Becoming Better

Chapter 19 - Meet Me

At lunch Charlie sat with Taylor, Alex, Jessica and Rachel and tried to tell them what happened. Now that Mara threatened her, she realized she should have said something sooner. Unfortunately, they looked unconvinced as she explained the message from the girl from Bridgeport High and told them what Mara had just said to her upstairs.

Jessica looked at Alex before she said, "Charlie, listen. We don't know exactly what happened, but trying to fix it by calling Mara is a liar is a bad look. She caught you red handed."

"I'm not saying she's lying about me, but she is lying about what happened before she got here," Charlie explained.

"What if she isn't?" Alex argued. "What if she only just said that just now because she's really pissed at you?"

"I mean...yeah," Charlie said. "But I also saw her hitting Shawn at the Homecoming Game. She just seems like a violent person."

"Getting into a fight with your boyfriend doesn't mean you'd assault a girl with a brick," Jessica disagreed.

"Well..." Charlie started.

Alex shook her head. "I'm going to give you some advice. Don't say this to anyone else. It's just going to make you look worse than you already do."

Charlie sighed. "Ok, I'm sorry, you're right."

Rachel put her hand on Charlie's arm. "We're still your friends. You've been acting a little weird this whole year, but we're not going to ditch you because of a mistake. But we're friends with Mara also. We're not going to take sides."

Taylor stayed silent through the whole conversation. Charlie was pretty sure that was because she didn't feel the same way as the rest of the group, but she didn't explicitly say so. Charlie wasn't upset with her for it. She didn't want Taylor to get crap from anyone over her mistake. However, it sucked to see how easily Jessica, Alex and Rachel had gotten sucked into Mara's orbit.

Later that night Charlie paced in her room before she called Wyatt. She was nervous to tell him what happened. They had this weird, undefined relationship. They were just friends, but at the same time, they weren't. But he wasn't her boyfriend, so she was technically free to do what she wanted, right?

It was highly unlikely that he was going to see it that way. She would rather just not tell him at all, but she knew he'd find out eventually. It was best that he heard it from her.

After she finished telling him the story, he was quiet.

"Wyatt?" Charlie asked nervously. "Are you there?"

"Yeah," he said softly.

"So um, yeah, that's what happened..." she trailed off.

"Sucks that you did that, Charlie," he said.

"I know," she agreed.

There was silence for a few moments.

"I gotta go," he said.

Charlie's heart sank. This was what she was afraid of. "Ok, I'll talk to you tomorrow?"

"I'm busy tomorrow. And the rest of the week, actually. I'll just talk to you later," Wyatt said, and hung up.

Charlie sat staring at the phone in her hand. Out of everyone who was mad at her, or disappointed, or whatever they were, Wyatt was the one that hurt her the most.

The rest of the week dragged by so slowly she could hardly stand it. She wasn't sure what she was going to do that weekend, until she found out Mara was throwing another party. Then she knew she would be sitting at home alone. The girls were going, obviously. And Wyatt definitely didn't want to hang out with her, after that last phone call. Charlie laid in her bed, staring at the ceiling, wondering how her life became such a mess.

Her phone buzzed. It was a direct message. When she saw who it was from her stomach flipped and sank at the same time, if that was even possible.

Shawn had written, Hey Goldie, will you come meet me? I need to talk to you.

Charlie furiously typed back. No! You ruined my life, and now you expect me to come running?

I'm so sorry. But please, come meet me. I need to tell you something about Mara.

Charlie sat there for a minute. She was angry at him, yes. But she wanted to know what he had to say. If anything, he would probably be one of the few to believe that Mara meant it when she threatened her. Maybe he could even help by convincing Mara to leave her alone.

Fine, where? she wrote.

He sent her an address in the same neighborhood as Beachside High. She got dressed and popped her head into Courtney's room.

"I'm going out for a bit," she told her.

Courtney nodded, not looking up from her computer. She had just gotten home from her AA meeting. "Cool."

"It's not a super great neighborhood. You still have my location on your phone, right?" Charlie asked.

Courtney looked up. "Yeah, why are you going to a not-so-great neighborhood?"

"Just trying to figure some things out," Charlie answered, and she left, closing the door behind her.

***Going to see Shawn again? Do you think that's a good idea or a bad idea for Charlie at this point? Xx