𝐀𝐑𝐂𝐀𝐃𝐄 ~ | 𝘊𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘭𝘦𝘴 𝘓𝘦𝘤𝘭𝘦𝘳𝘤

XIII

Chapter Thirteen:

~ Suck it, Twilight ~

I had never really understood why people liked the night. The way it swallowed up everything around you, the way it made the world feel so empty and quiet.

But then there were those moments, those rare and fleeting instants, when the sky would turn into a canvas of velvet and the stars would light it up like a million tiny candles. And in that moment, the night would become something else entirely. Something beautiful, something deep.

Tonight had been one of those nights.

I always hated the night because of the shadows. I always felt as if someone was watching me, lurking in the darkness.

I wasn't sure what it was about tonight, but I felt safe. I felt... alive. Maybe it was just me. Maybe it was the company...

Never mind.

That's stupid.

This is Charles we're talking about!

This was the man who had promised to be my 'hell'. The man who had set back my career 2 years. The man who was a constant pain in my ass.

But tonight he had just seemed so... genuine. I couldn't help but wonder if there was more to him than I had given him credit for. 

Or maybe it was just my imagination, my need to find something, anything, redeeming in him.

Or perhaps... perhaps it was the way he looked at me. There was something in his eyes, something that made me feel as if he truly understood me, as if he saw right through all the walls I had built around myself.

I was scared.

Scared that I was making it all up. That I was fooling myself into believing there was more to him than there really was. That I was somehow deluding myself into thinking he wasn't the same arrogant, self-absorbed asshole he had always been.

But I couldn't shake the feeling. The way he had looked at me, the way he had smiled, the way he had made me feel... it was all too real.

Too real.

That was the problem. I didn't trust him. Maybe he was being sincere. Maybe there was more to him than I had given him credit for.

But maybe there wasn't. Maybe he was just playing me again, using his charm and his words to manipulate me into believing he was someone different. Maybe this was all just another game to him. Another twisted little game he liked to play with people's heads.

I couldn't shake the feeling that if I let my guard down for even a moment, he would take advantage of it. He would find some way to hurt me again, some way to make my life even more of a living hell than it already was.

And yet... I couldn't help but wonder what it would be like to trust him. To really trust him. To be able to jump and know that he would catch me.

I wanted so badly to trust him.

I wanted to believe that perhaps, just perhaps, he had finally changed. That maybe he had seen the error of his ways and was genuinely trying to make amends. But then again, maybe I was just being stupid.

He scared me sometimes.

Not in the way that most people would probably think, though. I wasn't scared when he would yell, when he would look at you with those cold, dead eyes. No, the things that truly scared me were the moments when he was quiet.