[right][sub][color=gray][b]FT.[/b] [color=FE6F5E][b]Penelope James[/b][/color], [color=D3D3D3][b]Charlie Decker[/b][/color] & [color=52796e][b]Maxine James[/b][/color][/color][/sub][/right]
[color=gray][center][url=https://www.roleplayerguild.com/users/brutalbx][img]https://fontmeme.com/permalink/211015/b5878257bfbd9cdd76a67a003c983966.png[/img][/url]  [img]https://fontmeme.com/permalink/211015/52f6860b6ef04523593be20b787cf5af.png[/img]  [url=https://www.roleplayerguild.com/users/lovelycomplex][img]https://fontmeme.com/permalink/211015/450efa6a0ce5a6f0235bac836bcc1708.png[/img][/url]

[img]https://i.imgur.com/2yWtsCW.png[/img]

[img]https://fontmeme.com/permalink/211015/b7e9c76bf6c81a21da21477b7c3fa8b6.png[/img][/center]
[indent][indent]After the initial shock of seeing her dead childhood friend and sister, Penelope allowed herself to suspend disbelief and accept whatever this was. She shooed her ghosts away to give her time to get ready. While Maxine discussed with Charlie her findings in the hallway, Poppy buried her overwhelming emotions to get ready. 

Once she slipped on her jeans, her Neon Ether arcade shirt, and Charlie’s leather jacket, she went to her bed where she placed a few items she took out of her parents’ room (which were alongside some of her own items). Holster, check. Glock, check. Knife, check. Pepper spray, check. Binoculars, check. Flashlight, check. Lighter, check. Cigarettes, check. And last but not least, just in case, 2 walkie-talkies, check. If the dead were back, she wasn’t going to wait for something bad to happen to her. She was going to be prepared. 

Penelope knew most of these items could be useless toward a ghost, but she wanted to be ready in the only way she knew how. Call it anxiety or paranoia but she knew that if the dead were back, it wasn’t only the dead that people wanted to desperately see. With her gear situated on her body and in her bag, she thought about what else she needed. 

[i]Snacks[/i]. 

Opening the door to see both her first love and her sister, Poppy calmly commanded, [color=fe6f5e]“Kitchen.”[/color]  Her hair was in a messy ponytail and there was only acceptance in her green eyes. 

[color=52796e]“Actually…”[/color] Maxine apologetically frowned. [color=52796e]“I’m going to give you two some time together.”[/color] 

[color=fe6f5e]“Wait what?”[/color] Was she hearing this correctly? Poppy hadn’t seen Maxine since freshman year and now that the dead were given a chance to rise from their graves or ashes, her sister didn’t want to be here? Didn’t want to be with her? 

[color=52796e]“Stop that.”[/color] Maxine placed her hands on her sister’s shoulders and squeezed them (it wasn’t easy, seeing how Charlie’s jacket was thick and big on Pop’s thin form). [color=52796e]“I know exactly what you’re thinking, and that’s not it at all. Whatever is going on is unnatural and I want to cover as much ground as possible. To do that, we need to split. Hey, hey look at me.”[/color] Maxine grabbed her sister’s chin and angled her face toward her’s, slightly upward. 

For Penelope, this felt all too real. 

[color=52796e]“I love you and I’ve missed you like crazy, okay? But as long as you have me close to your heart.”[/color] Maxine grabbed the teardrop necklace around her sister’s neck and smiled,  [color=52796e]“I’ll find you. I’ll always find you. Okay?”[/color] 

[color=fe6f5e]“Okay…”[/color] Penelope felt her eyes water, but instead of letting herself cry she bit her cheeks. There was a brief moment of silence as the sisters stared at one another before Penelope added, [color=fe6f5e]“You too. I love and miss you too.”[/color] 

[color=52796e]“I know.”[/color] Giving each other one lasting embrace, Maxine faded away, never one to waste time. Swallowing her feelings, Penelope glanced over at Charlie, her heart dropping at the sight of him. 

He was here. 

