Chapter Text
As soon as the door swings closed behind Max, numbness settles in every cell of Charles' body. Her heart ceases to beat, the blood is frozen in her veins, the world has stopped spinning. Maybe it is a trauma response, her body goes into shock to keep her brain intact.
She's heard of it before - people die from broken hearts all the time. Husbands who die right after their wives, simply giving up and falling asleep forevermore. What is the difference between them and Charles in this moment? She can't find anything, but maybe that is because her thoughts are a constant cycle of images of Max walking out of the apartment, her blonde hair swinging from side to side with the movement of her hips.
The heart inside her chest desperately attempts to restart, to beat again, but the pain is too much, physically spreading out, from behind her sternum along her ribs and into the very tips of her fingers and toes.
She only realizes that she's crying when her eyes finally glide back to the page of her book, the last paragraph of it drenched in salty drops of tears. Charles should have realized her cheeks are wet, but she can't really feel her face. There's only an everlasting frozen sensation penetrating her brain, seeping into her skin, her fingers shaking violently whether from her emotions or the cold does not register to her.
Her phone vibrates somewhere in the room, the sound echoing against the hardwood floor, but she can't bring herself to move, frozen in time and place. She fears she'll forever be 28, sitting on this semi-uncomfortable chair, dust collecting on her hair, and getting caught in the rivulets dripping from the line of her jaw onto the table. In 100 years, scientists will find her, petrified into a statue, while the world will have changed around her.
Time passes, yet she doesn't move.
Her phone goes off again and again, but there's no urge inside her to check. What reason would she have to see what people want from her? There's nobody in this world who could help her now, no comforting words, no pretty promises for the future. Well, except maybe Max. But the blonde won't come back to her. Not if the actual love of her life Kelly What's-Her-Name is everything that Charles can't be.
In this moment, it does register that maybe dying is the worse of the two options. If she had spoken up, she could have maybe saved herself from this feeling right now. But then again, maybe she'd have experienced the exact same thing earlier, with Max staring at her, pity in those beautiful blue eyes. No, Charles couldn't have handled that. Maybe dying is the better option, as she still has her dignity, if nothing else.
"I'm back!" Max's voice exclaims from the hallway, the door falling into the lock, sounding like a dull thud to Charles in her current state. The Dutchwoman's voice sounds light, airy, a soft chuckle ringing with it. "Why didn't you pick up your phone, Charlie? I could have used your help a million times."
It's so far removed from Charles' emotional state of mind, it makes her flinch hard, her head whipping around to stare at the doorway, where Max steps into the-
The light clicks on above her, the kitchen being illuminated, blinding her, pins and needles in her eyes, as she instinctively forces them shut against the sudden brightness. Charles hadn't even noticed that the sun had gone down over the Marina. There's not a single source of light on in the entire apartment, she had just been sitting in the darkness, barely even registering the change.
But now, when she squints against the light, her best friend's body in the doorway, fingers still on the light switch, horror settles in her bones, setting her nerves alight. Somehow, Charles can't help it, with the way Max's face looks terrified, panic slipping into the creases around the Dutchwoman's eyes and making those pink lips turn down at the edges, Charles' eyes squeeze shut again, as more tears slip over her lashes, dripping down her cheeks.
There's an ugly sob wrenching itself out of her throat, clawing it's way out from deep within her. Her lungs are on fire, not a single breath coming smoothly to her, as her entire body collapses in on itself. All strength leaves her muscles, her head dropping, and she hopes that her hair falls over her face, covering her breakdown as much as possible, so that Max doesn't have to see her like this.
There's still no sound that penetrates Charles' brain, her own sobs echo in her ears, blocking out anything else. Maybe there is nothing else. She hopes for her own sake that Max will just leave, step out of the door, and walk to her own room, ignore that she found Charles, broken and bleeding, let her have that small sliver of dignity left.
"Charles?" Max's voice is hesitant, tiny, no confidence, the edges of panic slipping in. "Hey, what's up? What happened while I was out?"
She can't answer, can't force words from her lips in between the sobs. There is no way she can react, besides shake her head. No. Nothing happened while Max was out. It's the fact that Max was out in the first place, the fact that Charles' heart is broken beyond mending. None of her yarn and embroidery thread will do any good now. There's no stitching back together what's burned into ashes.
"Hey, you're really worrying me," the older woman says, the sound of footsteps closing in on Charles. "What is going on? Is it your mum? Or Lorenzo? Did something happen to Arthur?"
Beside her, the air changes as Max's body takes up the space, the Dutchwoman's fingers coming to rest on the back of the chair, carefully placed away from Charles' skin. The older woman crouches, knees cracking with it because they're 28 and slowly dying inside - well, maybe not as slowly now in her case. Charles kind of wishes she could crawl away, die in shame on her own, shielded from those scrutinizing blue eyes caught on her every movement.
The tears are still coming, dripping hot and heavy from her skin, falling into the tabletop and splattering over the printed words of her book. The ink is smeared, the page curvy with the salty water soaking into it, repelled by now because there is simply too much of it, the fibers no longer able to carry it all. Yet, more and more tears leak from her eyes, accompanied by pitiful sobs, a low whine aching in her throat, even though she doesn't know where it all is coming from.
