Her smile

Week 1
Chapter 1: Smiling
Monday 13th April 2009
6th Marking Period
“I like her because she smiles at me and means it.”
—Anonymous

7.20 a.m.
Once she was done speaking, everything inside me fell dead quiet. Then my heart began pounding, not so much shattering the silence as much as crushing it. A musician's hands on a drum. Only unlike the drum, the silence crumpled under the strength of those hands.

I swallowed, hard. Right, of course. I needed to introduce myself to her, like she had to me. Charlotte... Pretty name. Like her.

Focus! Courage gathered, I finally spoke. “I'm Billie.” A nickname for my awful name—Wilhelmina. Others are Willa or Mina. I prefer Billie. It feels more like me. Feels more comfortable. I know: odd way to feel about a nickname. That's just how I am. “So, you're new. Do you need a tour of the school?”

She smiled. My heart pounded. “Yeah, that'd be great,” she said.

Charlotte said.

Without warning, it was no longer my heart doing the crushing, but her voice, crushing me. Inside, I couldn't breathe; I suffocated.

I really hoped I wasn't falling for someone who would never fall for me. I was crushing on her, and I truly hoped it would be reciprocated.

*

7.25 a.m.
The bell rang before I got to finish giving Charlotte the tour of the school. I'd only shown her the cafeteria. I hated the thought of walking to class, alone.

“What's wrong?” she asked.

“What do you mean?” Oh, dammit.

“You suddenly seem...depressed. Well, not really, but...down.”

I hesitated. “I start with Algebra, you?”

“Same.” She grinned.

I was about to ask her if she liked Algebra—how original—but was—luckily?—interrupted by Gwen.

“Hey, Billie.”

“Hey, Gwen.” I smiled. Gwen was the good-nature, quiet sort of girl. Kind brown eyes, long, wavy brown hair. Soft, round face.

She looked at Charlotte. “Are you the new student? Word spreads fast,” she added.

Jealousy shot through me, brief and sharp. I knew I had nothing to worry about. Gwen, as far as I knew, was interested in guys. And she was so nice. Yet, I couldn't help feeling this way. Maybe because I wasn't even sure if Charlotte was interested in me; in girls.

Charlotte's smile at that instant pushed those thoughts away. I knew that I saw something so much more than friendliness in that smile. Something like lust.

*

7.27 a.m.
“Yeah, I'm new here,” Charlotte said, taking her eyes off me for just a second. I loved the fact that she'd rather look at me than look at Gwen.

“I was just showing her around the school.” I looked at Charlotte, then at Gwen. Silence settled, and away went my confidence. It felt awkward.

But then Charlotte said, “Gwen, who's that, over there?”

I frowned, wondering what she was doing. Then my heart skipped a beat or two. Because the second Gwen looked away to see who she was talking about, Charlotte slipped her hand in mine. I beamed inside.

Gwen turned to face us again and by then Charlotte's hand was no longer interlaced with mine. “Oh, that's Evan.” She smiled and blushed. “Why did you want to know?”

Ah, Gwen has a crush on Evan, I thought and smiled to myself. I hope Gwen tells him, or even asks him out, if she dares... She deserves him. And Evan seems so lonely. He needs somebody like Gwen. She's always so cheerful. He could use some happiness in his life, by the looks of it.

I was pulled out of my thoughts by Charlotte's movement. She'd just crossed her arms. “I was just wondering. It's strange, going from seeing familiar faces everyday at one school to not knowing anyone at another. I don't really like change.”

I was surprised at Charlotte's honesty, her ability to express her feelings in front of us; we were practically strangers.

“Should we get going? Otherwise, we'll be late,” Gwen said.

“Oh, right. Gwen has Algebra with me; with us,” I said to Charlotte.

*

7.30 a.m.
Concentrating during Algebra II with her wasn't easy at all. She was so close to me.

*

11.45 a.m.
The bell rang, signaling the end of French and calling us for lunch. I wrote down the homework, put my books back in my bag and got up.

“Billie?” Gwen asked, walking next to me.

“Yes?” We continued out into the hallway.

“How about Charlotte eats with us; you, me and Laura.”

“Sure.” We reached our lockers, Gwen's next to mine. The routine: bag went into our lockers, cafeteria card so we could eat went into our pockets.

We went off to find Laura and Charlotte.

*

11.50 a.m.
We found them and joined the line for food. “The food here's not too bad. Could be much worse. Of course you have bad food days, but that's to be expected,” Laura explained.

Charlotte smiled. “True. By the way, Laura, right?” Laura nodded. “You were with me in, um, English and Chemistry, I think.”

My stomach fluttered as her mellow voice filled my ears, my head.

Laura started loading her tray. “Yep, I was. Anyway, the only kind of crap thing is that we get only thirty minutes for lunch.”

“How long did you get at your old school?” Gwen asked.

“Forty. But our food wasn't this good,” Charlotte added as she eyed the food for that day and loaded her own tray.

