Chapter Text
It took Charlie a lot longer to wake up than normal. Normally the brunette would be up and about by seven but today was different. For the first time in a month she was in a bed. An actual bed with a pillow and covers over self. It was the best sleep Charlie had for a month actually longer.
Opening her eyes slightly and rolling over to the digital clock on the right side of the bed Charlie saw the numbers 9:30am. Groaning Charlie got out of the bed and let out a long yawn. For a few short seconds Charlie hoped that the past few months was just a bad dream but unfortunately for her that short wish would be quickly crushed as she heard Jessica’s voice shout out to someone.
"See you Millie." Charlie heard Jessica shout out and that immediately crushed all of that hope.
'Come on Charlie that would be too good to be true if that was all a bad dream.' She told herself.
At first she felt frustrated that the past few months weren't this horrible nightmare but that frustration quickly changed into horror as the night's events quickly came flooding back to her. She had masturbated to not one but two of her best friends. One of them was in a relationship.
Realising what she did Charlie felt sick. She couldn't believe that she had fantasized about her two friends bodies like that. Picturing their naked bodies rubbing against her, kissing her neck. It was disgusting, shameful and borderling creepy. Fantasizing about her friends bodies had to be some sort of friendship violation much less masturbating to them.
The more she thought about the events however Charlie remembered what sparked her repulsive thoughts. It was the sight of Jessica having sex with another girl. Jessica was cheating on Carlton.
Realising this Charlie's anger towards herself switched it's target over to Jessica. She was cheating on Carlton which was wrong and completely immoral in Charlie’s opinion yet Jessica did it. It was disgraceful, it was a complete betrayal of Carlton's trust. How could Jessica throw away her relationship with him to just sleep with a girl behind his back.
"Charlie are you okay there?"
Charlie blinked a few times as she snapped back to reality to see Jessica in her doorway looking rather confused at what she was doing standing in the middle of the bedroom.
"Oh yeah I'm fine." Charlie lied, her anger dissappearing in an instant instead being replaced by her unsure and jumpy nature.
Jessica wasn’t convinced however. "Are you sure?"
"Of course I am." Charlie continued forcing out a smile. "I'm just taking it in that I'm living here."
It wasn’t exactly a lie more so a half truth as Charlie was well aware at the fact that she was a horrble liar. Thankfully Jessica wasn’t someone who could read Charlie like an open book compared to her friend Michelle Afton so the blonde girl didn’t pick up on the deflection she did.
"Oh really?" Jessica asked. "Well I'm glad to hear that. Hey Vanessa is here now so what do you want for breakfast?"
"I uh."
Charlie paused. It had been a while since she had an option for breakfast. After some thought only one option get coming up.
"Can Mrs Shelly make me a omelette, some bacon and some sausages please? Oh and a coffee?."
Jessica couldn't help but smile at her friend's uncertainty with her response.
"Yeah I'll tell Ness about that." Jessica smiled. "Also you don't have to keep calling Vanessa, Mrs Shelly."
"But she calls me Mrs Emily."
Jessica rolled her eyes. "Just tell her to call you Charlie. It's not hard."
"I never said that it was."
"Yeah but knowing you it would be." Jessica teased. "Anyway I'll go tell Vanessa about this and uh you go get showered."
"Okay." Charlie said with a nod.
Jessica shot her friend another smile before walking off leaving Charlie alone and frustrated with herself.
'You had a perfect opportunity to talk to her about last night and you didn't.' She angrily told herself. 'Instead you choose to do anything but that.'
Charlie kept on repeating the same thought process until she got into the shower again and let the hot water run through her hair. She hated all of this. Her masturbation, Jessica cheating on Carlton, her not telling Jessica off for cheating on Carlton. It always was her one of biggest flaws confronting her friends.
It also didn’t help that for some reason Charlie loved jumping to the worst possible outcomes to her possibly confronting her friends about when they do something wrong and those thoughts were definitely ringing through her head while she washed her hair again.
