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Charlie never envisioned it would end up like this.
To be fair, he never envisioned pretty much everything that has happened lately. But if you asked him, two months ago, in the event he was going out with Nick Nelson, whether he’d break it off, Charlie Spring might lose his mind in vigorous head shaking. Because going out with Nick Nelson is a dream. It’s a dream he never wants to wake up from, because Charlie is convinced he’ll wake up any moment but he doesn’t. Every moment with Nick makes him more real, and somehow even more perfect. But despite it all, Charlie’s left with the harsh reality- he has to break up with Nick Nelson.
Why? His past self asks. There’s a lot of reasons why. The most prominent being Tao’s recent text, glaring daggers at Charlie from his phone.
don’t bother, the letters are like bullets. we’re barely friends anymore.
He swallows thickly and shuts the app. Charlie shouldn’t have to confront that, because once this- this hiccup with Nick ends, Tao will be back. And Nick will be back, the Nick that’s happy and bright, the Nick with friends, the Nick who doesn’t walk into form with a black eye courtesy of Harry Greene.
Deep down, he doesn’t want this as a hiccup, a blip in Nick’s perfect life that fades into nothingness by the time next semester rolls ‘round. He doesn’t want hushed kisses and not-really-dating debates at midnight, nor does he want the feeling of tearing his hand away from Nick’s in guilt, in fear someone will see them. He wants the real deal. Really, truly, Charlie wants candlelit dinners, long walks on the beach, open kisses and the knowledge anyone could see them, anytime, anyplace. But he doesn’t just want it with anyone. He wants it with Nick. God, he wants it with Nick so badly. He wants to scream and yell and proclaim to the whole world that Nick Nelson is his boyfriend.
But that’s beyond selfish. Despite the fact Nick is pointedly not his boyfriend, their current predicament leaves Charlie eager and flushed and clung to a perfect, steady arm, while Nick wallows in reckless conflict and cinema brawls and loneliness. Keeping what they have- whatever they have, as small as it might be- is selfish. If he really, truly cares about Nick, and god, he does, more than anything in the world, Charlie has to let him go.
If you love someone, set them free, Charlie Spring has heard a million times. He’d always thought it was borderline foolish, and yet, at age fifteen, he finally gets what it means.
But that opens a whole new door, terrifying and daunting and something he can’t confront. Not here, not now.
Does he love Nick?
Maybe it isn’t love. Maybe it’s just a deep attachment, pitiful and unrequited, because Nick says he likes Charlie- and Charlie’s not going to call him a liar- but he doesn’t love him. No one could, so where’s the blame here?
“Hey,” a voice cuts through his stream of consciousness. Glancing up, he sees Nick Nelson sitting down across from him, black eye and all. It couldn’t be possible, it shouldn’t be possible, but he somehow still looks beautiful. Beat down, weary, but beautiful, and god, it twists something in Charlie’s gut. “You okay?”
His voice is empathetic and gentle, yet still has joy dancing at the edges, and Charlie feels like the worst person in the world. He knows that tentative smile won’t last much longer, but he keeps reminding himself that it will return bigger, brighter, once Charlie is out of Nick’s life. Despite it all, that doesn’t make him feel any better.
“Um,” god. He can’t get the words out. They feel like brass on his tongue, metallic and stinging against the roof of his mouth. Keeping his eyes locked at an indeterminate point below Nick’s jaw, he swallows and tries to rip the bandaid off as soon as possible. “So I was thinking.” Another heavy swallow. “About me and you.”
Nick makes that same gesture he does when he’s focusing on maths, head tilted, eyes narrowed, brows furrowed in concentration. Charlie can see the gears turning in his head, even down to his temporarily pursed lips. It allows him to remember back, just a week ago, to studying on his bedroom floor. Except there wasn’t much studying at all, because Nick came out to someone and Charlie got lost in the feeling of Nick’s lips on his. The shaky voice across the table brings him back to reality, back to a duller Nick. “…okay.”
“And I just think- I mean-“ Charlie’s had a hundred ways to say this built up in towers, but they all come crashing down into rubble. His words come out in trembling jumbles, just barely meeting Nick’s eyes because the cowardice of being unable to is unbearable. His throat bobs before speaking, “The fight with Harry was my fault.”
Nick’s brows become ever more furrowed, like he’s staring down an equation he can’t crack. “It wasn’t, though.”
“It was,” Charlie says quickly, hastily, because if it’s all going to end here, he might as well be truthful. “Becoming friends with you, and everything that’s happened- I’ve just- I’ve been making your life really difficult.”