He really was here. 

[color=fe6f5e]“Kitchen, please.”[/color] She was not ready to give him more than a couple seconds to take her in, or maybe it was the other way around with her taking him in. Her heart could barely handle him at this distance. [color=fe6f5e]“What do you know?”[/color] Poppy asked as she rushed forward to their next destination. 

Charlie wasn’t sure how to react to anything at that time. Not only was he with Poppy again, like he had always wanted but he had also done the unthinkable; irregardless of his feelings of guilt or remorse now, he did what he did, everybody knew and now he was back. Maybe this was some twisted penance but he was unsure. He followed her into the kitchen with his hands in his pockets, his head hung like it always did.

[color=D3D3D3]“Not a whole lot,”[/color] He responded. [color=D3D3D3]“What I do know is that it’s not just me and Max. It’s everyone, Pops. It’s everyone who suffered like we did and chose the wrong path. Killers and….victims alike.”[/color] That pause. It hung in the air like a guillotine, like his regret waiting to behead him at a moment's notice. [color=D3D3D3]“We’re all back for different reasons I think. What they are, I really don’t know.”[/color]

[color=fe6f5e]“Is that so?”[/color] Although she was attentively listening to Charlie, Penelope was also a woman on a mission, packing her backpack with a couple non-perishable snacks, like protein bars, almonds, and pretzels. She didn’t go overboard, just enough to last a day for a small group of people. [color=fe6f5e]“And what is your reason?”[/color] She looked up from her bag, expectantly meeting his gaze. [color=fe6f5e]“You have to have some idea why you’re back.”[/color]

[color=D3D3D3]“Penance.”[/color] Charlie said as he pressed his palms down onto the kitchen. [color=D3D3D3]“I’m here to see the pain that I caused, to experience first hand the horror that my actions have inflicted upon people.”[/color] If he could go back in time, there was no doubt that Charlie Decker would undo the actions of the first day of senior year, he would take it all back. [color=D3D3D3]“And you. I couldn’t rest until I saw you again.”[/color]

[i]Penance[/i].

[color=fe6f5e]“I couldn’t— well, I can’t sleep on my bed,”[/color] Penelope whispered back. Turning away from Charlie, she went to the fridge and retrieved an apple. [color=fe6f5e]“I’ve finally started eating better.”[/color] She closed the fridge behind her, her voice rising ever so slightly. [color=fe6f5e]“Up until recently, Jade’s had to force feed me and even then… I don’t always keep it down.”[/color] Walking to her family’s small island, Poppy leaned her elbows on it as she deeply surveyed the fruit. There were so many things she was overcoming, like her fear of social encounters and being able to function in the world again. Being able to live life freely on her own. 

[color=fe6f5e]“I go to therapy!”[/color] Pushing herself off the island, she tossed the apple up, keeping her focus on the fruit instead of the boy, unable to look at him and his face. The old Penelope would’ve been able to look at him right in the eyes as she pleaded for him to stay in her room. Emotional talk? He was her other half. She should be comfortable putting her heart on her sleeves. 

That’s just it, though. She wasn’t that Poppy anymore. The apple fell into her hand and when it did so she grasped it. [color=fe6f5e]“I was diagnosed with agoraphobia but hey, Mrs. Ramsey says I’m getting better.”[/color] 

The more she talked, the more defeated she felt. The more hurt she realized she had deeply buried inside her. Dropping her arms to her side, she blankly stared ahead, realizing that seeing Charlie again would only set her back. This would only hurt her. All he’s ever done was hurt her. She always waited and waited and waited for him. Even after death, she waited. 

Now he’s back and all she could think about was, [color=fe6f5e]“Did I mean nothing to you?”[/color] her voice broke, shaking and fighting back the pain. Nothing she could’ve said or done would’ve stopped him that day. Nothing she did helped him in anyway. Everything they had was all in her head and completely one-sided. Always, always with him she felt the need to fight back the tears. She didn’t want to cry over Charlie anymore. 

