| 4 |
❝ You're so gorgeous. Seriously. ❞
OVERFLOWING WITH CONFUSION, Charlie was rested on her bed with her feet crossed, dangling in the air. She was so bewildered that either Malcolm or Theodore wrote her notes every day. It made her blush to think that one of them had written cheesy sentences like she had a beautiful smile, or that she was always on their mind.
She had found today's note in the front cover of the current book she was reading, one of her favorites, My Wattpad Love, a book she had read on the Wattpad app and had to have as soon as it landed in bookstores [her mother's being one of them].
It never failed to surprise her when she recieved a note, even though she got them every day. They were always at different times, so unexpected, and it amazed her how she found them.
In her hoodie pocket, in her locker, in her book... She always wondered how the note creator got her the notes. Like, how the hell did they put that note in her pencil case a couple day ago? It was strange. But, she had to admit, she really liked it.
They were so sweet and inspiring, each one making her blush up a storm, a whole hurricane throwing cars and blowing over houses inside her stomach. Like the butterflies you got around your crush, except... Different. She didn't have a crush. They were just violent butterflies of happiness.
She heard a buzzing.
She felt around the fuzzy blanket on her bed for her phone. The silicone case greeted her fingers and she anxiously checked her phone to see why it as buzzing.
Unknown number: hey, this is Shane
Blinking. Open mouth. Eyebrows raised. What in the world.
Shane. She didn't think he would actually text her. It took him a day, but still, he had texted her. This was insane.
She hadn't actually wanted him to text her back. She had just wrote her number as an excuse to see his handwriting! Oh god, this was totally unexpected in her books.
Charlie didn't know how to respond. She was just an antisocial, nerdy, geeky loner. She didn't normally correspond with others.
She didn't know how to talk to people. She didn't know how people joked, if they understood her sense of humor of corny puns and inappropriate jokes, if people were just teasing her or actually meaning it literally (something she could never distinguish), and she definitely didn't know how people texted.
She replied.
Charlotte: hi! -charlotte
Gosh, she was too awkward. She didn't know how to respond to messages, or conversations in general. Her mind went blank when it came to things like this.
She was cringing heavily as their strange conversation continued and saved Shane as a contact in her phone. She would have never thought to have Shane Marshall's phone number.
Shane: how's your foot?
Charlie stared blankly at her phone. My foot... My foot...
Oh.
Charlotte: it's a lot better. i iced it and stuff
Shane: that's good
Charlotte: yeah
He was fairly nice after all.
Shane: hey, do you want to sit with my friend and i at lunch tomorrow?
Charlie reread the message at least four times, and then proceeded to rub her eyes and read it again. Shane Marshall, asking her to sit with him and his friend at lunch?
Him and his friend... He must mean Malcolm.
Gosh, this was perfect! She could figure out if he wrote her the notes at lunch, because he always brought his notebook to lunch [doing god-knows-what], which had his handwriting in it. This was too perfect.
Charlotte: sure!
Sent.
That felt too easy, for some reason.
•|•|•
The next day, she buzzed with questions.
She had been bugged by many questions recently, but this was the day they all came to her at once.
Who wrote the notes? Why did Shane ask her to sit with him at lunch? Why did he text her? How was she going to scrutinize Malcolm's handwriting? Why were there four people absent for the first time on the same day? Why did they write notes to her? Why was she made quite possibly the least-talented person on earth? Why did Sam Claflin have to be married?
She had too many questions pouring through her thinkhole, deciding to take a break from them and try to enjoy lunch with Mr. Popular and his genius sidekick.
If that was even possible.
She huddled against her locker and twisted the combination on her lock, grabbing her sack of lunch from inside her backpack. She needed to breathe. Breathe.
She meekly walked to the lunchroom with some books and notebooks in her arms and her lunch bag in her right hand, on the lookout for Shane.
He was at the back table, a table Charlotte never dared to look at, nevertheless eat at. Malcolm was engrossed in a book on the opposite bench from him, both him and Shane chowing on a hamburger.
She lightly threw her books down on the table and slid onto the bench beside Shane.
"You made it," he said, a mouth full of hamburger and who knows what else, a smile on his face.
She winced and grimaced. This was a bad idea.
"Yup, I did."
No one else sat at Shane's table. Even though he was said to be one of the nicest guys in the school, he was also one of the most terrifying. He liked his space, and when he wanted a lunch table alone with his friend, he got it.
Charlotte felt stares in the back of her head. She could feel the hatred from girls wondering what she was doing with Shane Marshall, she could feel the confusion of why she could sit there yet some of Shane's basketball buddies couldn't. She honestly hated it.
She started to stand. "I need to g-"
"No, wait," Shane said, pulling her back down to sit on the bench as she started to leave. "Just ignore it. Charlotte, this is Malcolm. Malcolm, this is Charlotte."
Charlie gave a little wiggle of fingers in his direction, trying not to blush. Did he remember her from theater camp? She nearly laughed out loud, obviously not.
"Nice to meet you, I'm Malcolm. Well, I guess you knew that already, he just introduced us," Malcolm rambled, holding out his hand for her to shake. She held in a girlish giggle about to erupt. He was hotter than Dylan O'Brien, and that's saying something.
