II.

True to her word, Charlotte studied with me after school each day and for an hour and a half on Saturdays. Except on Tuesdays when she had piano lessons with the music teacher, Mrs. Frank, our afternoons were spent together. It was awkward at first, more so because I never really took to being around others. But also because Charlotte was just so open. We would walk through the park after school, before heading to the library, and she would talk and talk. She would ask me questions about myself but I never encouraged this.

"Gil, you know you're a pretty okay kid if only you would talk more," she said one time. It was a cold autumn day and as we walked, Charlotte was crunching dead leaves under her feet with a childish gusto. I was sort of caught up in the way she moved, like a gangly foal still testing its mobility, that her statement didn't immediately register.

"Maybe I just don't have anything to say."

"That's not true," she stated, "Everyone's got something to say."

"Except for me," I answered evenly. Charlotte gave me a funny look, scrunching her small nose.

The question that came next caught me slightly off guard, "Well, what makes you so special?"

"Pardon?"

She had stopped walking and we lingered there as the fading sunlight began to turn the trees into a bloody crimson. Charlotte stared at me with her wide brown eyes, opening her mouth to speak but quickly shutting it before any words could escape. "Oh never mind, Gil. Like I said you're a pretty okay kid."

As weeks and months past, Charlotte became more and more a part of my life. There were days that I found myself not wanting to end our study sessions, inviting her over for dinner if only so I could listen to her voice. Because despite the fact that she did an awful lot of talking, I had grown to enjoy her stories. She filled the void that I couldn't fill with my own witty words.

I think my mother really was happy to have Charlotte around at dinner too. I didn't know why at first, because after all she could not hear anything that was said, until one day I realized that as Charlotte's lips moved she was also making gestures that my mother understood. "Where did you learn sign-language?" I asked her.

"My cousin's deaf," she answered, taking a sip from her tea. "You never noticed?"

Up until that point, I realized there were a lot of things I had never noticed. Even as a would-be scientist, sometimes the details of my environment just slipped by. Why was this? I do not know. Perhaps because I was terribly introverted and was constantly focused on what was going on in my head.

"What am I going to do with you?" she laughed and it was such a pretty sound.

III.

Charlotte Greene died on January 3rd 1973 and I remember the last thing I ever got to say to her the night before her murder.

"Gill I got something important to tell you."

"What's that?" We were sitting on her porch and it was getting very very cold. She was shivering slightly but refused to go inside, so I wrapped my arm around her and we sat together. I don't think I noticed that I had put my arm around her because it had been subconscious. Charlotte didn't mind, she rested her head on my shoulder and we sat in silence. It was a companionable silence, where neither party cared too much about a lapse in conversation.

"I think I'm falling in love with you, you silly boy," she said eventually.

"Oh."

" 'oh'? That's it?" She said, pulling away from me. "This is the part where you say 'Gee Charlotte, I think I'm falling in love with you too."

I grinned but she looked more then slightly upset. She turned away and I felt bad for a moment because it looked like she might have started to cry.

"Charlotte."

"What?"

"I'm in love with you."