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The facility they bring Charlotte to isn't at all like the Switzerland institution.
It's the only thing she thinks about as she settles in for the first few days. Her consciousness comes back to her slowly, in bits and pieces, like shards of glass being fit back together. Jagged, but right, for the most part. There are stark differences. The walls have color, rather than a blistering white all around her. She's allowed to roam freely, which was a privilege she'd had in the last institution, but not before some time had passed. She's still watched uncomfortably closely, and some of the staff remind her of the staff in Switzerland which often ends in confusion, in her calling out the wrong names, in displaced discomfort thinking that they'll take her away for another round of therapy that leaves her feeling sick, dizzy and disoriented.
None of them ever seem to notice, or care very much if they do. This, somehow, helps.
She goes back on the loxapine.
Her new therapist is a kind, smiling man with glasses; a man that doesn't wear the same colors that she does during their sessions, and he calls her Charlotte with an accent she identifies as vaguely London-oriented. He has two children, a loving wife, and a golden retriever named Plato who is getting along in years but still always has time to play fetch with his twin daughters. He asks questions that don't come off as suspicious or leading at all, and he's known to end their sessions a little early if he starts to sense her discomfort.
She wonders what he writes down during these sessions, but she doesn't wonder enough to ask.
It doesn't matter, anyway.
This thought is strangely comforting to her when she's struggling. That nothing, actually, matters; now that everything is done, now that the sacrifice has finished. Now that the visions are gone.
When she asks who's paying for this, because she certainly isn't though she easily could, someone is kind enough to give her a name.
Taissa Turner.
Charlotte remembers then. That night. Or maybe she'd never forgotten – either way, she remembers like a sharp shock, like someone's shoved a cattle prod into her ribs.
Dr. Moore increases her dosage.
She has trouble, sometimes, recalling details from her time in Switzerland, but she feels like the side effects were worse back then.
(This, in retrospect, may have been due to the ECT.)
The medication just leaves her with a slightly dry mouth, but she can't tell if it's because of the heater setting that's always higher when she left it before falling asleep. It's broken and they keep telling her over the first couple weeks that there will be someone in to fix it soon, but no one ever comes and she suspects at this point no one ever will come. It doesn't matter anyway; she wakes up cold regardless of how warm the air is, how sticky the inside of her mouth feels. Sometimes she wakes up with a coppery tang in the back of her throat, and goes to rinse out her mouth and realizes that she's bitten on the inside of her cheek or through her tongue in her sleep.
That'll be because of the nightmares.
(“Jesus,” the woman two doors down from her says in the morning the first time, laughing, “you kept me awake last night, it sounded like you were being murdered.”)
She's fortunate enough not to have a roommate in this place. Everyone has their own rooms here. The staff is friendly. There's no one holding her down, putting something in her mouth to bite down on when her jaw inevitably locks and her teeth snap together, and –
Charlotte knows how places like this work. She's been here before. Every place is the same when you think about it; it doesn't matter if it's cold and lonely or bright and warm and full of life. It's always the same, and she won't be allowed to leave.
She doesn't bother to ask; she's afraid of the answer, whether it's the door opening to let her out or the lock sliding into place to keep her in.
Taissa visits her on the twenty-eighth day.
Charlotte does mark them down as they pass by, because a part of her is afraid she'll forget otherwise. It isn't that she's missing memories, after she snapped out of it, when everything started to flood back into her day after day, night after night, keeping her awake with chills and sticking her clothes to her skin with sweat.
It's just that a part of her would like to forget.
That's natural, but that's not something she can do anymore.
She can never forget again.
She should never forget again.
The visitors' lounge is wide, roomy and full of circular wooden tables and warm air, bright late afternoon sunshine gleaming through the windows. Charlotte feels like she's being stared at when she sits down across from the familiar face, but the only one looking at her is Taissa when she glances around to check.
This is at once comforting and not at all comforting.
