Heartstopper || Nick + Charlie

The movie night (quick recap)

Tao pov:
The school day had passed and Charlie hadn't sat with us all day except for the morning, and even then he didn't talk to us and acted like it was the worse thing in the world that he had to be near us. I groaned and just decided that I was thinking too much into it so I texted the group chat to ask if they wanted to have a movie night tonight.

Me
Lets have a movie night again tonight!
3:10PM

Elle_Argent
Sure, I'm not busy.
3:11PM

Isaac.xx
Okay.
3:11PM

They texted back immediately and I waited for Charlie to answer but he just didn't, so I decided to text the group chat again, hopefully this time getting his attention.

Me
Charlie, you in?
Charlie??
3:14PM

Elle_Argent
He's probably busy Tao.
3:15PM

Me
He hasn't sat with us all day as well.
3:15PM

Elle_Argent
I'm sure its fine.
3:16PM

What could he be busy with? We are his bestfriends and he hasn't told us, if he had something important to do he would have told us before hand. Elle and Isaac were getting to my place at around 3:30PM, so I waited to see if maybe he would show up and surprise us but he just didn't.

Me
Charlie, answer us.
Charlie??
3:31PM

"It's fine Tao, his phone probably just ran out of charge or something." Elle told me. It was currently 5:40PM and Charlie still hadn't replied to any of us.

"His phone ran out of charge for two hours and a half? How does that make sense Elle? He clearly just doesn't want to be our friend anymore." I told her, she just sighed and we went back to watching the movie. After everyone went home I laid in bed thinking about it all. Charlie actually didn't want to be our friend anymore, it was 10:00PM and he still hadn't texted any of us back. He could have just blocked us instead, but if he doesn't want to be friends then I guess I don't want to be his friend either.

I made it to school the next day and Isaac was already waiting at the picnic table, he smiled at me as I sat down and I smiled back.

"So, did Charlie text you back?" He asked me and I scoffed at his name. Isaac must have got the message because he went back to reading his book. The first period bell rang and I made my way to the class. I kept thinking about Charlie the whole lesson, did he actually want to stop being friends? What did we do wrong? I knew he would leave us eventually I just didn't expect it to happen this quickly. First break eventually came and I walked to the picnic bench again, I sat down and started texting Elle. A few minutes later I saw Isaac wave at someone but I didn't pay attention to it until I heard someone sit down at the table. I realised it was Charlie, I rolled my eyes and went back to scrolling on Instagram. What did he want now? To rub it in our faces that he found someone better than us?

"Hey! How have you guys been?" Charlie asked us and I just scoffed. Why the hell was he trying to pretend that he likes us again? His other friends probably weren't as good and he came crawling back to us.

"Why do you care?" I said coldly and I felt bad after I said it but I wanted to stand my ground. Isaac looked at me confused and then went back to his book.

"I- uh... I just wanted to know." He said in a small voice. I started to feel really bad but I still wanted to win this argument. "Sorry." He said and I heard his voice shake. I noticed he had tears in his eyes and I realised that I had fucked up, I couldn't just go after him though... The bell eventually rang and I had the next period with him, so I'd just talk to him then. I walked into the classroom and looked around but he wasn't there, I thought maybe he was just late but the whole lesson went pass and he still didn't show. Curse me and my tendency to always want to be right. The end of the day came around and I hadn't seen Charlie all day, I got home and decided I'd just talk to him about it on Monday but I felt really bad so I called Isaac.

"Just text him and ask if he's okay." I said through the phone.

"And why can't you do it?" He asked me. I was not in the mood to have to explain everything to him, so I just groaned. "Okay, okay, I'll text him." He told me.

"Thank you." I said in reply, a few minutes went pass and the call was really quiet. "What did he say?" I asked him and I heard him sigh.

"He just said that he was fine and asked how I was." Isaac told me.

"That was it? No how is Tao? Text him back asking if he's replaced us. Wait no, text him asking why he left us. Wait no, ask him why he hasn't talked to us." I said, I heard Isaac groan and type something. "What did you ask?" I asked him.

"I just asked him where he was at lunch." We waited for a minute and Isaac finally said something. "He just said that he was busy and that he was sorry." Isaac explained.

"That's it? That's all he said?" I asked. He didn't even explain where he had been these past few days.

"Tao, you really just need to let it go, I'm sure he has just been busy with school work and he'll be back to talking with us in no time. Now I need to go, goodbye." He said before hanging up. I was left in my room by myself, so I went to see if he had posted anything on Instagram but he hadn't. What was going on with him? Maybe our friendship had actually ended.