Goodnight Hollywood Boulevard

“Hey asshole, you better be dressed,” Sasha yelled as she bravely pushed Wyatt’s bedroom door open. The sight in front of her caused her jaw to fall open. “Bobbie, you need to come see this.”

“I don’t want to see your naked brother,” Bobbie groaned and begrudgingly stepped up next to her best friend. “What’s going on?”

Before them they saw Wyatt and Charlotte curled up together on his bed, sound asleep. Wyatt was dressed in pajamas but Charlotte looked as if she had gotten dressed at home then made her way over here; Bobbie couldn’t understand why her sister was sleeping over here with another guy if Garrett was in town.

She pushed past Sasha and grabbed Charlotte’s shoulder, her nails nearly breaking skin as she shook her older sister awake. “What is going on?” Bobbie demanded as a sleepy Charlotte looked up at her.

“What?” she yawned, then looked at Wyatt. She scrambled away from him, falling to the floor. “Oh, God, Bobbie this isn’t what you think. I came here to talk to him this morning. We must have fallen asleep.”

“What do you need to talk to him about?” Bobbie asked incredulously.

“Look, I don’t expect you to understand, okay?” Charlotte sighed as Wyatt stirred awake.

“What about Garrett?” Sasha added.

Wyatt sat up in his bed and decided it was time for his input, too. “Shut up, Sasha. Neither of you need to be butting into Charlotte’s relationship, okay? Nothing happened here.”

Charlotte gave him a thankful smile. “I’ve got to get home and talk to Garrett, alright? So let’s go, Bobbie. I’m sure Dad is worried sick about you.”

Bobbie groaned as Charlotte grabbed her arm and dragged her out of the house. They walked down the street in silence until Bobbie spotted the yellow car in the drive.

“You were sleeping with Wyatt even though Garrett spent the night?” Bobbie asked in shock.

“Bobbie, please,” Charlotte sighed. “That isn’t what happened.”

“So explain it!” Bobbie nearly screamed. “What fucked up notion sank into your brain and told you it would be okay to leave Garrett in your bed and go slink into some other guy’s?”

“John said Garrett kissed Rachael,” Charlotte whispered, her feet instantly cemented in place. Her mouth ran dry and her throat closed.

“What?” Bobbie asked softly. “When?”

“Uh, New Year’s Eve they all went to someone’s party,” she mumbled. “Everyone saw it, I guess.”

“Did you talk to him about it?” Bobbie asked, wrapping an arm around Charlotte’s shoulders and guiding her to their house.

“John told me this morning and I drove home with the intentions of confronting him about it, but ended up walking down the street. I told Wyatt what was going on and I cried a lot,” she explained before they reached their front door. “But, um, Wyatt kissed me.”

“He what?” Bobbie growled. She wasn’t anti-Wyatt, she knew he had a crush on Charlotte, but she loved the idea of Charlotte and Garrett together; they belonged together, their history proved it. This was just a bump in the road, because nothing can be perfect.

Charlotte shook her head, “I have to talk to Garrett.”

Bobbie nodded and watched as Charlotte pushed the front door open and disappeared upstairs. Bobbie quietly closed the door and managed to get one foot on the stairs before she heard her name being called from the kitchen. She sighed, knowing she was caught.

Charlotte quietly walked into her room. Garrett was still sound asleep even though it was verging on 11 in the morning. She sighed inwardly and took a seat on her window nook. She watched the younger residents of the street set up towels and chairs outside, living up the last days of their winter break. Almost 20 minutes later, she noticed a familiar figure making way down the shore. It was Wyatt on his morning run; he looked angry this time, his pace faster than usual. Charlotte frowned and made a mental note to catch up with him on their nightly run.

“Char?” Garrett asked sleepily, rustling the bed sheets as he woke up. “How long have you been up?”

Charlotte bit her lip as her eyes stayed trained on Wyatt’s retreating figure. She could feel her cheeks burning already and her eyes stung yet again with the threat of tears. She had to bit her lip harder to keep it from trembling as she turned to face him.

“Char,” Garrett whispered, crawling out of her bed and across the room to get to her. “What’s going on?”

“Why don’t you tell me what’s going on,” she suggested harshly. “About New Year’s?”

He sighed heavily and took a seat on the space by her feet. “Who told you?”

“John,” she replied. “Everyone saw, Garrett. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t think anyone saw. And I know that sounds bad, Char, but just listen for a minute,” he sighed. “Rachael’s boyfriend broke up with her probably half an hour before midnight. She kissed me, okay? I didn’t kiss her.”

“Why?” Charlotte asked. “Why would she do it?”

“She didn’t see you around,” Garrett explained. “She figured we had broken up when you moved up here.”

Charlotte shook her head. “That shouldn’t matter.”

“What was I supposed to do?” he asked angrily. “Char, I didn’t plan on it happening. The guys wouldn’t let me leave last month because we had to save to get our shit together for this record. And now I’m here, all yours for a full month instead of just a weekend here and there.”

Charlotte shook her head again, turning her attention back to the window. “You still kissed her, Garrett.”

“Wow, Charlotte,” Garrett said exasperatedly. “Yeah, we kissed on New Year’s but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t wishing it was you instead.”

Charlotte was silent for a moment. She wanted to forgive him and hug him and never let him go again, but she couldn’t do any of it. He had said it himself; he was only hers for one month. And during that month, he’d be working on a record and then once it’s done, he’ll be touring nonstop to promote it. They’d hardly see each other once this month is over. Maybe it was best that he had kissed Rachael. And maybe it was fate what happened at Wyatt’s earlier.