“Hi,” Taissa says. She sounds tired; she looks tired. Charlotte wants to reach over and take her hands, in such a rush of desperation that instead she clasps them tight in her lap and digs her nails into her skin until she can feel it break, stinging, under the pressure. Later she'll have to stare at the fine half-moon marks under warm running water and think about what excuse to use if anyone looks at it.
“Hello,” Charlotte whispers. Her own voice sounds off in her ears; stilted, warped, like someone else or something else is speaking through her. The thought sends a jolt of anxiety into her brain, but no – no, she breathes and she feels her skin and she touches the ends of her hair, dark and draping over her shoulders. She is herself. It's okay. She's okay. There's no need to panic.
“How was the funeral?” Charlotte asks.
Taissa flinches a little; a bit of tension in her jaw, a flicker of her fingers. Charlotte decides to watch that instead of her face, because looking at her for too long makes her want to start apologizing, and the thought of opening that up right now makes her feel like she's going to be sick. Maybe it's all one and the same anyway, saying I'm sorry and then vomiting. Expel your emotions, expel your insides. Maybe then she would feel clear again, instead of too full; maybe then she would be able to breathe, the blockage in her throat removed.
“Uh,” Taissa says. “Yeah. It was. It was nice.” She pauses. That hangs in the air. “It was okay.”
“Okay,” Charlotte says. How did the body look? her mind asks. Did Natalie look okay? Was Natalie okay? They treated her body well, didn't they? With respect? They made sure she looked exactly the way that she wanted to, no more, no less? They were gentle with her, and kind? Did a lot of people come? No, did the right people come? “I'm sorry that I didn't...”
Taissa looks at her for so long that Charlotte thinks she's missing something, and sure enough – “Lottie, Misty was there. We were all there.”
“Oh.” Yes, of course they wouldn't want her there. After everything. Of course that would be – yes. Well, of course. “Of course. I'm sorry.”
“You don't have to say that.” Taissa isn't looking at her anymore. Charlotte wonders if she will again before she leaves. “I'm sorry you're here.”
That isn't what Charlotte expected, not at all, so she has to take it in for a moment. I'm sorry you're here.
No one's ever said that to her before.
Charlotte feels herself smiling. It feels like something is ripping her mouth open to make her do it, to force it.
“Thank you,” Charlotte says, hollow.
“I'm sorry it took so long for me to visit, too,” Taissa says abruptly, and a little loudly, like she's trying so hard – bless her – to move on, forward, past the unpleasantness. “It won't take as long next time. And I'll bring Van. I know she's wanted to come check in on you but we've, uh, had some things to take care of. I mean, not me and her, just. All of us. You know?”
“I know,” Charlotte says, and she does. “I hope that you're all taking care of each other.”
“We are.”
Charlotte can't tell if it's the truth or not. It's better that she doesn't try to find out, so she makes a conscious choice in that moment not to look deeper, not to ask more questions.
“I'd like to see you again,” she says instead. “Thank you. I get a little bored here.”
“But they're treating you okay here, right?” Taissa tips her head up, meets her eyes again – just for a second. Serious, concerned.
“Yes. They're treating me fine. A hell of a lot better than Switzerland.”
Taissa laughs like she didn't expect that answer – like she can't help but laugh. Charlotte smiles, and it feels a little less painful. Just barely, just for a second. She can't keep it up for long, of course.
“Good. I'll check in on you again. How's next week? I think I have some free time in my schedule then.”
I think. That leaves it open-ended on purpose.
Charlotte's mind wanders off, wondering if this is the start of being left alone again. Is Taissa distancing herself from her? If so she can't blame her for it. She can't blame anyone for anything. It all happened exactly how it was meant to and it was all – every single thing that happened in those woods – her fault. Just like before.
Charlotte's tongue sticks to the roof of her mouth. She peels it off, she swallows something heavy and metallic down, she nods her head.
“That sounds nice. Next week.”
Taissa's shoulders sink a little, like she's relieved. “Good. Okay.”
