Free Broken Truth by Beth Ashworth

what happened on Saturday night? Lucy and I were really worried about you. I’m not sure what happened, but you kind of just flipped out at Callum in front of like everyone and then you both disappeared.” Amelia tapped her fingers against the side of her takeaway coffee cup. “Oh and I was expecting some kind of text or communication from you after you got back so that we knew you were ok. But no, I heard jack shit and neither did Lucy. Don’t do that to us again. You were both really drunk and majorly pissed at each other. I wasn’t sure what the hell was going to happen to you,” she scolded.
    “I’m sorry.”
    “You’d better be! Now tell me what happened and why you were so angry?”
    Charlie placed her empty plate on the small side table and got herself comfortable. “Well, it started off on Saturday morning. He woke me up to tell me that he had to go on a conference call with Jared at nine. It was something about a new development with one of their investors on a project.”
    “And that pissed you off?” Amelia asked with amazement.
    “Well, yeah,” she replied. “It did, because I hardly see him as it is and then for him to arrange a conference call on one of the two days a week I get with him? It just annoyed me. But anyway, he went off to this conference call that was only supposed to last an hour or two at most, but it ended up taking like all day! I didn’t go out or anything because I kept thinking he would be finished. I just sat in bed watching TV and feeling sorry for myself,” Charlie said quietly as she fidgeted uncomfortably with her hands. “I’m getting used to it now I guess. What was the occasional phone call every now and then is turning to a weekend of nonstop working every week. But I guess I knew what I signed up for when we started, didn’t I?” She felt her eyes slowly beginning to swell with tears.
    “Oh, Charlie,” Amelia sighed. “Why didn’t you call one of us?”
    “And say what? I’m in love with a man that doesn’t spend barely any time with me?” she scoffed, wiping away at the single tear that rolled down her cheek. She felt silly for crying because she knew that she had the perfect opportunity to confront him on Saturday night and she had blown it.
    “How long has this been going on, Charlie?”
    “He has always had one or two phone calls over the course of the weekend. That is and isn’t the problem though. I don’t mind those so much because they are only usually about twenty minutes. However, in the past few months the phone calls have been increasing and now the lengths are getting longer.” Charlie looked at her best friend with tear streaked cheeks. “I was angry with him on Saturday because he didn’t care. Mia, he didn’t care that he left me alone all day after I hadn’t seen him since Sunday. He didn’t care that I would feel hurt and upset.” She shakily swallowed the pooling saliva in her throat. “I had the perfect opportunity to call him out on Saturday night. I had it all planned out in my head. Once we got home I was going to confess exactly how I was feeling and what we needed to work on.”
    “But...” Amelia prompted. “Why didn’t you get the chance to talk on Saturday?”
    “Because...” Charlie paused, trying to think how best to word her answer. “Well we walked into the apartment after we left Zachary’s and we headed straight upstairs. I was going to get ready for bed and then say my piece, so after I took my contacts out and got changed and stuff, I walked back into the bedroom and Callum was sat on the edge of the bed with his head in his hands. To say I wasn’t suddenly nervous was an understatement. My stomach felt like it was going to drop out of my lower half any second.”
    “What did he say?” Amelia took Charlie’s hand reassuringly.
    “He looked up when he heard me coming into the room. His face... Oh God, Mia,” Charlie stuttered. “He looked so helpless and broken. We have never spoken to each