Charlie's Utopia

First Kiss, All Over Again.

"How was your childhood?" Charlie questioned after she sipped red wine from the glass. Marcus and Charlie have been sitting in the living room – talking, something they hardly got the time to do so. Charlie knows a lot about Marcus, but she only gets to hear very little from him. Mostly what she knows about him came from Maria or Silas. Tonight she wanted to hear from him, even if was something she already knows. For instance, the question she just asked will be hard for him to answer – she aware of how hard his childhood was for him, but he never talks about it to her. Charlie doesn't want him to bottle up anymore – she wants him to share everything with her – good or bad.

Marcus swirls the wine in the glass. His eyes refused to meet the young woman sitting in front of her – leaned against the couch with her feet pressed under her hips. She had her hooded eyes fixed on him, while he remained silent – hoping that his wordlessness would drag him out of such difficult question. He hoped that Charlie would take his silence as the refusal to go back to the painful memories, but she was insistent. With her eyes on him, she waited for him to speak. The silence between them was getting thicker with the passing minute but Charlie didn't back out. They hardly get any time to be alone like this, it was their time to talk. Marcus gulped and heaved a sigh. He finally averted his gaze at her – meeting her indulgent ones. He let out a bitter chuckle – she was not going to back out. He was half amused by her stubbornness and half annoyed by it. He chugged the remaining wine from the glass at once and decided to speak.

"It started good," He started. Charlie tilted her head as he continued, "But it went for worse after Silas was born," He answered with his eyes boring into hers. He didn't speak further like Charlie was expecting. He had answered her question but didn't want to go further. Charlie nodded her head. She decided not to push him further about it. "Now you ask me something," She proposed as she hunched and grabbed the wine bottle from the table in the middle. She pours it in her glass and filled his as well. Marcus had his eyes on her as he thought of what he would like to ask her before he decided to go with what first came to his mind. "What do you regret the most?" He asked her. The wine was working for Charlie – she had loosened up. She was nervous about what comes next for them as they continue with their questions but the wine was keeping her from being a wreck.

"Kissing Leo," she shrugged. Marcus's eyes zeroed on her. He is aware of it – she did tell him about it. She heaved a sigh and drank from her glass, "I was a mess at that time. I think he regrets it just as much as I regret it. It just happened in the heat of the moment and my crush on him at that time didn't help either," She chuckled. Marcus cleared his throat and looked at his glass resting on the table. He hunched and grabbed the glass before gulping half of the wine from it. Charlie secretly smiled. She was sure he was now regretting asking it. He didn't feel very comfortable hearing about it then, and he doesn't feel so good hearing about it again.

"My turn," She proposed and broke the uneasiness between them. She smashed her lips together as she proceeded to ask, "Did you ever try to reach out to your biological parents?" She asked. Marcus raised his eyebrow at him before he simply shook his head. "Why would I?" he asked rigidly. "They gave up on me as soon as I was born. They stripped themselves of any right to be my parents the minute they decided to leave me at an orphanage. For me, they don't exist. And you don't look for things that don't exist," He added stringently with his eyebrows brought together. Charlie had clearly upset him, but then – whenever they talk about his birth parents, he will always be upset – there was no good or bad timing for such questions. Charlie nodded and swirled the wine glass before she stood from her spot, "It is your turn," she pointed her glass at him before walking towards the couch he was on and sat on the other corner of it – fixing her eyes on him. Marcus sighed and threw his head back for a moment before looking back at her, "I don't feel like asking you anything. You can continue – I know you want me to open up to you, so this is your chance. Go for it," he said.