Beat the devil's tattoo

Chapter VIII. "Uptown Girl

Uptown girl

Once the sun was set and the lights began to show around the city, Marla detached her gaze from the landscape. Turning around she was faced with Charlie, looking at her meaningfully but she turned her head, walking toward the phone.

"Should we order something to eat?"

She heard him sigh but he walked nonetheless to stand beside her, checking the menu in her hands. Soon after there was a knock on the door and their food was brought in the room.

They ate in silence, both to lost in their thoughts to acknowledge it. Once they were finished however, Charlie decided he could not wait any longer.

"Can we talk?" He asked.

"About what?"

He gave her a deadpan look and she sighed, walking to sit on the edge of the bed.

"I.." He started, "I want to apologise."

"What for?"

"The biggest mistake of my life?" He almost asked. "For abandoning you when you needed me the most, for not seeing what you were going through, for not trusting you..."

"You're apologising for an awful lot of things."

"Because there is a lot of things to apologise for."

"There isn't. You don't have to apologise, Charlie."

"Of course I have."

"No, you did the right thing. We shouldn't dwell on the past. What's done is done."

"It wasn't the right thing Marla, I let you go, I gave up on us when you needed it. I screw up!"

She let another sigh and shut her eyes tightly.

"Listen Charlie, perhaps it was unconscious but you were right, I was distancing myself from you. I was hiding things that I didn't want you to get involved in and... it was the right thing to do. I knew my life was bound to explode, I could feel it and I didn't want you to face the consequences. You had a future and you still have because you weren't brought in all this mess and... I am thankful you weren't."

By now they both had tears in their eyes, trying to keep them at bay.

Charlie's voice broke when he spoke next.

"You're talking as if you have no future. You do, you have a future. All of this, it will end some day."

She gave him a sad smile.

"I'm not the girl you knew Charlie, I- I'm not the same anymore..."

He cut her. "Of course you are. You're the girl who stand up for the others, you're the girl who helped first years around the castle but pranked the seventh year every chance she got. You're the girl who put up with my talks of dragon for hours, the one who always had my back. You're the girl I fell in love with."

She felt the tears on her cheeks and she realised she was crying. She was shaking her head as if to block Charlie's words. He kneeled before her, holding her hands in his.

"You're the girl I made plans for the future with, the one who told me she wanted a house in the countryside someday after travelling the world, the one I always saw myself marrying and spending my life with."

She detached her hands from his, rising up from the bed. She began pacing in the room as she wept the tears on her face. Charlie stood up too, unsure of what her reaction meant. She stopped then, in front of him and let out a humourless chuckle.

"How can you say that?" She asked him incredulously. Charlie felt the weight in his chest return.

"How can you say that?" She asked again. "Have you seen me Charlie? I'm not helping anyone, I'm not pranking anyone, I'm not listening to anyone because I've been alone for the past three years. I've seen the world alright, running away to save my ass! We're not in Hogwarts anymore, this is not something you can fix with a date! I'm not something you can fix... at all."