Everything I Need

Part 19

She can’t because it’s hers but, most of all, it’s Charlotte’s and somewhere along the line she made an unspoken promise to always make sure to protect her. That includes this.

When she bursts into tears instead, Sana still doesn’t look surprised.

//

Shela doesn’t come back that night.

Charlotte expected that but it doesn’t mean that her cheeks don’t burn with the need to cry. She still cries herself to sleep, face buried in a pillow that smells so much more like Shela than it does of her laundry detergent. She tries to sleep without it, rips the pillowcase off so it’s just the padding beneath but that lasts all of ten minutes before she’s scrambling to put the case back on, terrified that she’ll lose the smell if she doesn’t.

She spends the whole night telling herself she’s done the right thing. She tries to remember all the times in her life where people let her down. Her faceless father was probably the first person, leaving her mom a mess that found it impossible to take care of her. Her mom was the second, of course. She left Charlotte on the doorstep of a kids’ home when she was seven. She promised to come back but she never did. From the many meetings they used to have about her future, she knows that her mother moved and married, found herself a happy life. Charlotte knows that she has a little brother called Jeonghun. She always thought that her mom would come back and get her. She thought that one of the many families who drifted in and out of her life would pick her and give her the life her mom never could. She tries to remember all the friends who got the ending she always wanted by finding families. She tries to remember the children’s home workers she got close and attached to before they left.

Shela is just like them. Shela will treat her just like they did. She is filling a void, satisfying a need and Shela—Shela who never really had any interest in her before—will almost definitely move on to find someone better to fulfill those things for her.

She wakes up the next morning and burns with longing before she can do anything else. She’s spent too many days being spoiled with arms wrapped around her. She’s too used to not waking up alone. After so many years of accepting loneliness, she doesn’t know how it all got ruined so quickly. She hates how quickly Shela got under her skin and broke down the walls she spent so long building.

She misses her. She misses her and it seems so silly that the only thing she has the energy to do once she realizes is lay in bed and cry.

She’s still lying there later that morning when the door to her room finally opens and Shela walks inside.

Something settles inside of Shela at the sight of her and she hates it. She closes her eyes and hopes the feeling will go away. Shela doesn’t say anything and Charlotte doesn’t look at her as she moves around the room, gathering clothes and heading to the bathroom. She reemerges a while later and leaves soon after without a word.

Charlotte sucks back the tears that threaten to flood from her and reminds herself that this was her choice. This is for her safety. It’s not her job to apologize to Shela for needing to take care of herself.

Shela comes back in the early hours of the morning, smelling of smoke and alcohol. She isn’t noisy. Charlotte’s pretty sure that she’d never have heard her come in if she was able to sleep. Shela falls into her own bed and it feels so strange. The space beside Charlotte feels so big and she sucks back the tears that well in her eyes. She buries her face into the pillows and tries not to remember how right it felt to have Shela sleeping beside her.

Her face is sore when she wakes up and Shela’s already left.

Charlotte can’t remember falling asleep but the blanket that had been balled up at the foot of her bed is now folded atop Shela’s pillow.

Charlotte tries to remind herself that she’s doing the right thing.

It doesn’t make her feel any better.

//

It’s been three days of awkwardly sharing a space that had once seemed to have more than enough room when Shela’s mom appears outside one day.

It’s the kind of intuitive thing the old version of her mom would have done and Shela clings to her, hoping she’ll guess the rest. She does and sure hands find her shoulders, holding tight as her mother starts instinctively making soothing noises against Shela’s hair. Shela clutches at her desperately and Sachiko hums with affection as Shela fills with relief.

It takes her too long to remember that Charlotte’s in the room and by the time she remembers, Charlotte already has her coat and boots on and is fixing the strap of her bag beneath her collar.

“You must be Charlotte,” her mom says before Charlotte can leave and Shela can say anything. Charlotte looks up with wide, bright eyes and then nods politely. “I’m Sachiko Sunny. Shela’s mom.”

Charlotte smiles and takes the hand her mom offers. “It’s lovely to meet you, Mrs. Sunny,” she says softly. It’s the first time Shela’s heard her voice in days and it catches her completely off guard. It unravels everything. “I’m going to head to the library to give you guys some space. I hope you have a good evening together. Bye, Shela.”

She leaves without another word and Shela hates how her mom curiously watches after Charlotte’s retreating form. She turns back to Shela with her hands on her hips and smiles.

Shela feels paper-thin.