They talk for ten or so more minutes until the visitors' lounge closes.
Nothing important, nothing that matters.
The small talk feels worse than if Taissa looked her in the eyes and started talking about the events of that night as clearly as Charlotte has started to recall them these days.
Charlotte reaches for her before she leaves – when they're both standing up on opposite sides of the table, turning to go, one back to the lonely dead silence of her room and the other to her real life.
Taissa makes a move like she's going to pull away, but she can't bring herself to do it. Charlotte can see it in her face. And she does feel guilty for it, issuing this plea.
She's only making this woman more miserable, when she should have let her go quietly.
“Please come back soon,” she finds herself saying, though what she actually wants to say is something about Natalie, and something about Shauna, and something about Misty and Van; and something about Natalie again, and the funeral, and please tell me more, please, I need to know how it was, I didn't get to be there, I didn't get anything at all.
(I never get anything at all, but that would be almost unfair. Wouldn't it. To the others who have suffered because of her.)
Taissa nods, doesn't look at her, and leaves out of the front doors like she wants to run.
Charlotte can sympathize; her footsteps down the hall back to her room beat in time with the pulsing of her heartbeat and when she throws herself down on her bed and clutches a pillow to her chest she can feel it all vibrating through her body, her palms clammy and her breath heaving.
She knows how to soothe herself out of a panic attack, after all these years – so it's all right.
She has no roommate.
She wonders if she can request one.
If there's one thing Charlotte's always hated, it's being alone.
Misty calls her regularly; same days, same time, four times a week, but never visits.
The calls go a little like this:
“She's dead.”
“I know.”
“It's your fault.”
“I know.”
“It's my fault.”
“I know.”
“What do I do?”
“What do you want to do?”
(And then Misty cries, and cries, and Charlotte listens, twisting the phone cord around her fingers until it hurts, so they're numb for hours after.)
Charlotte associates Van with a kind of reliable humor that, maybe, has been gone for years now. She sees it when Van sits down across from her, hands awkwardly spread palm flat against the table. Or rather she sees the lack thereof, the gap of it, the empty void where the true Van used to be before, like all things, time took it away. Charlotte understands, she does; and when she pointed it out in the past, it hadn't been meant to hurt. More to clarify.
There is something missing from all of them.
Natalie's death changed nothing about that specific thing. Perhaps it just made it worse.
She knows it has for her.
Charlotte slides over one of the cinnamon apple granola bars that the staff keep stocked as snacks for them. Van's hands tremble a little when she tears it open, takes out a slightly too big bite. Chews for a little too long. Makes an odd face. Charlotte understands that – the granola bars do taste a little like cardboard. But she's already gotten used to them.
She misses smoothies.
“Taissa said that she was going to come with you,” Charlotte says, “when she visited. I expected to see her today too.”
“Yeah, well, that was the plan, but – uh, she had a thing.” Van waves a hand dismissively, but it isn't quite dismissive enough, and far too forced. Under the table her leg is bouncing; it isn't that Charlotte can see it but she can feel it, the repetitive brush of Van's denim pant leg against the fabric of her own flowy skirt.
(Charlotte doesn't wear her caftans here; it doesn't feel right. She also doesn't wear her jeans and dusters, because that feels too normal. So she wears things in dark shades, smooth fabrics, and tries not to think too much about the lack of color.)
They sit there in silence for five minutes. Charlotte counts them exactly, because it's difficult not to. The air feels alive around them, buzzing with Van's jittery energy, and – and this is important: the silence is cold and still, and so untouchable, a thing apart from them entirely. They are in this moment, these moments, together – and only them.
It's also a waste of their allotted time – visiting hours are shorter on weekdays than weekends and it's Wednesday – so she's about to open her mouth and break the silence when Van does it instead.
“Do you remember what you said to me?”
Charlotte knows exactly what she's talking about, right away.
It's almost comical that Van seems to think she might not.
Like she is absolutely, completely insane, with no memories of what happened at all.
