• PART ONE
    by Rebekah Shaw

    “Charlie, what’s wrong? Weren’t you listening?” Brett asked when he noticed she hadn’t been listening at all. He both loved and hated when Charlie daydreamed. He loved the look on her face, how her brown hair was long and flowing down her back in waves, how it held such a youthful shimmer to it, and how her deep, chocolate colored eyes held such mystique. He loved her distant gaze, and yet he felt unimportant to her with how often she daydreamed their time together away. But he could forgive her. He always could.
    “I’m here,” Charlie said, trying hard to sound nonchalant.
    “What’s wrong? I can tell there’s something on your mind…” He replied.
    “I… I just walked through that doorway without noticing the door at all… Then, I sat down and looked outside the window, and completely forgot about the glass in front of me. Human beings are so unappreciative of what they have…” Charlie said, as if she’d felt guilty for some terrible sin she’d committed.
    “Charlie…” Brett didn’t ever know what to say in these situations. He loved Charlie’s creativity, but she had the innate ability to say things people didn’t want to hear. It made them uncomfortable, pin-pointed her as different. And different wasn’t something one was allowed to be in Middle School. Not in Port Sab, Texas. “Charlie, we’re in school. Middle School demands a lot of attention and-“
    “Do you think the door and window will forgive me for being so absent minded?” Charlie asked. Before Brett could answer her question, he noticed her already staring out the window again. He figured she was probably naming every blade of grass she could find. Charlie did things like that. Things that seem pointless to others, but made all the difference to her. Things that Brett couldn’t always understand, but tried to accept about Charlie. He may not have realized it yet in his life, but Brett had an addictive personality, and was quite addicted to seeking out the unexplained.
    Brett was tall and skinny for his age. He wasn’t “lanky” per say, but when Charlie had decided to become a vegetarian, he devoted himself to it, too, despite how silly he thought it seemed. Thus, it was hard for him to gain any muscle. And even as Charlie and Brett grew more and more pale from the loss of protein, he devoted himself to her and all her childish ideals. He was still considered handsome, however, with dark brown eyes, and straight black hair down to his shoulders.
    Finally, the bell rung for the school day to end, and Brett wasn’t at all surprised to see Charlie run outside the large, pastel-colored building to crouch over the spot she had been staring at for the past thirty minutes straight. She shuffled around in the grass awhile before stopping. She paused a moment, then another. Brett waited impatiently, shifting his weight. They were going to miss the bus if they didn’t hurry.
    “Look!” Charlie said in a hushed voice just before Brett could say anything about the buses.
    “Hm?” Brett pondered, looking at the single blade of grass she had scoped out. “Yeah, what about it?”
    “This… it’s special.”
    “It’s so… It’s half brown. Why don’t I find you a nice flower?”
    “No, this is truly special, Brett!”
    “But… There’s plenty of grass, why this one piece?” Brett slowly began to forget the buses, always wondering what went on in her head, always trying to figure her out.
    “I’m going to pick it out…”
    “But Charlie, it’ll die completely…”
    “It will still be special because it belongs to me now,” Charlie continued, “It has meaning in this world.”
    Brett’s breath grew dense. His whole body became weaker as he began to feel feverish. Unbelievable. He suddenly realized what it meant to be in love with this girl. How things would be, how his entire life would be, being in love with Charlie Dennit.