Tortured Hearts

Alicia’s P.O.V

The strangest thing happened the morning after I’d gone out with Mark to the fairground. I received a text from Charlie asking me whether I’d like to come to visit him. After all the time that had passed, a text from him was really unexpected. I wondered what could have warranted his attention, but decided that looking a gift-horse in the mouth wasn’t the wisest idea. What mattered the most was that he was finally contacting me again.
I text him back asking him when he would like to see me and he replied that as soon as possible would be great. I didn’t hesitate before packing my smallest suitcase, already checking the bus times on my laptop before I packed that in its case as well.
As I was pulling it out into the hallway, Mark came out from the kitchen and saw me. I stopped him in his tracks and he simply pointed my suitcase with a questioning expression.
“Charlie text me asking me whether he could see me,” I said in explanation.
“I’ll see you when you get back, then.” That’s what I liked about Mark; he knew when I wanted to have company and he knew when I needed time on my own.
I nodded with a brief smile before making my way to the bus-stop, not wanting to miss the bus.

I stopped by my parents’ house before I went to visit Charlie, letting myself in with my own key. The house was empty since they were both at work. I went upstairs and dropped my luggage down on the carpet as I took in my room, the same as I’d left it the last time I’d been home. The pictures of Will were all destroyed at Christmas, since I couldn’t stand seeing our faces looking at each other lovingly. In this room, in this house, I could clearly see all the things that had changed rapidly in my life: first was losing Britt, then I gained Will, then I lost Mel, then Charlie, and then I lost Will.
But I was stronger through all the loss and pain that had been thrown my way, which was the thought that was keeping me going.
I text Charlie to let him know I was on my way over before I set out on the familiar route to his house. His mother wasn’t in when I got there and Charlie answered the door, looking bigger than the last time I’d seen him. I got the distinct impression that he’d been working out like crazy. At least, I hoped it wasn’t steroids.
“Thanks for coming,” he said as I walked into his familiar living room.
“You wanted to talk and I promised I’d be here for you. So what’s up?” I wanted to get straight to the point to stop him from going back on it.
He shifted on his feet, looking nervous and uncomfortable. “I wanted to say sorry for being such a rubbish friend. And I wanted to ask for your forgiveness.”
“I’ll forgive you, but you need to let me know what started all of this.” After all, I had been going out of my mind wondering what I’d done to upset him.
“I just went through a lot of changes. I was changing as a person.”
“Charlie, stop talking in riddles and let me know what I did that caused this.” I was tired of being told lies and half-truths by the people I loved.
“Nothing.” I fixed him with a dead-stare until he gave me the right answer. “It sounds crazy.”
“Well I would like to hear it,” I replied.
“Well, I was just angry at you because you’d moved away and had such a perfect little life going on. You had Will, you had a new set of friends, and when you started to tell me you thought Will was cheating on you… I just couldn’t listen to it. I thought you were trying to self-destruct or something.”
“You thought it was all in my head and you didn’t want to listen because you thought my life was perfect?”
“Yes! And my life… well, I don’t want to go over it but my life isn’t perfect.”
“Neither is mine. And you need to talk about what problems you have, Charlie,” I stated, knowing that when problems were aired, a weight lifted off your shoulders.
“I don’t feel like I can talk about it,” he said dejectedly. I sighed and walked forward to take his face in my hands, now looking up at the taller version of my best friend. He was right that he’d changed, but I knew the real Charlie was in there somewhere.
“You can talk to me. How long have we been best friends? I love you like a brother, Charlie. Talk to me. I won’t judge you, you know I won’t.” He held my gaze for a few silent moments before nodding. I let go of his face and took his hands in mine. “I’m here for you.”
“Let’s go upstairs,” he said with a sigh, “I don’t want my mom interrupting if she gets back.” I nodded and followed him up to his room. The room was still a mess, different pieces of clothing thrown everywhere and the bed looking like it hadn’t been cleaned or made since I’d left home myself.
“I’m guessing this mess is tied in with your problems?” I asked, not wanting to hurt his feelings but being honest none-the-less.
He nodded. “After Mills and I finished, I had no-one holding me back from doing this.”
“What was this ?” I asked, needing to know exactly what I meant.
“Having sex with any guy that came my way,” he sighed, looking embarrassed about having to tell me this. “I’d go out to a club and bring a new guy back nearly every night. It went on for months. I couldn’t stop it.”
“Why did you do it?” I asked, hoping to God that he’d been sensible enough to use protection.
