Chapter 13

THIRTEEN

FREDDIE

Freddie was out with Dominic when Charlotte found them.

He hadn't even realised that she was home from university. As far as he knew, she had two more days before the planned ‘last night on campus' in the student union bar with her friends. It'd been loud in the White Lion on the High Street and he hadn't heard his phone ring or beep with a text until he got it out of his pocket to check the time and discovered a string of messages from Charlotte that sounded increasingly urgent. And very angry.

Immediately, he sent her a message to ask where she was, tell her the name of the pub and suggest he come to her. She didn't reply for another fifteen minutes when she sent a terse: ‘I'm outside.'

Even outside, the music was loud. On the facing pavement, she had her back to him and he was across the road in three strides, desperate to see her face. He'd been counting down the days to her coming home. ‘Hey, I'm here. How come you're home early?'

When she turned, her cheeks were scarlet, eyes puffy with tears. ‘I needed you. I wanted to see you. I had to speak to you.'

There was a desperation in her voice that made his heart thud in trepidation. ‘Why? What's happened? Are you okay?'

He reached for her, but she shook her head and shrugged him off. ‘When you didn't answer my messages, I went to your house to find you. I needed to tell you…'

Her voice cracked and broke as she gasped back sobs. He tried again to put his arms around her but she stepped back from him, held out her hands to keep him away. What was going on? ‘Charlotte, whatever it is, I?—'

Her arms dropped to her sides and her hands formed into fists. He'd never seen her like this. ‘And when I knocked on your door your mum…your mum…'

His heart sank. He could imagine how she'd been. Her recent comments to him about the ‘kind of girl' she thought he should be with. ‘Don't listen to my mother, she?—'

She jutted her chin in his direction, fire in her eyes. ‘She told me that you'd started seeing another girl. That you'd met someone else.'

Contorted with rage, her face was almost unrecognisable. His heart plummeted to his stomach. ‘That's not true. It's not true.'

‘Then why would she say it?' Her voice tore through the air; it was agony to hear the pain in it.

His mind was racing for the best way to explain it. The way to make her realise that it didn't matter. He chose the wrong one. ‘It was nothing. Just a kiss and I regretted it immediately.'

He'd been such an idiot. Afterwards, he'd accused Dominic of setting him up. A drink for just the two of them turned out to be a night out with two girls Dom worked with. They'd all got drunk. Before he knew what was going on, Dom and one of the girls had disappeared. He wasn't sure quite how he'd ended up kissing her friend, but it'd happened. It was one kiss, one stupid mistake, and then he'd woken up to himself. A bigger mistake had been telling his mother. Asking her advice. Getting angry when her ‘advice' had been that ‘it's probably for the best' because ‘you're too young to know the kind of girl that will make you happy'.

The pain on Charlotte's face as he told her would stay with him forever.

She turned and ran, he followed her, wind rushing in his ears. ‘Wait, Charlotte, please wait.'

She turned so sharply, that he almost ran into her, her face a mess of tears. ‘Do not follow me. I'm going home.'

He couldn't breathe. This couldn't be happening. ‘Please, Charlotte, please listen to me. I need to make you understand.'

She screamed at him then, loud enough to make a couple on the other side of the road stop and watch. ‘Leave me alone!'

What could he do? Like a fool, he stood and watched her go.

It wasn't until much later, after he'd sent her a million texts to try and explain, that he realised that she hadn't actually told him why she'd been so desperate to find him in the first place.