Beautiful Silence- Chenry

■~4~■

Henry's POV-

Seeing Charlotte for the second time today was like a bad case of Deja vu. The moment of me pulling her out of the ditch, her smile as she wrote that neat cursive thank you, it all replayed in my head as I walked over to Junk and Stuff after finishing the mission.

"Hey Kid, how'd that rescue go?"

Ray asked, as the elevator doors whooshed open. I wish I could have said "Fine." to show him I had been paying attention, but when I stepped off the elevator and walked into the Man-Cave my mind was elsewhere 

"Henry,"

Hearing the octaves in Ray's voice get louder, I looked over at him. 

"Yeah?"

"You okay, kid? You're totally out if it, what happened to you? Somebody whammy you or something?"

He said, as I flopped onto the Curly Q booth couch with a sigh. Man, I wish It had been a whammy. Then maybe I'd be able to think about something else for a little while. Or better yet my memory be completely co-existent to me.

"I'm good, Ray. I was walking home today and I saw this girl almost about to get hit by a car in the middle of the street..."

I trailed off thinking about exactly how it all happened. I was walking home, minding my own business, then I see this girl. Her curly hair is getting tousled by the wind, she had neon pink ear buds in her ears and seemed completely absorbed in her own little world. It was almost as if nobody else existed, if I hadn't communicated with her I'd think she was stuck up or something like that. At first I thought about approaching her, but then decided not too because of how socially awkward I am with girls nowadays. When I saw Charlotte crossing the street after the light had changed, my mind went blank. One moment I was slinking back in her shadow and the next I have her safely in my arms.  

"It was like she had never seen anyone try and talk to her before,"

I said, biting down on the tip of my thumbnail. Ray's eyes glimmered mischievously as he grinned at me.

"And what does that have to do with the rescue?"

He replied, matter-of-factly.

"Just listen to me, okay?"

Ray held up his hands, but remained silent. I continued on, staring off at something invisible but still very much there. 

"She's beautiful and she seems insanely smart, but she's also deaf. The second time I saw her was today in that ditch. I'm positive she's the same girl, she couldn't talk to me without using a notebook. Imagine how fucking scared she must have been."

I said, looking over at Ray. He raised his eyebrows as if just hearing the words that were coming out of my mouth.  

"She's deaf?"

I nodded slowly, kicking my foot up onto the other side of the booth. 

"She couldn't hear a word I said, and before when she was walking into the street while a car was coming I pushed her out of the way. I didn't even think about it... I just did it."

I told Ray, leaning back and letting my eyes roam across the arc of the ceiling. That moment had been so surreal to me. I save hundreds of cute girls from calamities with Ray all the time, we protect the city of Swellview from villains on countless occasions. But this was different, this felt different. 

"Looks to me like she's following you."

I rolled my eyes.

"No, I'm serious kid... First you save her from a car, then you save her from certain death by starvation and abandonment. Maybe this girl is finding trouble so you can find her."

Ray shrugged, searching through a large, shining red tool box on the work bench by his new project. I shook my head, Charlotte didn't seem like the type to play her life for attention. Although I had only met her a few short hours ago, this I know. 

"She wouldn't do that and plus, she doesn't know that I'm Kid Danger so that wouldn't make any sense."

I said.

"Why not?"

"She's deaf Ray, come on."

I crossed my arms over my chest before shrugging. There was a hint of a laugh hiding in my throat because of the look on his face mixed with the assumption of her doing something as ridiculous as putting her life in danger just so she could see me again.

"Those are the ones you need to look out for, Kid. The quiet ones."

Ray narrowed his eyes dramatically and waved his screwdriver around like a magic wand. 

"Dated a librarian in college once... Found out later she owed 73,000$ to the IRS and she also owed me 50$." 

I chuckled. 

"Yeah, well, Charlotte is different."

"How do you know that? You've met her only twice, and briefly at that."

Ray retorted. I paused, scratching the back of my head before standing up to pace the floor in search of a good answer.

"Um, she's uh... She's-"

I looked over at Ray and sighed.

"She's hot, I don't know- She's just hot."

I blurted, cracking my knuckles and shrugging. That was the best I could come up with in the time span of having known her. Ray broke out into a unpleasant string of menacing laughter. 

"Trust me, if you get to know her she'll have some weird secret like owning the worlds largest guinea pig or something really crazy like... She's got an extra toe on her left foot." 

I felt myself smiling as I turned away from Ray and placed both hands on my head. The quite ones. The ones who nobody knows they have a secret. Charlotte was a quiet one because life just chose her to be that way, odd enough. Maybe she had a secret, maybe she didn't. I myself am a quiet one because I have one huge ass secret that needs to be kept silent. If I ever did get close to her, I know there's going to come a time when I'll want to tell her I'm Kid Danger. I turned around to face Ray and studied him, shaking my head. The quiet ones... Those are the ones you need to look out for. 

"Hey, come over here and help me with this."

Ray beckoned me over to the large, jumbled piece of machinery looming in front of him. Charlotte had been in a hurry, both times I ran into her. And I wondered as I helped Ray rewire the circuits under the software panel of the machine, was it because of me? Maybe she just didn't like people that much.

"Henry!"

"What?"

I blinked rapidly, turning my head in Ray's direction. His hair was sticking up on all ends and smoke was coming up from the wires. Oh shit.

"Would you mind paying a little more attention to what you're doing, you just shocked the hell out of me!"

Ray brushed his hands down over his clothes and tried to push his Mad scientist porcupine hair down. 

"Sorry."

I reached my hand towards Ray, but he slapped it away with a grim expression and picked his screw driver back up. For the rest of the afternoon, I tried focusing on the machine, and what my mom might have been cooking for dinner, if Piper ever gave her back her credit card, if Sean was playing around in the security cams again, or if Ray's hair was going to look like this for a while. It was all to keep me from thinking about Charlotte. If she made it home safely, if she maybe was thinking about me too, why her skin was so soft, and her eyes so bright. I wondered why she had run away from me. Twice.  I wondered if we had some of the same classes. Once I started thinking about her again, I couldn't stop. 

Thanks for reading! You know the drill! Xo