this love • gracie abrams

015 close proximity

CHAPTER FIFTEEN
close proximity
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OVER the past few days, charlotte's been rotting away in her apartment, living like a vampire with every curtain drawn and sleeping whenever the hell she wants. turns out having a concussion has it perks; she didn't have to go run errands because matthew insisted he do it for her, instead of going to the gym she binged a show, and every time she forgot to answer a call from maya because she was too busy playing the last of us, she got to blame it on her faulty head.

but there were downsides that outweighed the perks. she was lonely as hell other than when matthew would pop in. she was too scared to drink for the time being so that sucked. she was missing a lot of filming for 'ginny & georgia' so she knows damn well she's gonna be working a fuck ton of extra hours in a short time span. and worst of all, she'd spend what felt like hours typing and re-typing replies to all the messages gracie has been sending. even the little ones like reminders of when she has to take her prescription were taking all her brain power to comfortably respond to. the harder ones were things like 'how're u feeling?' and 'do u need help with anything?' she knew if she replied with the truth saying she felt terrible that she'd be at her doorstep in a heartbeat, but she couldn't have that. and if she told her she didn't need help with anything she wondered if gracie would take it the wrong way, considering she already appears ashamed enough for all that's happened. it was a dice roll every time she hesitantly replied.

once her head felt stable enough for her to go back to work and slowly ease back into doing more energizing and heavy thought tasks, charlotte was like an energized bunny showing up to set with all her pent up animation she's had to keep on pause. when her cast members asked about how she got concussed, she gave an elaborate story about falling off of marcus' motorcycle without a helmet, which worked well. her nose wasn't that close to fully healing yet, so her makeup artist bombarded her with questions about how she managed to fall on the back and front of her head at the same time, so charlotte told her she couldn't remember (which was true in a sense). she'd come back from work the same as usual, craving a drink, but this time she'd have to do her best to steer away from it, just for a little longer until she's 100%. to keep herself going, she just kept reminding herself of how good it'll be to have as much as she wants afterwards and how refreshing the feeling will feel after so long.

sadie came by with caleb the other day to check in, and charlotte got to ramble on to sadie about gracie, just like before. she was telling her about how she fell asleep on her chest, how she stayed with her to take care of her that night and how she's been texting charlotte everyday without fail. to charlotte, it was terrifying in a sensational way, but to sadie it was the cutest thing she's ever heard and she couldn't not smile. it seemed the redhead just ignored the fact that charlotte's scared of what could happen because she knew things would play out well, but she never said that to charlotte's face because she knew she'd never trust it. she'd let charlotte get fed up with how sadie would laugh at her getting stress out about gracie, and then just shake her head and say 'whatever you say charlie.'

with all of that in mind, charlotte was ready to loosen up at the event the hadid's were hosting. charlotte thoroughly read the invite this time and discovered it's for a line they're doing with chanel, so it was a less of a shock now that she was invited considering she's collaborated with chanel before. she told her stylist to go with whatever when on the phone with them cause her headache was too unbearable to converse with, so when the chosen outfit arrived she was nervous until she opened and saw it. the top was white and the black skirt laid with buttons was small to show off her stockings and glimmering heels. her soft and snug jacket was black with white lining all over it and went perfect with the small black purse. it was stunning in it's all chanel glory, but what caught her off guard was the black ribbon for her hair to be tied into a bow. she chewed into her lip and caught herself grinning at it, quickly wiping the look off her face and trying to ignore how overly adoring it made her feel. when she's ready and standing in front of her mirror, she does a slow turn to see the ribbon in her hair, holding a good portion hair just slightly up while the majority is down. she doesn't realize she's picking up her phone and about to text a picture of her hair to gracie until she clicks onto messages and freezes, instantly dropping her phone as fear consumes her.