What if Jessica kicked her out? After all this was her house and arguing about Jessica’s sex life was surely a guaranteed way to get kicked back out onto the streets which was something Charlie wasn’t eagar to get back to. Just thinking about that made Charlie’s heart pound uncontrollably.
It was a horrible possibility and Charlie didn't want it to become reality. Yet she knew she had to confront Jessica about her cheating after all this wasn't just about Jessica it was for Carlton someone who Charlie had been friends with a bit longer than Jessica.
Despite that though Charlie didn't know what to do. She kept pondering about what to do and how to act on it even when she got out the shower and went down to the dinning room where she sat down and waiting for her breakfast. Charlie was so into her thoughts that she didn't hear Vanessa's footsteps until she plopped Charlie’s plate onto the table.
"One omelette, two bacon strips and four sausages for a Mrs Emily." Vanessa said with a big smile on her face as she saw Charlie’s eyes lit up with shock.
"I uh this wasn't necessary." Charlie replied as she stared at the food in awe of it. Whenever she had breakfast back when she was living with her father the omelette would be small with there only being one bacon strip and two sausages
"What part?" Vanessa asked.
"Well the fact there is a big omelette, four sausages and two two bits of bacon." Charlie exclaimed. "That's a lot for a breakfast."
Vanessa smiled with her eyes twinkling. "Well someone needs to eat and I can't imagine how hungry you still are, so eat up."
Charlie opened her mouth to argue but quickly shut it. The food did look delicious and she was still very very hungry. She looked back up at Vanessa as though she was asking for permission. Catching onto this Vanessa smiled and nodded.
Getting this confirmation Charlie picked up her knife and fork and quickly dug in. The food was absolutely amazing. The sausages were cooked just right while the bacon was perfectly crispy.
"That was amazing." Charlie gasped when she had finished devouring her food.
Vanessa chuckled at the Latino girl's reaction. "I'm glad you enjoyed it."
"It's pretty impossible to not like this. Can you teach me how to cook like yourself?" Charlie asked.
"Oh please I'm not that good." Vanessa laughed with a slight blush on her face. "Besides Jess says that you're a good cook yourself so there isn't that much to learn from me."
Just hearing Jessica’s name turned Charlie's joyful expression upside down. She didn't mean for it to happen but Charlie’s change of joyfulness was enough for Vanessa to ask the younger woman what was wrong.
"Is something wrong about Jessica, Mrs Emily?" Vanessa asked.
"I uh no nothing's wrong with Jessica." Charlie spluttered out hoping that Vanessa would believe her but that didn’t happen.
"You can be truthful Mrs Emily." Vanessa said. "I'm not going to tell her."
"Really?"
"Of course not."
Charlie bit her lip and pondered if she should tell Vanessa the truth about Jessica. However after this long debate Vanessa quickly ended Charlie’s thoughts by speaking up.
"Is this about Jessica’s activities with Millie?" Vanessa asked. Hearing the name Charlie quickly snapped back to reality and looked at Vanessa.
"You know about that?"
"It's kind of hard not to." Vanessa replied. "I unfortunately know a lot about Jessica’s sex life with her batch of friends-"
"Friends?"
"Oh yes. Jessica always invites these girls over at least twice a month with them having sex together." Vanessa explained. "I'm not a big fan of what she's doing but I haven't talked ot her about it."
"So Jessica’s been cheating on Carlton with multiple girls" Charlie said out loud.
"Is that why you're so upset with her?" Vanessa asked.
"Yeah." Charlie confessed. "I saw Jess having sex with that Millie girl last night and I'm mad at Jessica for cheating on Carlton."
"Well you should tell her that." Vanessa blankly said.
"What!" Charlie shouted. "Are you crazy!?"
"I'm just saying that it's just good for you to talk to her about it.' Vanessa explained. "Look you're sharing a house with her so you can't really run from her and besides it's better to talk to her about it now before it spirals out of control."
Charlie just looked at Vanessa, taking time to think about what the older blonde woman had said.
