Charlie Charlie

Three words

“Why don’t you love pizza? I love pizza personally, like, I could literally have it everyday and-Charlie?” He turned around only to not see her. “Charlie? Where’d you go?!” He turned back and forth, pushing his hair away from his eyes. His eyes flitted to the cemetery they had passed and he contemplated going for a second, but then ran anyway.

“Charlie? Are you there?” Stumbling around the weathered graves, he found her by a newer section of the cemetery. She was a few feet away from a grave, rocking back and forth. “Charlie!”

She snapped her head towards him, “Yeah?”

“Goodness Charlie, you can’t just run off like that! You scared the shit out of me!” He sat down beside her, panting from the search.

“Sorry,” she said and turned towards the grave again.

“It’s okay,” he took a deep breath. “So what’s this all about? Care to explain?”

“It’s my friend’s grave.”

“The one you who told to never change your name?”

“Yeah, that’s her.”

“Oh. What’s her name?” He placed his arm around her and she leaned in.

“Clara. We were best friends from kindergarten.” She smiled faintly at the memory. “Everyone used to tease me about my name and it didn’t help that I wasn’t a extreme girly girl with pink frilly frocks and plastic tiaras.”

He squeezed her shoulder but didn’t interrupt.

“But then Clara came along. She was all tough and scared the living hell out of the the boys in our grade. Everyone was scared of her. And she didn’t take the teasing kindly and stepped up for me” She wiped a stray tear. “And then when we first talked she said, ‘Don’t change your name, Charlie’ and I promised her I wouldn’t and I didn’t and we became friends after that.”

“I wish I’d gotten the chance to meet her,” he spoke quietly.

She shook her head sadly. “You would have loved her; she was fiercely loyal and her jokes were so lame that I hated them. But now I miss them so much.” She placed her head down and tried to force back the tears threatening to spill over.

“We always miss things when they are gone, don’t we?” he murmured.

Tears streamed down her face. “Did you know how she got killed?”

“No.”

“By a fucking drunk driver. That fool ended my best friend’s life and shattered her dreams. I wanted to kill him with my own bare hands.” She fisted her shirt in her hands.

He didn’t say anything, just rested his head on top of hers.

“I miss her so much,” she choked out.

“I know,” he whispered.

“No, you don’t!” She screamed, a sound so foreign in the dead quiet cemetery and pounded her hands on his chest.

“Shh, Charlie, it’s okay,” he spoke soothingly, trying to comfort her but she hiccuped and cried and the noise seemed deafening.

After a while she limpy fell to his side. All the energy gone from the crying; she seemed to be crying a lot lately and it always tired and exhausted her easily.

“Come on, let’s go,” he said and helped her up from the damp ground.

She sniffled. “I don’t want to go.”

“You’re going to get sick, lets go.”

~~~~~

He ended up carrying her to his home, since it was closer to the cemetery.

“Will you parents mind?” he asked as he tucked her in his bed. He’d asked his mum when he’d came in that if it was okay if Charlie could stay the night; she’d said yes softly.

“No,” she replied. He stood up, about to go on the sofa and sleep there for the night when Charlie pulled at his wrist. “Don’t go, please.”

He managed a feeble smile and layd down beside her. “Don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere.”

He turned to face her and saw tears glistening. He frowned. “What’s wrong?”

“Don’t ever forget me, Charlie. Promise me you will never forget me,” she said, her voice wobbly.

“Where’s this coming from?” he asked, grasping her hand.

“Just promise me, please,” she pleaded.

“I promise, Charlie, I promise that I will never ever forget you.” He placed a kiss on her forehead.

“Do you think I’ll have feelings after I die?” she asked.

“What Charlie? Please don’t talk like that!” He closed his eyes and exhaled; he couldn’t bear to think about her being gone. Why? Why did it have to be her? Why?

“I hope I do have feelings, because I want to miss you and remember you,” she said and traced his cheekbone.

“Just please don’t talk-”

“I love you, Charlie Anderson,” she said and soon after, shut her eyes tight.

She felt him cup her cheeks and lean in. “You don’t how long I’ve been waiting to hear that,” he whispered. And then, “I love you, too.”  

a/n: extremely sorry for the long wait! as i told you guys before, i was having a writers block with this but then today i forced myself to sit down and write something and this happened.

also, it's blatantly obvious that this story is cheesy and cliche, like, falling in love. there is also other stuff like flat characters and no charcter development. but i won't apologize bc this is my story and i can do whatever i want and also i want this novel to help me improve my writing (if it makes any sense??) 

bottom line is: if you don't like cliche and despise it or whatever, don't read this.