“Wyatt kissed me this morning,” she admitted softly.

“Why the fuck were you at Wyatt’s house?” Garrett demanded.

“I wanted to talk to him!” she shouted. “I couldn’t talk to John about it, I was a mess. Jared was asleep, or else I’d have talked to him about it, so I went with the next in line. I talked to the one guy who doesn’t know much about me, the one person who would be able to listen from an unbiased position.”

“Well he sure isn’t unbiased anymore, is he?” he scoffed, standing and staring at her. “I hope you’re happy.”

“You’re leaving?” she choked.

“I have to go think about this,” he said over his shoulder as he passed through her door.

She pushed herself off the window seat and stumbled after him. “Think about what?” she asked him as he practically floated down the stairs.

“Us,” he replied, pausing at the bottom to look up at her. “This whole thing.”

“Are you breaking up with me?” she barely uttered. She couldn’t control her emotions anymore and the tears spilled down her cheeks. The thought of losing Garrett over this tore her up inside.

Garrett frowned, broken up inside. He wanted to comfort her but he couldn’t; not after she gave him a hard time for kissing someone else when she had turned around and done the same thing. He turned without saying anything and left the house.

Charlotte’s heart stopped and her lungs tightened, like they were going to explode. She didn’t know how she managed to do it but she shuffled back into her room and collapsed onto her bed. She closed her eyes against the smell of Garrett on the sheets and curled up into a ball.

Charlotte wasn’t sure how much time had passed but she slowly peeled her eyes open when she heard a knock on her door. She gave a pitiful sigh in response.

“Char?” Bobbie said softly, cautiously stepping inside the room. “I called Wyatt.”

“Why?” Charlotte grumbled.

“I’ve never seen you like this, Char. I got scared,” Bobbie answered softly. “He’s here, and um, he wants to talk, okay?”

Charlotte felt her bed dip slightly when Wyatt sat on the edge. He gently rubbed her arm. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“For what?” she asked. It wasn’t like he had anything to be sorry for. Sure, he had kissed her first, but she kissed him back. Garrett was the start of this whole thing. If he hadn’t shared a kiss with Rachael, John wouldn’t have told her and she wouldn’t have gone to Wyatt for comforting.

“Everything,” he answered honestly. “You don’t deserve these feelings.”

Charlotte swallowed hard and rolled over so she was facing him. “I’m afraid,” she said to him and the tears surfaced yet again.

“I know,” he replied with a slight nod and a frown. “Get dressed, I’m going to take you to the pier for dinner, okay?”

Charlotte sighed as she sat up. Even though she was already dressed, she knew she had to dress down for the pier. It was filled with tourists and little kids, not the fashion-obsessed like her.

She trudged into her closet and emerged moments later in a black and white baseball tee, gray corduroy skinny jeans, and grey converse sneakers. She had sloppily wrapped a brown and a purple scarf around her neck and headed for her bathroom. She sighed at her appearance; puffy, red eyes and smeared lipstick. She fixed her lips and added some eyeshadow before tossing on her glasses and finally reemerging.

Wyatt smiled at her and offered his arm. He escorted down the stairs and outside to his car. They drove in silence, the buzz of the radio in the background. Charlotte closed her eyes when she heard that Paramore song again; she had to take this song as a sign. It fit her life more than she wanted to admit and she supposed it was painful to realize her only exception had been Garrett, but he was quite possibly slipping away from her.

They reached the pier quicker than Charlotte thought they would and before she could ask where they were going, Wyatt had already ushered her into a little seafood restaurant at the end of the pier.

He cleared his throat once they had placed their orders. “What happened when you got home?”

Charlotte pushed her straw wrapper around in front of her before answering. “We argued about how he didn’t kiss her, she kissed him, and how he hadn’t thought anyone saw it so he wasn’t going to mention it. I told him about our kiss this morning and he got mad and left. I asked him if he was breaking up with me but he didn’t respond.”

“I’m so sorry, Charlotte,” Wyatt apologized softly, his voice getting lost in the sea of restaurant conversations.

“I don’t know what I’ll do if I lose him,” she confessed sadly. “I’ve fought for so long, I’ve sat around all through high school. I’ve been living in this wasteland, waiting for him to save me. And then one day… he finally did. I can’t lose my savior.”

Wyatt bit his lip. “I don’t know what to say – or even do – to make you feel better. I’ve never felt like that about a girl.”

Charlotte nodded slightly. “It’s just slowly eating away at me, not knowing where we stand. We both messed up, I just want that to be enough to strike it from the records and move on.”

Wyatt was saved from trying to find some words of comfort when Charlotte’s phone buzzed on the table. She looked panicked as she answered.

“Hello?” she said meekly.

“Char,” Garrett sighed heavily. “Bobbie called me.”

“Yeah?” she managed.

“Are you okay?” he asked stiffly.

Charlotte couldn’t help it; the lack of sincerity in his voice caused her throat to close and her cheeks to burn. Her heart constricted as her fears set in; he was done with her. “Are we okay?” she countered through a fresh batch of tears.

When he didn’t answer after a few minutes, she felt her stomach twist and she bit her lip, lowering her phone to click the end button. She buried her face in her hands and tried to silence her sobs. Wyatt quickly moved to join her side of the table and wrapped his arms around her, protectively pulling her into him. She buried her face in his shirt and cried, not a second thought running through her mind that she had essentially turned into a baby in the middle of a crowded family restaurant.

The love of her life had just given up on her.