Silas and Charlie

d a y - s e v e n t e e n

THE :

BEGINNING OF

REALIZATION

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"Whenever I see him, my heart throbs painfully in my chest - and it's all I can do to pretend I didn't even notice his existence." - Silas Blue

Charlie lays on his bed, staring up at the ceiling pathetically, breathing in and out, because he had virtually nothing better to do. It had been exactly four days since he had almost died, then kissed the girl he loved, and run away to top it off.

And now, he couldn't bring himself to go back to school and face her, because he wouldn't know what to ask, what to do, or what to say. His lips would hang open, thoughts rushing to his mind, but he would never be able to put them into words - he had never been good at eloquently expressing his feelings actually. That was why he had pretended to be sick for all of this time, not letting his mother come in and look at him because her profession would surely let her be able to expose his little fib.

He was scared, scared because he couldn't even understand himself, what Silas did to him.

Charlie had continued on rolling over in his sheets and moaning from inside a locked door. Silas had literally consumed his thoughts - he kept running over the way she looked that day, beautiful and catastrophic, trying to diligently to remember every little detail.

Charlie was sure that if he kept thinking of her in this way he really was going to make himself sick. His phone had been ringing off the hook, no doubt most of the messages were from Theo, in fact, he knew for certain they were. He'd checked for texts from Silas, and there were none, but even if he had gotten any, he wouldn't have had the guts to look at the message.

Charlie really didn't know when he was going back to school, but he was going to try and stretch it out for as long as possible before he had to see her face again. His phone rang again, and he groaned, pulling the bed sheets over his head, ignoring anyone who wanted to have contact with him, after waiting far too long, the call was ended without being put on his voicemail and he breathed out a sigh of relief.

Five minutes later he was still doing the same thing, except this time he had more or less accepted that he couldn't stop thinking about Silas. And had stopped trying to block his thoughts, which he was ninety percent sure that it would end horribly. He rolled over in his sheets, tugging them over his head - and just in time too, because right then, he heard his door creak open.

"Go away Mum," he muttered, making the tone of his voice scratchy while trying to sound as sick as possible, "I'm really not feeling too goo-" but he never finished. Because as soon as the syllables were out of his mouth, he felt a pair of hands, yank back the covers, grab a hold of his arm and throw him out of bed and onto the floor - immediately telling him that this was most definitely not his mother. His chest slams into the floorboards, and he lets out a strained wheeze, craning his neck to look up at his attacker. It was none other than Theo.

"I knew you weren't sick." He spat out, hands on both hips, before squatting down to Charlie's level and staring him in the face. Charlie groaned, releasing the muscles in his neck abruptly, causing his forehead to slam into the floor, and he let out a howl at his poorly calculated action.

"I am so sick," he whined into the floorboards, not bothering to look up in fear that his self-induced headache would increase. He could hear Theo let out a sigh of disbelief, "faker." This time, Charlie didn't even bother denying it, and he settled for giving his best friend a more childish form of the silent treatment.

"Seriously Care Bear, you haven't been to school in at least forever, and it's not like you to ditch. Don't even try to fool me because you're clearly not sick, you didn't manage to fool me so I have no idea how you fooled your own mother, but that's a question for another day. What I'm really wondering right now, is - what's got you so shaken, that you won't come to school?"