Title: How It Hurts
Summary: Charlotte tries to write an email. Some things you can't really explain.
Disclaimer: this one kinda blurs the lines for me.
Charlotte sat on her bed with her legs crossed and her laptop balancing perilously on her knees. On her night stand, there was a glass of red wine awaiting consumption. She pulled up Microsoft Word and let her fingers run over the keyboard. Where to start…
So I had this really weird dream last night. It's going to make me sound like a complete sap, but I had to write this email to give my subconscious a rest. It's funny how because of a stupid, pointless dream all these emotions come rushing back.
I'm graduating in May with a 3.8 (it would have been a 4.0, if it wasn't for my Medical Psychology professor who I swear had it in for me) and going to Oxford in the fall. I'm scared. I don't know what I want to do with my life and I wish you were here to talk about it. I know what I'm good at, but I don't know if that's what I want to do. I'm so tired of putting on a happy front when all I want to do is curl up in bed and be miserable. Lisa says you're pretty miserable. Maybe we could be miserable together.
All of the sudden, visions of what used to be swarmed across Charlotte's vision. It felt as though a weight was being pushed into her chest and she choked out a small, surprised cry. Sock puppets. Her father calling her and her mother "Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dumber." Candyland. His face lighting up the last time she stepped off the plane. The world freezing as she ran towards him and he picked her up and spun her around in a tight embrace.
She wasn't crying, but she felt dangerously close to losing her composure. With an unsteady hand, she took a sip of wine, then kept typing.
I've got a great apartment with my best friend, Anna. Mom hates her. You'd like her. She's got spunk. I think out of everything that I could potentially miss in the U.S., she would be what I miss the most. Our apartment has a different theme in every room. Our dining room is red, black and yellow with black and white pictures of Paris. Our bathroom is so pink, it makes me sick sometimes. Our living room is what Anna calls "College Chic" meaning we have mismatched sofas and the wall decorations are street signs we stole one night in a drunken stupor. (It's a really great story…)
I haven't really thought of you in the last few years. Maybe I feel a little guilty about that. Pain gets easier with time, so I don't know why I'm writing this. It's not making things any easier.
She stopped. His face was still there, laughing at her because she broke her wrist while watching a ping-pong match. The paddle had flown across the room and almost hit her face, but she had saved her nose by throwing up her hands. She could hear the jovial echo taunting her, "Only you."
So anyway, I hope things are going well for you. That's all I really wanted to say.
Charlotte looked at what she wrote and reached for her wine. She sat there for a few moments, not moving and not thinking. Years of pushing things aside and simply forgetting were starting to catch up with her. Memories shouldn't hurt. The pain of what she never had was more than she could bear. All of the sudden, tears started pouring down her cheeks.
She hit the delete button and erased the period. She hit it again and the "y" went away. Letter by letter, click by click, she slowly erased the entire email.