I Can Hear Your Strength (A Heartstopper FanFic -- BOOK 3)

13. Clarity

Even as Charlie hurtled back to the storage cupboard, he knew Felicity would be gone. His heart thundered against his ribcage as he darted inside. With the door firmly closed, he let out a mingled cry — of anger, fear — into the small, dimly lit space. He let his knees give out from under him and slid down the door onto the floor, arms around his legs.

His breath caught and suddenly, his whole body was wracked with sobs, muffled only by the thick layer of dust coating the shelves around him. Only a few tears fell to dampen his cheeks, but he could hardly breathe.

He wanted to shout and yell and scream for the world to stop doing this to them — but he knew the world didn't work like that. Maybe this was how their happiness was to be punished. Hadn't he always wondered what on earth he had done to deserve someone as amazing as Nick? Maybe this was the universe's price for perfection?

Charlie didn't know how long he remained there, but he knew being walked in on was highly unlikely. Gradually, his sobs died down into quiet tears. Then back into not-so-quiet tears for a bit. Eventually, he fell back into that familiar, foggy pit of dread. His mind tried to block everything out — but in doing so, turned off all the sound.

Not that it really mattered right now. He had no one to talk to anyway.

And then, behind his closed eyelids, the image of Nick collapsing, his face so pale and so pained, flickered unbidden through the fog.

Stupid. Why hadn't he done anything sooner? He should have been more assertive about encouraging Nick to go home.

But no. If he had gone home, and the same thing happened — Charlie would not have known. He would never have gotten the cure to him in time.

Still, if Charlie had been just a little bit smarter, he would have put two and two together a lot quicker. He should have been smarter, but he had just wanted, for once, something to happen to Nick as normal and mundane as the common flu.

The bell signalling the end of lunch rang overhead. Charlie did not move.

Five minutes passed in the blink of an eye. The bell for the start of fourth period rang and still, Charlie did not get up from the floor.

Before he could register what he was doing, his phone was in his hand and he had typed out 'how are you feeling?' His thumb hovered over the send button.

No. He couldn't. If he was going to keep Nick safe then he needed to cut all ties. Including texting. He didn't know Felicity's limits but he didn't think they excluded cyberstalking.

Charlie clutched his phone in a trembling hand and curled in on himself once again.

How was he meant to end the best thing that had ever happened to him? How was he meant to break Nick's heart? Did Felicity not understand how intrinsically linked their hearts were? How much this would break Charlie's heart, too?

She probably did, to be honest, Charlie thought bleakly. Why else would she be making him do this, if not to destroy them from the inside out? Why exactly she felt the need to do this... Charlie could only assume she was working for someone in the same pocket as Vincent Fletcher, Mr H and Ryan Kane.

But Charlie would rather never see Nick again than watch him die.

With a final desperate scrub at his swollen, blotchy cheeks, Charlie peeled himself up from the cupboard floor and headed out into the corridor, just in time for fifth period.

"I was helping my boyfriend," he told his teacher when he arrived at his Science classroom, and was questioned on why he'd missed fourth period. "He was ill during lunch."