Finally we sat down, ate, spoke. At some point, I noticed Alyssa, sitting with Tyler. She smirked at me, proud that she'd won Tyler, taken him from me. I inwardly rolled my eyes, if only she knew why I broke up with him, that it had nothing to do with her.

If only she knew that she hadn't “taken” him from me, that I'd let her have him. I sighed.

*

1.30 p.m.
In P.E. we started doing volleyball. For most of the hour the teacher explained the rules and we did warm-ups.

Charlotte looked good in her sport outfit.

James Stanford, the token arrogant, “hot” jerk of the school, noticed this, too. I swore to myself I wouldn't kick him where it hurts if he tried something, but if my foot suddenly slipped up, could I really be blamed?

*

2.40 p.m.
After school, I met Charlotte, on a wooden bench. I took a moment to admire her beauty, as she stood, arms crossed, school bag on the bench.

Beautiful red hair, falling in curls past her shoulders. Smooth, pale complexion. Gorgeous gray eyes. Thin, straight eyebrows, a red lighter than her hair. Nose straight and slightly upturned at the end. Perfect pink lips, not too full, not too thin.

On the short side, feminine curves barely visible, but enough for me to lust after them. After her. “Do you want me to show you around town?”

She laughed. “Why do you feel the need to show me everything?”

“I don't know, just thought—”

“It's okay. I was kidding. I'd actually love it if you could show me around. But it'll have to be some other time. I think my mom will want me home early today. First day of school here and everything.” With that said, she got up, blew me a kiss and left.

As she walked off towards a black bike, I noticed her legs shown off by a short skirt, short and pale, yet, they left me longing. I bit my lip, hoping to contain the images in my mind, in my head, in my body.

Everywhere.

*

6 p.m.
“Billie,” my mother called, “dinner's ready.”

“Coming.” I picked Vivian up on my way down. “My darling kitty, how are you?”

Viv purred and I pulled her closer to me to rub her fur. Viv's a tawny-coated Abyssinian. I'd named her after Vivian, the protagonist in “Blood and Chocolate”, who has tawny hair.

Once downstairs, I set her down and she walked off to her water bowl in the kitchen. I got out two plates, two forks and two knives for dinner. My mother'd already gotten two glasses out. “Mom?” I asked as I set the table.

“What honey?” She put down the chicken roaster on a cork mat so it wouldn't burn the wooden table.

“I don't get it.”

“Don't get what?” She started serving the chicken, the baked potatoes and the carrots onto the two plates.

“Why you have this kind of job. Business and stuff. It's wrong for you. And you work so much.” I spotted Kisa coming through the cat flap. She's a Russian Blue. Russian Blues have silver-blue coats and green eyes. Dark, vivid, gorgeous green eyes.

Kisa rubbed herself against Viv and I smiled. I'd had both of them since they were twelve weeks old and they loved each other.

“What do you mean?” Mom frowned.

“Well...” I looked at her loose, wavy hair and her comfortable clothes. “You're so artistic. Mellow. Being a businesswoman is all wrong for you. Why did you choose that job?”

She got a one liter bottle of water from the kitchen. “It pays well. And I want you to have a good life. Being a single mom isn't easy you know, darling.”

“But I still don't get it. You're so much happier when you're painting.” I sat down and felt Kisa and Vivian rub themselves against my bare legs. Viv's fur was silky and Kisa's was soft.
“But that doesn't pay much, if at all. And I still have some time to paint, Mina.” She loaded her fork with a piece of chicken and ate it.

“Mom, please don't call me Mina.”

She swallowed the chicken. “But it's pretty.”

After dinner, I curled up on the couch in the lounge with a book, Viv and Kisa in their large cat basket, sleeping. I couldn't focus much on the book though, my thoughts kept going back to Charlotte.

*

10.40 p.m.
That night, in bed, I thanked the hot weather of this particular April day. If it had been cold, Charlotte might not have been wearing a skirt.

I thought of her smile, soft and radiant. Shining in my mind like the stars I saw, through my bedroom window.

I wasn't quite sure just how I managed to do my homework, with her on my mind. I wondered all afternoon what she was like. What did she like doing? What did she hate? What was her favorite season? (Mine was now spring.) What was her favorite month? (Mine was definitely April.) Was she tough, strong? Weak? As delicate inside as she was out? As beautiful inside as she was out?

I frowned. Of course she must be. No one on Earth with a smile like hers could possibly be mean.

Right?

I meant, that smile of hers was just so... sincere, warm, friendly. And, I melted inside, very lustful. Okay, maybe not that full of lust, but quite a bit. Then I remembered her hand in mine. I frowned again. What did that even mean? We'd only met that morning. The mystery that was Charlotte intrigued me so very much.

Then I started thinking about other things, like where Charlotte could have come from. Why did she move here? This little town is nothing special, though it was now, to me, now that she was there.

That night passed quickly, a whole hour feeling like a mere minute. Two hours feeling like one. Time was grains of sand slipping down an hourglass at high velocity.