“Well, isn’t she just the sweetest thing,” she comments and Shela doesn’t know what happens when the sobs erupt up her throat. She grabs at her chest as she gasps for breath and her mom jolts in shock at the sight of her. She kicks the door closed and then reaches for Shela, taking her by the shoulders and sitting her down on her bed. Her thumb makes soothing patterns into Shela’s shoulders and Shela silently begs her mother to understand.

She guesses she does when Shela keeps glancing over to Charlotte’s side of the room.

“Ah,” she sighs as Shela continues to crumble. “I see. That explains it.”

She doesn’t say anything else after that and just keeps making soft soothing noises until Shela’s pitched, childlike sobs turn into whimpers. Her hands sweep Shela’s hair from her face like they used to when Shela would hurt herself playing as a kid. She kisses her forehead like it’s the only thing she knows how to do to make it better. She hushes her until Shela’s weight is too much for her and then pulls her back onto the bed. Shela buries her head in her mom’s chest and lets the gentle rock of her mother’s body soothe her for the first time in days.

It’s a long time before one of them speaks. Her mother breaks the silence.

“Do you want to talk about it?” she mumbles into the top of Shela’s head.

Shela shakes her head but then feels the words bubble up like bile anyway. “I ruined it,” she whispers. “I ruined it before I even knew I’d ruined it.”

Her mom listens and Shela likes the way her mom touches her in the way that only a mom could. It’s bold and familiar. There’s an awareness to it that leaves Shela breathless with relief. She holds Shela and they both know that, as much as Shela could protest she’s her own person, she’ll always really belong to her mother first. She’s the person who made her.

It feels like the most right thing in the world to admit her next words to her.

“She didn’t want me,” she whispers brokenly and she’s surprised she doesn’t start sobbing, even as her tears already soak her mother’s t-shirt. Her mother makes a sound of annoyance on her behalf but Shela shakes her head and clutches at her mother’s body. “She thinks I’m going to hurt her, that I’ll use her. She thinks I’m going to get bored and that I’m going to be like everyone else and leave.” Shela reaches up to wipe the tears from her own cheeks and shudders. “I don’t blame her. That’s pretty much what I do.”

“Shela,” her mother sighs. Shela feels her hold and she feels safe, so safe that she lets go completely.

“I don’t know how to tell her…” she starts and trails off when she thinks she’s going to start sobbing again. “I don’t know the words. I don’t understand. I—I feel all these things and they’re so big and intense and scary. I don’t want to scare her. I don’t want to scare her away but I already did. I scared her before I even got a chance to prove to her that I just—I just want to take care of her, Mom.”

Sachiko hums knowingly. “You always want to take care of everyone but yourself.”

“Yeah, but not like this,” Shela breathes and she sits up to look at her. Her mother brushes her hair from her face and watches her rapt with attention. “Not this—this fiercely. Not this badly. She has no one, Mom and it makes me hurt to think of her being all alone in the world. It scares me more than being alone myself and I don’t know how to—how to—”

She trails off into hitched sobs again.

“Shela…” her mom sighs and there’s a hopeless understanding that Shela hears in her voice. Shela gasps and her mom cups her face and leans in quickly to softly, gratefully, press a kiss to her forehead.

“I—I—” Shela jumbles as she suddenly realizes what this feeling really is. Her wide eyes find her mother’s but Sachiko just smiles at her reassuringly. It does little to prevent the sudden panic and regret that overwhelms her. “Mom, I think I—”

Her mother shakes her head and when Shela looks in her eyes she sees her mom, the real version of her mom, the one that never really went far away at all. She’s still there, hiding behind the perpetually sad and struggling eyes of the woman in front of her. She’s still there, and Shela can see her fighting. She looks so happy and proud and Shela can’t handle the calm in her expression. She can’t handle how okay her mother looks about this when she feels so terrified.

“Mom, I—”

When her mother shakes her head, it’s definitive. It’s sure. It’s a warning. It makes Shela choke back everything she feels and watch her silently.

“You can’t tell me,” she instructs firmly. “You need to tell her.”

//

Shela’s sitting on her bed when she gets back from the library. She looks heavy and dazed and she jumps up when Charlotte steps closer to her. Her hands release the pillow in one hand and the blanket in the other. She’s completely expressionless as she crosses the room to pick up her coat and keys and wordlessly leave the room.

It doesn’t surprise Charlotte anymore. Shela leaves the room as much as she can when Charlotte’s around.

It’s easier for the both of them.

Shela doesn’t come back until the early hours of the morning most nights and Charlotte can’t tell if she’s going to parties or just avoiding having to be around her. Sometimes she comes back smelling of alcohol and sometimes she just comes back and silently falls into her bed, bringing the smell of the cold outdoors with her.