Break Free

Tonight

"Nick?" Charlie nudged him.

Once they had gotten home they both felt exhausted. Nick went straight to sleep and Charlie tried reading a book in her room. She got lonely after a short while and crept into his room and read on his floor while leaning against his bed.

"Nick?" Charlie nudged him again but harder. His phone had been going off for the last five minutes. Sarah was calling and Charlie was afraid to answer it.

"What? Is everything okay?" Nick frantically woke up and started looking around the room for danger.

"Sarah's calling you." Charlie handed him the buzzing phone.

"Hello?" Nick rubbed his eyes as he answered the call.

"You had me worried. I've called three times and you weren't answering." Sarah exclaimed.

"I was asleep." Nick climbed out of bed and sat next to Charlie.

"Well. How is she?" Sarah whispered.

Nick turned his head and saw Charlie reading her book. Her forehead was creased like it was when something was bothering her, but otherwise she seemed okay.

"Fine." He said flatly. He wasn't in the mood to talk to her, or any of them for that matter. They all knew Benjamin had tried to rape Charlie and they wanted to keep it a secret.

"I'm sorry about what happened." Sarah said meekly.

"No you're not. You hated her." Nick shook his head.

Charlie looked up at him from her book with a sad expression.

"I didn't hate her. Anyways, how are you?" Sarah brushed off his comment. She didn't hate Charlie. She just didn't like that she had the one thing Sarah couldn't get.

"Fine." Nick leaned his head back against his bed.

"You seemed pretty upset earlier. I just wanted to make sure that you were okay." Sarah was walking around her room.

"I'm fine. We're both fine." Nick looked at Charlie again. She was already looking at him. She knew Sarah wouldn't be calling just to check in on them.

"I have something to tell you." Sarah confessed.

"Great." Nick remembered that the last time she said that, it had practically ruined their friendship.

"I knew Benjamin liked Charlie."

"What?!" Nick almost jumped up from where he was sitting.

Charlie flinched away from him, dropping her book and losing her place in the story.

"I'm sorry." Nick quickly contained himself and apologized to Charlie.

"It's okay." She picked up her book and started looking through the pages. She tried not to think about how Benjamin had yelled at her, too.

"He would always try and be close to her, or check out what she was wearing. He never did it when you were around because he thought what we all thought." Sarah spoke quickly and quietly. If Abby knew what she was saying, she would lose it.

"You never thought to mention that?" Nick talked calmly now. He didn't want to scare Charlie.

"I didn't think anything of it. I was just mad that someone else liked Charlie. I mean, why did everyone have to like her and completely ignore me?" Sarah began to rant.

"Sarah. Stop. You should've said something. You should've told Abby. She's oblivious to a lot of things, but she would have listened to you." Nick ran a hand through his hair.

"We all should've done things or shouldn't have done things. It can't change what happened." Sarah got defensive.

"No. You just wanted to stop feeling guilty. That's why you told me." Nick was getting fed up with the conversation. "Maybe you should stop focusing on yourself and think about Charlie or Abby." He hung up.

Sarah stood frozen in her room. Had he really just told her to think about Charlie? She was just trying to be honest.

"It's all going to be okay." Charlie glanced up at Nick from her book. She heard most of the conversation.

"What if it isn't?" Nick's eyes searched her face for answers, even though he felt like he was supposed to have them all.

"Then it isn't." Charlie rested her head on his shoulder.

Nick wrapped his arms around her and they sat like that until Charlie fell asleep and he put her in bed.

Nick walked around his house quietly cleaning and finding things that needed to be fixed. He ordered a pizza and woke Charlie up when it arrived, and they ate and watched TV.

Charlie felt herself remembering a lot of the details from the day before that she desperately wanted to forget. She also had a lot of questions that all started with why.

Nick knew Charlie had a lot on her mind so he tried not to bother her so much. All he wanted to do was hold her and tell her that it was all going to be okay, but now he was afraid.

He did love her, but he was scared of what people would say.

Sarah would never talk to him again. Abby and Maya would agree that he's the reason Charlie got hurt. Maybe he had been so distracted by her that he hadn't noticed someone else was getting distracted by her too. Maybe he shouldn't have moved out. Maybe he should have told her sooner and they could have moved out together.

"Nick?" Charlie noticed Nick's mind was somewhere else.

"It's going to be okay." It felt good for him to say those words, even if he didn't believe them. How could anything be okay?

A/N: I hope everyone is enjoying their summer break. I know I am! Thanks for reading <3