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The girl entered her room with tears streaming down her cheeks. Just moments ago, she had been complete and absolutely put together, claiming to accept the end of her relationship and pretending to understand the reasons he had given her. Of course she knew she wasn’t the nicest person in the room, and of course she knew she could have been a little happy for her old friend’s success, and yes, she was aware of the way her own little armor could hurt other people, but comebacks had become her defense mechanism and she trusted very few people in her life.
He had been one of them.
There was nothing Carrie hadn’t told him. Nick had seen her at her lowest, had seen the stress she was put under everytime a choreograph didn’t come out perfect. He had been with her when she had pushed through the pain of a twisted ankle just to go over their latest song’s choreo one more time. Nick knew Carrie. Truly knew her. And Carrie thought he understood her. Guess everyone can be wrong.
She knew, because she was well aware of it, that his last intention was to hurt her. And she also knew that every single word that had come out of his mouth had the sole purpose of pushing her to be better, not for everyone else’s sake, but for her own. Because no matter how many times they fought, he wanted her to be better, he knew the kind of person she was deep down and wanted the world to know her too. Nick loved Carrie. A lot. He just wasn’t in love with her.
And maybe it was that little fact that hurt the most. If the one person who knew her the most was incapable of falling in love with her, was there anyone out there who could truly, honestly, love her?
She didn’t think so.
At least not at the moment.
Carrie broke the moment she was out of Nick’s sight. She knew him as much as he knew her. And so she knew that the moment he saw her cry would be the moment he would take back his words and get back together with her. It had happened before. And she was done with letting him pity her. Carrie appreciated the fact that he cared, but she had fooled herself long enough. He wasn’t in love with her, didn’t even like her that way, and it was time she dealt with the heartbreak that came with accepting it.
The moment that she entered her room, she went straight to her bed and layed down. What was she supposed to do? It was her first heartbreak and she had seen way too many movies where the main character just cried and ate ice cream. The first she was already doing, but the latter was not something she was willing to go through with. Ice cream was okay as long as it was in tiny cups and as a one time thing, not in industrial quantities that left her hating the flavour of said ice cream. So she just stayed there, looking at her ceiling.
Until she heard one of the books in her shelf fall to the ground.
Carrie stood up immediately and her eyes widened the moment she saw the teen standing in the middle of her room. More so, she realized moments later that he was one of Julie’s bandmates. One of the supposedly swedish holograms. He wasn’t a hologram. Or in Sweden, for the matter.
“Who-? How-? What?!” the young girl was confused to say the least. But even in her state, she was probably not even half as confused as Reggie.
The ghost started doing weird movements, as if he needed more confirmation that yes, she could see him. And that she was, indeed, talking to him. Apparently, her shocked expression wasn’t enough. Carrie scrunched her nose and knitted her eyebrows together as a response to Reggie’s strange movements around her room. The last thing she needed was a so-called swedish bassist darkening her mood.
She had a heartbreak to deal with.
“Who are you and what on Earth are you doing on my room?” by that point, Carrie was standing right in front of him, arms crossed over her chest and anger replacing the confusion that had been predominant on her soft features moments before.
“Reggie,” he waved his hand at her, all smiles and happiness and overall cuteness, “I’m Reggie. It’s… I heard. I was… The thing with… Y’know?” the motion of his hands was erratic and awkwardness was starting to settle in the way he moved around the room. How was he supposed to explain to her that he had been right around the corner when Nick had broken up with her? Or how he wasn’t real? How was he supposed to tell her that he had intended to cheer her up with the same antics he used with Carlos? It was all too complicated.
And yet, he did.
It took him hours. She actually had to take a break to go pick something to eat for dinner, — burritos, made by her dad, actually — before continuing to listen to the ghost’s story. It took her around an hour to stop looking at him like he was crazy, thirty more minutes to stop scolding him for listening in on her private conversation with Nick and only ten to lay down in her bed, letting tears out again when Reggie told her that she needed to believe a little more in herself.
And it’s not like Carrie didn’t believe in herself. She knew what she was capable of, she knew her limits and her strengths and she knew how to use her talent. But she also had doubts. Whether or not she was improving, whether or not what she did was going to be enough for her father to actually notice her trying. It was at that moment, with those words, that Carrie knew, she just knew that he didn’t actually mean it in that way. He wasn’t telling her that she needed to believe in her abilities. He was telling her that she needed to believe in her instinct. That what she thought of her songs was more important than what her dad thought. That she didn’t have to try so hard to please absolutely every single person she cared about; she had to please herself. She had to do what she wanted and not what people expected her to.
Carrie cried, and laughed, and told him silly stories about the time when Julie and her were friends. How they had matching costumes every year from ages four to twelve. She told him about Dirty Candi and what she had in mind for the group, her hopes and dreams and the endless nights writing songs and coming up with choreography. Carrie then told him about Nick. How they had met, how they had become so close that dating hadn’t changed anything because the only difference had been the kissing. She told him about everything except for her family. Because that was a sensitive topic and despite knowing how much Trevor loved her, she had felt left out way too many times in her own house.
And Reggie listened. He was a good listener, had always been. He was in awe, completely surprised by this girl who was proving him wrong in every single preconception he had had about her. He watched the way her eyes lit up everytime she talked about her dreams, about the type of music she wanted to do. He wasn’t aware of it, but by the time she was asleep, hugging a pillow and with the softest look on her face he had ever seen on her, he had the biggest smile on his lips.
And he had even less idea of how many times she was about to make him smile.