That’s an understatement. It’s the understatement of the century, because Nick is sitting there with a black eye and a bruised psyche, left at the mercy of Charlie. He’s aching to give him some relief, but Nick doesn’t meet his gaze. He stares off somewhere, eyes distant and drifted, before eventually looking back. The look in his cocoa brown eyes nearly kills Charlie right then and there. It’s piecing together, agonizingly slowly.
“So I was thinking,” his voice is quiet, so quiet it might border on a whisper, and the cowardice takes over. He stares somewhere east, trying to ignore the tortured look in Nick’s eyes as it dawns on him. He’ll be happier, in the end. He tries to reassure himself. He’ll be grateful for this later.
“Maybe it would be better… if we just…”
Nick’s lips part just slightly, eyes brimming and trembling in Charlie’s peripheral vision. He can’t take it anymore. He can’t let his everything break at his hands. He shuts his lids tighter, tighter, tighter, so clasped that he sees white. In the blinding light, he tries to picture a better world. A brighter world. One with Nick. The Nick that’s happy and bright, the Nick with friends, the Nick who doesn’t walk into form with a black eye courtesy of Harry Greene. That Nick. Even at arm’s length, it’s better than tortured looks from dawn until dusk. He swallows again.
“If we… if we stopped this.”
Charlie purses his lips, looking down, because if he doesn’t, Nick will see the trembling and realize this is the worst thing he’s ever had to do. The silence makes it ever more painful. The dark haired boy is waiting for something, anything. Subconsciously he knows it’s not silent, hearing distant voices that turn tranquil and inaudible because they’re not Nick Nelson.
He doesn’t know what he wants Nick to say. If he’s happy, which he should be, that’ll feel like a punch to the gut. Him being sad, though, is so, so much worse. Charlie doesn’t want that either. He just wants this to be over, for the world to go back to spinning in monotonous motion. For that wonderful, boyish, bright Nick Nelson smile to be back, even if only seen from an arm’s distance.
“What?” Nick’s voice cracks so egregiously that it might not even qualify as speaking. Charlie can hear the tears in his words. “You want to… break up?”
No, he doesn’t. He’s never wanted to and likely never will. But that’s selfish, because it’s not about him here- it’s about Nick. He might not get it now, but this will make him happiest. Digging his fingers into his palms, forming small crescents, Charlie manages a nod.
His gaze remains firmly locked on his hands while Nick takes shuddering inhales. It’s the same exercise he does right before the kickoff, right before the fall, right before the world keeps turning. In turn, Charlie’s stomach keeps turning with unmistakable nausea.
“Charlie, it’s not-“ his name is uttered like a plea, dozens more pleas dancing on Nick’s tongue that Charlie knows will fall on deaf ears. It’s for him, Charlie keeps repeating in hope it’ll quell the pain. It’s futile, but he continues. It’s for him. “Do you really… not want to be with me anymore?”
That breaks him. The fractures in Nick’s voice break him, the way he crumples, each word like a choke. Nick actually thinks he doesn’t want to be with him, that Charlie doesn’t want him, and god, it’s such a lie that it’s disorienting. In any other world, he’d rush up right now, hold him to his chest, and kiss Nick like his life depends on it, trying to prove every bit of adoration for him in his chest just with his lips. But not this world. Not the world where Nick Nelson doesn’t smile.
In the end, he’ll be happy, and that’s worth risking the world for. It’s worth risking life for. It’s worth giving up the best thing in Charlie’s life. Of this is what it takes to get there, so be it.
So Charlie nods. A beat. One. Two. “Yes.”
He looks up for only a split second. A huge mistake.
Nick’s face kills him. He doesn’t look angry, or happy, or sad. He looks thoroughly debauched, heartbroken and beared down, as if he just walked through hell and back. Gorgeous brown eyes puffy and freckled cheeks stained with tears, a dance of betrayal in patterned pupils. Each detail is another stab to the heart, and Charlie can’t breathe.
He knows he’ll never forget the look on Nick’s face. It imprints on his mind, a permanent tattoo he’ll never be able to shake from the back of his eyelids. The other boy only sputters helplessly, and the thoughts of the future only make Charlie agonize all the more.
It takes long, way too long, before Nick’s speaking. It’s only two words before he’s standing up, furiously rubbing his eyes and stumbling away from their table.
“Alright, then.”
And then, in only a moment, Nick is gone. And it’s over. Whatever the two of them had, Nick and Charlie, however minuscule it is- was, it’s over.
He swallows, lips trembling and palms bleeding from how hard his nails dig into them. Everything feels unbearably heavy and suffocating.
Objectively, he knows this was for the best. Objectively, he knows Nick will be happier this way. But that doesn’t help. Nothing does. The pain keeps beating in his chest, so ingrained it’s become a second pulse.