"You're right." Charlie said. "But should i do it now"
"Yes." Vanessa quickly said. "It's better to do it now than later."
Charlie nodded as she got up from her chair. "Right thanks Mrs Shelly. I'm going to go talk to her now."
"No problem and I'm pretty sure Jessica is in her room at the moment." Vanessa said with a smile. "Also you don't have to keep calling me Mrs Shelly, Vanessa is good for me."
"Then call me Charlie." Charlie replied with a smile herself before she walked off ready to confront her friend.
Walking up to Jessica's room was slightly nerve wracking but somehow Charlie managed to do it. For the first time ever Charlie felt confident with confronting one of her friends. Getting to the room Charlie knocked on the door checking if Jessica was inside.
"Come in." Charlie heard Jessica say. "I'm decent."
Opening the door Charlie saw Jessica on her bed reading one of her many fantsy books that she owned. Normally Charlie would ask her friend about that but now was not the time. Charlie needed to focus on the more important matter.
"Jessica can we talk?" Charlie asked.
"Of course we can." Jessica replied putting the book down. "I've been meaning to talk to you about something but you can go first."
"Right thank you." Charlie said. "I need to ask you about last night."
"What about it?" Jessica asked, not really thinking about the events of the previous night.
"Don't play dumb with me Jess." Charlie snapped. "You're cheating on Carlton."
"Excuse me?" Jessica spluttered out. "What's put that in your mind."
"I heard you fucking that Millie girl." Charlie carried on, her blood boiling as she spoke.
"You did?"
"I heard everything. I thought you were loyal to Carlton but I can't believe how wrong I was." Charlie angrily said. "How could you cheat on Carlton and act like everything's alright?"
Jessica just blankly stared at Charlie for at least thirty seconds before she burst out laughing.
"What's so funny?" Charlie asked, trying to keep up her angry tone but it failed. Instead her tone was confused and uneasy.
"Oh nothing." Jessica said when she began to calm down. "You're just really cute when your angry."
Charlie couldn't help but blush at Jessica's cute comment. "What?"
"Right i should explain this." Jessica sighed. "Me and Carlton aren't dating."
"You aren't?"
Jessica shook her head. "We haven't been dating since high school. We uh realised that we weren't into each other."
"What do you mean?"
"Charlie I'm a lesbian." Jessica said. "You heard me last night with Millie. I'm not into guys at all and Carlton isn't into girls. We are both gay."
"I-Then why you didn't tell me?"
"Uh I didn't exactly want my parents to find out about my sexuality until I was living by myself." Jessica explained though her normal confident tone was replaced by one of uneasiness. "And Carlton was the same thing. We just agreed that we would pretend that we were dating until we could come out without worries about you know."
Hearing this everything began clicking into place.
"Oh that makes sense." Charlie replied. "Oh my god I'm so sorry for coming off as so agressive then. I didn't know that you two-"
"Don't aplogise." Jessica chuckled. "I should be the one aplogising for not telling you about me and Carlton breaking up and also for you hearing me and Millie last night. I didn't mean for you to hear that."
"Yeah that wasn't exactly fun to hear." Charlie sheepishly chuckled. "Sorry again for thinking that you were cheating and I promise I won't tell anyone about you being a lesbian."
Jessica gave her friend a warm smile. "Thanks Charlie. Right now that we got that done I say we go shopping later and get you some clothes."
"Oh that's not necessary." Charlie replied.
"Charlie Emily I am not living with you while you have only one set of clothes." Jessica sternly said. "And because of that we are going shopping later no matter what and I'm going to pay for them."
"But I can't pay you back."
Jessica howled with laughter at her friend's reply. "Charlie you don't need to pay me back. Just seeing you happy is enough for me."
Charlie wanted to argue against that but she realised it was pointless. When Jessica made up her mind it was basically impossible to change it.
"Okay fine." Charlie sighed.
"Great we can go in the afternoon and spend the afternoon there." Jessica said, clapping her hands in the process.
"But once I get a job I'm paying you back."