"What do you want?" Charlotte asked quietly, crossing her arms and looking down.
"We know you told Lewis you wouldn't say anything," Emma started, and Rikki quickly finished her sentence.
"But we wanted to make sure."
"Yeah. I'm not gonna say anything. Why would I?" She said softly, rubbing her eyes tiredly.
"I don't know," Rikki said sarcastically. "Maybe because we beat you?"
Charlotte looked up slowly, her brown eyes starting to tear up, and she fought them back. "Is that what this is about? You wanted to gloat? You wanted to rub it in my face that I, what? Lost?"
"Charlotte, we didn't want to fight," Cleo tried to say, but Charlotte cut her off.
"Really? What's changed?" Charlotte bit out, her voice choking her, but she forced herself to continue. "What's different now, than when my mother and I had dinner at your house?" Cleo's eyes widened, but all she saw was her mother, being unknowingly attacked by the girl in front of her. "Did you think I didn't figure it out once I knew?"
Cleo bit her lip and looked away, and Emma stepped up. "Look, stop it, Charlotte-"
Charlotte rounded on the blonde, and every condescending thing she had ever said began to ring in her ears. Charlotte, you may think you know what you're doing… We know what you did, and we're not going to forget it… You should only use powers in private…
"Like you should have?" She asked, cocking her head. Emma looked confused and Charlotte let out a laugh that would've almost sounded mad if she weren't on the verge of tears. "Do you know a little boy named Tommy Ford?" She didn't bother waiting for a response. "I tutor him on Wednesdays. One day, I offer to take him out for ice cream, and he starts crying! Apparently, the last time he got ice cream was at the marine park at Lewis's stand, and his tongue was frozen to it!"
She no longer has her powers, and for the first time, Charlotte's grateful. She can't stop now, the words she's been holding inside for Lewis's sake are a flood. Emma starts to stammer, trying to come up with excuses, and Rikki steps in front of the two of them, her blue eyes dark.
"That's enough, Charlotte!" Rikki shouted, his arm extended. A moment or a week ago and it would've made Charlotte step back, but she's not doing it anymore. "Don't pretend you're completely innocent. If you hadn't tried to take Lewis from Cleo-"
If Charlotte wasn't angry before, she was apocalyptic now. "She. Dumped. Him!" She shouted, and the wind began to pick up around them. Rikki took a small step back. She had never seen that look in Charlotte's eyes, not even when she was under the influence of the full moon. "She said they were just friends!" She looked past the two blondes to the brunette hiding behind them. "Did you forget to tell them that I talked to you? To ask if it was a problem? And you said it wasn't?"
Cleo had the decency to look embarrassed, but too little, too late. It was clear that night that Cleo hadn't meant it when she said they were just friends. Charlotte had heard the hesitancy in her voice when she had said it, she just chose to ignore it. Was that her sin? Wanting someone to want her? Of course she did some bad things, in her heart she knew that, and she'd spend forever feeling guilty and hating herself for it. She didn't need them to remind her.
"He chose you, Cleo," she finished softly. "I meant nothing to him. Is that what you want to hear?" She looked back to Emma, and Rikki. Emma's mouth was open slightly in shock, and Rikki… she had expected Rikki to get physical when she started yelling, maybe knock her out because when did they ever want to hear what she had to say, but no. Now, she was looking at the ground.
Charlotte sat down on the bench behind her as she cried the few tears she still had left, her chest heaving as she tried to calm her rapidly beating heart.
"Charlotte?"
It was Cleo, her voice so soft that Charlotte nearly didn't hear her. She was almost tempted to ask her what she wanted. What could she possibly have to say now?
Nothing Charlotte wanted to hear, she knew that much.
"I'm not gonna tell anyone your secret," she says quietly, not looking at them. "You won. I lost, if that's what you want to hear. And I am truly sorry, from the bottom of my heart I wish I hadn't done what I did." She looked up, and she didn't care if she looked pathetic to them. She had said what she needed to say, she just had one thing left: "But more than anything, I truly wish I had never met any of you."
She knows that they probably feel the same way, but she doesn't want to hear it. There's been too much of how they feel, how they are. Did anyone care how she felt? How she felt all those times, abandoned and lied to? How it was a relief that the three of them were mermaids, because that meant Lewis wasn't cheating on her? Did anyone care how hurt she really was when they laughed at her over her fear of dolphins, or how she pretended to not be affected by the cutting remarks Rikki made not so subtly under her breath. She supposed it didn't matter how often Lewis asked her not to tell anyone they were hanging out, or how hard she tried to be enough for him, even though she'd never be her.
Without another look at them, Charlotte stood up and walked back to Max's house.