His Deepest Secret

It was tomorrow, a tomorrow that neither Charlotte not Anderson looked forward to. Clouds resided over the city, rain pattered down lightly. Who would have the optimistic and joyous attitude on this kind of day? Alissa, of course. Alissa was always in a good mood, except for her extremely rare days that she is anything but happy.

Anderson felt different than normal. Different than his everyday attitude. Different now that one person knew his darkest secret. Today was the day that he did not have the patience to put up with people's crap. Today was the day that he did not care to keep up his appearance and attitude. Today was the day that Anderson got through everything like a robot.

On the contrary, Charlotte's mind and heart was completely messed up. Her world had been shaken, turned upside down, and dropped. It was like when old dudes had their mid-life crisis, or when mothers and fathers discovered that they were horrible parents. Charlotte didn't feel happy. She didn't feel normal. She didn't feel. . . okay. Not even numb, which is what she wished for, rather than the sick feeling in her stomach, the falling feeling in her heart, the insulting, hateful thoughts about herself in her mind.

Anderson had made Charlotte realize something: Charlotte was a judgemental, uncaring bitch. Never in her life had she believed or even thought that she was that.

One boy had the power to hit her with a cold, horrible, and harsh realization like the ocean had the power to slam it's waves fatally against the adjacent mountain cliffs.

School was about to begin. Teenagers were walking around with their breakfast for a safe place to stand under that would block the clouds freezing cold rain drops from falling on them. However, Charlotte did not care about anything that morning, not even the rain. By the time she arrived to school, her clothes were damp and almost to the point of being soaked. Yet, she just didn't care. The thoughts and sickening feelings tormented her enough.

With her hair slightly covered by her hood, the ends falling down the front of her jacket soaking wet, and her head down, she walked to first period. The bell rang five minutes after she had taken a seat. The class began filling up with complaining students. It was time to learn more AP Calculus topics. Thirty minutes into the lesson, the door opened and a student walked in. Charlotte hasn't even been paying attention to the lesson or anything that was going on. She didn't care. The teacher walked over to the student who interrupted the lesson. The students chattered amongst each other. Three minutes later, the teacher was back up at the Smart Board. Charlotte heard a shuffling behind her, a slam of a binder hitting the hard, wooden surface of a desk, and the ruffle of clothing as somebody sat down directly behind her. Yet, she did not care. Or she just did not notice. Her mind was in utter turmoil.

"Hey," a boy's voice whispered behind her. A cautious voice of not being too loud, yet not too quiet either. "Umm, excuse me. . ."

A tap on the shoulder. A turn of her head.

"Sullivan-" she whispered back, surprised to see him sitting behind her.

"Yeah," he smiled brightly at her. "Did you ever get my text?" he asked.

Charlotte shook her head.

"Oh," he blushed. "Never mind then."

Charlotte attempted to smile back, but just could not muster up one. A sad, pathetic smile arose from her small attempt.

"Everything alright?" His face showed sympathy.

"Want me to lie to you?" she asked quietly.

Sullivan shook his head slowly, watching her with awareness.

"I'm not okay." Her voice cracker in the middle of her small confession.

Sullivan opened his mouth, just about to speak, when the teacher called out Charlotte.

"Ms. Talkative over there, what is the next step in solving this equation?"

Their conversation was over. Charlotte wasn't stupid. She knew the next step, despite not paying attention to her teacher's lecture.

Sullivan noticed her damp clothing, the way her body trembled noticeably when he actually looked at her. He noticed the way her long, brown hair fell around her shoulders, layers cascading down her neck, her shoulders, her back.

The bell rang. First period was over. Second period went by. So did third. . . and fourth. . . And soon enough, it was fifth period.

The bell rang, signaling that lunch was over. Students shuffled to their classes.

Anderson walked into his English class, the one he shared with Charlotte. He took a seat at his desk and thrummed his fingers against the desk as he waited.

The late bell rang. The third seat ahead of him remained empty. Mrs. Heinagan began lecturing about parallelism when a late Charlotte walked in. She quietly plopped down into her desk, her small body shivering.

Anderson squinted his eyes, observing how Charlotte moved. Not in a creeper way, Anderson noticed the way she moved was different than how she normally did. The air around her felt different. The aura her mood gave off was. . . bad. All bad.

Anderson did not care about anything until now. He felt this weird feeling in his chest. The smallest twinge of sympathy filled his emotions. Anderson wasn't one to care about others, because their problems seemed petty to him and they would go away eventually. But he could literally see this girl breaking and falling into pieces. It was his fault this time. He had caused a girl's world to crash down on her.

Quietly, he ripped a piece of paper out of his binder and wrote the words," Hi." Simple. Short. It was a start. Anderson managed to throw it directly on her desk. When he did, he noticed her clothing was still not fully dry. He noticed this morning that Charlotte was drenched. He patiently waited for her to throw it back. When she did, Anderson opened up the folded piece of paper.

What?

Her bluntness struck him.

Are you okay?

Threw it to her.
It was thrown back.

Leave. Me. The. Fuck. Alone.

Harsh. Extremely harsh.

Listen, I didn't mean to upset you this badly.

Passed it forward.
Was passed back.

Didn't you?

The bell rang before Anderson could respond. He hurriedly packed his things and ran after Charlotte, who walked out of the huge building, outside, and towards the other building.

"Charlotte!"

Anderson jogged behind her.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Sullivan.

Charlotte heard Anderson, but was not going to stop in the rain and wait for him. She did not want to see his face. She did not want to hear his voice.

"Hey!" Anderson lightly put his hand onto her jacket sleeve.

"What?!"

"You look fucking horrible, Charlotte. Tell me what's going on with you," he said softly.

"I don't want to talk to you Anderson! Don't you understand that?! I don't even want to look at you right now. I fucking loathe you!" she yelled.

Sullivan saw her yelling at some strange boy and felt a little bit protective of any girl who was possibly in hard's way. He watched from afar, not wanting to let any guy hurt her. He has seen guys hurt girls at school before.

"Charlotte, you need to tell me what is wrong!" Anderson's voice pleaded. This was not the Charlotte he knew.

Anderson saw her little, fragile body shake with anger and coldness. It was clearly visible.

"Charlotte. . ." Anderson's voice returned to being soft.

Tears fell down her face. She doesn't deserve him treating her like this. She is a bitch.

"You gave me a reality check Anderson. You happy?" Hot tears streamed down her face.

"Listen. . ."

"NO!" Charlotte turned to walk to her class and felt her body become weak. She had not eaten for a day or two. Had not slept. Anger shook her body. Her knees felt a little shaky. Wobbly, maybe?

In a few seconds, her legs bent and gave out, causing her to fall. Lucky enough, Anderson was right there to pull her into his arms right before she fell.

"Charlotte?!" Sullivan yelled, jogging towards her.

"Hey," Anderson whispered frantically. He was beginning to panic.

Charlotte's body was limp.

She had fainted.

Anderson could not understand how or why her body had caused her to fall into unconsciousness.

All he could do was hold her. All he could do was stop her from falling.