“I do,” she says. “I can tell you again if you want to hear it again. As many times as you like, Van.”
Van looks paler than usual, under these lights. “I don't – I just, what did you mean?”
“I don't know,” Charlotte says, and continues before Van can break away from her, break away from this, “but do I have to? Do we have to know? You'll know when it comes. When it happens.”
“Jesus, Lottie, that's not – I'm not fucking asking if you, just – if –“ Van's fingers run through her hair. They look almost like they're ripping, Charlotte almost expects to see strands of fire clutched loose in her palm when Van pulls away, but there's nothing but bare skin.
Charlotte waits.
“I don't think Nat's death cured my fucking cancer or anything,” Van spits finally, like it's a shard of glass that's been stuck in her mouth and she's finally pried it loose. “Okay? That's insane. You know that's insane.”
Charlotte looks at her. Van looks back.
“Cancer?” Charlotte says.
Van pushes out her chair with a screech so loud it splits the air in two and makes half the room look over.
Charlotte sits there long after she's walked off and stares at the granola bar with the bite taken out of it, its wrapper crumpled tight, an impression of Van's shaky fist left behind.
“I don't know what to say.”
Charlotte and Shauna have been staring at each other for the past three minutes since Shauna sat down across from her, and neither of them have said a word. This is strangely fitting, Charlotte thinks. What is there to say, after all? After everything that has already been done? It's too late for words, for apologies or explanations; not that she thinks that Shauna's come to provide either. The thought of Shauna Shipman apologizing to her makes Charlotte feel, absurdly, like laughing.
She doesn't laugh often these days, so it's a feeling she'd like to hold on to for a little while; but just like that, it goes. Precisely timed around when Shauna opens her mouth again.
“They let you all, uh...” Her eyes drift around the room. “...wander around?” Clearly they both know how this sounds, because Shauna winces a little at herself as the silence settles.
“We aren't locked in our rooms until it's past curfew, and then if we do want to get out for a walk around, one of the staff will open the doors for us. It's for our own safety, of course. Some of the others try to break out at night. Just a few days ago, someone broke their hand trying to beat the door down. He was transferred.”
Shauna doesn't expect an answer, clearly, certainly not one as complete as that, because she stares blankly at Charlotte for a second and then tears her gaze away, looking out the window.
The sun is starting to set across the grounds, rays of golden light sparkling against the green, finely cut grass. They cut it too short here, give it no room whatsoever to grow, but leave the ugly shrubs around the fences big enough to make up for it. The birds are chirping their last into the evening, before they'll all be woken up by their chorus again in the morning. There's been a nest forming under Charlotte's window sill, but whenever she looks, there's no one there, not even any eggs.
Maybe in the summer, if she's still here then.
“You aren't comfortable here,” Charlotte says after a while. The silence, on the other hand, has become strangely comfortable, but there's a feeling inside of her that's growing and growing. This is the effect Shauna has on her. She wishes it wasn't. She doesn't blame her, but it's difficult to blame herself too. Difficult as in too easy; difficult as in so easy it's like the air that fills her lungs, easy as that. Instinct. “You can go. It's all right.”
Shauna stands awkwardly slow, hands clutching at her bag. She looks down at Charlotte, long and quiet, like she's trying to find something. Charlotte wonders distantly if she's finding it, if she's reaching for it and plucking it away, but there's nothing for either of them. She knows this the moment Shauna steps back, nods, avoids her eyes. She hadn't looked deep enough. She hadn't cared to. She hadn't wanted to.
“I'm happy for you,” Charlotte says, before she goes.
She has to say it – she might not get another chance to. For all she knows, she might never see Shauna again. The thought of that awakens a long-held ache in her chest, a horrible haunting sort of feeling. Every time she sees one of them may be the last. Taissa hasn't visited again; Van hasn't visited again; Shauna absolutely won't visit again.
“You have a lovely family, Shauna.”
