Scene 22¶

✨ Clean Help ✨¶

[Publish]

Scene 22 ✨ Clean Help ✨

[Celeste POV]

Scene 22 — “Clean Help” (Celeste POV)¶

The first night, I didn’t sleep properly.

Not because Charlie was in the house. Not because I was afraid of anything. Because my brain kept trying to catalogue the change—new variable, new pattern, new risk to control. It kept running simulations the way it did when I’d read too much research and not enough fiction.

In the morning, I woke up irritable with myself.

My study block was marked on the kitchen whiteboard in black marker, all caps:

*CELESTE — STUDY (SACRED) 8:00–11:00

Lauren had written it, I suspected. The handwriting had her quiet friendliness in it. The kind that made rules feel like kindness instead of domination.

Beneath it, in a smaller, neater script:

IF STUDY: NO TALK. TEA OK. EMERGENCY ONLY.

Charlie’s.

I stared at the line for a beat longer than necessary.

It was… sensible.

It was also, if I was honest, deeply relieving.

When I stepped into the kitchen, Charlie was already there, moving carefully, like he was trying not to wake the air. He had a mug in his hand and a tea bag on a saucer, waiting. The sink was empty. The dishcloth hung straight. Nothing had been rearranged. Nothing had been “improved.”

He looked up, caught my eyes, then looked away again as if eye contact counted as noise.

“Morning,” Lauren’s voice called from the hallway. She appeared with her keys in her hand, hair still damp, ready to go and do whatever adult things she did without ever needing to be praised for them. “I’m off. Try not to set the place on fire.”

Charlie’s ears coloured. “No.”

Lauren smiled at me—warm, quick.

“Text me if you need anything,” she said. Not hovering. Not sentimental. Just the steady background of a woman who had made a life by being competent.

Then she was gone.

The house settled.

Charlie stood very still, as if unsure whether to move while I existed in the room. That was new. Or perhaps it wasn’t. Perhaps he’d always done that and I’d only just started noticing.

I pointed at the whiteboard.

“That,” I said, “is a good system.”

Charlie glanced at it. Nodded once. “You said it mattered.”

“Yes,” I said. “It does.”

He held the mug out without coming closer. He didn’t cross any invisible line. He just offered.

I took it.

There was no sweetness in it that felt like a trap. No “I did this for you” energy. Just tea. A tool. A small lubrication of the day.

“Thank you,” I said.

Charlie’s shoulders loosened, almost imperceptibly, as if my thanks had not given him permission but had confirmed a fact: that he hadn’t done the wrong thing.

I took my mug and went back to my room.

For three hours, the house behaved.

No music. No footsteps in the hallway that felt like checking. No sudden questions that were really bids for attention. Once, a kettle clicked in the kitchen. Once, a cupboard closed softly. That was all.

When I emerged, my eyes gritty from screens and concentration, the house smelled like clean air and toasted bread.

Charlie was at the kitchen bench with a notebook open. Not my ledger. His own. A page of small handwriting, neat and anxious.

He looked up quickly, then back down.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hi,” I replied, and leaned against the bench.

He didn’t speak again immediately. He waited, as if he’d learned the cadence of me: I talked when I chose to. I didn’t want someone filling the space for me.

A plate sat on the counter with toast and fruit. Not arranged prettily. Just there. Useful.

“I didn’t know if you eat after study,” Charlie said quietly, still not looking at me. “So I… made it. But if you don’t want—”

I lifted a hand.

“Charlie,” I said. “Short answers.”

He stopped. Swallowed.

“Okay.”

I nodded at the plate. “This is fine.”

His shoulders dropped a fraction. Relief. Not triumph.

I sat and began to eat. The quiet felt earned, not imposed.

After a minute, I said the thing that had been circling in my mind since yesterday.

“You do a lot,” I said.

Charlie’s hand stilled on his notebook.

“I’m not—” he began.

I cut him off gently.

“I’m not accusing you,” I said. “I’m trying to understand you.”

He looked up then, properly. His eyes had that flinch of a person who expects understanding to be followed by someone taking something.

“Okay,” he said.

I took a bite of toast. Thought.

“Is it because you think you have to?” I asked. “Or because you like it that way?”

Charlie blinked, genuinely puzzled by the question.

“I… like it clean,” he said. “It’s easier to think.”

“That,” I said, “is an answer.”

He looked down again, embarrassed by the simplicity of it.

I tipped my head slightly, studying him.

