A/N: Sorry that this chapter took me SO long to write! I tried out for and made the soccer team. It's really crazy because practice is every day so I don't really have time to write. But I finally was able to write this chapter. It's a little short so sorry about that, but I promise that the next chapter should be up sometime soon.
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Every day after that day just got worse and worse. Every day was the same routine of waking up, staring at the wall or the window, sometimes crying, being forced to eat- which was usually just saltine crackers, and going back to sleep. I called Harry. I called him so many times after what happened. But he never answered. So I left him messages telling him how sorry I was and sometimes begging him to come back when I was really desperate. He never responded though and I couldn't blame him. After all, I did tell him that I never wanted to see him again and I also said that it was his fault that my mom's dead. Of course that's not true. I was just having a mental breakdown because I convinced myself that I was fine before Harry made me realize that that wasn't true at all. Harry takes everything personally though and frankly, if he said something like that to me, I'd do the same thing as he's doing. I rolled over and realized that the bag of food Harry left over a week ago was still sitting on my nightstand. And It smelled really bad now. I sat up and pushed the covers off of myself for the first time in a couple months and realized that I smelled gross too. I picked up the paper bag and threw it in the trashcan on the other side of my room. It wasn't exactly productive, but I didn't feel like walking down the stairs to put it in the real trashcan. When I picked the bag up, I noticed a stack of pictures that were held together with a metal hoop. I picked them up and realized that they were all pictures of my mom and I, starting from the day I was born. It felt like my heart dropped into my stomach. I carried the pictures and the bag of old food downstairs. "Charlotte?" My dad called out, clearly startled that I had left my room. "Are you ok?" he asked. I threw the bag in the real trashcan and found my dad in the living room.
"Do you know where this came from?" I asked, showing him the stack of pictures. It felt strange to use my voice after not having spoken to anyone in so long. I felt like an empty shell of my old self. Like a broken toy. My dad looked closely at the stack and then recognition crossed his face.
"Ohh... Harry made this before the last time he came here. Really, we worked together on it. I found most of the old pictures and he had them all printed like this so that they could go into this little book thing."
"Oh." I said, simply. I now had a lump in my throat that I could not clear. "Uh- thanks, Dad." I said, squeezing his hand.
"Well, it was Harry's idea... I thought it was rather nice..." he trailed off. "Can I get you something to eat?" he asked.
"No... Not right now... Thank you, though." I said, turning around again.
"It's nice to see you out of bed, Charlotte." he called.
"I know." I called back. "Feels nice." I climbed the stairs back to my room and set the book of pictures back on my nightstand. I picked up the notecard that had the name and number one of the therapists at the place my dad told me about. I took a deep breath and dialed the number.
After I was done on the phone, I finally dragged myself to the bathroom and took a shower. This was the first shower I had taken in almost a month and it was the only one that I consciously took since before my mom had died. I felt like I was washing all the bad stuff off of me. This was the first day that I finally decided to get better. My mom would cry if she knew that I just gave up on life when she died. She would hate to see me like this and I was starting to hate seeing myself like that. I picked up my phone to call Harry and tell him about the decision I made, but then I remembered that he wouldn't answer. And leaving a message would be wasting my time. I had to work on myself before trying to work on things with him.
