average human’s Reviews > What Is Love > Status Update

I locked the front door behind me and walked through the dark house until I got to my bedroom. I locked that door behind me as well and pushed my armchair in front of it. It was silly to think that would protect me, but it gave me a little peace of mind, and it might give me enough time to climb down from my bedroom balcony.
Once I got all the lights on in my room, I took in a calming breath and decided to completely strip out of my uniform and undergarments. It was time for comfort.
From my dresser, I grabbed a baby blue cotton tank with lace bordering the neckline and a matching pair of boyshort underwear with lace bordering the waistband. I took those with me into the bathroom and set them aside before turning on the shower. As the water warmed up, I put all my hair up in a messy bun so it wouldn’t get wet. Then I got into the shower to wash away the day from my face and body.
After finishing my quick shower and getting dressed, I went back into my room, over to the corner where my art desk was, and pulled out a drop cloth, my easel, and my stool. Mindlessly, I set everything up and grabbed everything I would need. As I sat before my easel with a blank sheet of my favorite large white drawing paper, I only paused for a second to envision what I wanted to draw. I wasn’t in the mood for fine lines and perfect edges. I wanted to draw something that was as messy as I felt at the moment. I reached for my container of charcoal powder, poured some in my hand, and slammed it down in the paper, rubbing my hand all over to spread the dust where I’d need it. The more I bled out onto the paper, the more the world around me disappeared.
I didn’t know how long I was at it, drawing a young woman who had no face. From the nose up was smeared away until those smears turned into black birds flying away. The rest of the drawing was from her nose down to the tops of her breasts. Streaks of tears like spilled ink ran down her visible cheeks, off her chin, and down her neck and chest. I was drawing her mouth, which was sewn brutally shut with a thick thread, when I heard a knock.
I jumped, startled. I looked toward my bedroom door. Then there was a knock again and it didn’t come from there. I turned toward the other side of the room, where my balcony was. My curtains were closed, but I could see an outline of a person. My heart took off at a speed that made me worry it might give out.
“Lottie,” a muffled voice said, and I recognized it.
Roe.
My poor heart instantly slowed. I went over to my nightstand and grabbed the remote for the curtains. With a charcoal-covered finger, I pressed the open button and returned the remote to my nightstand before walking around my bed to the balcony doors. As the curtains opened, they revealed Roe standing outside with Reid behind him, helping Wyatt climb up and over the railing.
“What are you doing here?” I asked through the door.
Roe’s stormy blue eyes were locked with mine. “I told you I’d follow you.”
“How did you know that I was here?” I asked.
Wyatt came up to the door. “You said you wanted to go home.”
How did they find out where I lived?
As if knowing what I was thinking, Wyatt said, “You left your wallet with your ID in your bag at our place, and this is the only light on in the entire house, in case you were wondering if we’re stalkers or not.”
I looked from Roe to Wyatt to Reid. I wasn’t as freaked out as I’d been earlier. What was done was done. They knew and I couldn’t take that back. I hadn’t any idea how to proceed from here. But one thing I knew for sure was that I didn’t want to stop spending time with them.
I turned the lock on the balcony’s French doors and opened one slightly, allowing them in. Roe came in first, then Wyatt, both taking in my room as they moved farther into it. Reid was last to come in and he shut the door behind him.
He didn’t look around like the others. Instead, he took me in head to toe before he met my eyes. “You’re in your underwear.”
I glanced down at myself. It was more clothes than he’d seen me in yesterday morning. My bathing suit showed a lot more. “I know. This was what I was going to wear to bed. Does showing too much skin offend you?”
“Your top is see-through,” he deadpanned.
I glanced down again. “Apparently boobs do, too.” I walked around him, heading for the bathroom.
“I can proudly say that your boobs don’t offend me,” Wyatt said. “In fact, if you wanted to walk around naked, I wouldn’t be opposed.”
“I think my nakedness might offend one of you,” I said.
Wyatt frowned at Reid. “Why did you have to come?”
I saw Reid flip him off just as I went into the bathroom. I washed my charcoal-covered hands and wrists. Glancing at my chest in the mirror, I could indeed see my nipples. Leaving the bathroom and walking through my room toward the closet, I noticed all three of them looking over what I had been drawing. I grabbed my burgundy zip-up hoodie that had Kendry Academy written across it. I slipped into it as I returned to my room.