“Were you like this at home?” I asked. “With Lauren.”

Charlie’s ears went pink.

“Yes,” he admitted. “I didn’t… realise it was a thing. It was just… normal.”

I nodded. “So it’s not a performance.”

“No,” he said quickly. “No. I don’t—” He stopped himself, remembering. Short answers. “It’s not.”

I watched him for a moment longer, and something in my caution softened—not into romance, not into indulgence, but into that quieter kind of trust you build when someone’s behaviour keeps matching their stated intent.

“Good,” I said simply.

Charlie’s fingers tightened around his pen as if he’d been given a grade.

Then I asked the question that had been sitting behind all the practical ones, the one I’d avoided because it felt like it might crack something open.

“When you’re in Wardrobe,” I said, “doing the work—do you feel different?”

Charlie froze.

Not dramatically. Subtly. Like a muscle trying not to twitch.

“I don’t know,” he said, too fast.

I waited.

He looked down at his notebook as if it might rescue him.

“I feel… quieter,” he said finally. “Like I’m not… in trouble.”

That sentence landed in my chest. Not because it was poetic. Because it was true.

“You’re not in trouble,” I said.

Charlie’s mouth tightened. He didn’t argue. He didn’t accept it either. He simply held still, as if that kind of statement needed time to become believable.

I took another sip of tea.

“Do you ever think about why it feels that way?” I asked.

Charlie’s face coloured again. He shook his head once.

“I just… do the work,” he said. “I don’t… think about it.”

I nodded slowly, letting him keep his defences without letting them become walls.

“That’s interesting,” I said.

Charlie blinked. “Interesting.”

“Yes,” I replied. “Because most people think about themselves constantly. You… don’t. You think about systems. About whether things hold. About whether people are comfortable.” I tilted my head. “That’s not nothing.”

Charlie’s jaw worked as if he wanted to disagree and couldn’t find a factual reason.

He went back to his notebook, then hesitated.

“I wrote something,” he said.

I didn’t reach for the notebook. I didn’t ask to see it. I just waited.

Charlie swallowed.

“I made a list,” he said, voice small. “Things that make it easier for you to study. Like… noise. Like… cooking smells. Like… if the kettle whistles.” He frowned. “I don’t know if it’s stupid.”

I felt the corner of my mouth twitch—not a smile at him, but at the predictability of him.

“It’s not stupid,” I said. “It’s data.”

Charlie let out a breath that sounded like relief disguised as agreement.

“Okay,” he said.

I leaned forward slightly, curiosity sharpening into something more deliberate.

“Tell me something else,” I said.

Charlie looked up.

“When you were little,” I asked, “did you always do this? The support thing. Or did Lauren teach you?”

His eyes flicked away.

“I think…” He hesitated. Then, very quietly: “I think I did it before I understood it. Mum just… didn’t stop me.”

That was, in its own way, devastating.

I sat back, letting the information settle.

“So you found a way to be safe,” I said, “by making things work.”

Charlie stared at the table. He didn’t deny it. He didn’t confirm it. He simply sat inside the sentence, seeing whether it would hurt him.

It didn’t.

Not in this room.

He nodded once.

I watched him, and something in my mind rearranged itself—not because he’d done anything dramatic, but because he hadn’t.

He was not trying to impress me. He wasn’t trying to win a role. He wasn’t trying to turn my house into a stage.

He was just… himself. A person with a powerful, gentle instinct toward care and order—an instinct most boys were trained to mock out of themselves before they were old enough to notice what they’d lost.

Charlie didn’t mock it.

He didn’t even name it.

He just lived it, quietly, and hoped it wouldn’t be taken from him.

I set my mug down.

“All right,” I said, making the decision in the only way I knew how: plainly.

Charlie’s eyes lifted.

“We’ll do this,” I said. “The support work. The quiet. The study. But we do it clean.”

Charlie nodded quickly. “Yes.”

I held up a finger.

“And,” I added, “if you ever start doing things to earn something from me—attention, gratitude, permission—tell me. Or I will tell you. Immediately.”

Charlie’s throat moved.

“I won’t,” he said.

“I know you don’t mean to,” I replied. “That’s not the point.”

He nodded again, slower this time.

“Okay,” he said, and the word sounded less like compliance and more like understanding.

I stood, picked up my mug, and paused at the doorway to my room.

“Oh,” I said, as if it were an afterthought. “Your sign is good.”

Charlie blinked. “Sign.”

