❝ I'm scared, scared I'll go back to being broken now that he isn't here to fix me anymore❞
Before, Florence Clarke was hospitalised for having anorexia, she was put on The List at Phillipson High and named the Fat Girl, at first Oakwood Clinic seem...
Florence felt guilty now, she was still crying, tears were almost a permanent feature on her face these days if only the reporters could see her now, without her stylist and makeup artist ready for interviews or signings she probably looked as red as a tomato with puffy eyes. It was funny how she was praised for speaking candidly about how you should embrace how you looked and be body confident but she was expected to be polished for the public with an army of people ready to help her look the part.
"Why did you and Chase fall out?" she found herself asking
"If I had a twin I'd stick by their side forever, especially if they were so ill" she hadn't meant it to come out like an accusation, but it had.
He looked away and Florence turned to see he was looking at the family photo.
"Chase was away when a fire began at our house... but I wasn't. He was camping with his girlfriend at the time and I was annoyed because I was meant to be going too but my report card meant my Mum wouldn't let me go, so I sneaked out around midnight to go and meet with my friends, or should I say people who I thought were my friends. I ended up spending the night in a police station and then being transferred to prison, they told me what had happened and let me go to the funeral under supervision, although I didn't even want to show my face."
He looked stone cold like he didn't want to show any emotion, such an opposite to Chase whose emotions could be read like a book.
"They came and told me the next morning, the gas had been left on and some paper caught fire in the kitchen. The fire spread to the hallway outside my parent's room and the fallen wood stopped them from leaving, by the time they realised the fire had spread, it was too late, they died from smoke inhalation" he brought a hand up to his forehead and slapped it hard.
"That's why me and Chase fell out, he never said it outright but I knew he blamed me. If I had been home like I was supposed to be I could have alerted everyone, I could have called the fire engines and got my Mum and Dad out of their room and into safety, they would still be alive today if it wasn't for my need to always be the rebel in the family."
He began hitting his head harder and harder, again and again.
"Cole, stop!" Florence grabbed his hand and dragged it down "You'll hurt yourself"
"That's the whole point Florence!" he shouted
"I killed my own parents! Chase is dead! I have no family left anymore"
"You didn't kill them!" Florence's head was spinning with the knowledge of all this new information and she felt she had badly misjudged this whole situation.
"It was an accident Cole, a horrible accident but these things happen, there's no one to blame for them, I know Chase forgave you for whatever happened or he wouldn't have given a damn and he wouldn't have sent me to come to get you. What you said in the car might have had a ring of truth to it there's people in this world who want to heal, Chase was most definitely a healer even though he was ill himself but I think he sent me to get you for another reason, I think you and I are more alike than you could know."
Cole raised his hand to his head again and she did the only thing she could, she wrapped her arms around him tight forcing him to keep his arms still. She clung on to him in a strange type of hug until she felt his muscles relax and his body began to shake, now he was crying too.
They both sat there in Chase's flat with the memories and pain swirling around them as she hugged him and he cried, when he had finally gone silent she pulled away and there wasn't a script for what she needed to say now, all her life she had known how she needed to act and how there was a distinct difference between that and how others would react.
"You and me Cole, we're like family now, okay?"
He nodded.
She didn't exactly know how they had entered the flat barely talking and she now left it feeling like they might be the only two people in the world who could really understand each other, perhaps it was their shared connection to Chase, perhaps it was something else entirely.
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