Wyatt shook his head as he stared at what I had drawn so far. “It amazes me how fucking talented you are.”
“It’s not finished,” I said.
“Sounds like I’m not the only one who needs more confidence as an artist,” he said, clearly thinking he’d gotten me.
I folded my arms over my chest. “I know my work is good. Compliments just make me uncomfortable.”
Looking baffled, Wyatt turned to face me. “Why?”
Biting my lip, I debated how to answer that.
“Because when you go your whole life being told how worthless you are, it’s hard to believe when someone else says the opposite,” Reid said as he stared at the armchair pushed up against my bedroom door.
Roe and Wyatt looked from him to me when I didn’t deny Reid’s words. I had to stare anywhere but them.
Reid took a seat in the chair. “Did you think this would protect you?”
I went over to my bed and sat on the edge of it. “No. Nothing can. Sometimes I can’t handle that fact. So I do what I can to help me keep myself from being crippled by it.”
The room went quiet, until Roe, who hadn’t said anything since coming inside, asked, “What happened to your knees?”
I glanced down and ran my hands over the cloud-shaped bruises that had formed there. “I told you I fell.”
Roe, who was still standing by my easel, folded his arms over his chest. “Did you actually fall or did someone cause you to fall?” He tried to ask gently, but there was a hint of strain to his voice.
When I didn’t immediately answer, Wyatt said, “I know you’re afraid, but the cat is kind of out of the bag.”
I scooted back a little so I could hug my knees. “I don’t feel like you knowing what happened benefits anyone.”
“Maybe I just need to know, Charlotte,” Roe snapped.
“Why? You can’t do anything with the information except be troubled by it,” I said back.
Roe’s arms fell to his sides and his hands fisted. “I don’t care if I’m troubled by it. Do you not understand why I want to know?”
No, I didn’t.
“He cares about you,” Reid said, as if knowing what I thought. “Might even be halfway to being in love with you.”
Roe shot him a look of warning.
Wyatt came over and sat on the bed next to me. “You share things that trouble you with the ones who care about you. I care about you, too, by the way.”
I played with the cuff of my hoodie as I mulled over what he’d said. Then I took a brave leap. “My phone was dead. So I didn’t get the warning text not to come home from Prue, my housekeeper.”
“If your phone was dead, how did you get home?” Roe asked.
“I walked for an hour. Then Bram saw me and gave me a ride home,” I answered.
“You walked?” both Roe and Wyatt said, sounding shocked.
“Wait, Bram gave you a ride?” Wyatt asked. “Why would he do that?”
Reid didn’t seemed surprised at all. He was leaned back in the chair with an elbow propped on its arm, resting his temple against the tips of his fingers as he stared at me.
“I met him at a movie theater not too long ago and I ran into him again at Noble’s Saturday night,” I answered and shrugged. “He seems like a nice guy.”
Wyatt and Roe shared a glance, both equally baffled.
I sighed before continuing to tell them everything that had transpired with Clay: what he wanted to do to me, how I’d fought, and how, when it became no use and I was all out of options, I had accepted the fact that he was going to rape me. “Then Prue saved me. She hit him over the head with a cast-iron skillet, knocking him out. She rushed me out the door after that. I was lucky enough to happen to see my keys and wristlet on the way out. I didn’t have any shoes and my dress was ripped. I couldn’t walk anywhere looking like that. I charged my phone in my car and called Mac to lend me some clothes and shoes.”
They all went quiet again.
I crawled off the bed and went over to my dresser under the wall-mounted TV. I scooped up the remote I had set there at some point and turned it on. “If you’re staying, want to watch a movie? I’ve never had anyone over before, so I’m a little unsure what to do.”
Arms wrapped around me from behind and I knew they belonged to Roe. “I’m so fucking sorry that happened to you.”
“It is what it is,” I said.
“No, it’s not,” Reid grumbled from across the room.

“When you asked me not to rip your underwear,” Roe said in a low voice next to my ear. “Had I known, I wouldn’t have⁠—”
I turned in his arms and faced him. “We didn’t do anything I didn’t want to do. And if I remember correctly, you didn’t want to go any further even though I was begging for it.”
