Diamondback

Sorry For Taking Up Your Time: Oliver

All I could think about was Zypher that day at school.

What is there to do now? Help him, obviously. He's been a part of my life a lot longer than he knows, so I owe it to him, don't I?

"Hey."

Blinking out of my own daydream, I was met with vibrant green eyes and a heart melting giggle.

"H-Hey, um, Charlotte. D-Did you need something?"

She tucked her hair behind her ear, looking down at my paper. "Did you get 7 for number one?"

"O-Oh," My nervous hands flipped over my paper, so I could see what she was talking about. It was that same question DB had helped me with. "Yeah, I got 7 too..." My voice was getting quieter and quieter with each word that slipped past my lips. I hope she heard me.

Charlotte checked my paper and smiled up at me. "Good! For a second there, I thought I was going crazy. Y'know, math brain and all. I'm not the best at it." she chuckled. We have something in common!

"Me too. I-It's horrible, really. I can never get anything right."

She turned around even further so that her elbows rested on my desk. Her elbows are on my desk. They're on my desk. Oh God, Oh God, Oh God...

"So are you more of a creative mind too?"

Too?

I tore my eyes away from her elbows, accidentally catching her gaze. Panicking, I shot my attention back down to my twiddling thumbs. "Oh, uh, I think so?" Gosh, I was actually talking to Charlotte right now. Talking. Jeez, something must be in the water today. "I-I mean, I'm just happier when I'm doing something that allows me to, um, express myself."

She was still looking at me with genuine interest, holding her head in her hands. She's really paying attention to me. I guess that means I should keep talking. She must wanna know what I do.

"I-I'm not good at a lot of stuff. Just mediocre. B-But I'm a music kinda guy." My cheeks just wouldn't stop smiling. She must think I look like a blushing idiot.

"Music, huh? That's so cool! I'm more of an actor myself. Taking my own life experiences and filtering them through characters in a fictional world. I'm not the best at what I do either. Well, not yet, at least," She was so humble. "What about you, though? Do you write, sing, dance?"

Not exactly a question I was prepared to answer. The answers were too embarrassing anyway. In all truth and honesty, I've been doing contemporary ballet since I was five. I'm not a words guy, so expressing myself through movement is one of my only outlets. I've been teaching myself how to play the piano and the guitar too. I don't think I've completely figured them out yet. The most I can do is replicate what I hear and even that doesn't go so well for me. And I've dabbled in singing and songwriting, but the only noises that come out of me are unsure squeaks and to top that all off, I can never finish writing a full song. So yeah, I'm a "creative mind," but not creative enough.

But Charlotte was waiting for an answer.

I opened my mouth several times to answer but her figuring out the truth was scarier than her getting a mediocre answer out of me, so I only shrugged in response.

"Well," she sighed. "whatever you plan on doing with your creativity, I hope you'll be the best at it." She beamed at me optimistically and patted my hand gently. Before I could say anything else, she was already turned back around in her seat, caught up in another conversation with the girl next to her. Why is she so nice to me? She has no reason to be. I mean, she's Charlotte. She's sweet to everyone, not just me.