"Charlotte," she replied with a smile, taking his hand and lightly shaking. His hand was cold and clammy, and easily twice the size of hers. An explosion of tingles swept through her stomach.
Malcolm could be a model.
His dimple made her internally sigh dreamily. His hair was unruly yet perfect. And his jawline was on point.
"Nice to meet you, Charlotte," he proceeded to say to her, making her stomach feel like it was being ravaged by a multitude of ticklers. He didn't remember her, but she didn't blame him. She wasn't memorable. But he said it was nice to meet her, she'd take it.
"Same," she somehow breathed out.
She began to chew on her ham sandwich she packed herself for lunch quietly, not sure of what to do.
Malcolm picked at his burger slightly before turning to Charlotte and asking, "I'm not meaning this in a bad way, but why are you here?"
"No, I gotcha. Understand. Yeah. Um, I don't really know. Shane texted me..."
"After I helped her up when she tripped in the hallway yesterday, that's how we met," Shane smoothly stepped in.
"What he said," she concluded.
Shane beamed at her, his hair glinting in the slight sunlight streaming from the windows.
That smile shook her out of the trance. She was here for a reason, not to ogle Shane and Malcolm [although that was nice, too].
She needed to see Malcolm's handwriting.
"Watcha writing?" she blurted out, looking at Malcolm's notebook with doodles in black sharpie all over the front.
A barely-noticeable, pink tinge dotted his cheeks. "Oh, um..."
"He writes poems," Shane guffawed. "And sometimes song lyrics."
Charlotte heard Malcolm hiss to Shane, 'shut the hell up!' beforeturning to her. "I mean, it's not good, but-"
"I doubt that," she snorted. So attractive, Charlie.
"Oh, really? Fine, you be the judge of it."
Malcolm handed Charlie the notebook filled with poems and song lyrics.
Whoa. She felt wheezy and nauseous. He was letting her read his poems!
She nervously flipped a couple pages until words flooded the page. She completely forgot about the notes as soon as she saw the song, labeled 'Scarlett, All With You'.
You were too shy to notice
That I saw your face
Even though we were far apart
You made my heart race
You cleared your throat again
And closed your eyes once more
You began to speak up
Making the butterflies soar
Scarlett, take my hand
Take me to neverland
Where dreams did come true
Let me, let me do them with you
Scarlett, come and see
What exactly you do to me
Let me make your dreams come true
Let me do it all with you
You,
Scarlett, let me do it all with you
You,
Scarlett, all with you
Charlotte's mouth was hanging open. Her eyebrows raised. Her eyes darting from Malcolm to the song.
"Holy shoot, you wrote this?"
He rolled his bottom lip between his teeth, his dimple prominent. "Yeah."
"It's incredible, this is serious talent. My goodness, how the heck..."
"I haven't completely perfected the tune yet, but I think I have some of the lyrics down."
She glanced at the words again. Dang, she was supposed to be think about the notes. The notes.
Charlotte had practically memorized what the note creator's handwriting looked like after receiving notes the whole school year, so she didn't really need anything to compare Malcolm's handwriting to. She would know if he was the one. As she looked at Malcolm's writing, as much as she prayed to herself for him to be her note writer, the writing was not even close to matching up. His writing was light and very thin cursive, his letters tall and slanted.
Malcolm Dawes was not her note writer.
"It's awesome," she muttered with a frown, her index finger tracing the title. "Awesome."
She closed up the notebook and handed it back to Malcolm, thanking him.
She felt slightly nauseous. She now knew who wrote her notes everyday. Who called her beautiful. Who kept her safe, who was her knight in camouflaged armor, who kept finding strange ways to make her giggle or grin.
Theodore Higgins.
a/n
YOOO DUDES MY BIRTHDAY'S ON MARCH TWENTY SIXTH IT'S SO CLOSE. ALMOST FOURTEEN YAY (i really hope my parents get me either books or like somehow meeting sam claflin tbh. or american idol concert tickets bc this season is so good, yes i'm an american idol fangirl. and trevor douglass [is] my bae)
so much going on, i have almost 1k followers (i love all of you omg it's incredible why? how?) and this book's almost at 3k and then my other book is at 125k i just couldn't be happier
...SO THEODORE! [i won't say any more. hehe]
so i mentioned 'my wattpad love' a really flipping amazing wattpad book that i've been begging my parents to let my buy. probably will not be the last time i mention a wattpad book in here, tbh
so many good comments last chapter, i couldn't choose i'm sORRY GUYS! i'll try to choose one this chapter xD
vote for theodore? and maybe comment your thoughts, too?
GOALS:
40 votes
45 comments
4,000 reads in total
(i'm aiming so high, sorry guys! be prepared for a swag update on my birthday [hopefully], bc i'm just that awesome *flips hair*)
(update: i changed chloe grace moretz to emma watson to play charlie. i'm so sorry all you chloe fans, but i felt like emma watson was perfect as charlie [and bc she's literally so perfect she is hermione how could i not have her play charlie i'm sorry] and looks a lot like how i'd picture her to be. gif on the side that's absolutely perf)