Beautiful Silence- Chenry

■~6~■

Henry's POV-

Walking down the crowded hallways, I checked my watch. Class starts in about 15 - 20 minutes and I wasn't even halfway there yet. I was purposely lagging behind. My stomach was in knots I couldn't explain that if I wanted to. Seeing Charlotte at her locker this morning, and the anticipation of running into her again was making me feel nervous. Or maybe it was because this morning when I had witnessed Bianca talking about Charlotte in front of her face and I didn't do anything to stand up for her. I didn't say anything to Bianca or her friends. I didn't do... Anything.

It happened too fast for me to fully react. This morning, she was stepping up onto her tip toes to reach a book at the top shelf of her locker. I marveled at how graceful she could make the simplest task. Charlotte was in her own world, doing her own thing. I watched from a distance at my own locker, in a non stalker-ish way as Bianca and her friends sauntered up to their lockers and started talking shit about Charlotte. The typical fat and ugly comments that girls said to each other when they were jealousm shit that didn't make any sense. I stood there, like a coward watching it all happen in front of me.

 It was awkward and insanely idiotic of me. But No one ever wants to fight a battle that's not their own. Even me. Maybe I was just that much of an asshole. Charlotte had shot a confused glance at Bianca and her friends. I suspected she might have known they were making fun of her and if so she didn't react. She closed her locker and walked down the hall in the other direction at a brisk pace. I stared after her, feeling like a shit human being. Bianca and her friends laughed when Charlotte left and slapped high fives.

"Mission accomplished, girls."

Bianca theb smiled and slithered away. I stood there for a minute and then walked to homeroom with my chest feeling heavy.

---

"You barely made it Henry, please take a seat and get out your English textbook page 134."

Mr. Hamilton pressed his lips firmly together while pointing to a desk for me to sit at. I looked over and saw Charlotte was sitting right in front of that desk. I hadn't been aware of the fact that we had the same English class together. Just proved how much her existence spoke to me when I listened. Charlotte's brown eyes met mine and she smiled, just slightly. I smiled back in the same way, not too much so that it was noticeable but just enough to let her know that it was a pleasure to see her in the same class. The beat of my heart pressed on mild acceleration. Standing next to Mr. Hamilton was a student assistant interpreter for Charlotte. 

She signed to her, and Charlotte pulled her English textbook out of her backpack. The first few minutes of class dragged by. I twirled the pencil in my hand over my fingertips, yawning. Mr. Hamilton and his nasal toned voice droned on and on about proper sentence structure, comprehensive essays, disortations and all that other shit I could care less about. Leaning forward in my seat, I caught the scent of Charlotte's curly black hair. It was a confusing smell of fruit and caramelized sugar, but I was intoxicated by it. My stomach was filled with restless butterflies, fluttering and flapping around in my abdomen. I threw my gaze of over her shoulder and caught what she was doodling in the margins of her notebook. 

                                                                                    ❤ Henry Hart ❤

I smirked and drew back a little bit, flattered. So, she does think about me. Pulling my phone from my pocket I smoothed my thumb over the brand new contact name in my phone. I typed out a long ass message about this morning, then I sighed, deleted that, and pressed send on something else. 

Me: Hey 😃

Charlotte slipped one of her hands into her jeans pocket, slowly pulling her phone out to check the screen under her desk. 

Charlotte 🙉💕🙊: Hi there 😊

Mr. Hamilton then chose that moment to make an announcement. Of fucking course he did.

"This month of March is spring project season. Each of you will be able to pick partners for this essay assignment, the theme is poetry. Please pay attention and take notes on the details because I will not be repeating myself."

I reverted my attention back to my phone. After his announcement, Mr. Hamilton gave us a free moment to choose our partners. There was no question in my mind about who I wanted.

Me: If you don't have anyone else you wanna pick... Maybe you and I can pair up? 😉

My thumb was shaking as I pressed send. Charlotte turned in her seat and flashed one of her gorgeous smiles in my direction. My cheeks felt heated, I pulled the hood of my jacket up over my head and melted further into my seat by way of slouching down. 

Charlotte 🙉💕🙊: Keep in mind working with me isn't exactly easy, Henry 🙅

I bit my lip while thinking this over. To be honest this was just an evil ploy to get closer to her. I could care less about the actual project, hell I was already balancing a low C in this class anyways. 

Me: Was that a yes or a no?

Her reply came five minutes later. It was a rough, and torturous five minutes even though she was sitting right in front of me. 

Charlotte 🙉💕🙊: If you can handle working with me, sure. ☺

Me: I think so, besides... What could go wrong?

Charlotte 🙉💕🙊: Everything 😔

Me: Define everything? The way I see it the worse we can do is fail... If you consider that a bad thing 😏

I saw Charlotte quickly cover her mouth as she giggled. It was a beautiful sound. Kind of like a song that you could listen to forever. I pushed my hand through my hair and sat up, fiddling with my phone in the palm of my hand now. Gazing at Charlotte, and thinking I should learn sign language so I could talk to her without using my phone or a notebook. I resolved to ask her to teach me. It might even be fun. 

Charlotte 🙉💕🙊: Thank you

Me: For what?

Charlotte: I was sure no one would wanna work with me. I love poetry...

Charlotte and I turned to each other at the exact same moment. She looked at me, and I looked back at her, reaching over to write in her notebook.

"It's their loss."

Charlotte smiled down at the page, as I watched her I realized that so many people don't know what kinds of treaures you can find if you look hard enough with an open mind.

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