Everlong

| Four: Charlie |

     It was four in the morning when my phone started ringing. I wasn't asleep—at least, not all the way. Just enough for the annoying shrill of my ringtone to bleed into my dream, leading to my mother pounding on the wall and waking me up in a haze of confusion.

     "Hello?" I mumbled, rubbing the sleep from my eyes. There was nothing but muffled shuffling on the other end. I looked at who rang, feeling my stomach drop. "Ellie? Is everything okay?" There was more shuffling, a door swinging open and shut. A long pause, then a sniff.

     I frowned. "Ells, what's wrong?" I ripped the covers off me, and slid my feet into my shoes, getting up to pace. "Ellie, please answer me. Are you okay? What happened?"

     "Nothing," she answered finally. It didn't soften my worry in the slightest. She sounded like she'd being crying.

     "I'm coming to get you," I told her.

      "Wait, no," she argued. "I shouldn't have called. It's so late, I'm sorry."

      "I don't care," I said, firmly. "I'm coming to get you. Wait there, okay?" Even though there was nowhere she could go. She already used up her three days at her dad's for the month.

     "I'm so sorry," she sobbed. "I'm sorry—"

     "It's fine, it's fine," I assured her, shrugging on a jacket. "Stay on the line, alright? I'm just telling my mum where I'm going." She made a noise that sounded like a yes, so I carefully slid my phone in my pocket and slipped down the hall.

     Mum was wide awake when I crept into her room. She looked worried. "Ellie again?"

     I nodded. "I'm going to pick her up, if that's alright."

     "Of course it is," she said. "Did...did she say why this time?"

      I shook my head. "I'm not going to push it."

      "Okay, honey," Mum nodded, nestling back into her bed. "Just...God, I don't know. Make sure she's not in trouble."

     "She wouldn't tell me if she was," I reminded her on my way out. I took out my phone, told Ellie I was coming, then hung up about five minutes of arguing later.

     I grabbed the car keys off the hook, and shuffled into the night. The winter chill was brutal without the sun out, so I hurried to my mum's SUV parked in the driveway. I cranked the heat, and pulled out on to the road.

     Ellie was waiting by her letterbox, her arms wrapped around her in a hopeless attempt to keep her warm. I turned up the AC. I opened the door for her, and she slipped wordlessly into the passenger seat, slightly turning her face away from mine.

     "Ellie...?"

     "Can we just drive?" She pleaded. "Sorry. I'm sorry. I just don't want to be here."

     I didn't reply, just started driving again. We drove in silence for a while, aside from Ellie's sniffling and uneven breathing. I didn't know what to do, I didn't know why she was so upset, but I knew I hated seeing her like this. I switched on our playlist. A ghost of a smile spread across her lips as that one Foo Fighters song started playing.

     Everlong was playing when we first met, years ago now. We were in art class, back when I thought I was capable of all that crazy shit Ellie manages to do with a paintbrush. She was sketching madly in a book, and I was staring into space, replaying the last game I lost over and over in my head.

     I caught her staring at me, and not in the weird way everyone else had been since I'd come out a few days prior. She was looking at me like I had something to offer her.