Chapter 20 Unwritten Stories #2
Charlos is introduced in the third chapter.
A scholar. A writer. A young man whose family expects him to follow in the footsteps of an older brother who has achieved everything Charlos secretly despises.
He hides in libraries because libraries are the only spaces where no one asks him to be anything other than himself.
He watches the world through glasses that are slightly too large for his face, and he writes stories in journals that no one will ever read because admitting he wants to be a writer feels like admitting he has failed at being the son his father wanted.
They meet by accident.
Molly, escaping the rink after a disastrous practice, finds herself in the university library seeking a quiet place to cry.
Charlos, hiding in the stacks with his notebook, stumbles upon her and offers a handkerchief without saying a word.
They sit in silence for an hour, two strangers sharing space without demanding anything from each other, and when Molly finally leaves, she realizes she forgot to return the handkerchief.
She comes back the next day to return it.
And the next.
And the next.
I am lost.
The world outside the pages ceases to exist. The warmth of the room, the sleeping Alpha behind me, the ache in my knee, the chaos of the day that preceded this moment.
All of it fades into static while I turn page after page, devouring the story that Etienne Laurent has been secretly writing in the privacy of his room.
Molly and Charlos fall in love the way people fall in love in the best stories.
Slowly. Inevitably. Through stolen glances and accidental touches and conversations that stretch into hours without either of them noticing the passage of time.
Through the gradual revelation of secrets and the careful building of trust. Through the pain of watching someone you care about struggle with demons you cannot fight for them.
Charlos's brother is a problem.
An older brother who casts a shadow so long that Charlos cannot remember what his own light looks like.
A brother who mocks his writing, dismisses his dreams, tells him that real men do not waste time on stories when there are legacies to build and expectations to meet.
Every interaction between them drips with a toxicity that I recognize in my bones, the slow poison of being compared to someone else and always found lacking.
Molly sees him.
She sees the real Charlos, the one who hides beneath the glasses and the books and the carefully constructed persona of the dutiful son.
She reads his stories when he finally trusts her enough to share them, and her reaction is not polite encouragement or tolerant support.
It is genuine, visceral appreciation. She tells him his words made her cry.
Made her laugh. Made her feel things she did not know she was still capable of feeling.
And Charlos, for the first time in his life, wonders if maybe he is not as worthless as his brother's voice in his head keeps insisting.
I turn another page.
I am two-thirds through the journal now, my fingers moving automatically, my eyes scanning the words with the speed of someone who has forgotten how to read slowly. Tears are forming in my eyes, blurring the text, and I have to blink them away to keep the lines from swimming.
This is beautiful. This is achingly, heartbreakingly, devastatingly beautiful.
The way he writes Molly, the way he captures her strength and her fragility and the exhausted determination that keeps her moving even when her body begs her to stop.
The way he writes Charlos, the way he shows the internal war between duty and desire without ever making it feel melodramatic or overwrought.
This is the work of someone who understands loneliness. Who knows what it feels like to have dreams that the world tells you are not worth pursuing. Who has spent nights staring at ceilings wondering if they will ever find someone who sees them, really sees them, and does not look away.
I turn the page.
Blank.
I frown, flipping to the next page.
Also blank.
My hands move faster now, rifling through the remaining pages with increasing desperation.
Blank. Blank. Blank. Nothing but empty cream-colored paper where the rest of the story should be, where Molly and Charlos's journey should continue, where the resolution of every thread Etienne has so carefully woven should finally come together.
"Where is the rest?"
My voice comes out strangled.
A whimper follows, the sound escaping my throat before I can suppress it. Small and wounded and carrying the specific grief of a reader who has reached the end of an unfinished story and discovered there is no more.
The bed shifts behind me.
Etienne's eyes open. Or rather, one eye opens, the other remaining stubbornly closed as his sleep-fogged brain tries to process the sound that disturbed his rest. He looks for me immediately, his gaze scanning the space until it lands on my figure sitting at the edge of the mattress.
