Chapter Text
“So do you just want all the books in this box on the shelf above your desk Char?” Nick asks as he lifts it onto Charlie’s bed.
“Um, yes please, I think it’s just full of the textbooks I need for this term, so that would be great thanks,” Charlie replies.
As Nick starts to pick the books out and place them on the shelf, grouped together in order by the colour of their spine, (Narrator: because quite frankly is there any other way to order books?) he finds a small leatherbound book nestled amongst those towards the bottom of the box. It has the initials C.F.S embossed in gold on the front.
“Hey Char, what’s this?” he says, holding it up for his boyfriend who is currently arranging his Converse at the bottom of his wardrobe.
Charlie looks over and the colour immediately drains from his face; rushing over to Nick, he grabs it from him. “Oh it’s nothing, just an old notebook,” he says before going to put it in his desk drawer.
“Um, so from your reaction, that is definitely not just an old notebook sweetheart.” Nick smiles up at him reassuringly.
Charlie appears to think for a moment before sighing, “Well no, it’s not. An old notebook I mean, it’s actually an old diary.” His cheeks are no longer drained, but now flushed a similar colour to the maroon checked shirt he’s currently wearing.
“A diary?!” Nick looks over at him, eyes wide. “How did I not know you keep a diary?”
“Well, because I don’t… I mean I don’t any more, this is from years ago,” he replies as he holds the diary in his hand and gently rubs his thumb over the slightly worn initials on the front.
“It looks like it’s important to you,” Nick says gently.
Charlie comes and sits down on the bed next to his boyfriend and rests his head on Nick’s shoulder.
“Er, yeah, I guess that’s kind of because it is. I didn’t want to leave it at home and risk Mum finding it if she ever decides to tidy up my room and occasionally I look at some of the entries just to remind myself how far I’ve come because I started writing it at a really important time in my life,” he explains, his voice now almost a whisper.
“When was that?” Nick asks.
Charlie lifts his head off Nick’s shoulder and looks into his boyfriend’s eyes. “When I met you,” he replies.
Momentarily stunned, Nick doesn’t say anything, so Charlie continues. “God this is going to sound so lame, and I literally cannot believe I’m telling you this, but I basically, well, I wrote the entries to you. Like I don’t know, I think it was probably once a week on a Sunday afternoon I’d write an entry about all the things that had happened between us that week. I think I started it the week your pen exploded, just to try and process how I was feeling. And not just about you, but you know a bit about stuff with Ben that was happening at the time too, but mainly it was about you. And how I felt… about you,” he says softly.
Nick shuffles his legs around so he’s sitting cross legged on the bed and turns to face Charlie, taking the diary and Charlie’s hands in his and stroking his thumbs gently across Charlie’s knuckles.
“Can I…? Can we…? Would you…?” He struggles to find the words he’s trying to say.
“Do you want to read it?” Charlie asks.
“I mean God Char, yes, of course I do, but I also get that a diary is a really really private and personal thing. I just, to know what you were thinking and feeling back then, would be just… because I can almost guarantee I was thinking and feeling all the same things about you. But honestly you can also just put it away in your desk and I promise I’ll never ask you about it again, if that’s what you want.”
Charlie sits there for a moment and thinks about the forty letters Nick wrote him for Christmas last year. The last one of which he’d literally only read yesterday and how Nick had totally borne his soul in so many of them, told Charlie things he’d never told him before, how he’d even opened up to Loz and Sarah and asked for their help writing two of them, and now here they were, finally living together, closer than they’d ever been. Maybe by sharing this with Nick, it would be something special he could give back to him, in the same way Nick had done for him with his letters.
“We could… we could read it together,” he says eventually. “Like maybe read an entry or two once a week, just like how I used to write in it?”
“Really?” Nick looks into his eyes and Charlie can see they are filled with so much love. “You’d actually let me see what you wrote?” he asks as though he can hardly believe it.
It’s Charlie’s turn to shift around and face Nick properly now, and he puts the diary down on the bed next to them and gently brushes one hand across Nick’s cheek. “I think writing me forty letters which have helped me more this year than I think you will ever know has earned you that right sweetheart,” he says, smiling as he leans forward and gives Nick a gentle kiss on his lips.
As they sit there with their foreheads gently resting against each other, Charlie can tell Nick is itching to open the diary. “Well, it is Sunday afternoon,” he smiles at his boyfriend, “so I guess there’s no time like the present. Rip the bandaid off before I get a chance to overthink it and realise I must be utterly mad for agreeing to doing this,” he chuckles.
“Char, hold on,” Nick says gently after they’ve shuffled up to rest against the headboard of Charlie’s bed, Nick with his arm around Charlie who is nestled up next to him clutching the diary on his lap. “Honestly, we don’t have to do this, I realise what an invasion of your privacy this is.”
“It’s only an invasion if I wasn’t doing this willingly, and I am sweetheart. Honestly, I promise I wouldn’t show you if I wasn’t completely sure, and I think… I think part of me wants to share this with you.” Nick leans down and gently kisses Charlie on the forehead as Charlie opens up the front cover.
On the first page, written in his neatest handwriting it says…
They pause briefly to look at the photos Charlie had stuck around the title, while Charlie can feel his boyfriend chuckling slightly as he reads the words. “Hey, don’t judge, okay, I was 14!” he laughs.
Turning over another page, they see the first entry is dated Sunday 10 January and Charlie hesitantly starts to read out loud, running his fingers across the words as he does so.
Dear Diary,
Dear Nick,
So this is weird isn’t it? I mean I know it's weird, and I imagine if you knew I was writing this to you, you’d think it was weird, and probably that I’m weird too because I’ve literally only known you like not even a week, but you just seem, I don’t know, like just really nice. And you seem to like me. I mean you always say hello to me when we pass each other in the corridor on the way to lessons which I guess means you like me. And I know you’re just being friendly, but it feels really nice to have a new friend. I hope you think of me as your friend too.
Love,
Charlie x
Wrapping his arms tightly around Charlie and pulling him towards him for a hug, Nick whispers in his ear, “I did, I absolutely did.”