All But Forgotten

For the next couple of days I tried my best to be invisible.

I didn't leave my house, for the fear of bumping into Charlotte. There was no way I could face her. What was there to say? The guys had no trouble talking to her though. Patrick was with her all the time after finding her phone number in the phone book. They went out eating, hung out at the park. Talked about nothing, from what Patrick told me. But he had a grin on his face, and a glisten in his eyes that told me he'd rather be doing that than anything else.

Even though I never asked for detailsout loud, he always came home with another tale to tell. He kept telling me that she looked so much better with age. I believed him. It didn't make matters any easier though. I didn't want to know that. And even though I shook with anticipation to see her, I wasn't going to admit that I cared.

Joe and Andy always put their two cents in as well. Either they all hung out as a group, or it was one on one. None the less, they always came back to my house cheery and loud. As if i wanted to hear it. I really didn't.

With a groan I rolled out of bed and landed on the floor. The only reason I was attempting to get cleaned up was because we had a photo shoot today for SPIN. I wasn't as excited as I should've been, but I had alot on my mind.
Joe walked by me and gave me a look.

"What are you doing here?"

"Why aren't you ready?"

We spoke at the same time causing us to sigh in unison.

"I was just waiting for you. Thought you'd be ready by now."

He trailed off and looked at me with his head cocked to the side.

"I'm just going to take a shower."

"You need one dude, you look and smell rancid."

I made a face at him and continued down the hallway

When I was in the bathroom I looked at myself in the mirror. He was right. I looked terrible. I hadn't shaved in about 4 days and my hair hadn't been touched either. I yawned and smelled my own breath.

"Eh.."

Ok,maybe I did smell a little rancid.
I unclothed and stepped into the shower.

The hot water poured down my back.

I kept replaying the conversation Patrick was having with me yesterday. I had been lying in bed when he came in of course.

"Get up,Pete. You look like the world is ending."

"It feels like it is."

He had rolled his eyes and leaned against the wall.
He completely ignored the grunts and groans that came from my lips, as he went on to tell me about the wonderful day he had had with Charlotte.

"Did you know she's starting a photography company? I think its called-"

"Patrick that's very interesting.."

He gave me the 'shut up and listen' look, so i did. Much to my disliking.
Joe had entered my house at that point and Patrick left my room. I thought I was safe from the Charlotte topic, but I was shot down when I heard them talking outside my door.

"Did you see what she was wearing? She looked really good in that pea coat. And olive green looks great on her skin."

I already knew this. I knew everything there was to know about Charlotte. Of course the coat was olive green. What other color would it be? I knew that for the winter and the fall, she wore dark nature colors. Browns. Greens. Maroons.
For the spring and the summer she wore bright colors. Pink. Blue. Neon orange.
I knew all of this, I didn't need to be reminded of her.

"Yeah I know, she smelled good to. What was she wearing?"

Juicy Couture
I knew that also. I couldn't count how many times i had gotten her bottles of that stuff. After we broke up, whenever I smelled it on another girl I had to walk away from her, or leave the room. It brought back alot of memories.
Don't get me wrong, Charlotte and I had alot of good memories. In fact most of them are good. It's just the fact that when we did fight, it was bad. They lasted for at least a week. She'd go back to her dorm, refusing to answer my calls or my text messages.
It wasn't even the silent treatment that ever got to me. It was the things we had yelled back and forth. Things that made me really wonder if we were truly suppose to be together like I thought we were going to be.
I guess we weren't though, because here we were broken up.

****

The drive to the photo shoot was terrible. I could feel the guys looking at me. Even Joe and Andy who were in the backseat of Patrick's Honda. I could feel them looking at the back of my head. And even Patrick (who was driving) was sneaking glances at me. I pretended not to notice until it felt like my head was going to explode.

"Can I ask what you are all expecting me to say?"

I head movement in the backseat, and saw Patrick snap his attention back to the road.
"What do you mean?"

"I can see you looking at me."

"I was just...wondering how you were."

"And what's your excuses?"

I asked them in the backseat.

"What do you mean", was Joe's reply. "You can't even see us!"

I rolled my eyes before looking out the window.

"Whatever."

Whenever I wasn't in a good mood, I had the power to bring down the whole room. I never wanted to, it was just one of those things you couldn't control. Most of the time the guys didn't try to bring me out of it. They knew it was pointless.

15 minutes later

We finally pulled into the lot. I was thankful to leave the car and the thick silence behind. After Patrick parked, i was the first one out of the car. The air stung my cheeks as the wind began to blow. This was Chicago in the middle of fall. November 15. It was already freezing out. I shoved my hoodie over my head and jammed my hands into the pockets of my coat, before ducking into the building. There was a door that had a sign over it reading 'Photo Shoot Prep. SPIN Magazine.'

