GREENE | CS55

43 - Making the Bed

Carlos gripped his phone tightly. The hard, cold, exposed aluminum edge of it prodded against the palm of his left hand, barking in protest, as his right hand gripped the railing beside him. The jagged shards of screen were new to the device, thanks to Carlos decidedly throwing his phone off the bed as a last-ditch resort to reign in control of the situation at hand.

He'd tried to call Pierce immediately.

None other than Caco, unable to let anything—  let alone this— wait until the morning light, was the first to break the news to Carlos over an uncharacteristically late call. It was a flurry of demands as the full moon boldened against the late-night sky, elongating itself in a distorted contour on Carlos' drawn curtain in his family's summer home, casting madness into the gentle hum of the Spanish breeze.

Caco wanted answers. Answers that Carlos didn't have, not when he could hardly make any sense of it himself. No answers beyond what should have been obvious. Laid out right there, in the photo that would haunt Pierce and Carlos forever, now. The photo that Caco had once known to be Carlos and nothing more than a one-off in Australia. The photo that, Carlos hated to admit, was now his downfall. Especially when he saw the image of him and Pierce together, and all he really felt was longing. Jealousy. Envy at the Carlos in that photo. Anger, that he couldn't have been more, done more, for the woman before him then.

Cursing the fact that the one reason they couldn't be those people was the reason they'd ever found each other in the first place.

All Carlos had were questions of his own. The only person on his mind, jogging across the pounding surface of his heart, was Pierce. Did she know? Has she seen? What was she making of all of this? Funny enough, Carlos could probably answer those questions for himself, knowing Pierce. And he'd laugh at the animation of her in his mind, so vivid, if he could look past the fact that this may very well ruin her. This was the one thing she was afraid of most.

And Carlos was part of that demise. The worst part of it all? He'd escape this one, eventually. Scot-free.

Pierce was right, about all of it.

Tossing and turning against his sheets, thankful for the solid frame keeping the bed from creaking around him, Carlos projected his silent fears across the length of his ceiling, effectively keeping him from sleep. Restlessness would win tonight. He thought about his keys to the Golf in the bowl downstairs, about tip-toeing around the loose floorboards and sneaking on a night drive. But that would only make him miss her more. Make him more likely to try and reach out again, when she clearly wanted nothing to do with him.

The least he could do was tuck his phone under multiple layers of pillows, and even that didn't last long. Caco made Carlos promise he'd let them handle this for now, before they put a plan together. That Carlos would get some sleep, that he wouldn't stay up all night. Most importantly, that Carlos wouldn't try to offer any sort of resolution himself. This could easily be damning enough without Carlos potentially making it worse.

Oddly enough, Caco mentioned nothing about whether Carlos should or shouldn't contact Pierce, seemingly content at leaving that matter up to Carlos.

Pierce hadn't answered earlier this week either, when Carlos picked up his phone after a seamless nights sleep (unlike the one he was currently having), blinking until he could believe the sight of her caller ID on his display was, in fact, real. That he wasn't dreaming.

Understandably, she didn't answer. What reason would she have to answer?

It might have been considered stupid, bone-headed, even mindless of him to immediately call her back without even clearing the sleep from his eyes. His thumb made quick work of swiping on the notification that seemed to laugh at the action itself. It was pure impulse. Muscle memory. He'd woken up so many times before to notifications from Pierce, that even just seeing her back there again under these circumstances brought him right back to that place.