His Deepest Secret

"Wake up."

Charlotte groaned in her sleep.

"Wake up," Anderson said a lot louder as he poked her shoulder.

"Shuddup." Charlotte covered her head with the pillow. Anderson sat up from his bed and threw his pillow at her. She pushed her knees down on the floor and scrunched her butt up in the air as she curled in a little ball as a defense. "Stoppppp!"

Anderson threw his last pillow at her, and this time it got her up. She sat up cross-legged and started throwing the pillows back at him, aiming for his head.

"Is it truly necessary to throw pillows at people?!?!" she asked. Anderson laughed and guarded his face at her hostile revenge.

"Is it truly necessary to stay at my house overnight instead of going home?" Anderson's laugh disappeared.

"Yeah, well I had to take your ass back to your home. And I had no ride back, so suck it up jerk off. You're dropping me off at my house." Charlotte's face was set in a scowl, looking up defiantly at Anderson.

"Nobody asked you to take me home." Anderson's voice was dark and low. He stood up and grabbed his keys from his night stand. Charlotte stood up and followed him. He simply walked ahead of her, not even caring to look back as he stepped outside and walked to the driver's side of his truck.

As they got in, Charlotte was hit with the realization that today was the last day they had to work on the explanations for their scene they were assigned.

Charlotte looked over at Anderson, whose focus was on backing out of the driveway.

"Where to?" he asked.

"Main Street." She looked down at her hands as she shyly rubbed them together. "Today is the last day to work on our explanations. Have you worked on yours at all?" she asked.

"Mine are already done. Are yours?" Anderson did not once let his attention waver away from the road. The inside of the car was freezing and Charlotte did not even have a jacket with her.

"No," she said, her teeth beginning to noticeably chatter. "I'll f-finish them a-at lunch t-t-t-today. T-then give them to you i-in f-fifth period."

Anderson turned on the heat with no emotion or concern displayed on his face. He simply nodded as he turned onto Main Street. Charlotte told him her house number. He dropped her off. She said not one word getting out, and neither did he. He left, not waiting to see if she got into her house alright. She walked towards her door feeling slightly irritated. He drove back home. She took a shower and got dressed, preparing herself for the long day at school she knew she was going to have.

---

"So he was totally hitting on me, it was obvious! And then he leaned in to kiss me, but I told him, 'No.' I didn't want to kiss him the first day I met him. And I was slightly buzzed, so I didn't want to give the impression that I was there for sex when really, I'm not down for any of that," Alissa chattered on. Charlotte simply nodded and said yeah every now and then as she tuned her out. She had two more lines to explain and then she was done. She did not have time to really gossip about last night, and frankly, she didn't really want to think about last night.

Right as she finished writing her last explanation, the bell rang, signalling to the students to get to class.

"DONE!" she said loudly. She smiled, feeling accomplished at getting them all done in such a short amount of time.

Alissa blabbed on about the party while Charlotte tuned into her own world, remembering Sullivan, the boy from the party. The two walked into their English class, separating once Charlotte got to her seat. She looked behind her and handed Anderson her explanations.

Anderson took them and then opened up his binder to give his to her. He handed them to her without a word or even looking up at her.

Charlotte turned around, feeling very awkward. She looked down at his paper, noticing how long his explanations were, how intricate his letters were shaped, how his words flowed onto the paper. She handed him crappy explanations; he handed her genius, beautiful words on a smooth piece of paper.

Charlotte thought he would be dumb, since he is a jock and all. But looking down at his paper, she felt the smallest twinge of guilt inside of her stomach. She misjudged him. It was only a tiny twinge of guilt, though. It did not matter if Anderson was brilliant and she misjudged him. What did matter was, everything else she judged about him, she knew had to be true. What mattered was how he treated her as a person, and he did not do that very well at all.

---

Buzzzzzzzz.

Charlotte picked up her phone that was laying beside her on her bed.

She opened her eyes and squinted at her phone. Being surrounded by darkness, her eyes were not adjusted to the bright light her phone created.

Two new text messages, her phone said. Charlotte opened up the first one

"Hey, it's Sullivan."

She looked at her clock and noticed it was only eight. She fell asleep earlier than usual.

"Hello Sullivan(: ", she texted back.

She opened up her second text, surprised to see who it was.

"Hi.
-Anderson"

That was weird. Why would Anderson text her?

"Hellooo..." was her response to him.

Within a minute, her phone buzzed again.

"You need to come over. I can't understand your writing for shit. I cannot get any bad grades whatsoever, and this project will be worth a lot of points, I'm sure. I'll pick you up in twenty."

Charlotte did not even tell Anderson if she could or couldn't. She sat up feeling mad. Slowly, she changed into jeans, a t-shirt, and a hoody.

Outside, she heard a truck's honk.

She took her time walking as slowly as she could outside to his truck. Once she got inside of Anderson's truck, it was evident he was pissed.

"You take your sweet ass time. I have practice tomorrow, you know. I have to wake up earlier than you, and you have to be inconsiderate and make me wait ten minutes for you to come outside? Your writing fucking sucks."

Correction, he wasn't pissed, he was steaming mad.

"You woke me up, asshole."

"Yeah? I wouldn't have to if I could read your writing," Anderson said.

"Can you just shut up?" Charlotte found herself becoming angry now.

The car ride was silent. Once Anderson parked his car into the driveway besides his mother's car, he got out and walked inside. Charlotte quickly followed him, not wanting to feel awkward if she was left behind and got lost inside of his house looking for him. Up the stairs they went, until they reached his room.

Anderson opened his door, turned on his bedroom light, and sat on his bed where all of his homework was piled up like crazy.

"So, you're going to sit here and read everything to me so I can write it down."

"What?" Charlotte half-coughed, half-choked. "That will take hours."

"Better get started then." He threw her papers onto his desk chair that was a few feet away from the head of his bed.

She texted her mom quickly that she wouldn't be home for a long time and why. She plopped down onto the chair and began painfully reading and waiting for Anderson to mutter a "yeah" when he finished the part she read aloud to him.

Tonight was going to be a very long night for the two. Even so, it was going to be an extremely weird one.