English Channel

Vingt-et-un

[THE ISLAND IN THE ENGLISH CHANNEL]

"Hey Chris" Lou said before hugging the shorter man who was picking her up from the airport. "Thank you for picking me up"

"Hey Lou, I'm gonna be completely honest with you, at first I thought it was a terrible idea for you to come here. But from what I heard from his parents, they are pretty worried so I think it cannot get worse if you're here" explained Chris.

"Do they know I'm coming ?" wondered the French girl.

"Yes, I told them. They asked me if I knew why Arthur was locked in his room and I told them about the pictures and everything that happened. They are waiting for you actually, despite what's going on they seemed pretty excited to meet you" he lightly smiled. "His mum even joked that you are the first girl he's bringing home". 

Weirdly enough, it reassured Lou that Arthur's parents didn't seem to hate her before even meeting her. She knew for a fact the situation was weird and surely it was complicated for them to handle all of it without truly knowing the extent of what happened, and she couldn't help but feel sorry for putting all of that on them. 

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After meeting Arthur's parents, Lou followed them to his bedroom door before they wished her good luck and left the hallway for her to deal with it. She lightly knocked on the door. She waited a few seconds to see if there were any movement in the room but nothing happened so she tried again.

"I don't want to see anyone" his voice was cold.

The French woman didn't really know what to answer. Truthfully, she had written him a letter she was planning on sending him but instead, she decided to come to Jersey without a plan. Lou started to regret coming here. It was a bad idea. He definitely needed some time and her being here would make things even more difficult.

Lou thought about the letter she had written. It was everything she wanted to tell him over the phone or in real life. Writing down her thoughts and feelings had always been easier for Lou rather than speaking. So, since she didn't know how to start the conversation from behind his door, she grabbed the letter from her bag and slid it under the door without even saying she was the one to knock on his door.

She heard his footsteps making their way to grab the letter and quickly walked back further into the room. 

Dear Arthur,

It has now been six days that I haven't been able to contact you. It has been six long days since I've been trying for us to talk about all the shit that happened so quickly that we didn't even have time to process any of it. So I decided to write you this letter that I'm still unsure you'll ever receive.

This entire situation is creepy, scary and definitely not what any of us wanted at the beginning of our relationship. And I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I couldn't prevent it from happening. I should have been more careful.

Your reaction is totally understandable. I know this is your first real relationship and the fact that it's out in the world so soon is definitely preventing you from enjoying it without the whole world looking at you. And the fact that you needed some time off is something that I'll always respect.

But I have been so afraid of losing you that I have been contacting everyone to at least know you're safe. I just wish you don't go through all that by yourself.

I don't know what will happen, and I cannot promise that nothing like this will ever happen again. Sadly, this is also a part of our jobs, but mostly a part of my job.