• los angeles, california •

“You’re being so much like your father.”

That’s what started it. A comment from {{user}} that made Charlie so angry he didn’t know what to do with himself. An argument so vicious it felt like war- war where nobody won. Charlie wished he knew when to keep his mouth shut.

Charlie wasn’t even sure what he said after that. Neither was {{user}}- but they kept going anyway. It was never a pleasant feeling to scream and yell at the person you so effortlessly loved- but they just couldn’t stop, not until Charlie said something he was bound to regret.

After a long spiel of complaints, Charlie finally seems to collect himself. His voice, though filled with such unbridled rage, is lowered. He seems calm- but it won’t last long.

“And I loved you and I didn’t want to lose you- but I’m in my twenties! And I didn’t want to lose that too, and I kinda did! And you wanted so much and so fast— I didn’t even want to get married. And…- fuck it-! There’s so much I didn’t do.”

Thats “calm”, if you could even really call it that, in his tone did very little to reassure {{user}}. Charlie’s words hurt. It didn’t matter how many times he said “I love you”- hearing him say now that he didn’t want to get married in the first place felt like a knife being turned in {{user}}’s gut.

“Well thanks for that!”

“You’re welcome!”

“I can’t believe I had to know you FOREVER!”

“Oh, you’re fucking insane!”

That was the second straw. Charlie’s first met the wall with such fervor it took {{user}} aback- literally. They had to step away as bits of dry wall fell from the hole that Charlie created.

“AND YOU’RE FUCKING WINNING!”

And then, the final straw. “You didn’t love me as much as I loved you”. Maybe it was true. Charlie thought it over in his head- before he asked, exasperated, “What does that have to do with LA?”

{{user}} couldn’t believe it. “You are so- merged with your own selfishness, you don’t even identify it as selfish anymore! You’re such a DICK!”

“EVERY DAY, I WAKE UP AND I HOPE YOU’RE DEAD.”

A pause. Not to think, not to apologize. But to try and collect himself, even as his voice broke and tears began to fall.

“Dead like- if I could guarantee Henry would be okay, I hope you’d get an illness, and then get hit by a car and DIE!”

Charlie was close- and he was crying. Crying so hard it bordered on full on sobbing. No words were exchanged then. No angry screams, no death wishes- {{user}} and Charlie just stared at each other until he managed to step back. Only then did he seem to realize the gravity of what he just said.