Charlie invited Fern to his place so they could figure out how to make their "relationship" believeable,
They snuck in through the guest bathroom window and crept upstairs to Charlie's room. From there, they climbed out onto his balcony and up to the roof where there was a garden,
"Woah!" Fern ghasped
"This is awesome!"They whisper shouted.
"Thanks!" Charlie whisper shouted back.
"How do we start?" He asked
Fern gave him a blank look,
"Er, I don't know... would you be comfortable if I posted your face on social media?" They asked.
"Yeah, sure, whatever, but what are you planning to do?" Charlie answered.
Fern moved closer and held their phone out.
"Smile!" Fern said
Charlie smiled uncomfortably.
Fern took a bunch of pictures and looked through them,
"Charlie, I've seen you smile, and it looks much better than that. Don't smile for those random people, smile for me." Fern encouraged.
Yet again, they tried, and this time, Charlie did a much better job!
Suddenly, Fern kissed Charlie on the cheek. This took him by surprise, but he remembered it was just for the social media posts. Still, he went along with it. Later on, they went on talking, and the sun was setting quickly. Fern started to shiver from the cold, Charlie noticed this , "Hold on," he said to Fern. "I'll be right back." He climbed down the ladder back to his balcony and crept into his room, where he got a hoody that he would lend to Fern.
He went back up the ladder and gave the hood to Fern to wear.
"Oh, thank you," Fern said
Charlie couldn't help but laugh at how much bigger the hoodie was on them it slipped off their shoulder ever, so slightly, and the sleeves covered their arms and hands.
"You're so mean!" Fern laughed
"You look so small!" Charlie chuckled
"I AM SMALL!" Fern shouted
"In comparison to you anyway," They mumbled.
"What do you mean by that?" Charlie questioned indignantly
They both laughed their heads off uncontrollably.
Fern rested their head on Charlie's shoulder and quickly fell asleep, Charlie brought them to his room and tucked them into his bed, making sure they were comfortable.
He texted Fern's parents to let them know of the situation.
They were pretty alright with it, it seems.
A small girl with two plaits and a fringe, hair as black as Charlie's entered Charlie's room, she was around eleven years of age, Charlie turned round to look at her.
"What do you want, Claire?"
He asked mild irritation, setting in on him.
"Who's the sleeping person?"
She asked in response to his question
So Charlie responded with another question "Why does it matter? Also, lose the sly sing-song tone, Patrics, it doesn't do you any favors,"
She frowned and looked back up at him before replying with some confusion. "But aren't you a Patrics too?"
Charlie's body grew rigid, and his jaw clenched he gave her a stiff, cold look with his icy blue eyes that could freeze someone to death if he glared long enough,
"Claire, I am not a Patrics, and I never will be. I am a Miller end of."
He replied dangerously slowly his voice had an underlying rage to it as if he was about to throttle her, which he was if she kept going at this rate.
Clare looked at him unaffected. She held her hands up in surrender and left slowly, turning around and stomp-treading down the stairs.
He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. If Claire was home, that meant his mother and Mr Patrics would be there too, Mr Patrics was the abusive step-father you read about earlier, so Charlie was evidently stressed he shut his bedroom door and locked it then turned to Fern to make sure they were still asleep, Fern was in fact fast asleep and had started to lightly snore he found it somewhat endearing and a smile played at his lips.
He didn't stare too long and shifted his attention to the laptop where Fern had tagged him on their most recent post on Instagram, the thing with Instagram was the unspoken rule of letting people follow you and following them back even if you don't like these people and don't want them seeing your posts.
So both Charlie and Fern had a following of about Seventy people.
People had viewed this, and the post had gained 17 likes in the past hour, ther other unanimous rule with Instagram is that even if you don't like what the people in your grade post you still have to press the like button on Instagram to be nice.
"The fine art of being a fake ass bitch,"
Charlie thought to himself.
He liked the post, and on the pluss side, he actually liked Fern, too.
It was all in all a win-win situation.
He decided to comment, too:
Charlie_A-M: <3 ty for today I had fun. We should do this again sometime. :)
No one aside from Charlie, Fern,Fern's parents and Claire knew that Fern was actually sleeping over.
He fell asleep at his desk head thumping against the keyboard which let out a couple of angry "click click clack clicks" in protest meaning there was a drafted comment on the Instagram post which just read:
"Ci1mmks"
Which holds absolutely no significant meaning what so ever incase you were wandering.
After some hours Charlie woke up still at his computer the keys had imprinted on his forehead, and he decided to go outside, he climbed out of his window and up the ladder back to the roof terrace garden where the cool fresh night air hit him like a soothing wave he sat there for a while feet dangling over the edge looking up into the stars of the night sky, and smiled at how brightly they shone.
He needed the night air to fill up his lungs, to make him feel alive.
At this time Charlie always felt more alive and awake than ever. He snapped out of his constant tired state, almost forgetting the pain, but remembering Fern a star that shone brightest and a wonderful person.
