a sky full of stars - louis partridge

loneliness

CHARLOTTE
FRIDAY, NOV 10th, 2020

School for Charlotte had never felt longer. The end of the school year seemed to be getting closer and closer, which meant the teachers were getting stricter, the work was getting harder and the students were more stressed.  And Charlotte was so fucking tired. She had spent the whole weekend with Louis but it was now Friday again and Louis hadn't been at school all week. She didn't know if it was her fault or if something had happened to him but she was worried. She walked to his house to see if he was home yesterday but when the door opened it wasn't Louis. It was some old man, that looked like he hadn't shaved in months and reeked of alcohol. Louis had once told her he only lived with his father, so she figured it was him. she asked the man if Louis was home but he did nothing but slam the door right back in her face. So now she was all alone, wondering what she did wrong and why he was ignoring her. School to Charlotte was becoming bland and as smart as she was she began to stop having the motivation to go.

She had just got home, dropping her bag and taking off her shoes at the front door, and started to walk towards her bedroom when Margarets voice stopped her. "Charlotte? Come here." she said with her arms crossed over her chest, Charlotte walked in, standing on the opposite side of the room as far away from Margaret as possible. "How was school?" Margaret asked. She had a cigarette between two fingers, and her hair up in a messy bun.  "Suddenly decided you care?" Charlotte asked, as she walked over to the TV. Margaret shrugged. "Just making conversation." She watched as Charlotte turned on the TV and browsed through the channels. A grin appeared across Margaret's face. "Wow, someone's in a shitty mood," she commented, blowing out a cloud of grey smoke. "Come on, tell Mummy what's wrong."  Charlotte snorted. "I hope you're joking."  "Of course I'm fucking joking." Margaret eyed Charlotte for a second, then held up the box of cigarettes sitting in front of her on the counter. "Want one?"  "So you can laugh at me with Tracey like you did when I was thirteen?" Charlotte said dryly. She had never quite forgiven Margaret for offering her a cigarette as a joke a few years back. "I'll pass." Charlotte continued Margaret looked down and shrugged."Your choice," she said. "Just looked like you needed it."  "Thanks for the consideration," Charlotte muttered, then started to head upstairs. Margaret didn't stop her. 
After the explosive fight they'd had last week things had pretty much gone back to normal.

Eli was staying the night at Madi's little brothers house again, and River had texted Charlotte to tell her he was out with friends. Charlotte threw herself down onto her bed and lay there for a while, staring blankly at the ceiling. There was a lot of homework she needed to do, but she really had no motivation to do it.

She didn't want to do anything except sleep and sleep and never wake up, and not think about Louis. Eventually Charlotte forced herself to grab the book she was studying for English. She had meant to read it two months ago but had given up after eighty long and boring pages, and had been relying her notes to get her through her classes. This was weird considering Charlotte's favourite thing in the world to do was reading, but she just couldn't be bothered.

Her lack of study was starting to catch up with her, though. she had tried her best this year to get good grades so she would have a chance at being accepted into a fashion school, far away from London, away from Margaret where she could study what she loved and follow her own path, instead of having her miserable bitch of a mother, ruining every second of her life. She opened the book and tried to start it again, from the very first page.

Charlotte groaned loudly and rolled over to switch on her lamp. She hadn't made it ten pages through the book before falling asleep, and now page fifteen lay crumpled and injured where rested her face against it. "Fuck," she muttered, as she tried to smooth out the creases. There was a small, rectangular box on her bed side table that she hadn't noticed before and a scratched old lighter. She pushed it into the top draw and turned back around facing her window and slowly drifted off to sleep.