Charlie & Ryan Get Back Together

## Drabble

She’d hovered outside of her roommate’s bedroom for a little longer than would be considered normal. The past couple of days had been… overwhelming to say the least. Charlotte Banning would like nothing more than to move on and forget about everything plaguing her, but this particular battle wasn’t one she could easily avoid. And yet, here she was, staring fearfully at the slightly cracked doorway. She could hear the click-clacking of a keyboard and mouse through it and she shook her head. Ryan was her best friend. She talked to him about everything. At some point, she’d have to cross the threshold.

“Hey…” Ryan said as Charlie pushed the door open.

A deep breath. “When you have a minute?”

“Of course, I’ll just shut this down.” He turned back to the computer and started clicking out of programs.

She smiled nervously. “Thanks, Ry.” Charlie backed out of the room, then slumped down on the couch. She ran both hands over her face and sighed. This was gonna be hard to explain.

Charlie straightened as Ryan emerged. One last breath, “I wasn’t planning on telling you this yet, but…”

Ryan’s face dropped and he hurried to sit beside her. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Just--” She squeezed her hands into fists. “Matt and I broke up.”

A flash of confusion split Ryan’s features. “Wh-what?”

“Yeah…” Charlie suddenly found her friend’s socked feet very, very interesting. “We broke up.”

“Okay, I thought that was what you said.” He joined her in her newfound interest. Charlie watched him in her peripheral. He had the same look he usually had on whenever she told him something serious. He was taking a careful moment to find the right questions to ask. “When?”

She took her words slowly. “Last week. Wednesday, officially.”

Finally he met her eyes. “Wait, but you went to that musical on Friday. And nothing seemed different between you two this week.”

Her leg started bouncing up and down, her fingers playing with the seam on the couch. “Think about it.”

Again, that contemplative look. Realization dawned on him after a silent moment. “Oh shit.”

"There it is. And that Friday was a great night, by the way. We used it as a kind of relationship send-off.”

A sadness fell over Ryan’s eyes as he looked back up at Charlie. “Can I ask why you guys broke up?”

The big, awful question. “Well… Matt knows, and I recently realized that I…” She screwed up her face in bracing herself to finally say what she dreaded for the last week. “I’m still in love with you.”

A long, unbearable, terrifying moment of avoiding eye contact -- or any other sort of contact. “Oh.”

The words spilled out of her mouth in a panicked frenzy so unlike Charlotte’s normally complete composure, “And this is Matt’s words, not mine, but he said that you seem like you’re still in love with me, too. Talk to him if you want, those are his words.” Charlie sighed frustratedly, knowing how crazy she sounded. She pushed herself up and walked to the kitchen. “I am going to make some tea. Just… process.”

The minutes passed in almost total silence, the only sound being the boiling water in the kettle. Anything Charlie touched or moved felt too loud, too imposing, but she had to give Ryan this time. She knew it was a lot to push on him all at once. And maybe this was good. He’d tell her no, you’re crazy, we’re just friends, and Charlie could move on. She still had all of her old contacts; she was just one phone-call away from another torrid, sexy… meaningless, empty love affair. With a dull pain radiating from the nail marks in her palms, Charlotte realized that she wasn’t okay with that existence at all anymore.

“You guys are okay?” His voice startled her out of her crisis. “And Matt and I… we’re good?”

“Just think about this last week. Other than the lack of PDA, has anything really changed?”

Ryan nodded, then stood up. He walked with such a steady purpose, Charlie couldn’t help but watch him as he stopped with not even a foot between them. “I am.”

“Wh--?”

He wrapped an arm around her, pulling her even closer. He cupped the back of her neck tenderly and all forms of communication left her as Ryan kissed her. There was no hesitation as Charlie leaned into him, running a gentle hand down his arm. Good god, she didn’t realize how much she missed this.

Ryan pulled back and spoke softly onto her cheek. “I am still in love with you.”

“Oh. Gotcha.” The words were breathless, whispery. She swallowed up his chuckle as she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him deeply.