Romantic Short Stories

i like it when you read, for you are so beautiful yet so unaware of it

It was a Friday night. My friend James was having a Fourth of July party and my girlfriend, Charlotte, and I were just getting ready to drive back home. I threw my cooler in the back, filled with water and Gatorade, and got in the driver's seat of my white Chevy truck.

"Ready to go?" I asked Charlotte, who was in the passenger's seat contently reading her book Love Letters To The Dead.

"Hmm?" She asked, lifting her head up from her position. "Oh, yeah."

"I guess it's a good book," I said with a chuckle. I turned the key in the ignition, starting the car and heard the engine roar to life.

"Yeah." She tucked a piece of chocolate colored hair behind her left ear and smiled. "I was getting to the part where Laurel was explaining to Hannah why she left the party with Sky."

I grinned at her, even though I had no idea who those characters were. I just found it so mesmerizing when she read. She's completely emerged in the story and doesn't notice anything around her. I'm not really a reader myself. Charlotte has obviously made me at least read The Hunger Games and Divergent, but I don't delve into it like she does.

I pulled out of the driveway and started down the road. I noticed Charlotte was almost done with her book. She's been reading it the past few days. She's barely done anything else besides read her book. I never complained though. I always thought she looked beautiful when she read. Seeing her get totally lost in a story to the point where she almost made the characters seem like real people was amazing. She had her own little adventure going inside her head.

She was so into her book that she didn't flinch when I hit a pothole. To her, it was just her and the words on pieces of paper. I looked over every couple of minutes just to make sure she was still breathing. Knowing her, she'd forget to do basic human functions because the story was too intense. I wish I cared that much about books or had a passion like that. Sure I liked working on my truck, but her love of novels far outweighed any hobby I had. Sometimes I have to remind her not to spend her whole paycheck on just books. Even though she doesn't live with me yet, my little one thousand square foot house is covered in just her books for when she comes over.

As I was driving up to my small, rundown red house I bought from a family member when I was only fifteen, I looked over to Charlotte. Her eyes were frantically moving across the pages, scanning every single word. Instead of turning into my tiny driveway, I drove past. I didn't want to disturb her, so I turned onto a dirt road half a mile away from my house to do a big circle around.

As I drove, making sure to not hit a deer, I looked over at Charlotte. Her beautiful, bright blue eyes were wide as she consumed the story and her shoulder length dark brown hair was a mess as she pushed it out of the way. Her cheeks were just perfectly pink and although she thought she had a big nose, I thought it was the prettiest thing about her.

I also thought about how lucky I was to have her. We probably weren't supposed to be together, but I couldn't imagine myself with anyone else. She always told me Leo's and Pisces's weren't supposed to be together. I wasn't very smart and I barely graduated high school. I would've rather spend my time building in the wood shop than write a paper. Charlotte was the exact opposite. She was passionate about English and creative writing. She barely ever set foot in a shop class and I would never tell her this, but she can't change a tire to save her life.

The night I met her was the best night of my life. It was last August in 2018. I just finished racing in the demolition derby, and her and her friend Amy came down to congratulate me and James on winning 5th and 3rd. I, of course, got 3rd. James was always shit at building cars. Anyways, Amy was a loud little thing and came over screeching and jumping all over James since they were dating at the time; not anymore. Even though James and I were a year older than them, I heard about Amy. She was a classic beautiful girl. She was tall, curvy, had piercing green eyes, and if I'm being honest, she had a great butt.

But, I had been with girls like Amy; toned, superficially beautiful women, but had dull personalities. Amy is a little better than past girls I've dated, but she's similar to them. I had no interest in her. When I looked behind her, I saw this girl standing off to the side, obviously not wanting to be there. She only came up to my heart since she was so short and even though she was more on the pudgier side, I honestly didn't care. Charlotte worries about it more than I do and insists I thought Amy was prettier than her, which was false.

The first thing I noticed was those beautiful blue eyes. They shone like the ocean and had a sparkle that nobody else had. She was wearing a big grey hoodie with leggings and converse, not exactly fair attire. She had her eyes locked on the ground, waiting for Amy to be done. She had her phone opened to what looked like a screen full of words, which I learned later was the first book in the Raven Cycle. When I went up to her, she seemed shocked that I would even think to talk to her.

"You're reading at a derby?" I asked her with a grin.

She looked caught off guard, but she responded with, "Well maybe if you spent more time hitting people than sitting around, maybe I wouldn't be as bored." She gave me a smile and I knew from that moment that she was my soulmate.

Charlotte isn't only the funniest and wittiest person I've ever met, but she's kept me going when I knew I would give up if she wasn't there to push me. I came from a really rough, unstable childhood, so I was never taught the importance of education. In all honesty, I never thought I would graduate high school. Everyone was surprised I got my diploma this past June. None of my family had and my parents didn't care enough to help me out in school. School for them was just daycare so they could smoke weed without having Child Protective Services called on them. I've worked everyday since I was thirteen and my fourth cousin sold me my house for a measly five hundred dollars because he wanted it gone since he was going to Vegas to gamble all his money away. I moved into that house when I was fifteen and I've been working on it the four years I've had it. When I moved in, it had one old rotten couch in the living room aka the only room in the house besides the bedroom and the tiny bathroom.

My parents were too drunk to notice I was gone. I made it into a livable home with the money I made working on the nearby farms, but in the past year, Charlotte has pushed me to make it a little prettier. She even convinced me to get actual curtains and not use blankets. She painted the living room so it wasn't the awful plasterboard I had before. She really fixed me up when she came into my life. James said she straightened me up. I definitely believe it.

In the midst of my thoughts, Charlotte spoke up. "Jack?" she questioned. I guess she finished her book.

I looked over, her eyes full of worry. "Yeah?" I answered.

"We've been driving for over an hour. Why aren't we home yet? We're only like ten minutes away from James's house." I should've paid more attention to her concern, but the only thing I could think about was how much it warmed my heart that she said 'home' like it was hers too and not just my place.

I chuckled under my breath as I turned onto Rattle Branch Road, which was where my house was. "Well you looked really into your book and I didn't want to disturb you by making you get out, so I decided to take a detour."

I looked over at her as I made my way into the tiny one car, stoned driveway of my house and saw her mouth was shaped like an O. "Jack...you-oh my god that's so much gas. You didn't have to do that. I would've been fine reading inside."

I turned off the car and shifted my body so I was looking at her. The light of the full moon and the fading lights inside the car shone at the perfect angle of her face. "I know you want to talk about what happened."

Her eyes shimmered and she was beaming with excitement. "Well, the ending was totally predictable. The writing was cool, but Laurel was trying so hard to be edgy that it hurt. I felt bad for her though because her parents . . ." She kept talking and gushing about her feelings. Even though I didn't get her obsession with books, I couldn't help but listen just because listening to how she described the story was enchanting. While she was talking, I couldn't help but think about how I loved this girl more than life itself, and I couldn't wait to spend the rest of my life listening to her talk about her favorite books.

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i think i  have a thing for broken boys

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