Shauna isn't upset or angry at her for that, which brings upon Charlotte a sort of awful, guilty relief – she knows it's a gamble, saying something like that to her. But Shauna's fingers don't clench shut tight around the strap of her bag, she doesn't narrow her eyes, she doesn't jerk away as if Charlotte's reached out to her physically. She just nods, still not looking at her, still refusing to meet truth with truth.
“Yeah. Thank you. Bye, Lottie.”
Charlotte tries to smile. It doesn't matter. No one's looking.
“Goodbye, Shauna,” she says, and watches her go.
(“You have a lot of friends, Charlotte,” one of the staff says as she leads her back to her room, smiling at her; she's a sweet girl named Miranda, with a piercing in her eyebrow that she puts in only when she's clocking out and every time it reminds Charlotte so much of Lisa her insides start to ache, “that's cool. It's nice to see.”
“I'm very lucky,” Charlotte says, and then starts crying for no reason.
Miranda doesn't so much as bat an eyelash. She's used to this by now.)
Charlotte imagines a visit from Misty would go a little like this:
“She's dead,” Misty says, fingers clutching in Charlotte's hair, or around her throat, or clinging so hard to her hands that the bones grind together. Desperate, shaking. Both of them one person, both of them mourning one person.
“I know,” Charlotte says, breathing through the pain. Always, always breathing through the pain.
“It's your fault.”
“I know.”
“It's my fault.”
“I know.”
“What do we do?”
“I don't know.”
And Misty would cry and cry, and Charlotte would dig her nails into her own skin until they came back, blood caked underneath.
Natalie comes to Charlotte usually in the evenings before curfew, and they lay together in her bed, hands loosely clasped, the rest of their bodies kept distant. Natalie feels cold and barely there, like a presence she can only sense when she chooses to tune into it. A flicker in the corner of her eyes, a glossy sheen by the window, vanishing if she turns too quickly. But if Charlotte breathes it in and lets it happen, Natalie comes to her like the night of her death, looking exactly as she last remembers her looking; done up in heliotrope, tense and irritable.
“I'm not really here, you know,” Natalie drones in her ear when Charlotte is standing by her window and looking out to watch the last fading hints of sun in the sky go down. Natalie is always so close to her that she can feel it, the chill of her breath on her ear and neck, the smell of her cigarettes more prominent than anything else between them. When she reaches out she knows she could touch Natalie if she liked, feel the graze of her skin against hers, feel safety in her presence.
Charlotte does know this. She's spent so many years knowing that she sees things that are not really there; before the wilderness, during the wilderness, after the wilderness. She doesn't need one of those things telling her that it isn't real, though she'll sometimes spend hours thinking it anyway. Natalie is as real as her or anyone else, when she arrives. As real, as present, as alive and breathing as she's ever been, her face not slack in death, her eyes not blank. She is realer when Charlotte imagines her as she was the night she died, and not as a child, a teenager, a girl with ragged blonde hair and dark roots and a not yet fully developed cynicism.
Charlotte never pictures her in the woods, because that leads nowhere good. She knows this from experience.
It's before, or it's after. Only those two things. Only those two things are safe enough where she can open her eyes to an empty room, an empty bed, empty slots between her trembling fingers, and breathe through the agony in her chest until she calms. Only then can she get up and go take her medication.
This is something willful; this is something she is deciding to keep for herself. And why not? Who is it hurting, except herself?
Who is it hurting, except the person that most deserves it?
“That's all right,” Charlotte says. She turns, slowly and carefully so the image doesn't vanish.
Natalie, standing in front of her whole and alive, raises her eyebrows at her, sardonic to the last.
Surprise, it's like she's saying. Tada. I'm still here. What the fuck now. And as she thinks it, Natalie's lips form each word with her. They've never felt closer. Never felt further apart.
