Everything I Need

Part 20

Charlotte can’t fall asleep until she knows that Shela’s safely in her bed and then sometimes she still can’t sleep after.

The silence lasts for days—weeks—and Charlotte honestly has no idea how long it’s been since they spoke to each other when she wakes up one morning to Shela asleep beside her. She stinks of rum and something else and when Charlotte stirs her awake she jolts and winces when she realizes where she is. It takes her a long time to climb into her own bed but it’s too early for Charlotte to escape to the library. Her cheeks burn awkwardly at the situation and she curls back into her pillows as Shela settles into her own bed.

“Sorry,” she hears whispered across the room to her a little while later. Charlotte’s still awake and she’s not sure she’ll ever be able to sleep in this room with her here again. There’s a soft hitch of breath across the room and Shela swallows audibly to clear her throat before speaking again. “I just miss you, is all,” she breathes and her exhale is nothing but a shudder. Charlotte holds her breath and shakes her head against her pillow. “I just miss you.”

Charlotte stays quiet and lets her wet cheeks soak into her pillow. She bites her bottom lip so hard that she’s sure she draws blood and something inside of her shouts for her to just go to Shela. Something inside of her shouts that she should just let Shela ruin her and break her and leave her like everyone else because it would probably hurt a lot less than this.

“Charlotte?” Shela whispers to break the silence but Charlotte buries her head further into the pillow and hides her face. She pretends she’s asleep and tries to wipe the sound of Shela whispering through the dark from her memory.

Shela sighs and Charlotte feels her entire body shudder with the need for her.

//

Sana invites her to a party at the boys’ frat house and, after almost three weeks of getting drunk on the beanbag in the corner of her and Harper’s room, they pretty much drag her there.

She still hasn’t told them what’s wrong with her but she’s pretty sure that Sana knows more than Shela would ever be able to explain anyway. Harper just thinks she’s having one of her “moments” and Shela doesn’t have the energy to tell her she’s wrong.

The house is thrumming when she gets there and she ignores the usual shouts of “Party Girl!” as she makes her way to the alcohol.

She makes herself the weakest a*s drink to pace herself and nurses it slowly from her place on the top step of the large wooden grand staircase. People run up and down it beside her and she watches over everyone from above. It takes her minutes to get bored. She hates all of it. For about the ten millionth time in so many days, she wishes she could go back to her room and curl into Charlotte.

She takes a sip of her drink to stave off the tears and remind herself that she can’t. She’s still sipping it ten minutes later when someone sits down beside her.

“Party Girl,” Oliver says as he practically sits in her lap. “It’s been a while.”

Shela shakes her head and doesn’t even glance at him.

“f**k off, Oliver,” she says, even as she accepts the drink he offers her. She takes a test sip of it. It’s strong—too strong—and she winces before abandoning it on the step beside her. Oliver chuckles like she’s a goddamn clown and Shela rolls her eyes because it’s always the same.

How did she even let it get this way? When the f**k did all this become her life?

“So, how ‘bout it?” Oliver says lewdly and Shela gapes at him.

She looks at him incredulously and scoffs in disgust. “‘How ‘bout it?’” she repeats. “Go away, Oliver.”

Oliver laughs harder and rescues the drink from beside her before taking a long sip from it. It’s almost like he’s trying to make a point that Shela will never understand.

“You’ve f****d me for worse,” he reminds her with a wink and Shela feels sick at the reminder. She bites down on her bottom lip and shoves her red cup aside to hold her hands in her lap. She doesn’t understand how she used to like coming to these things. She doesn’t know why she still does. Oliver chuckles. “You’ve f****d me for less, too.”

She hums mirthlessly. “Well, I’m not f*****g you again.”

Oliver moves closer and Shela glares into the distance because, short of punching him square in the face, she can’t think of anything else to do.

“Do we really have to go through this?” he mumbles and her skin crawls when she feels him brush the hair away from the side of her neck. “The you telling me no, playing hard to get, and me barely even having to convince you before you’re riding my d**k and coming harder than anyone else can make you? Because it’s getting boring.”

She turns to him with unbridled disgust, her nose upturned, lips pursed and her eyes burning with anger and shame. Oliver eyes her expression and unabashedly glances down into her cleavage. It fills her with rage she never knew she could contain in the small space of her body.

“I will never f**k you again,” she whispers warningly as she shoves his hand off her waist. “You will never touch me again.”

Oliver still has the audacity to laugh. “Is this about your little girlfriend?” he says and the words catch her off guard. Her face drops and she narrows her eyes. “Because I thought I’d dealt with that one.”

