a sky full of stars - louis partridge

one last chance

CHARLOTTE
SATURDAY, NOV 18th 2020

When Louis arrived at the hospital he was surprised when he saw who was waiting outside charlotte's room. "What the fuck are you doing here." He shouted. "I..I just needed to know if she was alright, she is my daughter you know." Margaret voiced. "Alright? All fucking right? You did this to her! You monster."

They reached the front entrance of the hospital and Margaret shouldered through, holding the door open behind her. Louis didn't thank her.  They found a seat on a bench facing the main road outside of the hospital and sat there for a while, staring at the street across from them. After a moment, Margaret dug her cigarettes from the pocket of her jeans.  "Here," she said gruffly, passing him one. He took it. She lit up her own then gave him the lighter.  For a while they just sat there and smoked. It was fully dark out by then, and the light from the end of their cigarettes cast shadows across their faces. The road was busy and loud with cars, the sidewalks jammed with people.  "I've never seen her care about anyone the way she cares about you." Margaret rolled the cigarette between her fingers idly as she spoke. "Or maybe I just haven't been paying enough attention."  "You've been a shit mum," Louis said, the muscles in his jaw tight. "She'd probably be happy if it wasn't for you."  "I know," Margaret said simply,

She closed her eyes as she smoked.  "What happened right before you pushed her?" Louis asked. The look on his face cold as ice. He had never felt so heartless. "What did she do that was so bad that made you push her?"  Morgan sighed, blowing out a cloud of thick grey smoke. "Another fight. She came in on river and i talking, and found out the hard way that she was planning on running away to paris with my children." "We were fighting. River and I. Charlotte was sort of out of it. Everything just spiralled. River said some pretty harsh things to me, I said harsh things, lost it a bit. She was yelling at me to stop, and then i just didn't think, next thing i knew she was lying there."

Louis didn't know if he wanted to cry, or scream, or tear his hair out. All he could see was Charlotte, lying there on the floor, glass shattered everywhere.  He didn't so much as glance at Margaret. Just smoked, and stared out at the street. "Do you love her?" he asked.  She blanched. "What?"  "Do you love her?"  "I..what sort of question is that? Of course I do, she's my daughter."  "Stop fucking lying." Each word was quick and deep in his throat, filled with some hard urgency he didn't even know he possessed. "If you love her like you say you do, if you actually give a shit about her, then you will go and you will fucking fix yourself up. You'll quit smoking. Drinking. Drugs. You'll get help. Do you understand me?"  Margaret stared at him, one side of her face completely dark with shadow, and didn't speak.  "Everything you do," Louis said, shooting to his feet, "hurts her. Influences her. You're supposed to be her mother, not some deadbeat scumbag. So until you clean your fucking life up, don't you dare tell me you care about her." He'd had enough, he began to walk back towards the hospital, to be beside Charlotte again and away from this.  "You think I don't know who she is just as well as you do? You think I don't know what happened between you two" Margaret called after him. He stopped, but didn't turn. "She's so terrified of people hurting her that she only ends up hurting herself. She self-destructs. Do you know how many cigarettes she's been through in the past couple weeks, how much she's cried, you broke her heart, you've put her in more pain that i ever have." Louis whirled around, his eyes, his whole body, his mind and heart and soul blazing with fury. "Don't you dare," he spat. "Don't you dare fucking say that. I love her more than you ever could ."  "Bullshit. You're seventeen you don't know want love even is" Margaret stood up and sauntered towards him, her cigarette loose between her fingers. "

She was close enough that Louis could see the sadness in her eyes. "It never ends. I'm a train wreck, Louis, and she is too. The longer you go after her, the more you'll get hurt."  "I love her," Louis said. His anger had been stripped from him, and now all he had was pain.  "Yeah, kid, you might think that but you've alway fucked it up, she's never gonna forgive you." Now it was her turn to be sympathetic. "you're never gonna be happy going down a road like that, no matter how much you care. I don't want you to end up as broken as she is." She sighed and dug through her pockets, pulling out a crinkled, folded piece of paper.

Margaret took one last sharp inhale from her cigarette, then dropped it on the ground and stomped on it with one dirty shoe. And she left, walking away down the footpath in the opposite direction of the hospital. Louis stared after her until she was gone from sight. He wasn't sure what he felt whether he was confused or angry, whether he was full of hate or just full of sadness. Nothing made any sense to him anymore, everything that had once been ordered was now upside-down. A mess. This was all a mess.