InsaneJournal

Friday: February 8, 2008
Who: Chris and Charlie [Narrative]
When: Afternoon
Where: Their room at Riley's bungalow
What: Charlie finds out about what Chris has been doing with Hayate

Charlie wouldn't have believed the words on the page if they weren't written in Chris's own hand, but they were. He might have thought she was writing some sort of story if it wasn't written in her diary. Charlie knew he shouldn't have been reading his sister's diary, but she had left it unlocked (probably on accident), and on her bed. It was too much of a temptation for the teenager to overlook entirely. An unlocked diary was like free candy, and what person could resist that?

What Charlie wasn't prepared for was the amount of truth on those pages. It brought him to the realization that his sister, his twin, had been lying to him all along about her relationship with Hayate. That hurt more than anything even more than the fact that his sister was willfully giving the vampire her blood, and having sex with him.

"We need to talk," Charlie said to her when she finally returned to the room. He held the diary for her to see so she would know exactly what he was talking about.

"What are you doing with my diary!" The initial shock of seeing her diary in her brother's hand stopped her from doing anything else. "Did you read it?" The fear that overtook her was instantaneous, and she felt her chest tightening because of it.

Charlie opened it to a random page, and began to read. "Being with Hayate is amazing. I feel so grown up with him. It's not just the sex, but... everything," he paused. "Exclamation point followed by a smiley face." Charlie snapped the book shut, and tossed it at his sister. Chris was dumbfounded, and her jaw hung loose as she caught the book in her hands.

"You weren't supposed to read this," she said. Her voice was small, and tears were welling up in her eyes. Chris could be defiant, and stubborn with a lot of people, but not her brother. He knew her better than anyone, and this was the only thing she had lied to him about. She was afraid of what he would think of her if he found out, and so she did her best to hide it. It looked like her best wasn't enough in this case. Chris swallowed the catch in her throat, and looked up at her brother. He was glaring at her, the look in eyes a mixture of anger and disappointment.

"Don't look at me like that," Chris pleaded.

"What did you expect, Chris," Charlie asked. "You're fourteen." He lowered his voice enough so that Riley wouldn't hear what they were talking about. "You shouldn't be doing those things with him!"

"Let me explain..." Chris tried to interject. She was crying at this point.

"There's nothing to explain," Charlie replied. "You wrote it all down!"

"It's not what you think. I really like him." It was the only thing Chris could think to say to Charlie.

"It doesn't matter. Chris... what would mom and dad say if they found out? What would Riley say?"

"Please Charlie... please don't tell mom and dad." The twins had a habit of talking about their parents as if they were in the next room. "Please don't tell Riley."

"What am I supposed to do, Chris? Mom and Dad told me to look after you, and then you go and do this? Do you even know how old he is?" Charlie ran his fingers through his hair, and grabbed at the curly strands. He was frustrated, and he had no idea how to handle the situation. His sister royally screwed things up this time around, and he had no idea if he could fix things.

Chris looked down, and watched at the tears fell from her eyes and onto her diary. That book contained her deepest secrets, things she couldn't tell anyone else, and though a part of her felt angry that Charlie had read her diary at all there was a bigger part of her that was ashamed. Ashamed that she had lied to her brother, but mostly she felt ashamed for the things she had done. She had spent her time in Elysium confined in a safe, and warm bubble. Chris denied things in her conscious mind, refused to see the truth in situations even though they were staring her straight in the face. The girl chose to live in a delusional world of her making instead of facing reality. Little did the twins know that Chris was dealing with an Adjustment Disorder, and that she dealt with things by distancing herself from them, and minimizing them in her mind.

"Please don't hate me..." Chris said to her brother. "I don't want you to hate me. We can talk about it if you want."

Charlie's biggest weakness was his sister. No matter what she did, no matter how wrong he thought it was, he could never hate her. But that didn't mean he wasn't upset, and like other boys Charlie couldn't verbally express every thing he was feeling at that moment.

"I don't hate you, Chris, I just don't like what you're doing." He sighed, and shook his head. "I don't even feel like talking to you right now," he said. The disappointment was clear on his face. Charlie moved to the door, and stopped with his hand on the doorknob. "I won't tell anyone," he said to her. "But that doesn't mean you should keep doing whatever it is that you're doing." With that said Charlie left the room, and Chris felt herself sinking to the floor. She couldn't stop herself from crying, and though her natural instinct was to run to Hayate she knew she couldn't.

Chris curled up on her bed after several minutes. She made sure her diary was locked, and then placed it underneath her pillow. She left the bungalow for some air; she just couldn't stay in her room any longer, and face the guilt that was literally choking the air from her lungs.