“The whiteboard,” I said. “If it says STUDY, you don’t talk unless the house is on fire.”

His face coloured, pleased in the smallest, safest way.

“Yes,” he said.

Then, as if the day required one more piece of normal to feel real, I added:

“Make a second one,” I said. “For when I’m done. So you don’t have to guess.”

Charlie’s eyes widened slightly. Guessing was his old habit. Guessing was the thing that made him anxious.

“A second one,” he repeated.

“Yes,” I said. “You can write whatever you like. As long as it’s factual.”

Charlie looked down at his notebook, then up at me.

“AVAILABLE,” he said, testing the word.

I nodded once. “Perfect.”

Charlie picked up his pen again, already making it real.

And for the first time since he’d moved in, the house didn’t feel like a risk.

It felt like a system we could both live inside without anyone losing themselves.

Scene 22¶

✨ Clean Help ✨¶

[Publish]

Scene 22 ✨ Clean Help ✨

[Celeste POV]

That first night, I didn’t sleep properly.

Not because Charlie was in the house. Not because I was afraid of anything. My brain just kept trying to process the new variable — new pattern, new friction, new risk — and it ran simulations the way it always did when I’d read too much research and not enough fiction.

In the morning, I woke up irritable with myself.

My study block was marked on the kitchen whiteboard in black marker, all caps:

CELESTE — STUDY (SACRED) 8:00–11:00

Lauren had written it, I suspected. The handwriting had her quiet friendliness in it, the sort that made rules feel like care instead of control. Beneath it, in smaller, neater script:

IF STUDY: NO TALK. TEA OK. EMERGENCY ONLY.

Charlie’s.

I stared at the line for a beat longer than necessary. It was sensible. It was also deeply relieving. When I stepped into the kitchen, Charlie was already there, moving carefully, like he was trying not to wake the air. A mug in his hand. A tea bag on a saucer, waiting. The sink empty. The dishcloth hung straight. Nothing rearranged. Nothing “improved”.

He looked up, caught my eyes, then looked away again as if eye contact counted as noise. He stood very still, as if unsure whether he was permitted to remain while I was in the room. I pointed at the whiteboard.

“That,” I said, “is a good system.”

Charlie glanced at it and nodded. “You said it mattered.”

“It does.”

He held the mug out without stepping closer. He didn’t cross any invisible line: he just offered. I took it. There was no sweetness in it that felt like a trap. No I did this for you energy. Just tea. A tool. A small lubrication of the morning.

“Thank you.”

His shoulders loosened almost imperceptibly, not because my thanks granted permission, but because it confirmed a fact: he hadn’t done the wrong thing. I took my mug and went back to my room.

For three hours, the house behaved. No music. No hallway pacing. No sudden questions that were really bids for attention. Once, a kettle clicked. Once, a cupboard closed softly. That was all.

When I emerged, eyes gritty from screens and concentration, the house smelled like clean air and toasted bread. Charlie was at the kitchen bench with a notebook open. Not my ledger: his. A page of small handwriting: neat, anxious. He looked up quickly, then back at his ledger.

“Hi.”

“Hi,” I replied, and leaned against the bench.

He waited. He’d learned the cadence of me: I spoke when I chose to. I didn’t need someone filling air space on my behalf. A plate sat on the counter with toast and fruit. Not prettified. Just there. Useful.

“I didn’t know if you eat after you study,” Charlie said quietly, still not looking at me. “So I... made it. But if you don’t want—”

I lifted a hand.

“Charlie,” I said. “Short answers.”

“Okay.”

“This is fine.”

His shoulders dropped a fraction. Relief. I sat and began to eat. The quiet felt earned, not imposed. After a minute, I said the thing that had been circling since yesterday.

“You really do a lot.”

His hand stilled on his notebook.

“I’m not—” he began.

I cut him off gently.

“I’m not accusing you of anything,” I said. “I’m just trying to understand you.”

He looked up properly then. His eyes had that flinch of a person who expects understanding to be followed by a demand.

“Okay,” he said cautiously.

I took a bite of toast. Thought.

“Is it because you think you have to?” I asked. “Or because you like it?”

He blinked, genuinely puzzled by the question.

“I... like things clean,” he said. “It makes it easier to think.”

“Yeah, you said that.”

He looked down again, looking faintly embarrassed.

“Were you like this at home?” I asked. “Like... with your mum?”

Charlie’s ears went pink.

“Yes,” he admitted. “I didn’t... think anything of it. It was just... normal.”