He takes a lazy sip of his drink and Shela glares at him as something starts to click and everything starts to make sense. She can’t hold back the fear that suddenly rushes through her body.

“What the f**k do you mean?” she demands in her lowest, scariest voice.

Oliver rolls his eyes and shakes his head. “What the f**k do you think?” he mimics. “I gave her fair warning. I told her not to get too comfortable because you… well. Let’s say I reminded her that you like to keep your options open.”

“Who?!” Shela shouts and she’s sure that people are looking at her but she doesn’t care. “Who, Oliver?”

He laughs and then stands up and starts moving his arms in an attempt at some sort of dance. “The Robot, of course,” he laughs and then tries to pull her up with him once he’s realized she’s not laughing. “C’mon, you don’t need her. We both know you’re gonna end up with me.”

Shela grits her jaw as she looks at him and honestly doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Her eyes water either way and she hates how everything makes sense. She hates how he doesn’t have to tell her what he did for her to know what he’s done. She hates how she knows Charlotte believed whatever it was that Oliver told her. She hates that he called her The Robot because Charlotte’s not. She’s not a robot. She's nothing like Shela ever anticipated and it makes her feel sick just thinking about all the things she once said and thought about her.

Instead of saying anything, Shela decides it’s time to leave. It’s time to go and fix something she should have fixed a really long time ago. She clambers down the stairs and through the crowd of people looking at her. She’s already halfway to the sidewalk when someone pulls on her arm. She shoves Oliver away and, when she turns to find him standing behind her, he’s flanked by Sana and Harper.

“No,” Shela says when Oliver reaches for her. “No. Don’t f*****g touch me. Do not f*****g touch me because you’ve got no idea what you’ve done. You’ve got no idea.”

“Shela,” Harper says in confusion and Shela thinks back to a year ago when Harper was looking at her desperately. She was begging Shela to say that she wasn’t sleeping with the boy she loved and she looks at Shela exactly the same now.

Shela shakes her head now but she’s pretty sure Harper doesn’t get it. She looks betrayed and Shela honestly doesn’t care. There was a time when she would have done anything to make sure that Harper wasn’t hurt but she’s just so sick of hiding everything she feels all the time.

“Listen,” Oliver says, stumbling forward until Harper pulls him back. He shrugs her off and her face falls. “Whatever it is, I’m sorry. Just come back inside and I’ll fix it. I’ll fix it.”

He tries to grab her backside and Shela shoves his hand away as Harper looks on in disgust. Sana looks at all of them like she’s known everything all along.

“Shela, what the f**k is going on?” Harper demands because—of course—it would be Shela’s fault.

Shela shakes her head and scoffs. She doesn’t care anymore. She’s so f*****g sick of all of them.

“Well, Oliver and I have been sleeping together for like… most of the last year,” she explains petulantly and ignores the way that Harper’s face burns with betrayal and rage. Shela shakes her head in disappointment for this girl who has so much f*****g potential that she’s wasting on a guy who literally doesn’t give a s**t. “Because he’s a manipulative asshole. And also a lying—” She lunges forward to push him and keeps shoving him as she speaks. “Cruel, disgusting, arrogant piece of s**t who ruined the only thing that—the only good thing—”

She pulls away when Sana grips her shoulder.

“You ruined it!” She shouts and this is when the tears come, when her supposed best friend looks at her like she just slapped her in the face. “You f*****g ruined it!” she shouts at Oliver. “You hurt her.”

“You’ve both hurt me!” Harper spits and Shela looks at her in confusion.

“Not you,” she shouts brokenly. “Goddammit, Harper. Get the f**k over it. Get the f**k over him. You could do so much f*****g better than this i***t. The boy has played you all along, has never wanted you, and you still choose him over everyone else. I won’t apologize for sleeping with a boy that I had no idea you wanted. I won’t apologize for the fact that he manipulated both of us. He wasn’t yours, Harper, so stop treating me like I did something wrong!”

Harper looks down at the ground and so does Oliver. The only person looking up at her is Sana who watches her carefully and knowingly.

Shela chokes back a sob. “But he hurt Charlotte. He told her things—said things that—”

Harper looks up and scoffs at Shela in disbelief. “Who gives a f**k about that tight a*s uppity robot who thinks she’s better than everyone else?”

“I DO!” Shela shouts and she rounds on her and Oliver with her fists at her side. “I do. I give a f**k. I f*****g care. I always f*****g cared. Because she is the kindest, sweetest, most caring and deserving person I have ever met. She’s smart and beautiful and she’s like—she’s like—” She mumbles.

 //