close your eyes and feel me

21

Note : I hope you are all doing well, that you and your loved one are staying safe. Before we get to reading, I need to say a few things. This chapter will be the last one for a while, I'm taking a short break. Its also the shortest chapter yet, with around 600 words...
I will take my time now to take care of both my physical and mental health and i will also take my free time to educate myself by reading and watching documentaries and i simply feel like writing this story isn't the thing i need to do right now. I know you were used to almost weekly updates and im sorry for the change, but it will be more of monthly updates from now on...

I am currently reading two books (one audiobook) : How to Start a Revolution by Lauren Duca and How to be antiracist by Ibram Kendi. Both are easy to read and to understand and both are affordable. I recommend them to you if you simply want to get educated a bit more about activism and the Black lives matter movement.

I hope you can understand my decisions.

Anyways, let's get to the reading!
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As soon as Eliza was gone, Sidney had to fight the urge to run right away to Charlotte. It would have been such a suspicious thing to do, already being found in another woman's arm the exact same day his engagement was broken up. Even before his family or hers heard the new. No. Sidney had done enough wrongs since Sanditon.
He would have to wait.

"What do you mean, Eliza Campion was here?" Nervously asked Susan.

Esther and Charlotte shared a meaningful look. It was a weird morning for Susan. First, Esther Babington was in her house, to see Charlotte! And second, earlier, Eliza Campion, the fiancée of Sidney Parker, was also in her house and to see none other than Charlotte. Last night, when she went to sleep, Charlotte only had her as a friend and now, two women already came to see her.
It wasn't even past noon yet!

"Something happened, last night." Began to explain Esther carefully.

"Sidney and I kissed" then bluntly said Charlotte.

She seemed to be now unfazed. Whatever what bound to happen, would happen. She had cried all night, she had begged Eliza to forgive her, but nothing would ever change what happened. She had to accept that this was her new reality.

"Oh, good lord" murmured Susan, exasperated. She knew about Sidney and Charlotte situation, but she had hoped that either it would eventually stop or that they would be a little more subtle about it.

Susan had hide a secret relationship with Catherine for the last decade now, and Sidney and Charlotte couldn't even hide it for a year.

"What did she want? Charlotte!" Asked Esther.

"She wanted... she wanted to know if it happened before."

"And what did you say?"

"I told her i would disappear from both their lives. Promise to stay away." Said Charlotte in a evasive voice.

"And what did she say?"

"That I was foolish."

"In that, she would be right." Thought Susan out loud. "Sorry, dear, but the two of you were incredibly careless."

Charlotte laughed lightly, but still looked absent.

"That, we were." She admitted.

Esther was now walking around the two women, thinking. She had come here with a plan, but it required Eliza's anger to be... more vibrant. She wanted to manipulate her, scare her even. But from what happened this morning, Eliza didn't seemed to have come here with revenge in mind. It appears that maybe Charlotte would not be in the type of trouble they were expecting her to be. It didn't bothered Esther, far from it, but she didn't know what to do now.

"Let's go inside, shall we?" Suggested Susan.

"I think we should, yes" said Esther. " Charlotte, are you alright?"

Charlotte turned around to face her two friends. She bit her lip and looked at them with a weak smile.

"It's over, isn't it?" She asked, but really, she knew the answer.

"Yes". Simply said Susan.

"I'll have to be with someone else, will I?"Charlotte was yet asking another already answered question.

In a gulp, oh so knowing what it feels like to not be able to be with the person you love, Esther and Susan both said at the same :

"Yes."

With a sad smile on her beautiful face, Charlotte went inside with the two ladies. As hard as it was, she knew that she would have to let her feelings for Sidney Parker go. It would take time, but eventually they would go away.

Or maybe they wouldn't. Nonetheless, Charlotte had now accepted her fate. She had fallen for a man with who she couldn't be. Thousands of women before her had gone through this and survived. Charlotte was no different. Her heart would be broken forever, yes, but it would eventually stop aching, hoping, dreaming of this impossible idea of being with Sidney Parker.

If the man she loved could sacrifice himself to save his family, then letting go of him was her own sacrifice.