All thatbeautiful crazyjust sitting in her head. Her glasses were pulled back over the top of her long, silky, reddish-brown hair, and she was wearing her vintage Metallica, cap sleeved T-shirt. My little bookworm.
That Kaplan lady didn’t give up though; she started banging on the top of her desk with one of those long ruler torture devices while she screamed, “Jase Delaney! I know you can hear me calling your name!”
I looked up and gave her a small wink. Of course, I could hear her banshee scream; the damn bodies in the cemetery across the street were covering their decaying ears with their decaying hands trying NOT to hear her.
“Sorry, Mrs. Kaplan. What was the question again?”
“Mr. Delaney, I asked if you believed it is plausible that a love story of this magnitude could take place so quickly?” she chirped.
Charlie swung her head around and smiled at me.Man, she was so pretty.
“Nope,” I answered.
Mrs. Kaplan leaned her back against her desk and knocked her knuckles against the wood, “Please elaborate on your feelings about this subject, Mr. Delaney.”
I huffed out a long breath, and Charlie turned her body more to watch me.
“I just don’t see this play as being alovestory. Maybe a lust story, but not love. I meancome on; it’s three days long! It’s a three-day relationship of a thirteen-year-old girl and a seventeen-year-old guy. That’s lust and statutory rape.And,he was banging some other chick in the beginning—or wanting to bang her, before she decided to become a nun. But don’t even get me started on that,” I joked as a few chuckles filled the room. “I get it when you explain to us, Mrs. Kaplan, that it’s supposed to be intense and by squishing all the things that happen into just a few days, Shakespeare adds a heavy importance to each event. Yes, it helps to show that shit is flying out of control; it heightens the pressure of the emotions. But, it’s not real, not plausible at all. Six people die because two kids want to hook up and…”
“Mr. Delaney!”
I stopped my rant, but I ignored Mrs. Kaplan and watched Charlie laughing in her seat. We had this argument aboutRomeo and Julietall the time. “Yeah. Yeah. I know, do you want me to go to the Dean’s office?”
“No, Mr. Delaney. But I would like you to write your feelings down on a piece of paper and hand them in for me to grade.”
Son of a bitch.
“Yeah, I’ll get right on that,” I smirked.
But I was tired and didn’t write a word, and all I wanted to do was watch Charlie.
I was on my third night of wet dreams that week, all starring Charlie, my best friend. I didn’t think she even knew I’d been in love with her since, well, forever. It was a heck of a lot longer than three days, that’s for sure. I don’t remember exactly why or how, I just remembered when I discovered that I did love her. One day, I was just watching her on the roof of that old tree house, and I remember her green eyes sparkling as she spun her body, laughing and twirling in the summer sun. That day, I knew I never wanted to live without her in my life.
…that she was more than a friend.
…that I wanted to be the one who kissed her lips.
…the one that she wrote about in her diary.
…the one she ran to when she had trouble.
Damn, I think we were only in fourth grade.
Anyway, how the hell was a guy like me supposed to be able to concentrate when Charlie was in front of the classroom? There was no frigging way.
There was never any way for me to concentrate on anything but her; she was the world to me.
Right after school, Joey and I would shoot baskets while Charlie sat on the grass with her head in a book. She had a stack of books next to her, and every now and then, she would pull the pencil that she had tucked into her ponytail out of her hair and underline things to tell us about later on. I never cared too much about what the words said, but I didn’t think there was anything better than listening to Charlie’s voice reading to me. I didn’t say shit to her—I just listened. I guess that’s how I got stuck knowing crap aboutRomeo and Julietand being placed in an AP literature class.
I always listened to Charlie. She had this strange spell over me that I never quite figured out a cure for. Never even wanted to, either.
When we were in fourth grade, the three of us becoming quick friends, we used to walk to the candy store right after school, and every day, before we’d get to the cash register, I’d shove whatever shit I could into my pockets and walk out. I never got caught either, but Charlie made this big stink about it. Charlie always had these serious rules about what was right and wrong. She always did what was right. Me, I always seemed to choose the wrong direction. But I could still see her face the last time I grabbed three candy bars for us; she stood there, green eyes blazing, arms crossed and refusing to let me out of the store.
“You are better than that, Jase Delaney,” she said. “Stop trying to prove your father right. You’re one of the best friends a girl could ever have…But, I will call the cops on you if you ever do that again! And I won’t be visiting you in prison, either.”
She even sat me down and read some book to me, about a kid that shoplifted and a superhero that came along and made him stop stealing to help fight crime with him. It was the coolest story I had ever heard, and it was the first time Charlie ever read a story to Joey and me. I was really interested in being a superhero back then, especially when she looked at me with those eyes, as if she really thought I could be one. Shemade mebelieve I could be one.
She made me want to be a better kid. She made me feel invincible. She made me feel like I could do anything, be anything. She made me feel powerful, strong, funny, brave, and justnormal. She made mefeel.
