𝐀𝐮𝐠𝐮𝐬𝐭, ᵐᵃᵗᵗʰᵉᵒ ʳⁱᵈᵈˡᵉ

part 14

tw: marlotte divorced era ???

he didn't know why he was the way he was. he couldn't let her go, but he couldn't quite hold her, either. he wondered if he had an imbalance, if there was something physically wrong with him. he knew the truth, that he was just scared, that he didn't know where to go from here, he just couldn't accept that. for what felt like the hundred time that day, mattheo let his mind drift to charlotte. she occupied most of his waking thoughts, and definitely all of his unconscious ones.
she seemed to haunt him. summer had started, she was too far to plague his thoughts like this, yet she did. maybe it was his love for her that kept her so keenly on his mind, maybe it was his desire to once again be understood the way he was with her. he didn't know, couldn't explain it, but he missed her all the same. he couldn't help but long for the time he spent with her, the
memories he made along side her. she was his bestfriend, he didn't know anyone like her.

the first letter came just days after school let out. it detailed the ocean in wales, the distance from her friends, her boredom. it implored a reply back, something he didn't provide. how could he, he wondered, when his heart ached for her so strongly? how could he bear to have her, just not in the way he wanted? he had never felt for anyone as strongly as he felt for her. she was special to him, in a way no one else has been before.
it was plane in the open, he had thought. he had reckoned it was as clear as the eye could see. he figured everyone, students and teachers and friends and enemies could all see it. that he needed charlotte as potently as he needed air. he wished she was here so strongly that it was lethal. he longed for her company, her talks, her laugh, and yet, he couldn't write her back.

the second letter came just days after the first. she asked how he was, if he had been keeping busy. he didn't reply to that, either. he was keeping busy though, or at least something like that. he devoted hours of his time to trying to recall the sound of her voice, talking to him, yelling at him, whispering to him. he had to strain his ears to make out even a smidgen of how she sounded. there was nothing quite like her voice, soft and sweet, but also loud and aggressive. she was his balance. whatever he needed in life, he was sure she had it, sure that if her ever found himself in need of something, that she would be the one to help him find it. he had an itching suspicion that he loved her beyond the bounds of mortality. that even in death, he would love her so viciously. it was unnerving.

she wrote him a third letter, a week later. she asked if he was okay, if something had happened. something had happened. he had realized her loved her so uncontrollably that he couldn't even bear to think about her smiling at the paper fondly, waiting excitedly for his reply. he was letting her down, he knew, but he figured it was better than the alternative. come hell or high waters, he would love her just as fanatically as he had from the start. he had started to think that nothing could change his love for her, nothing could shrink, effect, or belittle his feelings about her. it was dangerous and calming, an oxymoron if he'd ever seen one, but he payed little mind to it.

his days were long and boring. he went outside, sat by his pool, thought of charlotte. he ignored his friends, his housekeeper, anyone who took the time to owl him. he ate gourmet meals and lounged outside in designed bathing suits, but no amount of expensive things could cure the ache in his heart forming missing charlotte so dearly.

on the third week of summer, he decided to go out. it had been weeks since she wrote him last, and he was both thrilled and disappointed that she had given up. he got ready, wore his crisply ironed button down and slacks. he wondered if charlotte thought about him the way he did her. he got ready, his heart ached. it didn't make any sense, how this all happened. how he grew to love her. he knew the answer, of course. how could he have been her friend, learned so much about her, and not loved her. it was unavoidable, to him. he left his house, and apparated to his best friend, Blaise Zabini's house.