“This place sucks,” Natalie rasps, passes by her – their sleeves brush – and drags her fingertips along the wall and the headboard of her bed, letting them curl up underneath her blanket and pull it back. Charlotte lets her hands mirror her, making her bed where Natalie unmakes it, smoothing out the wrinkles caused by dismissive hands wanting to cause minor destruction wherever they go. “Aren't you bored? Don't you wanna, like, get out?”
“I have nowhere else to go,” Charlotte says.
“Well, that's depressing. But you're rich – you could go anywhere.”
“Nowhere that matters.”
“You could rebuild.”
“Could I?”
“Jesus. I thought I was supposed to be the negative one in this friendship, Charlotte.”
Natalie sneers her full name, but that's not what draws her attention. Charlotte looks up and up and up to her from where she's sitting on the edge of the bed, though she didn't remember ever sitting down. This happens sometimes; her visions come, her visions go, and leave her disoriented and forgetful, with missing pieces in her memory. Less like chunks, more like slivers. Just like little cracks in the glass. They don't matter. “Is it a friendship now?”
Charlotte feels herself smiling as Natalie's brows furrow to make a glare fit on her face.
“It was always a friendship, asshole.” Natalie pushes her over.
Laughing, Charlotte tumbles back onto the bed, her head dizzy and her breath light.
“Don't be rude,” she teases back, “can't you tell that I'm lonely?”
“What do you think I am?” Natalie rolls her eyes. “I'm dead.”
“Are you really, Natalie? Am I speaking to a ghost?” She swings an arm out; her hand slaps quietly against Natalie's shoulder. “It doesn't go through you.”
“You've watched too many movies. You're speaking to something that's in your head.” Natalie raps her knuckles against Charlotte's temple. The ache feels real; the blow feels solid, the thud in her ear sounds closer than any noise trying to reach her on the outside, like the chirping of birds or the casual chatter of staff members as they walk past her room down the hall. “Pull it together, Lottie.”
“Do you want to get breakfast with me?”
“Dinner. And I don't know, I think everyone would freak out a little if they saw you talking to yourself, but maybe that's just me.”
“Most people in here talk to themselves,” Charlotte quips, though it isn't entirely true.
“Uhuh.” Natalie falls back onto the bed beside her, and they lay together, stare at the ceiling, and hold hands. Just like always.
“Do you know that I was trying to do it myself? I didn't want anyone else to...to—“
“Then why did you put it in the tea? Why did you let Shauna shuffle the cards? Why did you let me die?”
Charlotte's head hurts. “Natalie...”
“It's fine. Listen, if you blame yourself, the others are going to feel like they've won. Don't give them the pleasure.”
“What are you talking about?” Charlotte laughs it off. It's easy to do that, with Natalie. Natalie's words are all sharp, jagged edges and acid fire; if she doesn't laugh it off she'll get burned. “They aren't as cruel as you think they are, Natalie.”
“I'm not saying they mean to feel that way. I'm just saying they do. Everyone needs a scapegoat. Someone to blame.” Natalie's arm nudges hers when she turns onto her side to face her. Charlotte turns the opposite way so that they're facing each other. Her eyeliner is a little smudged at the corners. Charlotte reaches out to even it out with a thumb, fingers lingering on the skin of Natalie's cheek.
“You're it,” Natalie says, deep soft voice making Charlotte's skin prickle. Her fingers slide around the back of Charlotte's neck and stay there, barely cupped against the skin.
“What?”
“You're the fucking scapegoat.”
“It's okay,” Charlotte says, feels it reverberate through her chest. “It's okay, Natalie. I'm okay. You shouldn't worry about me.”
Natalie scoffs, flips onto her back suddenly so that their connection is firmly cut off. “I never said I was worried.”
“I'm just relieved,” Charlotte says, though the tight knot behind her breastbone doesn't feel much like any relief she's felt before. If she had followed her visions sooner, listened quicker instead of trying to ignore them and push them away...maybe less damage would have been done. Maybe there would be something still recoverable.
“Relieved,” Natalie echoes beside her disbelievingly.
