[Trigger Warning: mentions of depression/suicide]
The whole thing was strange. It hurt. Everywhere. Charlotte's chest constricted and her head started to pound as she heard a polite cough from behind her. She twisted on her stool and she hated how she could see her Mother clearly in the light of the Cafe, it being so much brighter than the darkness of a few days previous. She looked exactly how Charlotte remembered, except her skin had aged and her hair had traces of grey that had obviously been dyed over in a dirty blonde colour.
"Hi, um-- sorry. I'll move up." Charlotte murmured despite the lump in her throat. She slid onto the stall next to her and let her Mum sit down.
"Sorry it's so early." Charlotte apologized and she didn't know why she kept saying sorry.
"No problem." Charlotte's Mum offered a thin smile, obviously not paying much attention as she tried to not make it obvious as she looked at her daughter.
"I'm doing this so you'll leave." Charlotte turned back to the big window, taking her second mug of coffee in her hands.
She felt her Mum pull back a bit, playing with the multiple rings on her fingers and Charlotte didn't feel that strong anymore.
"Just let me know you Charlotte, please." Her Mother's voice was a faint whisper, like it would be a terrible thing if someone overheard. Charlotte's throat tightened and she concentrated on a toddler crying as he hung off the arm of a young Mother - or his older sister, Charlotte didn't know.
"Please Charlotte. I just want to know you."
Charlotte felt burning behind her eyelids and this sudden want she'd kept at the back of her head since she was fourteen, bloomed in every muscle in her body.
Just as Charlotte's Mum went to reach out for her, she turned to look at her and pulled away slightly.
"You want to know me? Well let's start right here. Sometimes I sit here and sometimes I look at people. I look at all these strangers walking past and wonder if they know each other."
A slight twitch of her Mum's lips told her that she'd probably done the wrong thing. She just gave an indication that she was giving her what she wants.
"Sometimes I look at people and make myself try and feel them as more than just a random person walking by. I imagine how deeply they've fallen in love, or how much heartbreak they've all been through." Charlotte's concerntration was back on the road outside. Shops lined the far side, with many people knocking into each other and they went passed them.
Neither of them said anything for a while and Charlotte was sure her Mother was looking out the window too. Like she was trying to do and feel the same as Charlotte was.
"And how about you?" Her Mother asked eventually, still looking out the window.
"What about me?" Charlotte questioned monotone, fixed on a bleached-blonde man with a scruffy beard. He was wearing a tank top and shorts even though it wasn't warm outside today.
"Love?" Charlotte's Mum asked and it made Charlotte cringe back into her chair. She hated the word truly, it made her skin goose bump but it also made a montage of the person who was love personified flicker in her mind and she didn't really know if the word was that terrible anymore.
It was probably the wrong time to shy away and smile foolishly to herself, picking at her nails with a burning piece of paper in her pocket.
its okay to be a little selfish with your love
"Yeah." Charlotte breathed, almost inaudibly. "I'm in love." It felt so good to say it.
"Who with?" Charlotte asked and she could hear the smile on her Mother's face even though she wasn't looking.
YOU ARE READING
abyss ↣ joe sugg au
Hayran Kurgujoe sugg had never been good at math. in fact, it was seven years after he'd left school that he found out two halves make a whole definition of abyss; the regions of hell conceived of as a bottomless pit Trigger Warning: mentions of suicide/depress...