Becoming Somebody

Chapter 22 - Courtney

****Trigger warning, mature content. This chapter contains a subject which some people might find upsetting. No characters die, but there is a mention of hard drug use. If you don't want to read this, you can skip ahead.

Cassius drove her home from school one day, and she invited him inside to hang out. Her parents were at work, thank god, but Courtney was home, so it wasn't like they would be alone.

When they walked in the front door she yelled, "Hey Court, Cash is here ok? We'll be in the kitchen."

No response from Courtney, but she was probably just in her room listening to her headphones. Charlie shrugged and led Cassius to the kitchen so they could get something to drink. While they were in there they decided to bake, because neither of them felt like watching tv.

They were making an absolute mess of the kitchen. Charlie was laughing hysterically because he had smeared the melted chocolate from their brownies all over her face. It was cute, but slightly mortifying, so she had to excuse herself to the bathroom to fix her face immediately.

"Make sure you grease the pan!" she yelled down the hallway to him in the kitchen.

She was about to walk back when she saw Courtney's door was slightly ajar. She might as well check in with her and ask her if she wanted any brownies, even though they were sure to be horrible.

"Hey Court, do you want-" she started, but stopped abruptly when she saw her.

Courtney was lying on her bed. She looked up at Charlie, so she was conscious, but it was clear she was heavily under the influence of something. Charlie had a good guess what it was.

"Charlie, don't," Courtney managed to say to her before she stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind her.

She held back tears. She needed to get Cassius out of here so she could call her parents and let them know Courtney had relapsed.

She walked back into the kitchen. Her tone had completely changed since she had gone to the bathroom. "Hey uh, my sister is really sick. I have to help her, I'm so sorry, but can you leave? I don't want you to get sick."

He looked genuinely concerned. "Oh no I'm sorry, is there anything I can do? I can drive to go pick up some medicine for her?"

Charlie bit her lip. "Uh, yeah, it's not... I think we probably have all the medicine we need here, but thank you."

He could tell something wasn't right. "Charlie, what's wrong?"

This was really hard for Charlie. She never had these two worlds collide before. She kept her family stuff separate from the rest of her life as much as possible. But at the same time, it was really difficult keeping it away from people, especially someone who cared about her. She wanted to tell Cassius, but she didn't want to freak him out. She looked at his hazel eyes, full of concern, and she decided she could trust him.

"I'm sorry. It's not that kind of sick," she said quietly. "She has... uh, she has a problem."

He understood immediately. "What do we need to do?" he asked.

He stayed with her as she called her parents. He sat on the couch with her as they waited for her dad to get home. He took her for a drive after her dad arrived, so she could get out of the house and get some fresh air.

"I didn't know all that was going on at home," he said to her later in the car.

She sighed heavily. "Yeah, no one does except Taylor, and Rachel kind of. I don't like to talk about it."

He reached over and held her hand. "If you ever do want to tell me about it, I'm here."

*** Hopefully this wasn't too upsetting to read. I wanted to give you an idea of what Charlie's dealt with at home, so you can understand her a little better. Was super hard to write! <3