Woe.

Charlie stopped when they started talking again. She looked to the ground, her comfort, her life support, and turned back around to see them. They looked hurt by her being there. Not because they wanted to be alone, but because they didn't want to hurt her. She wanted to make it all better, but she couldn't. Not when her mind was repeating all of the wonderful times with Rowan over and over and over again in her mind. The sand dunes, the beach, the carnival. Everything. Was this all going to be lost? She didn't want to lose them, she didn't want to lose him. And Alecis, she had always been a good friend. What had happened? Had Charlie done something wrong?

'Don't think that. You haven't done anything wrong,' Mae said.

'I have. I've obviously screwed this up. I need someone...I need Rowan...but I can't have him. Not anymore.'

"I'm not sure how to...address the situation," Charlie said. She had no idea what she was saying, or what message she was trying to get across. Her brain had taken over her body, she felt out of control of everything. She had crashed and her body was going into back-up mode. "And I'm not sure what to do about it just now...I think I need to think it over...and talk to you guys about it...or something..."

What did that mean? Was she giving him a chance to explain? Did that mean there was still the tiniest bit of hope for them? But...now that he had the chance to explain, what could he say?

'Sorry I accidentally kissed your best friend,' Nym suggested scathingly.

Rowan didn't reply. Nym was angry with him, which he understood to mean he was angry with himself. And rightfully so, too. He still wanted Charlie, but how could he ever deserve her now?

"I..." he hesitated. "You...you have to understand something..." He didn't know how to explain it. He wanted to tell her how he knew exactly how Alecis felt, and how he knew she had no one to turn to, and how he knew what it was like to not have any love or support. But he didn't know if Charlie could understand that.

"Charlie. Listen..."

She wanted to try to explain, to tell Charlie how she felt, to try to justify what she had done. But there was no way. In truth, Alecis' actions were unjustifiable. This time, this betrayal, it was her fault. She had kissed Rowan, it wasn't a misunderstanding. She had knowingly hurt one of the only friends she had. Maybe she hadn't been thinking straight, but she had still done it. And now she couldn't take it back.

So what could she say to the broken girl in front of her? What could she say to even lessen the blow? Anything that would be truth? The only thing she could do was to try to save Charlie and Rowan's relationship. All that mattered now was that those two were happy. And that meant Alecis needed to get out of the picture. Now.

D:

Charlie wanted to scream at the two of them, standing in front of her helplessly, but she couldn't. She didn't have the energy or courage to. She loved both of them, they were both good friends of hers (Rowan a bit more than a friend, or so she thought), and she couldn't just ruin her friendship with them like that. It seemed now that they cared about their relationships with her...but why didn't they think of that before? Why had they kissed?

Working as the Overloridian was better than this. She wished that she could go back and be oblivious. She didn't want to know about their kiss. They could've kept it from her if they tried. She was the one who snuck up on them, she shouldn't have done that in the first place.

'You are not to blame, Charlie!' Mae said. Charlie knew deep inside that nothing was her fault, but Mae had no problem recognizing this. 'They kissed, you didn't do anything wrong!' But even with Mae trying to comfort her in her thoughts, Charlie still felt the guilt of not being a good enough friend or girlfriend. Something she did was wrong, and they needed more. They needed something different. What was wrong with her?

One as young and naive as Charlie can't just think all of these jumbled thoughts, feel all these jumbled emotions, and see all of these screwed up things and just be...okay. So Charlie broke down, physically. She fell to her knees and into the mud, which was comforting at the moment. She put her face into her palms and started balling, though quietly. She wasn't a loud crier, she barely cried at all. But she couldn't take this. She couldn't take anything.

Seeing Charlie break down made Rowan want to hurt himself. The emotional pain wasn't enough. He deserved more. In fact, he didn't even deserve the emotional pain; guilt was something for good people who regretted their actions. Rowan wasn't a good person. He seemed to hurt every person he cared about.

"Charlie, please, please don't be so upset," he said, his voice breaking. "I'm not asking you to forgive me. You can hate me if it'll help. Anything that'll help. I just don't want you to be hurting..."

In all actuallity, Rowan didn't feel nearly as guilty about kissing Alecis as he did allowing Charlie to find out. That made it all even more horrible on his part, he knew, but all he wanted was for them to be happy. Wasn't there anyway for everyone to just be happy?

No, apparently there wasn't.