“Begging for what now?” Wyatt asked, obviously overhearing.
“Did you two have sex?” Reid asked.
Roe stared up at the ceiling for a moment as if he was trying to find strength.
Feeling the need to help him, I said, “I gave him an interview.”
Roe stared down at me, wide-eyed, before he smiled.
Reid seemed to get what I’d said right away.
Wyatt looked confused. “An interview?”
Reid rolled his eyes. “He went down on her.”
Wyatt mouthed the word oh.
I turned back toward the TV. “I’m in the mood for an action-adventure.”
Wyatt scooted up in my bed until he was lying in the middle of the king-size mattress. “That sounds good to me.”
I knelt onto the foot of the bed and crawled up it to sit next to him.
He gave me this grin. “I had a dream just like this once.”
I paused, finding that odd.
“Of course, you weren’t wearing that sweater,” he said, and looked over my head at Roe. “Enjoying that view?”
I glanced over my shoulder at Roe and caught him staring at my ass. It was then that I realized how I looked on all fours, on the bed, in my underwear. Instead of embarrassed, I felt a little empowered. I gave Roe a naughty smirk.
He reacted how I’d thought he would. He looked like he wanted to take me right there. Fighting not to smile, he shook his head. “Don’t give me a look like that right now.”
“Fine,” I said, and finished crawling up the bed to sit next to Wyatt.
Roe set his hands on the foot of the bed. “You’d let me take you right in front of them, wouldn’t you?”
He already knew the answer to that, but damn, just the thought made me want to curl my toes.
Wyatt turned a little to better see the blush that had scorched my cheeks. “Holy shit.”
“Before you three have an orgy, please remember I’m still here,” Reid said, and it had the effect of a bucket of ice-cold water. “Also remember she just went through something bad recently.”
Roe and Wyatt went stiff at that.
“By that logic, I will never be able to handle or experience anything good when it comes my way,” I said as I stared down at my lap. “My life will not pause. If I want to feel normal and happy, even if it’s just for a minute, I have to seize it.”
The room went quiet, and awkwardness filled the space.
Wyatt broke the tension. “Would a threesome be considered an orgy? Or would it just be a threesome? If Reid joined us, that would make it an orgy.”
Reid got up and walked over to the bed. “I’m not joining anything. You and Roe are the kinky ones.” He took the remote from me and started scrolling through the movies.
“It was one time,” Roe said.
“What was one time?” I asked.
The corner of Wyatt’s mouth lifted. “We shared the same girl.”
I looked from him to Roe, feeling very pissed off all of a sudden.
Evidently I didn’t hide it well enough, because Roe quickly asked, “What’s wrong?”
“She’s jealous,” Reid chimed in as he continued looking for a movie.
Roe’s brow scrunched up. “I’m not a virgin, Lottie.”
“I figured. I’m not, either. I don’t like that you two have shared someone before,” I said.
“That strangely makes me happy that she’s jealous about that,” Wyatt said.
Roe’s eyes narrowed. “Who have you been with?”
Wyatt sighed. “Just like that, my happiness is gone.”
I understood what Wyatt meant about being strangely happy. “Who’s jealous now?”
“I would like to know, please,” Roe said.
“I wouldn’t,” Reid chimed in once again.
I rolled my eyes at all of them. “I’ve only been with one guy one time.”
Roe and Wyatt turned pensive. Reid stopped searching for a movie to look at me, surprised.
I snatched the remote back from him. “Why do you look shocked? Care to share your body count?”
“Not particularly, no.” He pointed at the TV. “What do you think of this one?”
We all read the synopsis. “This one sounds good,” I said.
Roe and Wyatt agreed, and the topic of ex-lovers dropped.
Before I pressed play, we all got settled on the bed. Wyatt scooted over until he was on one side. I moved to the middle. Reid lay out on my other side, making sure there was a good foot of space between us. Roe climbed up the middle and lay against my chest, even though there was plenty of room to squeeze between me and either Wyatt or Reid.
The movie was very good. Full of action and comedy. The guys cracked up a few times. I became tired about halfway through. I didn’t remember closing my eyes and drifting off to sleep.