Fearless

| XVI | - The Summer that Ruined it All

"Susie!" Kristina called, watching Susie jump so hard, looking at her with a paled face. Kristina placed a hand on her trembling shoulder, suddenly looking at her very worriedly. "Hey, sorry to startle you. I didn't mean it."

Susie sighed in relief, seeing that it was just her dear friend. "Sorry, Kristina," she admitted sheepishly, placing a hand on her forehead. "I've been jumpy all morning."

"Something bothering you?"

Susie looked at her, the conversation her and her dad had the night before playing through her mind yet again. 

"But, but I don't know what you mean," Susie had said last night, watching her father's eyes look up to her, seeing that she truly didn't know what he was talking about.

"Susanne," he began, watching her wince at the sound of her full first name. She didn't like being called Susanne, it reminded her too much of her mother. "Charleston is a murderer."

Susie was horrified, shaking her head in protest. "No, he can't be. Charlie wouldn't do such a thing."

"But he did, Susanne," he said, leaning on her door sill. "Just a few weeks before finals, the middle of May, we got a call from some woman up in the outskirts of town, calling about hearing gunfire. So, me and Jonah went to the scene and we find Charlie there, holding the gun, standing before the dead body of his uncle, Jonah's brother."

Susie suddenly fell back in her swivel chair, looking at the ground completely horrified by the news. "The case was decided to be self-defense, he served time doing community service all summer and that was the end of it. The press didn't even bother getting involved due to how quickly it was resolved."

"How can this be?" she said more to herself than she did to anyone else.

"He ain't allowed in this house, Susie," he told her again. "Never."

"Susie, hey Susie!" Kristina called, snapping her fingers in front of her face, snapping her out of her trance. "Seriously, you're scaring me. What's the matter all of a sudden?"

Susie bit her lip, rubbing her temples. She couldn't sleep at all the night before, her mind racing with the thought of Charlie standing before his dead uncle, the weapon in his hand, the blood splattered on his face. It horrified her, it sickened her and shocked her. She was confused as to how he was capable of doing such a thing, she found it hard to believe. 

"It's nothing," she smiled., assuring her friend. "I just had a hard time sleeping last night, my dad and I didn't have the best of conversations."

"Ah, right," Kristina said, recalling the sudden outburst her father had when she was over last night. "How did that go? He seemed really angry."

"He won't allow Ch--" Susie stopped, for some reason fearing saying his name, just thinking of him made her stomach churn with stress and anxiety. "He won't allow him over, ever."

"Shit, tough luck," Kristina said, walking her to class. "Who would've thought he'd suddenly explode like that?"

Susie was hardly paying attention at this point, her mind continuously running back to the thought of Charlie, the thought of him that frightened her. 

"I'll see you later, Kristina," she said quietly, entering her class before Kristina could say another word.

Susie took a seat away from her usual, far from her usual seat. She sat right in the front, right in front of Mr. King's desk. For some reason, she just wanted to stay away from Charlie. It just angered her it took her this long to realize that Charlie was a delinquent, a criminal, even. That he was her bully, he stuck by her, spoke nastily to her, treated her unfairly, and now that she knew what he did it seemed to set her on edge, completely unsure if she even knew Charlie at all.