#violetleaves

     can it only have been just over a week since filming ended? in different ways it feels like less and more. ever since she’d left the wrap party, swiftly making her way back to the house to finish packing and then out on her way to catch a red eye, she’s been doing her best to keep busy. it’s impossible to not think of wes though, when she has time to herself. even on that flight, she found herself imagining what she could have said differently or what would have happened if she had just impulsively decided to tell him what he’d said on the night of her birthday. really, she was saving him the stress and pressure of his own words. she knows he’s not ready to rebel and she’s not ready to spend forever waiting, even if some part of her wishes she was. 

     she’s been cradling her birthday gift every chance she’s gotten, working on a couple of new songs here and there and finishing off the one that’s still got her phone blowing up with comments, though she’s hinted that it’ll be coming soon, at the insistence of her agent. to see the speed at which articles popped up about it almost frightened her, but this is all a part of the lifestyle she wanted, so she’s taking it on the chin. it’s come up in interviews, too and two distinct interviewers have forced her to find some creative way to not have to reveal anything. she knows no one will buy that it isn’t about anyone at all, but they’ll never connect it to wes. in fact, one asks about jordan, insisting that the media hasn’t gotten her perspective. she repeats a rehearsed line and leaves it at that. for all the speculation, not one of them seems to have it figured out, except some fringe fans who get regularly called out for ‘shipping real people’. her secrets get to stay hers, but her art is going to be out there, which seems like an ideal situation. it just so happens that she’s got to record that song with the subject before she can get to that point. 

     admittedly, she’s been expecting disappointment almost all week, with how difficult things got the last time they were on a filming break. maybe she even hopes for it, because she’s not sure how things will be between them after their last conversation, but for all her worries she can’t turn him down in the end. she begins filming for the movie tomorrow, but today she’s driving a rental car through a gated community, after giving her i.d. and checking in at the front. it’s a quick turnover, but she doesn’t really have much of a choice in the matter. she needs the song recorded and selfishly, almost masochistically, she wants to see him. 

     the whole point of acting is often to becoming something you’re not. charlotte has embraced that since she was a child, the ability to play pretend and do it for more than just the fun of it. at this point, is oscillates rapidly between hobby and career, but tonight it’s clear cut. when she glances at herself in the mirror before they leave, admiring the way her hair is pulled back in a high ponytail with cascading curls that frame her face when she leans forward slightly. lottie has to be honest with herself, she somewhat resembles fran from the nanny in the very best way. her makeup is far more severe than even the stuff she wears on set, though that stuff tends to be thicker. she’s given jack free reign and jack has in turn brought in a friend who does drag on the weekends to sculpt out charlotte’s cheeks and buff out sultry, smoky colours on the outer corners of her eyes and bright pops of lavender on the lid that you can only really notice up close. it’s the kind of makeup she’d never really do for herself, or even now where to start with if she wanted to, but it feels perfect for the occasion, or at least what she thinks is the occasion. as far as she’s been told, they’re going to a gay club for a small, understated celebration of her twenty-first birthday. it doesn’t feel much like her birthday this year, though she’s woken up with plenty of messages and been given plenty of gifts. usually she’d throw a party, but doing it for herself just seems a little silly when she’s not exactly in the mood for it. going to a gay club at least seems like something where she doesn’t necessarily have to be stuck in her own head, if even just for a little bit. 

     what she doesn’t know, is that her friends are sneaky liars on more fronts than just in regards to inviting her parents down to visit her before her birthday, so she won’t miss them so much in the long trek from filming little boxes to filming her movie. 

     as they travel down the street, she’s wishing she hadn’t chosen tonight to break in the new shoes she’s spent far, far too much on (though, she supposes her view of her finances is still not exactly based on reality, because she can totally afford them). lottie has never even really been that big a fan of designer products, but the idea of buying a pair of shoes for her twenty-first came from emilia, when she told her about what she did with her first few paycheques. the lavender medusa aevitas platform heels add a pop of pastel colour to the black, form fitting dress that barely covers her ass. maybe lottie doesn’t quite feel like herself, but she knows she feels like she looks good, and that’s all that matters. they walk and she’s so stuck in her head, thinking about how other people must be seeing her that she doesn’t even notice that they’ve turned down a completely different road than jack had said they would be. he watches her like a hawk, but she’s just trying to keep up with him and keep her shoulders back, their arms looped together. emilia’s not out with them, which feels unnatural, but she supposes that she might have suggested they bring autumn and she doesn’t have the heart to ask her not to invite the blonde to things. it just looks bitter, in more ways than one and that’s the last thing she wants her friends to think of her. 

     it doesn’t help that they’ve heard her music but never actually spoken to her about wes outside of their initial conversations. they all seem to circle around the topic awkwardly, especially now that they’re both friends with autumn. so she supposes this is just what’ll be like, until autumn decides she wants to change up her arm candy, or something. that doesn’t seem likely, though, the way she’s been continuously hinting at the romance between she and wes’ characters on the show, trying to use their relationship to secure love from the fans. maybe charlotte just views her actions as devious because of her own bias, but she doesn’t think that’s true. 

