Saving the Reject | Michael Clifford | Editing

t h i r t y f i v e ;

| s y d n e y |

"You gotta talk to him, Charli."

Charli shrugged her shoulders in a taut manner, her arms crossed over her chest, her hands soothing the goose bumps on her arms. Her shoulders were hunched, and her voice was kept low; she was anxious. "Why can't you talk to him?"

Michael sighed, tired of the weird atmosphere that has been in his house since the weekend prior. "Three reasons: I need to take a shower, you know that," he held up his index finger to his girlfriend, stopping her from telling him, you can just do it when you get out of the shower, "second, I've tried talking to him all week, and he's been very passive with me; and lastly, I honestly don't completely understand what's going on. Whatever you said to him really put him off, Charli," he asserted. "You have to fix this."

"I don't think he'll listen to me," Charli quavered, stepping closer to Michael so she didn't have to talk too loudly. The two of them stood in the hallway, directly outside Luke's room, and while Charli was trying her best to make it hard for Luke to ease drop on their conversation about him, Michael either didn't realize what Charli was trying to do, or he didn't care. "I wouldn't be surprised if he hates me now."

"Luke doesn't hate you, Charli. He considers you a good friend, like all my friends do." While still deep in self doubt, Charli couldn't deny the eulogistic feeling she felt at the conformation of her acceptance among her boyfriend's friends. Michael took a step forward, closing the distance between them to lightly kiss Charli's forehead. "We'll leave as soon as I get out of the shower, okay?"

She gently nodded, staying in place as Michael turned around and walked into the bathroom at the end of the hall. He made sure to send her one last reassuring smile, before closing the door between them, trusting that Charli will talk to his distressed best friend. Meanwhile, Charli was giving herself a headache thinking about all the possible outcomes of both talking and not talking to Luke. None of them were very pleasant, but she knew she had to let the thoughts go. She caused this, now she needed to fix this.

Knocking twice on the door, Charli restlessly waited, but at no answer, she began to feel as if Michael was wrong, that maybe Luke didn't like her. "Luke?" she gently dared, prepared to apologize through the door, but she didn't need to.

"Hi, Charli," Luke answered quietly, opening the door for her. His eyes, while normally bright and lively, were dark, sullen, tired; immediately, Charli began to feel more and more remorseful. Causing her own disheartenment, she could handle; stuff like this, though, was extremely difficult for her. "You need anything?"

"No," she answered out of habit, but quickly shook her head as Luke raised an eyebrow. "Yes - um, I-I need to talk to you."

For a moment, Luke said nothing, looking at the ginger before him as if she would go back on what she had said. As each second passed, Charli became more and more worrisome, but she held her ground, and eventually, Luke caved in. "All right," he sighed, opening the door wide enough to let her in, and closing it behind the both of them.

Charli wasn't bothered by the darkness of Luke's small room, nor did it faze her that Luke had closed the door like it had been before - she didn't even seem to mind that the only place to sit was Luke's bed, and that the two of them sat there together. It was Luke, after all. He was 'in love' with her best friend, and she was dating his best friend. There was nothing to worry about.

"I just wanna," Charli started awkwardly. "I just wanted to - um - apologize for yelling at you the other day." Luke stayed silent, not even looking up at her. Maybe I should have approached it differently, thought Charli. "I just - You gotta see where I'm coming from, here, Luke. Scarlett has been one of my best friends for years, through some of the worst times of my life. There aren't many people that've stayed with me as long as she and Evie have. I've helped her though stuff with her dad, which is something that she kept from me for a while. It didn't bother me as much then because she was never in physical danger, but with this, she is. Here I was, thinking she was having the time of her life in Italy, and hearing that this has been going on - it just hit me, I guess. And I really don't mean to hurt you when I say this, but I think, with you having had the information of her being abused, you should've told someone. Just think of - "