Maybe it's the blood flowing from her heart, through her veins that gets turned into salt, diluted into nothing but water. Maybe that's why her chest aches so much, lungs burning with it. Maybe that's why there's darkness creeping into her vision - the red color has to go somewhere. Maybe it turns to black, painting her vision with it.
She's so used to the feeling of being hopelessly in love, of delusion running through her veins, that now that reality settles in, it is hard to come to terms with it. Her brain feels split down the middle with it.
"Hey," Max murmurs beside her, Dutch accent gently wrapping around the words, even though the older woman is still keeping a steady distance between them, "hey, Charlie, you need to breathe. Hey. Take a breath for me."
Air stutters in her lungs, not able to pass the lump in her throat, neither in one way nor the other. Her mouth drops open around a gasp that doesn't quite work the way she intends it to. Instead, Charles lets her face crumple once more, as the rivulets on her cheeks turn to downright waterfalls, every ounce of sadness inside of her flowing from her body in the hopes that it might cleanse her - that the feeling doesn't last forevermore. If she dies with her heart in her throat, maybe she will know what it is like to try to speak.
Finally, she brings her body to move the slightest bit - her face turns away from Max's gaze, her hair falling like a curtain between them. But still it is not enough. Charles' hands fly up, almost against her will, burying her head in her palms, nails scratching over her skin with each heaving sob, but the pain is nonexistent to her. Her physical body is a mere concept against the pain and heartbreak that courses through her veins.
"No," Max finally snaps, voice growing higher with worry, panic lacing her words, "You need to talk to me!"
Suddenly there are fingers pressing into Charles' arms, pulling them away from her body, turning her entirely on the chair towards Max. It seems so easy - that she could be manhandled like a rag doll like this, but maybe that's all she is at the moment. An empty cocoon of fabric and skin, embroidery threat tangled in a pile of ash.
But from below her, her best friend stares at her, eyes wide and flicking over her face, as if there are several clues scattered over her face. She hopes there are - Charles hopes that she'll never have to utter the words as to why she's so broken right now. That Max will use the knowledge the blonde has gathered over the last 16 years of their lives and simply know.
"What happened?" Max tries again, her voice barely above a whisper.
The only answer Charles has is a single shake of her head.
"Okay," her best friend sighs, almost resigned. "Let's try differently - did something happen to your family?"
Another shake of her head.
"No, okay. That's good, yes?"
A nod, nothing more and nothing less.
Charles' eyes feel heavy, tired as they're still leaking with tears, hundreds of needles prickling at her eyeballs. She fights the urge to squeeze them shut, to avoid Max's gaze entirely. There's the knowledge in the back of her mind that her best friend can read her like an open book, when they're like this. Max staring at her, reading the tiniest flicker in her eyes, the way her lashes turn down, Charles unable to look away because whatever she wants, there will never be anything she wants more than to bathe in Max's attention.
She wants to shut down, end the conversation - but at the same time, she wants to scream at the blonde woman, kick her out of the kitchen, make a scene. Somewhere inside of her, a tiny spark lights up: she wants to declare all of it unfair. Tell the Dutchwoman how she has been right here for 16 years, easily ready for Max's taking. She wants to ask: why isn't she good enough? What do all the others have that Charles doesn't?
But her lips stay stubbornly shut.
She thinks Max can read it in her eyes anyway.
"Tell me why you're crying?" The Dutch accent finally rings out, breaking the silence between them. Max's voice is so tiny, a low whisper that settles like a stone on Charles' chest. Somewhere behind her sternum, something rattles, coming back to her. "What is it?"
"I love you," spills from her lips, her heart fighting to beat one more time - like a vampire coming back to life after their death, one last hurrah. If she's dying, if this is the pain she's meant to go through every single day of her life if Max chooses somebody else, then how much worse can it be to finally speak? "I have loved you for 16 years, and I can no longer- It was bad enough when you went out with Daniel, but then I thought you were straight. You'd never love me because you simply couldn't. But-"
Another sob cuts her off, tears running down her cheeks once more. Inside of her chest, her heart tries to beat against the pain, but all it does is send more poison through her veins, her body growing cold with it, nausea rising in her throat again.
Realization seems to settle in Max's eyes as her words right out between them. All of a sudden, the older woman's grip slackens on her arms, fingers gliding off skin, arms dropping uselessly beside the Dutchwoman's body, as her entire weight seems to collapse all at once. Charles watches as Max drops back, her ass landing on the floor with a loud thud that surely must be painful - not as painful as what Charles is going through, but nonetheless, the sound makes her wince, dropping her head once more to avoid staring at her best friend.
Silence settles between them, awkward and tense. The world keeps spinning this time around, but time itself seems to slow down, seconds turning into tiny eternities as they tick by without a word from either of them. Charles keeps staring at the ground, where pools of her tears gather between Max's sneakers. Max, who's gone completely catatonic before her, not moving a muscle, body heavy on the ground. Those blue eyes are cloudy, Charles can tell from the corner of her own vision, a thousand-yard stare into nothing as the blonde's lips slowly drop open.