     that’s what’s on her mind as they finally get to the line of the club, though they swiftly move past all the people waiting and skip to the front. lottie raises an eyebrow at jack and he gives her a grin. “don’t worry, we have a special guest among us.” she doesn’t know enough about the clubs in vancouver to question it, she just hands over her i.d. and grins when they let her in, feeling that familiar giddiness that it’s her birthday. they move through a neon pink lit up room and through a curtain where all of a sudden, she’s hit with a chorus of ‘surprise’ from a crowd of club-goers who actually seem to be cast, crew and friends. immediately she does a double take, placing her hand over her heart and almost stumbling in her shoes. she immediately collapses into giggles over all of it, turning to look at jack accusingly. “you are so sneaky!” she smacks his arm with her clutch and he points out emilia who comes over to her, pulling her into a tight hug. “you didn’t actually think we were going to let you get away without a proper birthday celebration, right?” she points out and lottie rolls her eyes. “you guys are ridiculous.” then she pouts. “thank you so much, this is amazing.” she glances around, noticing a few people from set who wave at her and hold up glasses towards her in celebration. 

     it’s not until twenty minutes without wes passed that lottie actually began to believe he wasn’t going back. jordan noticed quickly, despite his lack of perceptiveness usually, that she was a little off as the minutes wore on and offered to go downstairs and look for him, suggesting that maybe he’d just gotten caught up with someone talking his ear off, but she struggled to imagine that. considering the typical scowl that he often offered to people on set who weren’t her, she couldn’t picture him suddenly having the patience to listen to someone for a little too long. even with the aid of alcohol and the good mood they were both in. still, she let her kind co-star go off to check. he came back five minutes later with nothing to offer but an apologetic look. out of embarrassment, lottie pretended that he’d sent her a text two minutes later, explaining that something came up and he’d call later. in reality, she was left with questions and disappointment. did this somehow mean he’d changed his mind about even being ‘casual’ with her? she couldn’t help but feel a little betrayed, though some part of her was ready to hold out for some perfect explanation. she knew that wes came with complications, but she wasn’t aware that it was as bad as him playing cinderella, disappearing without a trace at the stroke of midnight. the spell was up and lottie was no longer living in that hazy dream where they were alone and couldn’t stop touching. 

     at the very least, she had jordan. he isn’t the worst second choice in the world, with his curly hair styled from the day on set and the fun shirt she couldn’t help but compliment. his smile was dazzling and he had a habit of saying the most ridiculous things just to make her laugh, even if he wasn’t who she wanted. they spent another forty minutes up there on the rooftop balcony alone and it was a decent bandaid for the wound of abandonment she was sporting. when they came back down to the rest of the party, his jacket was on her shoulders and they spent a couple more hours dancing and playing games with everyone who was still there. when emilia asked her where wes went, she made something up, knowing her roommates would judge big time if they knew the truth. as the party winds down, jordan sticks around to help with the clean up and by the time he’s finally leaving, she has to jog to his car to give him his jacket back. some part of her wonders if he’d forgotten it on purpose, but she supposes she doesn’t mind. it’s a salve for her ego to think of herself as wanted. 

     lottie pours herself into her bed, exhausted at two a.m., after saying goodnight to her equally tired and tipsy roommates. wes, of course, is on her mind as she pulls her blankets tight up over her shoulders. her phone sits on the bed beside her and though she wishes she was the kind of person who could stubbornly ignore her feelings, she reaches out to it. for a moment, she holds it to her chest as she thinks about what she wants to say, but she still spends another three minutes trying to figure out the perfect way to word it before she can send it. she knows she has every reason to be upset, but she still sometimes feels like she has to walk on eggshells with wes. he’s been so much better, but having feelings for him seems to run a risk of getting hurt. she doesn’t know him well enough to trust he won’t flip the switch on her again out of the blue. pressing send, she doesn’t wait to see if he responds, she just places her phone on the bedside table and pulls the blanket over her head, groaning. she’d rather sleep and see in the morning if he responds. either way, it’s not like he’ll be able to avoid her for long. their next day of filming looms in the distance and she’s sure he knows it. 

stepping out of the clubhouse, tyler placed his cigarette before lighting it, allowing him the chance to look around. almost instantly, his gaze fell on the blonde who was waiting a little further down, not surprised that she was on her own. obviously she didn’t know that her boyfriend had left an hour before, citing somewhere he had to be which probably was some kind of strip club knowing what he was like. inhaling a drag, he pulled it out from his lips while he kept his eyes on her. part of him wanted to know how long she was willing to wait but the other part wanted to put her out of her misery so she could go home. that was too easy though and he would have been lying if he hadn’t been wanting her for himself for a while and he figured he was finally getting his chance. if he swooped in as some kind of knight in shining armour, then she would forever be in his debt. 

it had been a few months since merrick had broken things off; she had fun with chasey, but it was never going to exactly be a ‘love built to last’. when they ended things, she didn’t even put on her tragic breakup playlist - her freshman year roommate spared from an endless barrage of boyz ii men and other 90s r&b hits. 

but she had meant what she’d said when she offered to still be friends - they ran in the same circle, as strange and varied as it was - and they had fun together. and in between their hook ups last year, chase had become someone merrick genuinely trusted. which was why she went to him as soon as she got the text. 

“look,” she barely gave him a second before she shoved her phone in his face, “i’ve gotten a lot of weird messages, but this is...i mean, i’m gonna pretend i’m not worried but what if someone’s genuinely coming after us? we still don’t know what happened with aaron.”

“you embarrassed me this evening.”