invisible string • Gracie Abrams

026 unhinged ideas

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
unhinged ideas
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SHE didn't say much the rest of the night, she didn't feel like thinking or speaking about it until she'd wake up the next day and know it was actually real. until then, charlotte sat up on sadie's kitchen counter with marcus, eating pizza and listening to his story about how he shattered his phone screen tonight. she tried to stay focused but it was hard to do so with what was going on in her head and also from how many drinks she's gone through tonight.

"and then caleb knocked into me, and it goes flying across the table—"

"charlie," sang sadie, sneaking up from behind. "play mario kart with me and caleb?"

charlotte looked down at the redhead, "that's not your hoodie?" she said, noticing the oversized blue hoodie sadie was tucked into.

"i was cold, it's caleb's," sadie nonchalantly added.

"then just turn up the heat it's your house," marcus said, waving his hand around.

sadie seemed to be trying to figure out how to throw in a argument against that, but rolled her eyes instead and grabbed charlotte's hand, "mario kart?"

"sure, marcus join."

caleb won once again, and charlotte got dead last. it was hard to stay focused on the game when each time her phone vibrated she was tempted to look at it. sadie seemed to notice, even offering to pause but charlotte was determined to not let anything bother her or her friends tonight.

"hey charlotte, can i borrow you for a sec?" matthew asked, nodding to up the stairs to signal he wanted to say whatever he wanted to in private.

"we just started a new match," caleb said, eyes glued to the screen.

"it's important," matthew whispered to charlotte, so she paused the game despite her friends protests. "c'mon."

charlotte followed matthew upstairs. he seemed tense, his jaw clenched and eyes filled with worry as he and charlotte fell onto sadie's bed after they shut the door.

"what's up?" charlotte asked.

"this," he said, whipping out his phone to show the very same tweet charlotte saw just an hour ago. "you kissed someone tonight?"

"no-no i didn't it's," charlotte sighed, her head falling into her hands. "i did but it's— i don't know what to say really, but it's not some random guy like the internet thinks."

"i kinda wanna ask who though, some people even think it's me, dark hair and whatever," he mumbled. "but charlotte..."

she raised her head, trying to hide her fearful look on her face as she looked to matthew.

"i saw olivia rodrigo tonight, like a glimpse of her and um... that person in the picture is wearing a sour hoodie and i'm pretty sure that's her album name right? were you making out with olivia rodri—"

"oh my god, god no," charlotte stammered. "no i um i've barely even met her. but y'know if people think it's you that's better than who it actually is..."

matthew blinked, staring at charlotte with a puzzled look. he then seemed to put things together, he knew olivia is best friends with gracie. furthermore, he saw the tweets of gracie being out with olivia tonight. his mouth fell open and charlotte knew he knew.

"gracie abrams?" he whispered.

charlotte felt too scared to respond and hung her head, waiting for matthew to go off at her about how crazy she is or him to bolt downstairs and call everyone else up to get a hear of this.