The Charlotte Chronicles

Part 3

Charlotte

Nate is lounging against my locker after last period. His one foot is braced behind him against the metal while his other leg supports his weight.  Claudia Amsden is sidled up next to him so close I wonder  if I could fit a piece of paper between the two.

I grimace, slightly disgusted with myself for caring. Not only has my illness made me weak physically but I am now weak mentally. Before getting sick I wouldn’t have given Claudia  second thought. She would just be one more girl who liked to kiss up to Nate in hopes that he might ask them out which hadn’t ever happened to my knowledge. Nate and Nick didn’t do girlfriends. I teased them once that they were saving themselves for marriage but dropped the subject after the two exchanged looks I couldn’t interpret. Nick muttered something like, “Don’t need to” but he clammed up after Nate punched him in the shoulder.

Nick was probably alluding to the fact that they just messed around with girls but didn’t want the hassle of a relationship but I pretended ignorance. All three of us got along better that way. God forbid I bring up any three letter words to them like BOY or SEX. They’d both turned pale. Well, Nick turned pale and Nate got red in the face and gave me a long lecture about how none of the guys at North Prep were worth my time of day and how I had to wait until someone special came along like our moms had waited for our dads.

I yelled at him that he was being sexist because our dads certainly didn’t wait and honestly how did we know our moms waited. I never had that talk with my mom and I can’t see Aunt Grace busting out with “Like a Virgin” with Nick and Nate.

We may have continued arguing but Nick, the peacekeeper, made a joke about how we were both so full of air we could float in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. After that, none of us talked about girls or guys with each other again.

As I get closer I can see Nate’s expression and it is not a pleased one. Whatever Claudia is saying isn’t something that Nate wants to hear. Perversely this makes me happy and I want to give myself a mental head slap for being such a jealous twit over nothing.

Nate sees me and pushes away from the lockers and Claudia. I’m not moving fast enough apparently because he hurries down the hallway to grab my arm. Claudia gives me the same pitying look that she pinned on me in the bathroom. The one that says poor Charlotte, can’t even muddle down the hallway by herself.

I jerk my arm away from Nate which causes me to stumble. “Hey, I got you,” Nate says and pulls me to his side. I’m awash in both frustration and happiness. Frustration that he thinks I need help and that he may be right and happiness because I’m tucked against his side.

I wonder if radiation has totally screwed with my brain and I will no longer be able to think rational thought again.  Resigned I allow Nate to lead me down the hall. “Thanks Claud,” he says as we pass her. He has one arm angled across my back with his hand curled at his waist. This is the embrace that girlfriends and boyfriends enjoy and for a tiny illicit moment I allow myself to think of what it might be like to be Nate’s girl.

My fantasy is interrupted when he stops at the girls and boys locker rooms. “I don’t need to go to the bathroom,” I hiss mortified.

“I know.” He looks both ways and then pulls the door of the boys’ locker room open.  “Incoming,” he yells. “Cover up.”

There’s a rustling of activity and metal clanging against metal as I surmise that guys are dressing or, as Nate ordered, covering up. “What are you doing?” I gape at him.

He gives me a quick smile but it dies almost as quickly as it had appeared. “Claud told me you were puking up a storm today.”

“That little—“ I don’t finish my statement. Instead I am turning to the door to chase Claudia down and give her a piece of my mind but Nate’s hands take hold of my shoulder.