// GIRLS //

"I can't believe it." Grace said, shoving cereal into her mouth. She was sat across from me at the table. I told her everything that happened last night. I also found out that George spent the night here. But she was more concerned about my night than hers.

"I know I feel so bad. I feel sick, I can't believe I did this, I mean-"

"No Charlie stop. You have no reason to feel bad at all. Finn is a useless excuse of boyfriend, he deserved this. Payback for him. He did it first."

"So if you punched me I should punch you back and it's okay that I punched you back because you punched me first?"

"Hell fucking yes," I sighed.

I got up to go get ready to go meet Finn. I had no idea what I was going to do or say, I had no intentions of telling him. I mean the kiss with Matty meant nothing and I was happy with Finn. Yeah I was happy with Finn.

"Charlie I've been biting my tongue stopping myself from saying this but I think I need to. Finn is a disgusting human being and what he did to you was unforgivable-"

"I just did the exact same thing to him Grace, so that makes what I just did unforgivable,"

"No Charlotte. You didn't fuck someone two weeks after your girlfriends brother died."

It still stung, every single time. There was no ease to the pain. I looked at her as if she'd just slapped me. She couldn't forgive Finn for doing that and it wasn't even her who he did it too.

"Tommy wouldn't want you with someone like that. A sick bastard who screws around with another girl because his girlfriend wasn't giving him enough attention because her fucking brother had died and-"

"Stop Grace. Stop telling me what my brother would or wouldn't want, you don't have the right too." I waited for the tears to come, I waited but none fell. My eyes stung but no tears.

"No Charlotte do you know what I won't stop. I knew your brother for as long as I've known you. A pretty goddamn long time. Your brother gets killed by a drunk fucking driver and two weeks later, two fucking weeks later you find your so called 'boyfriend' in bed with some whore and within a week you forgive him. Do you know how fucked up that is? Do you know how messed up Finn must be to do that? And God knows how messed up you must be to forgive him and-"

"STOP GRACE JUST FUCKING STOP."

I waited for the tears to fall. I always waited for the tears to fall but they never did. I haven't cried since Tommy died. I cried for weeks afterwards, including when Finn cheated on me, and then I decided to never cry again. So I haven't. Not one tear. I wasn't even aware that I had shouted until Grace looked at me like I had just slapped her, like I was the one who just said all that stuff to her. It was like I had a wound that had been stitched up, that wound wasn't fully healed, it was being held together by these stitches because everyone knew that the wound would never truly be fully healed. Now Grace had just ripped those stitches out and didn't care how much it hurt. I stared at her and she stared right back at me. Not backing down. The silence between us was deafening.

"I'm going to meet Finn." I said turning my back to her and heading towards the door.

"Are you going to tell him?" I stood still in my tracks.

"No." I said so quietly it almost came out as a whisper.

"Why Charlie? Because your afraid he's going to finish with you? Well I fucking hope he does because he does not deserve 1 bit of you. Charlie, Tommy-"

"DON'T GRACE," I screamed. "Don't fucking say his name."

"Stop acting like he wasn't a real person Charlie, he was a real person and he was your goddamn brother and he was fucking amazing."

"And now he's dead. So it doesn't matter if he was a real person, or if he was my goddamn brother, or if he was amazing. He's fucking dead, so do you know what Grace? Fuck you."

I walked out the door before even giving her time to reply. I didn't care what she said anymore. I didn't care what anyone said. I walked out the building door and on to the streets and I threw up. Right by some bins. And I kept throwing up until my insides were empty. I sat on the pavement and I tried to cry, I tried so hard to cry. My eyes stung and everything hurt. My heart hurt the most. Every fucking day. My heart had a hole in it and I was stupid enough to think that Finn was going to fill it if I stayed with him, because no one could. The only person who actually could was dead. But still no tears. I got out my phone and called him.

"Hello?"

"Can you come pick me up? I'm outside my apartment."