Two Weeks Later-
American History has easily become my favorite class. Mrs. O'Brien stands up and surveys the room, "For this upcoming project I'll be assigning the partners." She casts a look at Greg who grins at her in response, "We don't want a repeat of last time do we Mr. Martin?"
"Of course not Mrs. O." Greg replies. She gives a look like she'd rather be anywhere in the world than here,
"Right." She sighs deeply putting her hand on the desk in the front of the room, "Everyone is this row look right, everyone is this row turn left. Say hi to your new partner." I find myself looking directly at Charlotte who smiles at me. I had never gotten up the nerve to actually call her, and I had yet to hear the end about it from Greg. But it hadn't been unnoticed that whenever we saw each other in the hall or at lunch we'd catch each others eye and smile. "You can take the last five minutes to discuss with your partner." She says sitting back down picking up a magazine.
"I know you have track practice after school we can work on this after that if you want." Charlotte says, I look at her.
"Yeah that would be fine." I reply casually. I find myself silently praying she doesn't suggest doing it at my house. Despite the house being much cleaner now that Soda isn't there and the other guys are hardly there, it's still run down and not in a part of town I can see Charlotte stepping foot into. Luckily she says,
"You can come over to my house, my Aunt works nights so it'll be fine." She scribbles her address on a piece of paper and hands it to me, "So I'll see you about 7 than?"
"7:00." I repeat as the bell rings and we head our separate directions. I am so distracted during practice I am surprised that I don't kill myself. As soon as it's over I head home, take a quick shower and go into the living room to talk to Darry. "Hey I've got a school project I need to work on, is it cool if I borrow the car?" Darry looks at me over the top of the newspaper,
"Yeah, remember it's a school night don't be out to late."
"I won't." I call grabbing the keys. It takes me about twenty minutes to get to Charlotte's house which is a duplex in a pretty standard middle class neighborhood. I knock and wait a few seconds later she pulls it open,
"Hey. Come on in." She greets stepping back letting me in. "Excuse the mess we are still trying to unpack and my Aunt has been working full time." I take a look around there are stacks of boxes piled against the wall and on top of the furniture. Charlotte pauses and looks around, "We can go in my room it's probably the cleanest."
"Uh..ok." I reply following her. She opens the door and flicks on the light, "So you live with your aunt?" I ask I take the desk chair as Charlotte sits on the bed.
"Yeah." She answers. I am curious but I don't really want to pry, after a few seconds she continues, "Lets just say I was neither planned nor wanted by my parents."
"I'm sorry." Is all I can think of to say, Charlotte shrugs,
"I got over it along time ago, Aunt Val has had me since I was two weeks old. But don't worry I get a letter from my parents every Christmas and on my birthday."
"Where are they?" I ask.
"Some impoverished country, they are both teachers. They are over there teaching English or something. They were somewhere in Africa when mom found out she was pregnant with me, dad did everything he could do to get her to keep the pregnancy." Charlotte pauses a second, "She flew home to have me and told my aunt if she were able to she'd give me up, but she knew dad would never sign the papers, so Aunt Val told her she'd take me."
"That was nice of her." Charlotte nods,
"She's pretty amazing. She just got transferred here she's going to be the head of the new NICU department in the hospital." She shakes her head than tucks a piece of hair behind her ear,
"So what are your plans after you graduate?"
"Aunt Val keeps telling me I can go to whatever school I want, before we moved I was kind of set on Vanderbilt but I feel like I should stay close to her. What about you?"
"Haven't decided yet." I tell her, I don't want to tell her how my plans involve hot tailing it out of Tulsa as soon as I graduate, it would most likely lead to questions that I'm not sure I want to answer yet.
"Well you have plenty of time." Charlotte tells me, she picks up her text book, "So about that project..." We spend the next few hours planning out what we want to do and just talking. She's really easy to talk too, funny and obviously smart, and gorgeous. Really gorgeous. I've found myself getting lost in those emerald green eyes a few times. Charlotte walks me to the door as I get ready to go,
"So I'll see you in class tomorrow." I remark, nothing like stating the obvious.
"I'll be there." It's pretty evident we are both stalling,
"Are you free Saturday night?" I blurt out.
"I think so."
"Did you want to go see a movie or something?" I ask, I find myself holding my breath bracing for the worst. Instead Charlotte smiles,
"I'd love too." I exhale,
"Great. I work till 5:00, would 7:00 work for you?" She nods,
"7:00 is great. I'll see you tomorrow."
"See you then." I reply she shuts the door and I go to the car and head home, thinking Saturday can't come soon enough.