, leaning over charlottes shoulder to take glances at the document and nod. he wouldn't say a word, he'd just read and move on, knowing this is her story to tell and not his. he'll put his input into it when she asks him to. or maybe in a song or two.

gracie would do her occasional check ins. wrapping an arm around charlottes shoulders and asking if she was okay. she knew she was, but who was she without being utterly caring. charlotte would hum a 'yes' and pause only to show gracie the sections where she was mentioned. after her third check in, the singer crashed into a nap on the couch with weenie, feeling exhausted even though she slept well earlier.

but only an hour later, she was being shaken awake aggressively.

"gracie, get the fuck up," olivia sang.

gracie opened her eyes and mumbled a 'what?' to olivia.

"caleb and sadie just finished editing, the documents are done," olivia happily replied. "c'mon."

gracie rose to her feet, taking a big stretch and pulling her hood of charlotte's hoodie over her head. and just like that, there it was again. black dots clouded her vision along with a wave of lightheadedness as she subconsciously leaned into olivia who looked at her with concern and wrapped an arm around her, steadying her up.