[color=D3D3D3]“Pops.”[/color]

Charlie Decker had hurt a lot of people, too many people but none more so than Penelope James. When he was alive, she was his heart and in death she still is. Yet he betrayed his heart and everything it represented when he gave into his darkness, to the curse that twisted his soul beyond salvation. Charlie loved her even now, worlds apart but Poppy was what gave his existence meaning.

[color=D3D3D3]“You did, you do and you always will mean everything to me.”[/color] He was absorbing her feelings, like a sponge. Just being close to Poppy, Charlie could almost read her thoughts and they were filling him with more pain, more hurt but he took it. It was his to take as he was the one that gave it to her in the first place. [color=D3D3D3]“I’m not sure what any of this means, Poppy. All I can tell you is that wherever I was…before, I saw you and only you. You’ve always been courageous and I’ve always been a coward but now, maybe I still am but I can say the words now. All the words I wish I’d said the last time I saw you. The words I wrote.”[/color]

[color=fe6f5e]“What’s the point.”[/color] Penelope dejectedly stated. Tightly, she gripped onto the apple in anger, [color=fe6f5e]“This. This won’t even last and you’ll be gone.”[/color] 

All his words left unsaid, what good would that do for her now? 

He was a ghost. He was dead. 

[color=fe6f5e]“You don’t get to say shit like that to me.”[/color] She loosened her grip on the apple, dropping it on the counter, in hopes it would calm her down. Instead, her breathing picked up and a sharp pain resided in her chest, a feeling she knew all too well by now.  [color=fe6f5e]“YOU were MY everything.”[/color] 

[i]Breathe, Poppy, just breathe.[/i]

[color=fe6f5e]“I can’t look at my window, my bed, my room without thinking of you. I can’t walk outside without thinking of you. I can’t look at everyone in this fucking town WITHOUT THINKING OF YOU.”[/color] Holding onto the counter, using it for stability, knowing well enough she was fighting a panic attack, she shook her head, repeatedly telling herself internally to breathe. To just breathe. 

All her life, Poppy convinced herself that she’d have Charlie to walk beside her and all her life, she believed it. Now though? She was a child learning how to walk. She needed to learn to live without him, without the idea that he would show up randomly and be there for her, holding her hand. 

Together, she felt whole. He was her world. He always was, he still is. But, for once, she could see a light beyond him. She was finally moving forward. Finally getting somewhere. Finally learning how to live again. If she allowed herself to believe in that again, believe in their love, in him, she would never move on. She would never be happy. 

Grabbing her bag from the island, Penelope rushed to the door, walking right through Charlie to get where she needed to go, [color=fe6f5e]“I can’t do this. I can’t be alone with you.”[/color] Others would use this chance for closure but they were a million worlds apart. 

And it hurt.  

For once, Charlie was at a loss for words. As someone who was known as a wordsmith, he couldn’t find anything in his thesaurus like vocabulary to steal away what Poppy was feeling. She walked [i]through[/i] him. How did she even know she could do that? He didn’t even know she could do that. Regardless of the how, it was the actual why? 

It had always been Charlie and Poppy; Poppy and Charlie. Then he did what he did and it was Poppy and the evil spirit that clung to her like rain on skin. And now, just as the sun began to shine, he brought that big black cloud back to sit above her head.

He looked at her with his deep set brown eyes, even in death, still framed by tired purple bags and sighed through his nose. There was a lot left to be said and done but Charlie knew that Poppy needed time and although he didn’t want to leave her side, he had to let her go. 

[color=D3D3D3]“Be safe out there,”[/color] Charlie began. [color=D3D3D3]“I’ll try and see what I can figure out but if you need me, just say my name and I’ll be there.”[/color] He turned towards the hallway door and began to step through it. He stopped and turned back to his love and sighed again. 

[center][color=D3D3D3]“There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream, 
The earth, and every common sight,
To me did seem
Apparelled in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream.”[/color][/center]
Charlie hung his head and faded as he stepped through the door.
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