Where The Ice Gives Way (Charlotte and Blake) novel Chapter 230

Where The leer Gives Way

Chapter 230- All the Secrets in the World

Charlie

Today was hard.

Different to the kind of hard I’m used to.

Hard, for me, has always been simple. A house too cold to sleep in. A fridge too empty to open without feeling stupid. Dad drunk on the stairs. Lotty pretending she wasn’t hungry. Me pretending I didn’t notice.

That kind of hard makes sense.

019

You deal with it. You put your head down. You keep moving. You don’t sit with it. You don’t unwrap it. You don’t talk about how much it hurts, because if you do, you might realise how heavy it has been all along.

Today hurt in a way I don’t know what to do with.

What Blake did for Lotty and me was probably one of the nicest things anyone has ever done for us. Maybe the nicest. He built us a place to remember people we had spent years trying not to think about too much.

For so long, Lotty and I have swept our problems under a rug until we couldn’t see them anymore. Couldn’t hear them. Couldn’t feel them. Then we would

just move on to the next town, the next school, the next thing we had to survive.

Today, it felt like Blake lifted the rug and exposed those parts of us. Then he helped us clean up the mess.

They all did.

Gareth, Mara, Theo, Emily, Sophie, Michael and Susan, and people I hadn’t seen since I was small enough to think Mum could fix anything just by smiling at

It was nice seeing Michael and Susan again. Strange, but nice. They remembered things I didn’t. Little things that I didn’t realise I really needest

I liked sitting with them afterwards.

I liked Sophie staying close too, hecause somehow she knew it was going to be hard even when I didn’t know what kind of hard it would be

But then everyone had to go.

Everyone had homes to get back to, Routines to settle into, People waiting for them in warm kitchens and living rooms where grief could be aided in the evening instead of left sitting in the snow.

Charlotte needed to be with Blake. I knew that and I wanted that for her.

But once the left with him, just stood there for a while with my hauls in my pockets, staring at the bench like it might tell

Because I had me.

Just me.

whart

Where The leer Gives Way

Chapter 230 All the Secrets in the World

Charlie

Today was hard.

Different to the kind of hard I’m used to.

Hard, for me, has always been simple. A house too cold to sleep in. A fridge too empty to open without feeling stupid. Dad drunk on the stairs. Lotty pretending she wasn’t hungry. Me pretending I didn’t notice.

That kind of hard makes sense.

You deal with it. You put your head down. You keep moving. You don’t sit with it. You don’t unwrap it. You don’t talk about how much it hurts, because if

you do, you might realise how heavy it has been all along.

Today hurt in a way I don’t know what to do with.

What Blake did for Lotty and me was probably one of the nicest things anyone has ever done for us. Maybe the nicest. He built us a place to remember people we had spent years trying not to think about too much.

For so long, Lotty and I have swept our problems under a rug until we couldn’t see them anymore. Couldn’t hear them. Couldn’t feel them. Then we would just move on to the next town, the next school, the next thing we had to survive.

Today, it felt like Blake lifted the rug and exposed those parts of us. Then he helped us clean up the mess.

They all did.

Gareth, Mara, Theo, Emily, Sophie, Michael and Susan, and people I hadn’t seen since I was small enough to think Mum could fix anything just by smiling it

It was nice seeing Michael and Susan again. Strange, but nice. They remembered things I didn’t. Little things that I didn’t realise I really needles

I liked sitting with them afterwards.

I liked Sophie staying close too, because somehow she knew it was going to be hard even when I didn’t know what kind of hard it would be

But then everyone had to go.

Everyone had homes to get back to. Routines to settle into People waiting for them in warm kitchens and living rooms where get all be led the evening instead of left sitting in the snow.

Charlotte needed to be with Blake. I knew that and I wanted that for her.

But once she left with him, I just stood there for a white with my hands in my pockets, staring at the bench like it might tel

Text

Because I had to

Just me

Chapter 230 All the Secrets in the World

And that suddenly didn’t feel like enought.

So I texted Jess

It was just a casual message asking what she was doing. I must have worded it funny, because two minutes later, my phone rang

“Charlie?” she said when I answered. “Are you okay?”

I opened my mouth to say yes, but the lie got stuck somewhere behind my teeth.

Jessica went quiet for a second, then, softer, she asked, “Where are you?”

That’s when I realised I didn’t have to be alone. So I brought her here. To the place where all my feelings seem to be tangled together so tightly I don’t know which thread to pull without everything coming undone.

I don’t know why I brought her. Or maybe I do. Maybe a part of me wanted someone beside me who wasn’t already carrying the same grief. Someone who

could look at it without flinching from all the memories attached to it. Someone who didn’t know the whole story but still wanted to stand there anyway.

Not just in this place, but in this moment.

Jessica sits beside me now, quiet in a way I didn’t expect from her. Usually, she has something to say. A joke. A comment. Something bright and bubbly Tonight, she only looks at me.

The moonlight catches in her blonde hair as she sweeps it behind her ear, and her eyes move over the plaques before coming back to me

“What…” She hesitates. “What happened to them?”

Titan whimpers inside me as my emotions rise again.

“I mean, like, only if you want to talk about it,” she adds quickly. “You don’t have to.”

1 let out a long breath, run my hand through my hair, and sit down on the bench.

How do I tell her?

What do I tell her?

There is an unspoken rule about humans. It’s not exactly illegal to tell them what we are, but wolves don’t tend to do unless they have to Humanost just hear the word werewolf and nod politely. They ask questions. They panic. They look at you differently. They either think we’re dangers or they think

you’re lying.

And Jessica is human. Soft-skinned, warm smiling, painfully human, She doesn’t know about wolves as pack or mate hoods. She doma sitting under my skin, listening to every beat of her heart like it is something he wants to memorise, She does koow that hall the pet Low could shift beneath the moon and sun through the trees on four legs. She doesn’t know that Iau nei them

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