CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
LILA MURPHY
What are you thinking? What are you thinking right now?
ORION FENIMORE
I don’t want you to go.
LILA MURPHY
So don’t let me go.
Vampire Falls. Season five, episode three – “Finally Here”.
Not only did I introduce Charlie Chamberlain to Vampire Falls, I also pointed him down the fan fiction rabbit hole. I showed him some of my favourites then he found his own, which generally featured Lila and Juliana in various let’s-get-out-of-these-wet-clothes type scenarios. Anyway.
It was probably over a year of us being friends before I showed him any of my own fan fiction.
I’d been writing it since I first watched the show, so the early stuff was bad, especially when I insisted Roxy take turns writing it with me.
Those chapters came across in an unintentional Jekyll and Hyde style, then Roxy retired from the fan fiction co-authoring game. But I continued to hone my craft.
My favourite (and my seventy-eight WattPad followers’ favourite) was a story where Orion’s mentor, who has fallen in with a dark magic crowd, uses him as a trade for some necromancy sorcery.
Orion is pulled into another dimension and the rest of the gang don’t know where he is.
This all happens while Vistoria Falls is under threat from a deadly race of witches called Death Witches (I know), Lila finds out she’s actually related to Viggo, and whenever Bud Leroy drank a pumpkin-spiced latte, he was able to teleport. It was quite the page-turner.
As it turned out, Charlie Chamberlain was also a fan.
My sixteenth birthday was the day my feelings went from I-think-maybe to oh-my-god-definitely.
I was looking for my school tie when the doorbell went.
Assuming it would be adult business and because I was, of course, queen for the day, I carried on tearing my room apart until Mum shouted up the stairs.
“Eliza! Charlie Chamberlain is here.”
I froze, mid-laundry-basket-emptying. Sometimes he and Roxy would call for me on the way to the bus but we’d usually text first, so I was surprised.
“Kaaaaay!” I yelled back.
I checked my hair in the mirror then as casually as I could (which was tough because the very mention of his name sent my adrenaline spiking at that point) trotted down the stairs and found him in the conservatory.
“Hey,” I said. Casually.
He looked round at me and stood up like I’d just called him in for a job interview. He was tall then but hadn’t filled out, so he seemed generally awkward in whatever space he was in.
“Happy hello day . . . happy birthday, I mean,” he said, a gift bag dangling from his hand clunking him in the chest when he waved at me. “Hello.”
“Thanks,” I said, peering at him when he cleared his throat. “You OK, Chamberlain?”
“What?” he said, his eyes darting around the conservatory, then finally resting on me. He shook his head then let out a long breath. “Yes, all good. OK.”
Rain pitter-pattered on the glass (it always rains on my birthday.
My dad says the rain clouds match my soul.
Love you, Dad) and Charlie Chamberlain watched the water trickle down the glass.
He stared at it for a minute or so, until it was my turn to clear my throat.
He blinked, the spell cast by the rain broken suddenly.
Even though we weren’t standing close, the energy was there between us, but it felt unsteady, like it hadn’t worked out what kind of force it wanted to be yet.
“Is that for me?” I said, pointing at the bag.
He looked at me, his brown eyes wide, then ran a hand through his thick hair, leaving it standing up in adorable, haphazard tufts.
“It’s silly,” he said, the tops of his ears pink. “Childish.”
“My two favourite things. Gimme.”
I sat on the sofa, yanking his blazer sleeve in a shameless excuse to touch him.
He flopped down next to me, and I could feel the tension coming off him in waves.
I closed my eyes and held my hands out, his sweet, fresh scent teasing my senses as I felt the bag dumped in my palms. I opened my eyes to find him inched as far from me as possible.
“You’re being so weird today,” I said, reaching inside and pulling out a square scrap book.
Two lone letters were scrawled across the front in the same font as the Vampire Falls graphics.
F.F.
Faller Forever
I traced the letters with my finger and glanced at him. He looked like he was about to have a stroke.
“Cool,” I said, opening the scrap book, my heart stopping when I saw the first page. “Oh my god.”
It was a drawing of Juliana the Demon Huntress, but not like I’d seen her before.
It was still so her that I immediately recognised who she was, a sword over her head, mid-swing, drawn with such detail that the image almost looked like it was moving across the page.
Her outline was done in delicate black lines, and her colours were bold and smudged out of the lines, giving her movement.
Her eyes burned with fury, and strength sung out of every shaded muscle.
It seemed such a familiar scene, but I couldn’t place it from the series.
I looked at him again and his eyes quickly moved from my face to the page.
“This is so good. Did you do this?” I asked. He nodded, squirming next to me. “Oh my god, Charlie.”
I stared at him, stunned by his hidden talent and his adorable embarrassment about it, then looked back down at the page. There was something written on a piece of paper pasted beneath the image, and I frowned as I read it, recognising his writing.
My breath caught in my throat.
“Oh my god, Charlie. I . . .” I tried, shaking my head as I flicked from the words to the detail of the image.
“I got it from Wattpad – it’s from . . .”
“Never Leave,” I said, blinking tears away so I could absorb every detail.
“Is that cool? I mean, when I read it, I saw it in my head, and I just wanted you to see what a good writer you are.” He rubbed the back of his hair, oblivious to how every move he made and every word he said was pulling me further into him. “How talented you are.”
“How talented I am? You’re insane,” I said, turning the page and gasping at the absolute joy of his next drawing. “Oh my god – Jawfain! Look at him with Viggo!”
“That’s Sadie’s favourite. She helped me with the cutting and sticking,” he said, trying to shrug the attention away from himself.
“Charlie,” I whispered, swallowing a lump as I ran a finger over Viggo’s blue eyes, blown away by how Charlie had captured the exact hue and sparkle.
“You like it?”
I nodded, reading my words under the drawing of Viggo in his rocking chair with Jawfain perched on his shoulder.
“It’s . . . it’s amazing,” I said, shaking my head.
We’d got closer as I turned each page, our legs and arms touching. For weeks after, I replayed us sitting together, the rain tapping gently, his thigh against mine and the tiny sparks it generated. I remember the sensation of his body next to mine like it’s happening right now.
“All you,” he said. “Your words.”
I looked round at him, not afraid to let him see how emotional his gift had made me.
“This is . . . thank you. It’s you though, not me. You’ve brought it to life.” I stared at him. “Charlie this is the most—”
“Time to go, Eliza!” called Mum, with impeccable timing. We looked up and I don’t think he could have looked as disappointed as I felt, but it was close. “You’re going to miss the bus!”
“Kaaaay!” I called.
The moment I got home that day, I ran upstairs and spent a good hour looking at that scrapbook, gently turning the pages and tracing my finger over the lines and colours he’d drawn for me.
It was the most incredible present anyone had ever given me.
After that, I’d often find folded bits of paper tucked in my bag or coat pocket.
I’d unfold them, my heart racing, as I was presented with the latest of Charlie Chamberlain’s drawings to go along with Never Leave.
Until one day, that day, it just stopped.