“So, it's not something you feel you need to do, it's just... life.”

“It’s not,” he said quickly, then stopped himself. Short answers. “Yeah.”

I watched him a moment longer and felt my caution ease: not into softness or indulgence... into something quieter: a trust you build when behaviour keeps matching what your instincts predict.

“No, that's good.”

His fingers tightened around his pen, as if he’d been graded. Then I asked another question, one that I’d been circling, one I’d avoided because it felt like it might crack something open.

“When you’re at Wardrobe,” I said, “when you’re working, do you feel... different?”

Charlie froze. Not dramatically. Subtly. Like a muscle trying not to twitch.

“Different?” He paused. “I don’t know.” I waited. He looked down at his notebook as if it might rescue him. “I feel... quieter,” he said finally. “Like, I’m not... always in trouble.”

“Well, you’re not in trouble here,” I said. “And you’re not in trouble there.”

His mouth tightened. He didn’t argue, but his face told me he couldn’t accept it all at once. He just held still, like statements like that needed time to become believable. I took another sip of tea.

“Do you ever think about why it feels quieter?”

He shook his head quickly.

“I can just... do the work,” he said. “And I don’t have to... worry about stuff.”

I nodded slowly, letting him keep his defences without letting them become walls.

“That’s... interesting.”

He blinked. Gave me a side-long glance. “Interesting.”

“Yes,” I said. “Because most people spend a lot of energy protecting their ego. You spend your energy protecting the system. Making things hold. Making things clean. Making things easier for other people.” I tipped my head. “That’s not nothing.”

He glanced at his notebook and seemed to hesitate. Finally:

“I wrote something.” I didn’t ask to see it. I waited. Charlie swallowed. “I made a list,” he said, voice small. “Things that make it easier for you to study. Noise. Cooking smells. If the kettle whistles.” He frowned. “I don’t know if it’s stupid.”

The corner of my mouth twitched: not at his list, but at his predictability.

“It’s not stupid,” I said. “It’s infrastructure.”

He let out a breath that sounded like relief disguised as agreement.

“Okay.”

I leaned forward slightly.

“When you were little,” I asked, “did you always do this? Did your mum teach you?”

His eyes flicked away.

“I think... I guess I always sort of did it,” he said. Then, very quietly: “Mum just... didn’t stop me.”

That landed harder than I expected. I sat back and let the information settle, the way you let a pattern piece stop shifting before you cut. Then I fixed him with a direct look.

“So this was your way to be safe,” I said softly, “by making things work.”

Charlie stared at the table for a moment. Finally, he nodded.

I watched him, and something in my mind rearranged itself: not because he’d done anything dramatic, but because he hadn’t. He wasn’t trying to impress me. He wasn’t trying to win me. He wasn’t turning my house into a stage. He was just being himself: a person with a powerful instinct toward order and care. An instinct that, in a lot of boys, gets mocked out of them before it’s old enough to become a skill.

He couldn’t name it. He just lived it, quietly, and hoped nobody would try to take it from him. I set my mug down.

“All right,” I said, making the decision the only way I knew how: plainly.

Charlie’s eyes lifted.

“We’ll do this,” I said. “The support work. The quiet. The study.” I held up a finger. “But we do it fairly.”

He waited.

“Your help will stay as we wrote it,” I said, “and... no earning. No trading. No silent scorekeeping. If I think you’re starting to do things to buy attention, gratitude, permission, whatever... I will tell you. Straight-away.”

“Okay.”

“I know you wouldn’t mean to,” I added. “But intent doesn’t run a house. Terms do.”

“Okay,” he said, and this time it sounded less like compliance and more like understanding. I stood, picked up my mug, and paused at the doorway to my room.

“Oh,” I said, as if it were an afterthought. “Your sign is good.”

“Sign.”

“The whiteboard,” I said. “If it says STUDY, you don’t talk unless the house is on fire.”

His face coloured: pleased.

“Yes.”

Then, because I understood the engine under him, I added: “Make a second sign,” I said. “For when I’m done. So you don’t have to guess.”

His eyes widened slightly. Guessing was his old habit. Guessing was the thing that made him anxious.

“A second sign?”

“Yes,” I said. “Write whatever you like. As long as it’s factual.”

He looked down at his notebook, then up at me.

“AVAILABLE?”

“Perfect.”

Charlie picked up his pen again.

For the first time since he’d moved in, the house didn’t feel like a risk.

It felt like a system we could both live inside — without anyone losing themselves.