Broken Truth (20 page)

Holding onto her heels, Charlie walked along the corridor towards the hotel room that she was sharing with both Amelia and Lucy. Sliding her key card into the door, she turned the handle as the light flashed green permitting her entrance.

Dropping her shoes to the floor with a loud clatter, Charlie closed the door behind her. Leaning against the wood, she slid her body down towards the floor.

“Oh fuck!” Amelia shouted from her seat at the kitchen bar. “Lucy, I need you quickly,” she called as she hopped from her seat and rushed towards where Charlie sat in a crumpled mess on the floor.

“What the hell happened?” Lucy’s panicked voice filled the room. Rushing in, she dropped to her knees in front of Charlie and placed her hands under her chin. Tilting her face up, she searched for some sort of answer. “You look distraught, Charlie. Please tell us what happened at Callum’s?”

Her concerns continued to grow the longer Charlie remained silent.

“I’m going to get that wanker on the phone,” Amelia growled, lunging into the pocket of her dressing gown to get her mobile phone.

“Don’t...” Charlie croaked, raising her hand to halt Amelia. She didn’t make eye contact with either of them, but knew they were focusing intently on her.

“Ok,” Amelia surrendered, putting her mobile back into her pocket.

“You need to talk to us then, sweetie,” Lucy said, trying to reason with her. “You can’t just leave us in the dark with this. Please tell us what happened to get you into this state?”

Leaning her head back against the solid door, Charlie took a deep breath and scrunched her eyes closed. She clenched her fists tightly by her side as her heart twisted in her chest. “I have just met Callum’s wife,” she announced, choking back on a sob.

Tears seeped out of the corners of her tightly closed eyes. Charlie didn’t need to open them to know what the expressions on her friend’s faces were. The awkward silence in the room was enough to satisfy her assumptions.

After a few minutes of silence, Charlie slowly opened her eyes. It stung a little at first due to the amount of tears she had shed over the past hour, but eventually she was able to open them fully. Taking in the scene before her, she felt her eyes swelling once again. She immediately noticed the pain reflected across both of her friend’s faces as they studied her with concern filled eyes.

“Charlie...” Lucy lifted her hand to cover mouth. “I don’t even know what to say to you. I don’t know what either of us can say to make this hurt any less for you.”

“I know what I want to fucking say,” Amelia’s voice answered hoarsely in response. “And what I want to fucking do to that prick when I finally get my hands on him. No wonder that lying bastard didn’t want her to come down to London!”

“You can deal with your anger later,” Lucy snapped, jostling Amelia slightly in the side. “Right now we need to make sure that Charlie is ok.”

Charlie could clearly see the rage bubbling beneath Amelia’s surface. She knew that given the chance, she would have been out of the door within seconds of her admission. She was always the fiery, explosive one out of the three of them. The one that never really gave any thought to her actions until it was too late.

“I know, I know,” Amelia said a little defeated. “I just...” she trailed off with a sigh as she looked at Charlie’s tear stained face. “I want to kill him,” she finished, shaking her hands in a choking gesture.

“Do you want to talk about what happened?” Lucy asked, ignoring Amelia’s comments.

Charlie shook her head.

She wasn’t ready to relive the nightmare she had just experienced. She wanted nothing more than to just crawl into bed and cocoon herself within the bed sheets. She was broken, shattered, devastated...

“I just want to lie down,” Charlie murmured, her voice just above a whisper.

Lucy and Amelia nodded understandingly before helping Charlie to her feet and into the king size bed in her room.

Thanking them gratefully, Charlie pulled the covers up and over her head to block out the light and sound in her life. She knew that she wasn’t going to sleep tonight, so she prepared herself for a night of more tears and heartache.  

Nineteen

“Babe, I know you want to hide away from everything right now, but we need to check out in an hour,” Lucy said, lightly patting Charlie’s cocoon of quilt covers. “Don’t worry about packing your stuff. Amelia and I have done it already. We just need you to get up and get changed into the clothes we’ve left out for you.”

Although she was awake, Charlie remained silent beneath the covers of the bed.

“I’ll come back in half an hour,” Lucy said gently as she got up from the bed and made her way out of the room.

Hearing the bedroom door click closed, Charlie exhaled the large breath she was holding in. She knew that her friends just wanted to talk to her about what happened last night, but she just couldn’t bring herself round to discuss it yet. She wanted to tell them more than anything, but it was just still too raw. She knew there would be too many questions asked that she wouldn’t be able to answer. Let alone the further disclosure she had to make about Paige.

She still couldn’t believe that he actually had a daughter.

Pushing the covers off of her body, Charlie tried to unsuccessfully open her eyes. “Fuck!” she muttered in exasperation, realising that she had fallen asleep with her contact lenses in. She needed to find her eye drops quickly so that she could moisten her stuck eyelids.

Reaching towards the general direction of the bedside table, Charlie flinched in pain. Her entire body ached with complete exhaustion, so much so that she could feel how tender her muscles were. The slightest of movements caused a spasm of pain to radiate throughout her body.

