You belong to me

Chapter 25 - Charlotte

Parker nods his head and grabs a hold of the door handle, not saying anything else to me and leaves my room leaving me standing all alone in my bedroom in a complete mess. My phone keeps ringing and I know it's JT but I can't bring myself to talk to him right now, not after what I just did. I decide to switch my phone off and curl into a ball on my bed and let the darkness of my room comfort me, entrapped in my own guilt and thoughts. "Char, can I come in?" a drunken Jake attempts to whisper. I know my brother well enough that if I just pretend to be asleep, he'll just barge in anyways. "Yeah," I say, feeling very sorry for myself even if it is my mess. Jake sits down on my bed and I feel my mattress sink with the added weight. "Look Char, I just want to..." I interrupt him before he can finish his sentence, "I kissed Parker," I blurt out. Jake doesn't say anything and the silence echoing around my room is a clear indication that what happened was wrong. "Aren't you going to say anything?" I eventually say, "I'm just a bit shocked, but as your brother all I can tell you is to follow your heart. You have loved Parker all of your life but only you can decide if he gets to be in the rest of your life," Jake finally says, as he gets off my bed and tucks me in, leaving a kiss on my forehead before leaving me in the dark again.

I haven't heard anything from Parker since our kiss, it's been a week and nothing. If I ever needed a message that our kiss was just a drunken mistake and nothing more, hearing nothing from him was a pretty big one. JT got wrapped up in work and wasn't going to make it, leaving me to fly to LA by myself and meet him there. Whenever JT is busy with work our communication is next to nothing which makes it all the more easier for my mind to wonder and think about Parker. I've typed so many messages to him, telling him exactly how I feel only to delete them and never actually send anything. "Charlotte, are you ready?! We're leaving in two minutes," my mum shouts. "Yeah, coming!" I glance at myself in my mirror, my hair in my messy bun, leaving two curls out to frame my face, minimum makeup and my black mom jeans paired with an old Ramones top I've decided not to pack. My mother glances me up and down as I come down the stairs and sighs a little, "You could have made some effort, Charlotte" she mutters, "Give it a rest will you, the poor girl has packed her clothes," My dad says winking at me as he ushers us out the front door. As my last meal in London for a while I've decided I didn't want anything fancy, I just wanted some good comfort food, a hidden gem of an Italian restaurant we would always go to. "Ciao Bella!" Marco the waiter greets us at the door and leads us to the table we always sit at and much to my surprise Julie is already sitting waiting for us, my heart sinking a little when I notice the lack of Parker. Jake gives me a reassuring squeeze of the shoulder when he realises Parker isn't here either. I've been stuffing my face with the bread rolls on the table as a way of getting out of talking and eating my feelings that Parker isn't at my leaving meal. Jake kicks me quite hard in the shin under the table, "Ouch!" I hiss, looking up to him, Jake gives me signals with his eyes and nods his head towards the front door and there I see Parker bounding in, his hair a mess and wearing black skinny jeans and a leather jacket. My heart instantly races as I feel my heartbeat pound out of my chest. "Parker!" My mum shouts and stands up to give him a hug, "Sorry I'm a bit late, traffic y'know," he says making direct eye contact with me.

We hardly said a word to each other the whole meal, it kills me having this type of atmosphere between us and everyone can sense it too. "Julie we can take you home, Parker could you take Charlotte home?" my mum stands up, walking towards the exit, "Mum, there is space in our car, it's quite alright!" I protest. "Nope, it will be too cramped having someone sat in the middle, family of giants and all that," she awkwardly laughs, glancing at Julie who seems to be all for this little plan of my mothers and walks towards my car. "I mean, sure?" Parker awkwardly replies, twirling his car keys in his hands. Jake mouths 'sorry' at me as I storm towards Parker's car, not saying a word to him. We sit in silence for a long time. "So are..." I begin to say at the exact same time Parker says, "We have to," which causes us both to awkwardly laugh. "You go first," I say. "We have to stop awkwardly meeting in my car to solve our issues," Parker says, laughing but also very serious at the same time. "Without playing Run DMC to fix our issues either," I also awkwardly laugh. Parker tightens his grip on the steering wheel, and I can see his jaw is clenched, clearly uncomfortable. If I'm going to say anything to him now is my chance to say something to him and just get it all out there, something that makes me feel physically sick at the thought of doing but someone has to be the adult here. "Parker," I slowly say, as he turns to look at me with those big blue eyes, and slightly relaxing his jaw. Making me even more nervous, "I love you, I always have and I always will but we have to stop hurting each other, it's quite clear we can't be just friends and last week's kiss clearly shows that. We either have to be together and make it work, no Hollywood pressure or we leave each other alone, for good." Parker smiles, and he laughs under his breath, "I think you're forgetting one rather large factor here Charles, a certain man named JT and your move to LA to be with him," Parker trails off on the end of his sentence. Fuck. "I can't see you with him Charlotte, I just can't. It's me or him, you don't have to decide that right this instance but you do have a decision to make. You know I love you, more than I love anything in the world but you need to make a decision." Parker says as he turns the engine on and begins to drive away.