Alecis's eyes grew wide as Charlie fell into the mud, rain splashing in the puddles and making Charlies clothes brown. Alecis didn't deserve anyone. She needed to leave. She needed to leave and not come back. She didn't deserve Charlie as a friend, and she most certainly didn't deserve anything that would make her happy. That included Rowan.

How could she still be thinking about Rowan? How could she still want him?

What. Was. Wrong. With. Her??!?

Alecis needed to say something. She needed to go now.

Instead, her body went on breakdown.

Alecis, too, fell into the mud. They were identical now, the Adhbhar clio and the Cuir, crying, wet, and muddy. The only difference was the dæmon's at their sides, though they were both doing the same thing. Comforting their clio.

But only one deserved the comfort.

Charlie got goosebumps when Rowan spoke to her. She couldn't take his voice at this time, not in this situation. Whenever she heard his voice she couldn't help but be happy that he was there. When she heard him this time, she felt the joy of his prescence, mostly because she forgot for that split second that he was one of the two who hurt her.

"Rowan," she muttered, shaking her head back and forth. "I can't do this...I can't...we can't..." She looked to Rowan before looking to Alecis, who was also on the ground, in the mud. She was positive that the mud wasn't nearly as comforting to Alecis as it was to Charlie, and she couldn't help but feel bad that her own pain had caused so much.

Rowan and Alecis had kissed, there was no denying it. But they obviously cared about Charlie and her happiness, and by not being happy, she had caused the two of them so much pain. She had caused them guilt and worry, anger and sadness. Charlie cared more about their happiness than her own, but she didn't know how to make them happy. Breaking up with Rowan probably wasn't the best thing to do right now, but she didn't know how else to react.

"I don't want to do this, Rowan...but I think it would be best if we..." she could barely stutter out the words, "...weren't together...for now, at least. I need to sort through things...and I think you two...need to, too." She somehow managed to stand up, not bothering to force the mud from her clothes. She continued to cry silently, and she just looked into Rowan's eyes. Was this a test? Not even she was sure. But she was sure of one thing: all trust was lost. She really hoped that she wasn't overreacting...

"Whatever you think is best," Rowan muttered, averting his eyes again. Of course he had been expecting it, which softened the blow. He actually agreed with her that it would be better, for her at least, for them to be apart, whether temporarily or not. He couldn't pretend that it didn't hurt, though.

He wanted to ask her to forgive Alecis, because he knew she needed a friend in Charlie right now more than anyone else. But he couldn't bring himself to ask anything of her.

Then he looked at Alecis, still broken and sobbing on the ground, and it gave him the ability to do what he hoped was the right thing.

"Please forgive Alecis."

If Alecis could think right now she would be screaming, "No, no no no NO." Her mind, though, was crammed full of self hatred. It was singing songs of torture, showing Alecis everything she had done wrong, shoving all of her mistakes--the ones that were her fault and the ones that weren't--into her face. So, instead, her dæmon screamed them for her.

'No, no no no NO! Alecis! Snap out of it Alecis, please. Listen to them, you need to stand up. You need to help, you did this, you get her happy again!'

He wanted his clio happy, but this wasn't about her. She could cry later, this was about Charlie and Rowan. About the two people that meant more than anything.

She didn't deserve forgiveness. She didn't forgive herself and they shouldn't either.

So she did all that she could. She mumbled a quick "No" that probably didn't sound like a word at all because of her coughing and crying, and still staring at the ground she shook her head. In her mind she copied Rheis 'No, no no no NO.'

Charlie hadn't expected Rowan to say that, but at this point she didn't really care. She was starting to go numb from all of the emotions and drama. She shrugged and looked past the two, wondering why she was even still there in the first place. "Sure," she muttered. "Yeah, I forgive you, Alecis. I forgive you both, it's uhm...it's fine." Though everything was going to be different now, she wanted it all to be the same, before she found out, before they even did it. But there was nothing she could do now.

She turned away from them and started walking away. "I'll...talk to you." She wasn't sure how else to say goodbye. She knew that eventually she would talk to them again, and so she felt that was the safest thing to say.

But where was she going to go now? She knew that if she went back home, someone was bound to notice something was wrong and she really didn't want to deal with that. She didn't know where any of her other friends were or she would find them and try to have some fun. She did just meet a new guy back at the mountains...yeah, he seemed nice. Leander, was it?