His Deepest Secret

It's been a while since Charlotte last talked to Alissa. Despite how their conversation went, she was still worried about Alissa, but her stubborness refrained her from calling or messaging her.

It was now time to go back to school, and Charlotte was not excited. She woke up early Monday morning and went through the usual routine: press snooze five times, stumble to the shower, get dressed, and put everything needed for school into her bag.

The air felt strange today. Winds were blowing. Clouds were bundling up together. The sun was missing.

There was a strange friction in the air.
And Charlotte felt it.

Quietly, Charlotte shut her front door and began her walk to school with an umbrella in hand. As she walked down her driveway, she pulled out her phone to text Anderson. Her fingers typed away:

Good morning(: You're probably still sleeping, but I just hope you're feeling well. Haven't gotten a text since mid-day yesterday, so I'm worried about you): Off to school. Text me whenever you are able to.

She slipped her phone back into her bag and turned the corner.
Three more blocks.

- - -

First period is always the most boring, drabby, and tiring class of the day. Nobody enjoyed first period, unless he or she were lucky enough to have a good teacher. AP classes were always fun and intriguing to Charlotte, but today felt weird as she sat in her seat, waiting for her AP Biology class to begin. She ate her peanut butter muffin in silence as the class began to fill up.

To her left, there was an empty desk.
Alissa.

Charlotte turned her face forward and started picking at her muffin.

The class was chattering about the Homecoming dance. Charlotte was most likely not going to go. Anderson needed to get better. Also, he would surely not want to expose his secret, the secret that changed Charlotte's perspective.

Clank!

Charlotte cringed at the sound of metal hitting the surface of the desk beside her.

"Really?" she whispered to herself. People could not set their stuff down gently, could they?

She looked to her left to see Alissa, sitting there beside her, with crutches, bruises, scrapes, and her leg in a cast. She stared, and she couldn't help it.

"What are you looking at, freak?" Alissa hissed, looking directly back at her.

Charlotte hated the word freak being directed at her, and Alissa knew it and used it.

"Freak?" Charlotte asked angrily.

Alissa smiled darkly at her, knowing she had gotten to her. "Yeah, FREAK."

"Yeah? Consider the only friend who cares about you no longer your friend. You want to try to hurt me with your words? Go ahead," Charlotte taunted. Alissa's face was beginning to scrunch up with anger, despite her attempt to be cool and calm. "And as for that 'guy who doesn't even like me', I'm in a relationship with him. You suck as a best friend because you simply assumed, and you're just like how I used to be, judgemental."

Charlotte glared at Alissa with a look on her face that meant she was done. Alissa was more than pissed off. Tears were welling up in her eyes, but Charlotte didn't care. With that last look, she grabbed her bag, stood up, and walked directly to the teacher.

"May I change my seat to the one in front? I'm having issues with someone I sit by, and I don't think I will be able to pay attention with her beside me," Charlotte explained honestly.

Mr. Nenza looked from her to her old desk to the four people surrounding it. His eyes fell upon Alissa, and he understood.

"Yes. Let me change the seating arrangement before you go take a seat." Mr. Nenza shuffled around his desk, erased her name on the seating chart, and rewrote it. "Alright, take a seat at the first desk in the fourth row."

Charlotte thanked him and walked to her new desk. Relief filled her emotions, and she felt better. She sat down and placed her bag on the floor. With one look behind her, she saw Alissa trying to hide her tears.

Alissa gave her the last push she needed.
It was the final straw.
Their friendship was over.

- - -

Lunchtime.

Oh, how things can get awkward.

Charlotte sat on the far left side of the lunch table instead of on the far right. She wouldn't sit in her usual spot, simply because Alissa would sit in hers.

Their friends felt awkward as they noticed this change, but they said nothing.

As Charlotte picked at her soggy salad, she felt a tap on her shoulder.

"Excuse you?" Charlotte said, looking up to see Brianna standing right beside her.

"So you are the loser Anderson is dating?" Brianna asked. A mean look covered her face.

"Oh, I'm sorry! Is someone just jealous?" Charlotte replied with a sarcastic, determined look on her face.

"Jealous?" Brianna laughed. "Of you?" She laughed again. Her friends followed suit and fake laughed with her. "You've got to be kidding," she said.

"Why else would you be here, standing before me?" Charlotte asked. Her friends got quiet as they realized Brianna and her friends were at their table. "I'm not the loser here." Charlotte gave Brianna a smile and waved her off. "Now shoo shoo! Your caked on foundation is falling into my food."

Brianna gripped her lunch tray tightly, anger seething inside of her. She lifted her tray above Charlotte's head and flipped it upside down.

Spaghetti, peaches, milk, and apple sauce fell down onto her head, soaking her hair and staining her clothes.

Charlotte gasped as she felt the cold milk run down her hair into her shirt.

Now this was the last straw.

Charlotte stood up and decked Brianna in the face so quickly and forcefully, Brianna was stunned. Charlotte didn't waste any time, and shoved her down to the floor as her fists collided with her face.

Brianna tried to fight back and only managed two or three punches to Charlotte's face.

Charlotte continued throwing her fist into Brianna's face with ferocity, determination, and anger.