He shrugged, “It made me feel like I was wanted. Then they’d leave afterwards and I’d be left feeling alone again. Eventually, I started collecting clothes from them. We’d undress and when they were distracted by one thing or another, I’d kick a t-shirt or a jacket under my bed. Then I built up this mess of other people’s clothes; I felt that if I had something of theirs, then I wasn’t alone.”
“Charlie,” I sighed, wanting to hold him and make his pain go away. “What did your mother think?”
“She’s given up trying to reason with me. The last time we spoke, she begged me to make a doctor’s appointment to check whether I’ve caught anything.”
“And?”
He looked at me as though I had stabbed him in the gut. “I’m not a fucking idiot, Alicia. I made sure I was protected from that kind of thing.”
“Oh,” I said, nodding.
“Sorry,” he said, knowing he shouldn’t have shouted at me for being concerned. “I think… I think I can’t stop, though.”
“Why not?” I asked, wondering whether there was anything I could do for him.
“Because I’m failing my course and I don’t have anything left. I’m addicted to one-night-stands and… it keeps getting worse and worse.”
“You can sort out everything with your schoolwork once we’ve sorted out your other problems. What do you mean by worse?”
He looked at me with guilt in his eyes for everything he’d done. “It started with one guy each time, and then it moved on to two guys and now, now I don’t remember some nights.”
“You don’t remember?” I was confused.
“I met a guy who gave me something, a drug, and it was amazing. It made me feel like I was on top of the world. The sex was the best I’d had. Then I started buying it off him and I’ve been taking it for about a month now. But I’ve started to forget things that happen. Almost like I take the drug, I have sex with someone and I know it’s amazing, but then I wake up and can’t remember what happened. The guy lying next to me gives me his number and then walks out without saying anything more.”
“This happens nearly every time now?” I ask, feeling a ball of fear sitting in my gut. I felt sick by this and partially held myself to blame for Charlie’s meltdown.
“Yes.”
“You’re addicted to a drug you don’t know the name of, and you’re addicted to sex.”
“Yes.”
“I need to help you,” I stated, trying to rack my brains for what I could do. “Do you have this drug here, in your room?”
He nodded and then opened a drawer that was stuffed with scraps of paper, hand-written numbers and names scrawled onto them. In amongst this was a packet and inside that were the pills he’d been taking. I held my hand out for them and Charlie passed them to me.
“Do you want my help?” I asked him, looking straight into his blue eyes. “You need to be in this one hundred percent.”
“I need your help. Please.”
I took the packet, took hold of Charlie’s hand and pulled him to the bathroom. I then threw the packet down the toilet and looked to him. “Flush it.”
“You do it.”
“No, this is something you have to do.” I watched him, hoping he’d make the right decision. He nodded and then flushed the toilet, both of us watching as the packet disappeared. It wasn’t going to be as simple as that, but it was a start. “Now we have to clean your room out. We need to get rid of all those clothes that don’t belong to you and all the numbers.”
We spent the whole afternoon doing just that. Charlie brought some cardboard boxes down from the attic and after I’d washed and dried the clothes that he’d collected, we boxed them up and took them to goodwill. Then we threw all the numbers in the bin and cleaned the whole of his room. There were some things that, I’m not going to lie, made me wish I hadn’t volunteered to clean Charlie’s room, including used condoms that had made their way under his bed. Things like that made me glad his mother kept a stock of washing up gloves under the kitchen sink.
After we’d finished, it was dark and his mother had returned home. I went downstairs to say hello briefly and she looked relieved to see me, knowing that help was on hand. I then made a quick trip over to my house to see my parents and collect my things to go to sleep at Charlie’s.
“How’s your schoolwork?” my mother asked me as I picked up my luggage from where I’d left it.
“Good,” I replied. “Interesting.”
“And what about you and Will?”
“Mom, we’re not getting back together.” I’d told my parents at Christmas that we were over, but I hadn’t told them why.
“But Alicia, I can’t help but remember how happy you were together. The boy seemed to really care for you.” Enough to cheat on me with some blonde seductress, that’s how much he cared.
“Yeah well, we didn’t make each other happy in the end.”
“Is that really true?” she asked me, still not believing that we were over.
“I know you care about me, but I’m happy now. Things with him weren’t working.”
“Don’t be the stubborn one, Alicia. Forgiveness isn’t easy, but it’s worth it in the end.”
“You don’t even know what happened.”
“I know he broke your heart and that you’re angry with him. But there is always an explanation.” I kissed her on the cheek and then left, feeling glad I was staying at Charlie’s to be away from the onslaught of my mother’s advice.