Castaway // 5 Seconds of Summer

Charlie

"Let it all out, girl," Misty says while lying next to me.

When I stomped into the living room, all the girls sat at attention and watched me make my way to the stairs. Misty declared a DEFCON five emergency, following close behind me while Kyra and Alison were on her heels. I don't have a posse to rally around me when shit happens, so this is not something I experience typically.

It's nice. But I'm not sure I'm ready to spill all my secrets with them.

"Meh," I say. I'm on my bed, Misty acting as a bodyguard and the other two sitting on the end.

Misty tries to convince me to talk. "No, not meh. You are obviously fuming. It's not healthy to hold in that kind of anger. This is a safe place. Vent to your little heart's content."

"This room is a vault. We won't speak of it outside of these walls." Kyra agrees.

"We're here for you, Charlie." Alison rubs my leg.

I pull my arm from its resting place over my eyes and stare at the ceiling.

"I don't want to go into details. Micah has been my best friend since forever. I thought I could trust him. I thought..."

Misty sits straight up. "Did he hurt you? Cause I know a guy."

I laugh. "No. I mean, he broke my heart a year ago. But he did it out of stupidity, I think. He didn't touch me."

"Okay. As long as you're sure. But the offer stands. I can make a call and take care of it for you."

"Misty, would you stop!" Alison snaps. "The guy you know is Jeff's uncle and I know he's not going to do anything illegal."

"Who said anything about criminal activity? I was just talking intimidation." Misty lies back down next to me and pats my arm. "Just say the word."

"I'm good. It'll all be fine once I move. I'll just white knuckle it until then."

"How long until you move?" Alison asks quietly.

"End of the summer. I'm going to New York."

"Oooo, love it! Which part?" Kyra rubs her hands together, grinning. "That has to be my favorite all time city. The art, the energy, the style. Gah, so jealous."

"I don't know which part, yet. I'm going with the flow."

The silence following my statement has my eyes popping open. I glance around at the wide eyes aimed at me. "What?"

"You don't have a plan?" Kyra sounds horrified. "But, it's New York."

"I've never been there, and I'm not really a planner myself, but I think you should at least narrow it down." Alison stretches out on the bed like a cat.

I sit up and look around. "I don't know how much money I'll have. I'm not sure how I'm getting there. It's one step at a time and right now I'm on step 'save my money and figure it out.'"

"Ohhhhh-kay," Misty says. "All that aside—because let's face it we aren't solving that problem today—let's figure out what we're going to do to Micah."

"Don't you mean, about Micah?" Kyra clarifies.

"No."

Crickets.

"Okay, I think I'm good now. No need for revenge or intimidation. Or meddling of any kind. I've already told Micah my thoughts so...yeah."

Kyra hugs me. "Boys are dumb."

I nod.

She leans close and whispers in my ear. "If he can't see that you're head over heels for him then he's not worth your feels."

I suck in a breath. "What?"

Kyra leans back. "I mean, you said he broke your heart, so I assumed..."

I cover my face with my hands and groan. "Oh god." I steel myself and sit up straight, dropping my hands from my face and making what might be a massive mistake.

"You're right. I do have feelings for him. Deep, painfully confused feelings."

"I knew it!" Misty jumps up and twerks.

"But!" I shout. She stops moving her booty to look at me. "He doesn't feel that way about me. I'm no better than a hook up to him."

"So, nothing happened between you last year?" Misty looks devastated.

"Nothing other than a seduction gone wrong. He got drunk and gave me the worst pick-up lines he could think of." I still feel sick when I remember that night. I had been nervous about spending the night already worried I wouldn't be able to hide my feelings that long, knowing he was going back down the mountain for months away at college. I was almost ready to confess.

Then I showed up here, at this exact same cabin, and he hung all over me, sloppy with whatever he'd been drinking.

"Hmmm." Misty's taken a seat next to me, Kyra on the other side. Alison stands up from the bed and walks to the door.

"I have to go to the bathroom. I'll be right back."

Suspicious timing, but I say nothing. What else is there to say? I've already spilled my guts. The guts I've kept to myself for years since that summer. Part of me thought maybe he felt the same way that night. It was electric. I can hardly believe it was only one sided. But as the years dragged on and he never said anything, I didn't either.

Then last year happened and I gave up hoping.

"Come with me." Misty grabs me by the hand and pulls me to the balcony just outside of this bedroom. The deck below is the scene of the crime, both today's and last years, and I can hardly look down at it without feeling sick. Then Misty opens her mouth and drops some truth bombs.

