Tiaras & Razorblades

Chapter Four

"What!?" Azure screamed, jumping up from the bed. "What do you mean, he's gone missing?"

"He didn't go home with Almira, and the police found his jacket and his shoes by the beach." Caresa wiped a tear from her eyes. Charlie had always been one of her favourite people in the world. He was so much kinder and a lot more considerate than her daughter. He visited so often, it almost seemed as if Charlie was her own son.

Azure wasn't quite sure how to react. She felt her knees go weak as the world around her began to spin. She didn't want to let herself feel bad about this. Charlie was happy with Almira, from what she had seen the previous night. She had danced with him, and he had been kind to her in return, although she couldn't help but think it was all some kind of act. Pity the poor, strange girl with no friends and a bad taste in clothes, she could imagine him thinking.

"He can't be gone..." She whispered, feeling salty tears begin to well up in her eyes. "Mum, do the police have any idea where he is?" She spun to face her mother with an almost mad look in her eyes. She needed Charlie's company like she needed air; without him her world seemed to be a much duller, more depressing place.

"I'm afraid they don't, darling... They did find some footprints in the sand, but they disappeared after a while." Caresa held her breath and tried not to let herself break down and cry in front of her daughter. Her daughter, however, was almost completely hysterical.

"You don't think he's..." She gulped, trying to swallow the bile she could feel rising in her throat.

"No... I'm sure he's alive, but I don't think we have any way of knowing until he's found." Caresa rose from the bed and excused herself from the room, unable to stand being with her daughter any longer.

As soon as the door slammed shut with a sense of finality, Azure buried her head into her pillow and screamed until her throat was raw and burned like fire. Her heart was pounding heavily in her chest, and her head felt as if it weighed a tonne.

"I want to be loved. I want to be loved. I want to be loved." She whispered over and over as her world began to unravel around her. She sighed, shutting her eyes tightly, and trying to picture herself with Charlie. She knew all too well how badly they fit together. He, a tall, tanned, blonde haired, handsome man with endless confidence and sparkling humour seemed like an angel compared to the petite, pale, dark haired, average looking girl beside him, peeking shyly at the world through a veil of hair with a sorrowful expression.

She still lay on her bed in despair when, thirty minutes later, her phone began to ring. She had no intention to answer, although whoever was calling seemed insistent they wanted to talk to her. She groaned and grabbed her mobile from the dresser, glancing at the caller ID until it finally sank in who was trying to call her.

In a flash, she was sitting up in bed, her palms sweating, her head spinning. She took in a deep breath, trying to control the nausea that swept through her body. Shakily, she accepted the call and pressed the phone up to her ear.

"Azure... It's me. I just want you to know that I'm safe." The voice was an instant relief, soothing the pain that had been building in her stomach for the last half hour. She smiled to herself.

"Charlie! Charlie, what's going on? Where are you?" Azure said, grinning, despite the tears falling down her face, and the worry that seemed to settle around her heart. "Everybody thinks that you're missing!"

"They do? Shit... It wasn't meant to be like this. Can I meet up with you?" Charlie's voice was hoarse, and more than anything he sounded lonely.

"Sure! Whereabouts have you been hiding?" Azure said, trying to think of all the possible places he could be hiding from the world.

"You know along the beach, there's that abandoned old house in front of the woods? I'm hiding in there. Just... Please, be there. I need to talk to you." He sounded desperate. As Charlie hung up, Azure leapt out of bed and got hurriedly dressed in her usual attire of skinny jeans, a hoodie, and Doc Martens.

"Where are you going?" Caresa asked her daughter, as she crept through the hallway of the palace hoping not to be caught. Azure cursed and turned to face her mother.

"I'm just going for a walk. After what happened with Charlie, I need some fresh air more than anything." She ignored her mother's disapproving looks and opened the palace doors wide. She took in a deep breath of the salty sea air, before smiling sadly at her mother and jogging towards the beach.

She could see the old house on the edge of the horizon, a small dark speck among the vast, leafy expanse behind it and the golden sands stretching far in front of it. She carried on at a quick pace towards the disused shack, a fake sad expression on her face. Azure was so lost in her own little world that she failed to notice the woman following closely behind her.