this love • gracie abrams

030 i'll hold you

CHAPTER THIRTY
i'll hold you
•

"SON of a bitch," charlotte curses, sucking the blood off the small cut on her finger. she raises her head as she exits the bathroom and freezes, finger still in her mouth.

gracie just stared at her as charlotte slowly pulled her finger out of her mouth with a popping sound, "you're here," the singer softly said.

charlotte nodded and cleared her throat, nervously tapping her fingers against the doorframe and getting specs of blood on it. she was in the bathroom just now attempting to fix the pipe under the sink since she noticed the water was coming out in fractions, only to end up slicing her finger on a screw in the process. obviously she knew she doesn't know jack shit about fixing pipes but she was doing anything at that point to keep herself focused on other things until gracie got here so she wouldn't be an anxious wreck. but now she is just standing here and all the cool she was building up was simmering down.

"mhm," charlotte nodded.

gracie had her arms tightly wrapped around herself. she looking around at the room again, "um you decorated?"

"no. or— no yeah, yeah i meant... yeah," she finished with a sigh.

gracie stared at the bed, "it's cute," she said above the suffocating tension.

charlotte chewed into her lip, rocking back and forth on her heels, "i um..."

"you're bleeding," gracie blurted out, staring at charlotte's finger with a concerned raised brow.

charlotte, slack jawed, sputtered for a way to disregard that and get back to what's burning her alive, "i want—"

"what happened, let me see," gracie strode up to charlotte and delicately took her hand to further examine the cut.

"gracie—"

"here, i'll go find you a bandaid—"

"no, gracie, stop just stop," charlotte anxiously spoke, getting impatient and gripping her hand on gracie's arm when she was about to turn away.

there was a long beat of silence, the two just staring at each other's burnt out faces in the small, dimly lit space.

"i'm sorry."

gracie slowly recoiled out of her touch, eyes still stuck to the ground while charlotte's were staring right at her. charlotte wanted to touch her, but held back from it and just fiddled with her own hands.

"gracie i'm so... so fucking sorry."

gracie just slowly nodded, still looking away, biting her bottom lip to keep it from pulling into a frown.

"can you look at me? please?" charlotte softly pleaded.

gracie hesitated before locking eyes with her.

"i'm sorry, gracie. for leaving you, for ignoring you all day for— for just being a shit girlfriend, i—" charlotte had glossy eyes and was running her nail into the cut of her finger to further feel the guilt consuming her. "i'm so sorry."

gracie's lip trembled, looking away again for a brief moment as tears started to pool her eyes. while she couldn't be more realized to hear charlotte say that and be standing in front of her, she's still fucking hurt and just nodding along to charlotte's apologies wasn't enough for her, she was drowning. she needed to express just how fucking hurt she was over it all before even hearing charlotte out or else having this conversation won't even be healing at all.

"i—" she took a shaking breath and winced, looking down, "charlotte i really needed you." she broke into tears, head hung while charlotte stood glued to the ground.