Neither of their friends tried to stop the fight. Both Charlotte's friends and Brianna's friends were too shocked to move.

People began to run over to the fight, but so did the yard narks.

"Break it up!!!!" a yard nark yelled as she pushed through the group of teenagers.

Charlotte kept going.

The vice principal who usually walked around during lunch got to the two before the yard nark did. He put his arms around her waist and easily pulled her off Brianna.

"Let me go!" she yelled.

Brianna's face was bloody. It wasn't a pretty picture. Although she had clearly lost the fight, she tried to be tough by standing up, wiping the blood off of her bottom lip, and lunging back at Charlotte.

The yard nark reached out for her just in time.

Charlotte was smart enough to stop wriggling and trying to escape from the vice principal, who had her in a tight grip.

Brianna was not.

"Let me get at her!" Brianna shouted as she tried to throw her fists out and feet up at Charlotte. The yard nark was assisted by the policeman who worked at the school. Soon enough, she stopped moving.

"Let's get them to the office," the vice principal said.

"Get to your classes!" the yard nark yelled, causing the groups of kids to dispurse.

The policeman gripped Brianna's wrists and made her walk in front of him as they headed to the office.

No one would've ever though Charlotte would be on her way to the principal's office.

- - -

"You need to explain right now, Charlotte," her mother told her on the ride home.

She sat in the backseat while her father drove and her mother sat beside him.

"If someone came up to you, called you the loser Anderson is dating, then dumpes their tray on you, which, by the way, had an opened carton of milk, spaghetti, and peaches on it, wouldn't you have done the same thing?!" Charlotte asked her mother.

"You're suspended for one and a half weeks Charlotte. This is serious!" she replied.

"You just avoided my question. Would you not have done the same thing?"

"Yes, I probably would have, but that doesn't mean anything! I expect better from you. You're grounded until you go back to school."

That made Charlotte angry.

"Isn't that a little hypocritical Mom?" she asked.

"How dare y-"

"Dad, help me out here!" she interrupted.

"Charlotte! Do not interrupt your mother! And Gracie, you are being a tad hypocritical," her father said.

"I stood up for myself Dad."

After a minute of silence, her father replied, "I am proud of you Charlotte. I'm proud that my daughter doesn't take crap from anyone, but I think your mother and I need to discuss this for a while." He pulled up into the driveway and parked the car. "You need to go to your room for now. Although I am proud of you, the fact remains that you got in a fight and you threw the first punch. This affects your schooling, which we are most concerned with. And there are two parents concerned about their child who just got into a fight and lost today."

Charlotte became even more angry. She quietly got out of the car, shut the car door, and walked up to the front door. She walked all the way up to her bedroom, shut the door, and sat down on her bed.

She smelled like rotten milk, peaches, and spaghetti.

Time for a shower.

- - -

Anderson's day didn't start until one p.m. He had finally slept in for the first time in a long time.

He rolled over onto his pillow and began to itch behind his ear. Something soft and fluffy fell onto his shoulder.

"Oh no."

He sat up and looked down at his pillow.

Hair was everywhere.

"Oh my gosh," he whispered in horror. "Oh my-"

The bedroom door opened and his mother walked in.

"Hey hunny. How-"

She stopped short when she saw Anderson's face, his head, and the hair on the pillow.

Anderson still had hair on his head, but his pillow had quite a bunch of it on it.

"Oh Anderson!" she exclaimed. Her eyes teared up, but she fought the urge to cry. Her son needed her right now, and crying would make it worse.

"Mom, look what's happening to me!" Anderson told her, clearly freaked out and upset.

"I-I'm so sorry!" she replied. She sat down on the edge of the bed and pulled him into a hug. "Son, everything is going to be alright. Everything will be okay."

Anderson hugged her close as he tried not to freak out.

His hair had begun to fall out about a week ago, but it wasn't this bad. Cancer could make you lose some hair, or a lot. In his case, he wouldn't be so lucky.

"Come on. Let's go downstairs," she told him calmly.

Anderson let go of her and shakily got off the bed. His hands and arms were shaking badly. He followed his mother downstairs and into the living room where his father was.

"Honey. . ." his mother said to his father.

All it took was one look at his son to see what was happening.

"No," he gasped.

Anderson looked up at the ceiling as his legs were shaking and tears were welling up into his eyes. It was taking a lot for him not to break down right now.

"Son. . ." his father whispered. "What do you want to do about it?"

"We could. . . shave it off," Anderson answered. "There is nothing else that we can do."

"Alright. Do you want to go to a barber or do it at home?" his mother asked.

"Here. It's the same as going to a barber." Anderson's hands continued shaking as held the edge of the couch.

"Alright. . ." His father stood up and started heading into the kitchen. He opened a drawer and pulled out the clipper box.

Anderson's mother pulled a chair into the kitchen and told Anderson to sit down.

"Here, let me do it," she told her husband.

"Okay." He handed it to her and plugged it in for her.

"No more hair," Anderson whispered to himself.

Does this mean no more hope?
Is this what chemotherapy is supposed to do?

Buzzzzzzzzzz.

The horrid sound of knowing your hair is gone, but not of knowing if your cancer is.

The first piece of hair sailed to the floor right in front of Anderson.