Charlotte finds that she can't speak, suddenly, so she just looks at Natalie and hopes to be understood. Hopes for the depth of the emotion that wells up inside of her to be understood. Hopes, somehow, Natalie will be able to reach inside of her, and feel it.
The visions have stopped ever since she's come here. They've stopped because the wilderness has been fed.
It has been fed.
“Don't you think your medication has something to do with that?” Natalie says, and her voice is dry, flat, like once again Charlotte is being misunderstood, like once again she is thought to be playing a cruel, cold game the rest of them don't want to join in on, but that isn't it, that's never been it.
“It didn't take you before,” Charlotte says through the rapid closing of her throat, the fluttering of her pulse like an angry drum in her ears. “It didn't take you before, I thought – this time, again –“
What is she trying to say? What is she trying to—
“You're such a fucking liar,” Natalie laughs, and for a moment she sounds young again but when Charlotte starts and looks over to her she looks the same, even as she reaches over with the smile of someone much different, much less jaded, and smacks Charlotte over the head. “Just relax.”
“I'm,” Charlotte tries, but it's difficult to breathe, “I'm fine, Natalie, I'm –“ But she isn't. Her muscles are all frozen, and it's hard to swallow until Natalie gently presses two fingers against her throat, almost as if feeling her pulse until she applies just enough pressure that it makes Charlotte instinctively gulp down what little saliva is left in her mouth, not dried out by panic. After that, the swallowing comes easy again, and so does the breathing.
Blindly, she searches for Natalie's hand in the dark. The lights have all gone out around them, and it's taken her until now to realize it. The last time she'd seen Natalie she was backlit by what little sun was still coming through the window. That seems like seconds ago; that seems like years ago.
“I'm still here,” Natalie says at her ear, chin digging into her shoulder, and her fingers slot into Charlotte's like they belong there. She squeezes her hand, hard.
When Charlotte breathes out, it sounds too much like a sob. Natalie doesn't mock her for it, just holds her tighter. In the dark it's almost like she's really, very real, the realest thing in Charlotte's life, more there than anything else.
Charlotte never, ever wants her to leave.
“I'm not going anywhere,” Natalie says, like she's read her mind.
“Stay with me,” Charlotte requests anyway, or demands. “Stay with me. Until morning. Until the sun comes up.” Until the knock on her door comes and Natalie vanishes just like that, into the corners of nonexistence, back into the darkness away where Charlotte can't reach, where no one else can see her.
“All right.” Natalie shifts beside her, pulls her closer with an arm. She's so warm. Charlotte is so cold. “It's not like I have anywhere else to be anyway.” She makes a noise, cynical amusement through and through ringing clear and sharp in Charlotte's head, familiar long lazy drawl just the same: get it? Because I'm dead? Because I was in the forest and you had us hunt each other for sport like rabid dogs on behalf of a thing that none of the rest of us believe exists? Get it? Because you killed me, Lottie? Because you betrayed me, Lottie? You led me into this false sense of security, this pretending that everything would be okay if I just went with your bullshit, and you took it away from me? Lottie? Do you get it?
Charlotte doesn't laugh.
She doesn't sleep either, but she feels it when Natalie breaks her promise anyway. It isn't like it was phrased as a promise, it isn't like Charlotte called it one, so it doesn't count. But she feels it.
Two hours before dawn, the warmth leaves her.
“Natalie?” Charlotte whispers, throat dry.
There's no answer. No blood slick on her hands, either; no shadows shaping haunting figures leaning over her; no snow outside, no cold water dripping from a leak in the ceiling, no gentle-soft voices in her ear telling her what to do.
The wilderness no longer speaks to Charlotte, and Natalie is gone.
This has happened every day for two months since she first laid down in this bed, so Charlotte should be used to it now. Realistically speaking. She should know exactly what will happen, and she knows sure as the beating of her own heart that Natalie will come back to her again, and they will rest hand in hand.
Still, she lets the pressure suffocate her until sunrise.
It feels like penance.