The moment he sees the tear running down my cheek, he is sitting upright.
The transition from sleeping to alert happens so fast it gives me whiplash. One second he is a drowsy Alpha blinking at the morning light, and the next he is fully vertical with his hands reaching for me, his storm-blue eyes wide with concern.
"Why are you crying?" The question tumbles out rapid and urgent. "Are you in pain? Is it your knee? Do I need to get the nurse? Call someone? What is wrong?"
"No." I shake my head, more tears escaping despite my efforts to contain them. "I am not in pain."
I lift the journal, holding it up between us like evidence at a trial.
"It is not finished."
My voice cracks on the last word.
Etienne stares at the journal in my hands.
His expression cycles through a rapid series of emotions.
Confusion at first, as he processes what he is seeing.
Then recognition, as he realizes which journal I am holding and what it contains.
Then horror, raw and unfiltered, as the implication of my tears settles into his consciousness.
"Oh shit." He runs a hand through his disheveled hair, making the dark strands stand up in even more chaotic directions. "You... you read that? The whole thing? Already?"
"Where is the rest?" I demand, ignoring his question in favor of the one burning through my chest. "What happens to Molly?
Does she compete again? Does she find a way to love the ice without it destroying her?
And Charlos!" My voice rises with the fervor of someone who has been emotionally compromised by fictional characters.
"Why will he not just stand up to his brother?
Why will he not tell his family that his dream is to create, not to live in someone else's shadow?
There is so much left to resolve! So many threads you left hanging! "
More tears escape, tracking down my cheeks in twin rivers of readerly distress.
"Obviously Molly loves the shit out of him!
" I continue, aware that I am ranting but unable to stop.
"Anyone can see it! She came back to return that handkerchief every day for two weeks!
She read his stories and cried over them!
She sees him, Etienne, she really sees him, and he is being foolish!
Who cares about his brother? His brother is an asshole!
His brother does not get to define his worth!
Why can Charlos not see that the person who is supposed to matter most already thinks he is worth everything? "
I am breathing hard by the time I finish, clutching the journal to my chest like it contains the answers to the universe.
Etienne is staring at me.
Not with the embarrassment I expected. Not with the defensive walls that should have risen at having his private work exposed without permission.
He is looking at me with an expression I cannot fully name.
Wonder, maybe. Disbelief. The quiet, fragile hope of someone who has been waiting years to hear another person say these words and had given up believing it would ever happen.
"You actually read it," he whispers.
"I just told you I did! I read the whole thing! And now I need to know what happens next!" I thrust the journal toward him. "Where is the rest?"
He takes the journal from my hands gently, turning it over in his grip like he is seeing it for the first time.
"I have not written it yet."
The confession is quiet. Almost ashamed.
I gawk at him.
"You wrote this masterpiece and it is not on bookshelves?
" The words burst out of me with the indignation of someone who has just discovered a crime against literature.
"This should be published! This should be in bookstores!
This should be in the hands of every reader who has ever felt like Molly or Charlos, who has ever hidden their dreams because the world told them those dreams were not practical! "
Etienne's cheeks flush with color, the pink spreading across his pale skin in a way that makes him look younger. More vulnerable.
"It is not that good," he mumbles, his gaze dropping to the journal in his hands.
"Who said that?"
The question comes out sharper than I intended, but I do not soften it.
His jaw tightens. His fingers flex against the journal's cover. For a long moment, he does not answer, and I can see the internal battle playing out across his features. The instinct to deflect warring with something deeper that wants to be honest.
"Rafe," he finally says.
The name lands like a stone in still water.
"Rafe said writing is not for men with balls.
He said I should be focusing on my goalie career, not wasting time on stories that will never pay my bills.
He found the journal once, read the first few pages, and told me it was soft.
Weak. The kind of thing Omegas read to feel things because they do not have anything real going on in their lives. "