"Listen, I don't know Micah that well but I sensed something rift between you last year. I may not have a filter, but I do have two eyes. He cares about you, more than you realize. And probably more than he's able to express. Face it, he's a guy and they don't do well with feelings."

I open my mouth to protest but Misty puts two halting palms in my face.

"I know, stereotype. But it doesn't matter how cliché it is when the guy in question does in fact have issues expressing his feelings. Micah is textbook alpha football dude who's kind of blind to what's happening around him." She gestures to me. "Case in point. You wear your feelings for him on your sleeve and everyone around you sees it but him."

"Maybe I come off like a clinger and he doesn't want to deal with me."

Misty pauses, looks at me for a hot second, then bends at the waist and laughs her ass off. After a solid minute of uncontained hysteria, she stands up and wipes at her eyes.

"Oh dang, that's good. Haven't had a laugh like that in a long time." She pats me on the shoulder. "Clinger. Just damn, that's funny."

"Yeah? How so?"

"Girl, you are planning to move your ass across the country to a city you've never been to with no idea of where you might live, how you might make a living or what you're gonna do. That is the polar opposite of a clinger." Misty shakes her head and drags me back into the bedroom.

"Okay my work here is done." She makes a big show of brushing her hands off invisible dirt. "See ya at dinner. I have a man to tease over facetime."

Kyra gags a little, scrolling through her phone from the bed. Alison still hasn't come back from wherever she'd gone, and I feel like I got hit by a bus.

A big, quirky bus.

"I don't know about you, but I have a feeling the first night of this Moonlight Festival is going to be spicy," Kyra says.

"Great." I throw an arm over my eyes trying to block out the anxiety. Spoiler alert: it doesn't work.

***

Micah

I stand over the sink staring out the window to the deck thinking over that night with a sick feeling in my gut when I get poked from behind. Spinning around to knock Gio, the likely culprit, I freeze when I see Alison glaring at me.

"You have to be the biggest fool I've ever met. And that's saying something because being the coach's daughter means I've met my fair share of fools."

"Oh-kay." I put my hands up in surrender, no idea where this is coming from. Unless... "Did Charlie send you down here to scold me?"

Another poke right in the chest. "Jeez!" I say, rubbing the spot where she made contact. She's freakishly strong for a little artist.

"No, she did not send me down here. She's up there hiding because she can't face you after the way you treated her."

"Hold up, wait a damn second. If she'd let me explain-"

"You've had a year to explain!"

"Nah, I've had about ten minutes out there on the deck. And believe me, if she'd let me tell her, she'd already know I messed up not because I think she's no better than one night. She'd know I was so fucking nervous I drank too much and ruined what was supposed to be me telling her I wanted to try to be more than her best friend. That I wanted to show her I could be the guy for her.

"But she's cut off all contact, won't even talk to me while we're at work, and trust me I've tried. Short of cornering her, which I just did, or dragging her onstage tonight where she can't escape from me, I don't know what to do."

Alison opens her mouth to say something, eyes blazing with fire, when she freezes. Jaw halfway to the ground she looks past me as she flattens her palm against my face.

"Wait." She commands me. So I wait.

"Hang on just a second." She drops her hand and turns around looking for something, but I have no idea what. "Who's playing tonight?"

"I don't-"

"Jeff!" She shouts, walking out of the kitchen. "Who's playing tonight?"

"Citizen One." I hear him call from the living room.

"Okay. Call your dad. Call Tye. Get in contact with someone who has pull." Alison is pacing the living room now, full blown manic energy in thought.

"Why?" Jeff asks as he pulls his phone out obediently.

Alison stops her frantic movements to stare at me.

"Because Micah is going to get Charlie up on stage tonight."

"What?" No, she can't be serious. "I was exaggerating."

She shakes her head, walking toward me with purpose. "Nope. It's brilliant. And it just might make a big difference in how this ends between you."

"I don't want it to end." I slump down onto a chair.

Alison leans over, two hands on my shoulders. "No. What I mean is, this will change the ending into a beginning."

My eyes shoot up to hers where I find a smile and warm encouragement. She nods.

And I take the first real breath I've taken in a year because maybe, just maybe, I didn't ruin things between Charlie and I forever.

Whew, this one stumped me for a while. But then Misty took over, Alison mysteriously left and I thought, hmmm. This could work to my advantage.

We shall see if the next chapter comes more easily.

Again, I debated about the song choice for this one but Castaway is the right vibe.

https://youtu.be/RwGcOn8zPtw

Thanks for reading (and voting ❤️❤️)