"Of course."

I spoke to myself and pushed open the door knob. The shoot was a buzz of activity just like they always were. They always needed to get new clothes, or fix that one piece of hair that wouldn't stay down. I didn't like when so many people were near me at one time, unless we were playing a concert. That was completely different.

"Ah,Pete! Where's the rest of the guys?"

There was Sasha. We had all worked with her before, so it was a relief to see a familiar face.
"They're on their way in."

"Good. Well as i told the guys, you have a new photographer-"

"Wait, what?"

"Yeah. Didn't they tell you? No matter. Her name is Charlotte Basset. Maybe you've heard of her. She's opening her own photography company. It's called-"

"Enchanted Photographie"

I filled in the blank. I knew the name from Patrick.

"Oh so you do know her?"

I stopped listening to Sasha and looked around the room. Besides from the racks of clothes, the lights, the cameras, and random bits of the picture that i didn't care about, among all of that, was Charlotte. She was playing around with her Nikon camera across the room. My heart skipped a couple of beats, and I wheezed a little bit.

"Dude, are you ok?"

Sasha went to touch my arm but I turned around to exit the room. Patrick caught me by the shoulders though, Joe and Andy right behind him.

"What's wrong? You're all red in the face."

"Why didn't ANY of you tell me she was going to be doing the damn pictures!?"

Patrick looked down at his feet and the other two didn't move.

"That's why you were all staring at me! You knew she was going to be here, and you knew how i was going to react! And yet you kept your mouths shut so she could-"

"Hello Peter Wentz."

My veins ran cold. It was the voice that I thought about so many times over the past years. There was a hint of a French accent in the voice. And personally it was like soft velvet in my ears. I turned around and there she was. Her green eyes staring into my hazel ones.
Patrick had been right. She looked more beautiful now that she had aged a little. Her black hair was tied in a smooth bun. And I noticed it was tied with her mothers ribbon.
For some reason that made me want to cry.
I couldn't though. Not here.

"Um.."

I was shocked. There was nothing i could say. No words formed into a sentence. And even if they did, i wouldn't have been able to say them.

"Hi Patrick, Joe, Andy."

She nodded to them all and got a chorus of 'Hi's'.

"Glad you could make it. Let's see...make up is down the hall the only white door. Sorry to rush without even speaking to you guys, but My Chemical Romance is due in here later on today. You know Sasha, she's on make up. And Layla is on clothes..so see her when you're done with make up. George is doing hair, but he's in the make up room. You'll see him. Tall lanky guy, red hair. Can't miss him."

"Thanks alot."

Joe spoke up, with a goofy grin on his face. The others head toward the make up room, but before I could get my feet to move she spoke again.

"Pete, can you wait up?"

I should've just walked away, pretending I didn't hear her. Or I could've did the little kid move and jogged down the hallway, basically running away from her. But for some reason I stayed.

"I just wanted to ask you not to let our past get in the way of this. I'm just a photographer. Nothing more. Just be yourself."

"That's what got you hurt in the first place."

A sad smile tugged at her lips, and she looked at the ceiling, almost as if to stop herself from crying.

"It's ok. I have a boyfriend. I have my own apartment. I'm doing what I love and I'm getting acknowledged for it. Let's just..get through this ok?"

She gave another small smile before walking back to the other side of the room.
Something felt weird with me though. There was a tightening in my chest that hadn't been there before. And it felt strangely familiar. Like jealousy

The shoot went terrible. My head was stuck in the clouds, and twice Patrick had to call my name aloud. I felt worse when I saw Charlotte helping the other guys with their instruments and their poses. She never came anywhere near me. When I needed help, she didn't come up and help me like she did with the others. She'd just point it out and politely ask me to do it. For some reason, that made me feel like shit. She was telling me to act like nothing had happened, but she was completely giving away the fact that we had something. She was terrified to be anywhere near me. When the shoot was finally over the others went to hug her and talk. As soon as I left my mark, heading toward them, she took off down the hallway, muttering something about 'checking the prints'.
Patrick came over the me after that.

"That was one of the best shoots-"

"It sucked."

He looked shocked from my bluntness.

"I'm still pissed that none of you told me she was going to-"

"What would you have done, Pete?"

"I wouldn't have come until we got a different photographer."

He rolled his eyes.

"Was it really that bad?"

I couldn't put it into words how bad it actually was. So instead of saying anything, I just walked away.