She waits and waits for words to come, for Max to produce a single sound, but her patience is tested, as they are now stuck in limbo - a purgatory of Charles' own making. Her heart beats steady in her chest again, not strong, not yet, but enough to build up a little shield for itself for the inevitable moment when Max will finally come to her senses, will curse Charles out, will leave her behind for sure.
"Why couldn't it have been me?" Charles finally murmurs, and she sounds as broken as she feels. "Why wouldn't you choose me?"
She hopes the knife that Max twisted in her heart before she left has settled itself into the blonde's stomach, cutting her open and making her feel nauseous as well. She wants it to hurt the Dutchwoman as much as it has hurt her, slaughtering and splaying her open, letting her guts trail out in a bloody mess. She hopes that every beat of the older woman's heart hurts as much as Charles' own does.
The words seem to rattle Max - break her out of her catatonic state. Charles watches as the blonde blinks multiple times, before those blue eyes settle back on her, something sad glimmering in them. Yet determination runs through the Dutchwoman, her shoulders pulling back, as she moves fluidly onto her knees before Charles, her fingers coming back up to grasp Charles' own hands. Her grip is strong, holding on as if afraid that Charles will pull back, leave her as heartbroken as she herself has been left behind.
It takes only a second for their eyes to meet again, Max's face a mask of determination, of understanding and a plan. Charles wishes she couldn't read her so well.
"I am sorry," Max says, not murmurs, not whispers. No, her voice is strong and loud in the silence of their kitchen. The blonde's jaw clenches, fighting the downturning twitch of her lips. "I am so sorry, Charles. I didn't know."
As far as apologies go, this one is fairly shitty in Charles' humble opinion. Ignorance to a fact doesn't excuse the hurt caused by it, it simply makes it worse. So what if Max had known? Would she not have gone out with Kelly, the apparent love of Max's life? Or would she just have not told Charles? Would she have chosen to die instead of speaking?
Before she can open her mouth to ask any single one of her questions, Max continues: "I honestly didn't see you that way - you know when you have known somebody for so long they don't even register to you as an option? Like you know how you would never date Daniel because he's just a friend, you've never thought of him as somebody you would date? I think… I think that was going on on my end, and I am so sorry that I hurt you."
"I wouldn't date Daniel because I'm a lesbian, Max," Charles feels the need to interrupt. It doesn't make her feel any better. How is she supposed to react now? Simply shrug off that she's just a friend to Max and move on with her life? She shouldn't have spoken at all, she thinks bitterly.
"I- Fuck. Let me be honest, let me explain, please," Max almost begs, her fingers tighten their grip, holding onto Charles, knuckles turning white with the force of it. "I called you about a million times during that shitty date tonight, because I was looking for a way to escape. I didn't want Kelly. Sure, she's nice to me at work, but she made a bunch of comments about me, and my body, and how much younger I am. All of it made me feel like a child next to her, it made me feel disgusted by her."
The words are spat at her feet, pure honesty dripping from Max, even as she clings to Charles.
"That doesn't mean anything to me," she finally forces out, as it becomes evident that the Dutchwoman is waiting for a reply.
"No, I guess not," Max huffs, "because it didn't matter then. I just knew I wanted to come back home - to you. I don't think I love you quite like that, not like you do me, not yet. But I think I can. I think you are all I want in my life, and it's so easy with you - every time I go out with somebody, I think about how I'd rather watch a movie with you, laugh at your comments about my bolognese sauce. I've compared all of them to you, without even realizing it."
"What?"
"I think I can easily fall in love with you, Charles," Max finally says, her eyes wide and honest, the tiniest traces of tears gathering on her lower lash line. "If you can give me another chance."
Her world stands still - this time not because of the pain in her heart, but because there is hope spreading behind her sternum, a tiny thing that grows and grows the longer she stares at Max. It is warm and feels like honey dripping into her soul, sugary sweet and think, viscous and sticky. Charles wants to feel it all around her body, wants to know what happiness feels like when she can finally call Max her girlfriend, and not be lying straight through her teeth.
"I think," she finally murmurs, nodding her head once, "I think I would like that."
"Oh, Charlie," Max's lips lift into a small smile, a single tear dropping from her eyes, sliding over the blonde's cheek. Before Charles can so much as react, the blonde is already on her feet, arms wrapping around Charles' waist and pulling her from the chair, right up against Max's chest in a tight hug. The older woman's lips land clumsily in her hair in a short kiss, brushing against the shell of her ear, as Max's voice drops to a raspy whisper: "You sweet girl, I'm so sorry I hurt you. I'll make it up to you, schatje. We'll figure it out."
The words wash over her like a soothing balm applied to a burning wound. It doesn't immediately fix what's been broken, but it does start to mend the cracks. She doesn't know if they'll figure it out, but then again, she also will never find out how her book ends. But maybe both of those things aren't as bad.
Maybe, she should focus on the happy endings in her life, instead of being hung up on broken heart.
She'll take Max's affectionate words for now. It's more than she thought she'd ever receive, so much more than she would have asked for.