The Unexpected Answer

8- I'm Back

End of August

Charlie's POV

I walked off the plane, trudging slowly behind mom and Elliot. They giggled at something and looked back at me, amused.

"Come on, dear sister." Elliot said, smirking at me. "It wasn't that bad." Mom laughed at my pouting face.

"It wasn't that bad?" I asked mockingly. "Please, you guys weren't the ones with the wailing baby across the aisle from you and a fucking kid kicking you seat for half of the ride. I would say, it was pretty bad." Mom and Elliot laughed at me again and continued walking into the airport.

Dad came up to me, and pat me on the back. "It's alright. We all need a nap after that flight." Unfortunately for dad, he was my seat mate for the flight.

We all went through security and exited the airport. We waited for a taxi to arrive and then hopped in. Being back on US soil, I turned back on my internet and my phone proceeded to beep and vibrate with notifications. Among them was the was a series of texts from Eva about some hot guys she saw and some other messages from Michal about a guy he may like. 

But, what I noticed the most was there was no message from Collin.

Over the summer, I thought he would try to apologize, but there was no messages or calls. In all honesty, I had forgotten about him until now. 

As we arrived to our house, I could see Collin coming out of his house, followed by his mom. When his mom noticed our arrival she waved and started to make her way over to us. 

"Hi Clair! How are you?!" His mom said, giving my mom a hug.

"I'm good, Cindy." My mom said. We all started to move towards our house. Collin and I walked extra slowly, holding up the back of the group. As we walked, I glanced over at Collin, and saw that he was doing the same. We both looked away bashfully and continued to walk up the path. When we got to the porch steps, I let go of the bag to catch my breath before going up them. 

But, before I could pick up my suitcase again, Collin picked it up himself and walked it into the house, leaving me to gape at him. After a minute to collect my thoughts, I finally followed Collin into my house. My mother, Elliot and his mom were sitting in the living room talking and Collin was nowhere in sight. So, I made my way up the stairs and went into my room, where I instantly found Collin, sitting on my bed and my suitcase sitting next to him. When I came into the room, he looked up to me and stood up. We both stood there in silence, trying to figure out what to say to each other.

"So, umm. You back." Collin finally said. I nodded, mutely.

Again, we were plagued with silence. Finally Collin spoke up again.

"Look, Charlie. I'm really sorry." He said, and looked down, abashed. He looked back up at me. "I know I was an ass the last time we spoke, and I'm really sorry, okay."

"I would say I forgive you, but I want you to answer me one thing." I said. Collin nodded, enthusiastically and said, "Anything."

"Why the hell were you such an ass that time?" I asked him. To my question, he face fell and he looked down again. I could see the edges of his ears turning bright red, which made me smile a little.He sat down on my bed and I sat next to him. I nudged him, to respond to my question.

"Look, don't think of this wrong..." He trailed off, "But, I was a little jealous of Michael." A snort left my mouth and I tried to cover it with my hand. He weaved his hands through his hair and tugged at the strands. 

"I'm sorry, but that is just ridiculous." I said through my laughter. He groaned, lied back and rolled onto his side, curled into a ball. I lied back myself and when Collin finally uncurled from his ball, we both laid side by side, looking at the ceiling. 

"You were hanging out with him all the time." Collin finally said. I turned my head to look at him. "I thought he was making a move on you, so I backed off. I thought you might like him too." He said and turned his head. Now, we were looking at each other.

"I started to hang out with him because I thought you had something going on with his sister. I backed off so I wouldn't get in the way." I told him. We stared at each other for a moment before I looked back at the ceiling and laughing. Collin joined me and we laughed until it faded away.

"We are so fucking dumb." I said. "We could have just said something to each other and we wouldn't have been in that twist." Collin murmured in agreement. 

"Did I mention, I missed you?" Collin said again. We turned our heads to each other and I smiled, softly.

"I missed you." I missed you, too.

---

Hey there people! How's it going. I finally wrote some more of this. I'm sorry if anyone finds this short, but I didn't think that I should keep writing for this chapter. 

But, I can promise that I will write soon!

And hopefully I can develop this plot some more.

-flowerweb