Gritting her teeth, Charlie fumbled haphazardly on the table until her fingers clutched around the small bottle of solution she was after. Untwisting the cap, she tilted her head back and placed a few drops into each eye. She blinked a couple of times before reapplying the solution. Eventually she got to the point where her eyes were fully open. “Idiot... Remember to take your contacts out in future,” she mumbled, swinging her legs out of bed.

“Knock-knock!” Lucy cheerfully bobbed her head around the door. “I thought I heard you pottering around, so I thought I’d come in to see if you needed any help getting out of...” She trailed off and nodded towards the clothes Charlie still wore.

Glancing down at her attire, Charlie openly cringed. She was still wearing the peplum dress and sexy lingerie that was supposed to have wooed Callum the night before. Seeing herself in the clothes put her straight back into the nightmare.

Regardless of the aches and pains she felt, Charlie reached behind her neck to try and unzip the dress from her body. She needed to get it off of her skin as fast as she could.

“Let me do it,” Lucy said, rushing forwards to help unfasten the zip. The dress fell into a crumpled pile on the floor around Charlie’s stocking covered feet. “Do you want me to unhook the basque for you?” she asked cautiously.

Charlie stepped away from the garment on the floor and kicked it off to the side in disgust. She knew there was no way that she was ever going to put that dress anywhere near her body again. It was tainted with horrific memories she didn’t want to think about.

Propping her leg up on the bed, Charlie pulled and twisted at the suspenders attached to her thigh high stockings. She didn’t have time for patience. She only cared about ridding herself of the painful memories.

“Charlie, let me do it,” Lucy begged.

Feeling the torturous pain in her chest, Charlie couldn’t even imagine the expression reflected across her face. She knew that if it were anywhere near as intense as the pain she felt inside, then it was almost definitely a frightening sight.

Eventually unhooking all of the suspenders, she ripped the thigh high stockings from her body in a rush. She placed the thin scraps of fabric next to the dress she had kicked away earlier.

“Let me undo the eyelets on the back of your basque,” Lucy said, lifting her hands to the top of the garment.

Looking straight ahead, Charlie caught sight of herself in the mirror and froze. Her chest tightened as she studied her reflection. She was shocked to see how ghostly pale she looked. Her eyes were swollen and her skin showed signs of soreness from her constant tears.

Batting Lucy’s hands away from her body, Charlie padded into the en-suite bathroom and slammed the door behind her without a word. She walked over towards the beige tiled shower enclosure and switched on the hot water. Still clothed in her lingerie, Charlie entered the enclosure and stood directly under the spray.

She welcomed the feeling of the burning water as it cascaded over her skin. She needed to burn away the traces of Callum from her body. She needed to rid herself of his touch.

Letting her emotions run rife with her mind, Charlie slumped to the tiled floor of the shower and cried. She wasn’t sure what she had done to warrant the pain she now felt. She had been broken by the man she loved. There were no words that Charlie could use to describe her feelings as she sat under the water.

At least the silence was helping to cleanse her mind.

Staring blankly out of the window on the train, Charlie vaguely registered everyone around her getting to their feet. She had unknowingly spent the entire two hour journey watching nothing of importance out of the window.

“Charlie? We are getting off now,” Lucy called from her standing position in the aisle.

Snapping out of her trance, Charlie scooted across the seats towards the aisle. She stood up and retrieved her weekend bag from the overhead storage compartment and looked towards her friends for direction.

Following them off the train and off the platform, Charlie felt the nerves fluttering animatedly around her stomach. She was going back to the penthouse; Callum’s penthouse. The question on her mind was what was she going to find when she returned back there.

Would Callum be home?

Would he try and talk her round?

Would she forgive him?

The questions plagued Charlie’s already confused mind.

Walking out of train station, she followed both Amelia and Lucy as they approached the taxi rank. They spoke to the driver momentarily before they opened the passenger door and the three of them took a seat inside of the black cab.

Sitting in between both girls, Charlie allowed her brain to wander in and out of normality. She was trying to psych herself up ready for her return to the penthouse. She had to be ready for whatever outcome was waiting for her.

“Don’t even think for one second that we are letting you go back to that apartment,” Amelia muttered from her seat beside her. “You’re coming back to stay with me for as long you need. Lucy and I are going to go and fetch you some stuff later,” she explained, placing a reassuring hand on her leg.

Charlie gave Amelia a small appreciative nod.

“You can’t avoid talking to us forever,” Lucy sighed. “You will need to tell us what happened eventually.” 

“I think she’s still in shock.” Amelia glanced over to Lucy, “You know how she normally goes into shutdown mode when she’s upset or panicked? I think this is just another version we haven’t seen before. She explodes like a volcano and then goes into her quiet time to try and piece herself back together.”

“I know,” Lucy replied. “But... We don’t actually know what is going on here do we? We only know the one thing she told us and that’s it.”

“Considering the fact that he has continuously been blowing up Charlie’s phone as well as ours, I’m deciding that he is as guilty as shit!” Amelia stated.

“I don’t know if we are doing the right thing in ignoring his calls though,” Lucy sighed. “I mean... If she isn’t going to talk to us then maybe we should speak to him?”

“Not a fucking chance,” Amelia spat. “We are on Charlie’s side remember? You know for a fact that she wouldn’t bullshit something like this. Besides, I always knew that bastard was dodgy from the start. I knew that eventually his true colours would show through.”