Fragile Bones

Chapter Twenty-Nine

It's killing you outside too.

The voice of logic never stayed with me long.

"Let's continue with the chemistry," I suggested, opening my book to show her how to do the problems she had missed.

"I think we should talk about your chemistry, with Asher," she said, grabbing my book from me and tossing it behind her onto the floor. I stared at it, then back at her warily, slowly shaking my head.

"I think we've talked about him enough."

"What did he text you?" She asked, ignoring me completely. She reached for my phone but I snatched it away too quickly for her. "Oh come on, you can trust me."

"That's not the issue, the issue is there's just nothing to say." Charlie looked like she was going to protest, but something in my eyes must have swayed her mind. Silently, she picked up the textbook and her pencil, poised over the paper to begin writing. "Why don't we talk about you?"

She glanced up at me, and I couldn't tell if she was happy to have a distraction again or if she was just happy I was asking about her.

"There's not much to tell honestly. I come from a small school in Michigan where everyone knew each other and there was some kind of drama every day. Getting a girlfriend was nice until she turned out to be as toxic as the rest of them," she shrugged, sharpening her pencil slowly.

"So, are you..." I paused, trying to find the right way to phrase it. "You know..."

She burst out laughing, trying to hold her hand over her mouth to stifle it. "Gay?" I nodded. "I go both ways. Or, all the ways, I suppose. I lean more towards women at the moment."

"Was your girlfriend mean to you?"

Charlie set down her pencil, clearly realizing this was going to be a longer conversation. "Most of the time she was fine. But other times, yeah. She had a tendency to talk about me behind my back to people I didn't like, people I thought she didn't like either. Turns out, she got along with them better than I thought." Charlie sighed, and looked out the window on her right. "Small schools are vicious like that, you know? When everyone knows each other, it's hard to keep secrets. And she knew all of mine. I know I've mentioned before that I was originally going to finish out the semester there, and I changed my mind because of the drama. I can hold my own pretty well, and people talking shit about me didn't bother me so much. I loved my girlfriend though, and once I found out that she was the one spreading the rumors and my business around, it was too much. So, I left. Although I'm not sure if your school is any better."

As much as I wanted to prove her wrong, I really couldn't disagree with that. Between the students and the teachers, that place was just about the worst. "I'm sorry. People can be horrible sometimes."

"True," she replied, popping a pizza roll into her mouth. I hated how half my attention was being taken away from her and focusing on the food. "Now can we go back to talking about you and Asher?"

I gave her a bewildered look, not understanding her fascination with us. "Charlie, I already told you that there's nothing to talk about!"

"But I told you about me!"

"We didn't make any deals that once you told me about yourself I would tell you about me," I said, rolling my eyes. It was scary how comfortable I was getting with her already. I should be keeping myself more guarded considering my history with the kids at my high school, but I could tell Charlie wasn't like them.

"I feel like I don't know anything about you though," she groaned, hanging over the side of the bed. "I know I've only been here a short while, but I can't help that I'm nosy."