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Charlie has always had a temper.
Nothing big, at first. The occasional outburst, snapping a bit too sharp. Screaming into his pillow more than once. Skateboarding helped. So did Stefani.
And then Stefani left. And it got worse.
Dad will never know what happened to the vase in the living room, and Charlie will never tell him. He's too ashamed.
The pillows and the skateboarding aren't helping anymore- not since she left. Thick, hot, acidic anger in the pit of his stomach, bubbling and waiting to boil over at anytime. It leaves a horrible taste in his mouth, like shattered ceramic. His words get sharper, more violent, with every passing day.
Charlie hates himself a little more with each one.
The day after Stefani leaves, he screams at Bobby.
It's not his fault, not at all- Bobby doesn't have a malicious bone in his body. It's just that everything is too loud, too bright, and he won't stop talking about Stef, and Charlie doesn't even want to think about her.
He ends up storming out once Bobby starts crying. He feels like a dick.
Surprisingly, it's not Dad who comes after him. It's Julia.
She was close with Stef too, at point, Charlie thinks to himself as she drops next to him, silent as a mouse. He wonders if she ever gets angry like he does.
"I think I hate her," he croaks, and neither of them believe it.
Jules sighs, holding out her arms, letting him slide into her embrace like a second skin, and at least somebody doesn't act like he has the plague.
Charlie was a happy kid, once upon a time. Bubbly and loud and floating on his own personal cloud of an imagined, pretend reality where everything was perfect and his sister didn't believe in monsters.
Charlie Reyes doesn't like being angry. He doesn't know how to be anything else.
Erik taught him how to skateboard.
"You gotta bend your knees," He ordered, fastening the helmet under his chin. Stefani watches from the porch steps, pretending to study even while watching them warily. Charlie listens like Erik is preaching gospel, because he is only 7 and riding Erik's old board with rusty wheels. "Or else you'll lose your balance and fall on your ass."
It's a funny feeling, skateboarding for the first time down the driveway. The wheels glide over the pavement, flying over gravel and weeds growing through the cracks. Charlie giggles, wind whipping past his ears and blowing dark hair in his eyes.
The only warning he gets is the board jerking to a halt, and suddenly he is flying.
"Charlie?!" Stefani's panicked shout reaches him as he hits the ground hard, eyes already watery. His palms and knees are skinned red, rocky bits embedded in his skin. When he looks back, it was barely a scratch, but to his young brain, he might as well be dying.
"Charlie, oh my god-!" Stefani kneels beside him, brushing warm tears from under his eyes, already inspecting the damage. "I told you to be careful!" "I know!" He sobs, a blubbering mess of tears and snot as he clings to her like an anchor in a thunderstorm.
Stef sighs in exasperation. "Come on, let's patch you up."
She's far too soft as she plasters bandages over the bigger cuts. Charlie swings his legs back and forth while humming happily, tears already forgotten.
He gets back on the board the next day, and lets Erik pull him along just in case. By the time he's 8, he'll already know a few tricks- ones he taught himself.
It's the freest he'll ever feel.
Charlie and Stefani might as well be identical.
Even four years apart, they have the same dark hair, the same brown eyes, the same slight crookedness to their smiles that always makes them look a little mischievous.
Well, they used to. Now Stefani's smile is forced, perfect and painful with straight white teeth.
But they get the faint splattering of freckles across their skin in the summer, and Charlie has seen Stefani with shorter hair- she's basically an older, female version of him. A fucked up mirror.
Dad says it's the Reyes genes rearing their gorgeous head. Stefani says it's basic biology. Charlie doesn't know what his mom would say, or if he looks even the smallest bit like her.
What Charlie thinks is that it's a curse.
He can't stop seeing her, not even in his own reflection. It's like her absence is taunting him, her face looking back no matter where he goes. She's always there.
Not in the flesh, of course. Stefani is gone.
He quietly replaces the mirror that night, and if Dad heard the crack, then he never brings it up.
Charlie's anger spikes red hot when Stefani comes back.
She waltzes back into his life, acting like everything is as it should be, as if Charlie wasn't fucking devastated when she left. As if Julia didn't call her everyday, and then once a week, and then never at all. As if she didn't turn down all of Dad's holiday invites.
It makes him feel sick, the anger. A boiling pit of acid in his stomach that burns and blisters.
He loves Stefani dearly, but right now he can't stand her.
Uncle Howard was his favourite.
He was always kind, and silly, the stereotypical middle-aged man. He sometimes managed to drag Charlie on fishing trips, before Bobby stopped going on account of his guilt over killing the fish and Erik's... general personality. But he was always bright, and never made Charlie feel like he was burning from the inside out.
It's unfair. It's so unfair.
Charlie can't sleep, on account of the whirl of a lawnmower constantly running in his head. He waits until the house is quiet to go get a glass of water, eyes growing dangerously glassy.
"Charlie?"
She's not supposed to awake. She's supposed to be asleep, on the couch in the dark where he doesn't have to see her because if he does he might snap-
A hand falls on his shoulder, warm and soft through his shirt, and Charlie breaks.
"Oh, Charlie." Stefani's voice breaks as she pulls him into her arms, fingers tangling in his hair, and for a brief moment he is 7 again and being held by his sister who is here and solid. Hot tears run down his face as he sniffles against her shoulder. Stefani doesn't waver, even when his knees start to shake and they sink together to the kitchen floor.
God, he missed her. He missed her so much.
Charlie's eyes drift past her shoulder, over the far wall of the living room. It's plastered with papers, red marker and string tying it together. A pit of dread opens in his stomach.
"Stef," his voice wobbles with the remains of tears, "what is that?"
Charlie joined junior lifeguards a few months after Stef left.
He's always been a good swimmer- Dad used to call him a merman when he was little. They would have to physically drag him out of the water whenever they went to the beach, driving home soaking wet and whining about wanting to stay.
Plus, he needed to keep himself busy.
It sure is working out now, Charlie thinks to himself as he wrestles Stefani's seatbelt off. Her hair is floating around her head, curls forming now that they're wet, identical to his. Mom's blood washes off his face as he ducks again.
Mom's gone. Which means Stefani is next, and fuck she only just came back. He only just got to see her again, she promised they would talk after this. He's not letting her die.
Stefani is dead weight in his arms when he heaves her out of the water, gasping for air. He may be strong, but Stefani is tall and her clothes are soaked to the bone and she's not moving. Fear spikes in his gut.
I'll never be angry again, Charlie begs the unseen forces as he tries to resurrect her, please just give her back. Please.
The Universe must have decided he's had his fair share of bad luck.
Now it's Charlie's turn to hold her, even for just a few minutes as she sobs into his arms. Charlie hadn't remember his mother very well, but Stefani did. Enough that her tears don't stop even when he gets them out of the van.
He does her the courtesy of pretending he doesn't see them.
The train creaks, harsh and shrill, and Stefani's face drains of colour.
Charlie has to pull her to get her moving, the groan of metal cracking his world in two as a train-car shifts. Death has a sick sense of humour, apparently.
Logs fly through the air, and suddenly Stefani is no more.
Charlie has no chance to scream her name before he meets her very same fate.