to hell and back.

Chapter 21

I press my lips together, noticing that I am staring. I look away from Charlie just as she looks up at me. "Forget about it. All of it. I'll go make us some hot chocolate," she says, standing up and hurrying to the door.

The air gets quieter.

Vaggie is staring at me. I start chewing the inside of my lip and notice the way my eyes flicker down when I notice her gaze.

"What." I force myself to make eye contact with her.

Vaggie shakes her head. "I can tell that you're concerned. Not for me, but for Charlie," she says accusingly. "She's just stressed, but can you blame her? She's running a fullscale hotel while trying to balance the turf wars and exterminations, and now not only Sir Dick Sucker is trying to come for her position, but the walking killer radio is too," she continues with a snarky laugh. "Everyone in Hell is a lazy fucking piece of work, except for her, and yet she's getting the worst of it."

Vaggie talks about Charlie in a peculiar way. She obviously doesn't seem like the type who would have idols. She seems like she would be the idol, that people would look up to her rather than vice-versa. Despite this blatant part of her personality, she talks about Charlie with underlying respect.

Vaggie feels like she has to protect Charlie, but at the same time, Vaggie wants to be like her.

"She seems too sweet to be doing all of the dirty work," I say.

"Exactly!" Vaggie's eyebrows shoot for the sky. "She's strong, but people just try to tear her down. Fucking heathens."

I nod, but it only makes my head throb harder, so I stop right away. My heart feels like it's beating too slow, like it doesn't have enough energy to pump the blood that I need through my body. And my veins feel cold, like ice has been shot through them with a poisoned needle.

I have something to say, but I wait to say it. I want the air to be silent for a moment before I talk again, just for, you know, effect.

"Vaggie?"

She looks at me. Her eyes (or at least the one that shows; her hair covers one of them completely) really are gorgeous.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm okay. Are you?"

I'm going to puke.

I stand and step off of the bed, but immediately stumble to my knees. I then throw up all over the white tiled floor, my stomach heaving up everything that was inside of me, which wasn't much, come to think of it. I haven't been eating lately. When I stop dry heaving, I sit back on my feet and start sobbing. Ignoring the pile of bile and on the floor, I pull my knees up to my chin, hug myself tight, then cry into my arms.

Vaggie (reluctantly, I'm sure) comes down from her seat on the bed and sits on the floor beside me. As embarrassed as I am, my body physically relaxes as I feel Vaggie's arm slide around my shoulders.

Just the contact, the real, human contact. It makes me feel better. Less alone. Like maybe I'm not suffering all by myself.

"Hey," Vaggie whispers as my trembling sobs begin to subside. "Look at me."

I look at her. I'm sure that I look like a mess. I probably look disgusting, but despite that, Vaggie maintains eye contact with me. She places a hand on my cheek, which, for some reason, makes my heart skip a beat. Her face abruptly feels very, very close to mine. Her visible eye feels like it's drilling a hole into my skull.

"Are you good?" she asks. Her voice is quieter than I have ever heard it. It brings a calm feeling over me. A nice, calm feeling. I embrace the feeling, and even though my head is pounding and my stomach feels sore and my throat is burning as if lava has been poured down it, I smile and give a feeble nod.

"Yeah," I whisper, my voice shaking. "Yeah, I'm good." I snivel a bit and look down, breaking the eye contact that had been held too long between us.

Just then, Charlie reenters. Vaggie stands up, her hand retracting from my cheek, her arm unwrapping from around me. The contact is gone. I feel cold again, but less lonely than before.

"I brought hot-oh my God, what happened?"

I quickly wipe my tears away with my wrists before looking up at Charlie. I must really look rough because when I make eye contact with her, she gasps, and a look of sympathy washes over her pale features.

Vaggie turns to help me up as Charlie rushes over. She's holding two cups, one in each hand. Probably full of hot chocolate. I wonder why there are only two cups rather than three.

I take a seat on the bed and rub my temples. My head is pounding again and my stomach feels like it was just pumped. I mean, it was, if you think about it. It pumped itself. How weird.

I don't even know why I threw up. Can you get sick from stress? I think you can. If you can, that's definitely why I'm sick. I've never been more stressed in my life, not even when I was studying for SAT's. Not that I did much studying.

"I'm alright," I mutter. Charlie sits beside me on the bed, her face contorted with worry and some other look that I take as... disgust. "Just stressed."

Just.

"That's okay," Charlie says quietly. Without another word, she slowly and unsurely holds one of the cups of hot chocolate to me. I take it, just because it's warm and my hands feel colder than ice.

Vaggie walks away, then comes back moments later with a mop. She gives me a sharp look, then proceeds to clean up my vomit. I feel bad, so I don't look at her anymore. I stare at the swirling cup of hot chocolate. There was one marshmallow, placed in the center of the cup, but it has melted into a calm, sticky swirl of white. It reminds me of... me. A once fragile, soft marshmallow of sorts, helplessly melting in an inescapable pit of burning shit.

"Sorry." My eyes, still pointed at the mug, as if it could leap out of my grasp at any moment and my gaze is the only thing pinning it down, begin to water up. But only because I want them to. I want to cry.

"Don't be," Charlie says. Her voice sounds like cotton in my ears. Soft, yet tangled, if that makes sense. Tangled in on itself. She sounds like she doesn't quite know what to say, and doesn't quite know if she means what she says. That's what her voice sounds like.

Charlie gets quiet again, so I look up at her. She's staring at the wall, her eyes unfocused, glazed over in thought.

Vaggie is walking to the door. The floor is now clean, so she must be leaving to put the mop she had away. Dear god, I feel like shit. And my mouth still tastes like vomit.

I take a small sip of my drink. It's still warm.

Hey guys! hope you're all having a lovely holiday season so far :) winter break has started for my school, so i hope to be writing more since i don't have any homework to catch up on. love you all!