Turning pages ~ Charlie Jones (stereo kicks)

Chapter 15

Charlie's P.O.V

Now, we were both back at my house. Annabelle had finished her shift, said goodbye to her grandad, then got in my car and drove back to mine. Well, I drove, she just sat in the passenger seat not saying anything. That confused me, she said that she had forgiven me for what I said this morning, but now she's acting like she doesn't want to be around me. Almost as if she's uncomfortable.

A soft voice dragged me out of my thoughts. "Charlie, what do you think we should do?" Annabelle asked. I furrowed my eyebrows together and looked at her.

"Um, the project maybe?" I replied in a blank tone. Annabelle lifted her hand and smacked it against her forehead. What did I do? I answered her question.

Annabelle let out a small, amused sigh before speaking again. "No, I mean with the project. Are we going to do a poster, an essay?" She told me. I gave her a crooked smile before answering her question properly this time.

"I don't really know. We have to do a scene from the play, that we know because Mr Jones said this morning. But we could always do an essay to hand into Mr Jones." I said, running my hand through my dirty-blonde hair. Annabelle stayed silent and nodded her head. She seemed to be taking in her surroundings; meaning my bedroom. We were both sat on the bed, Annabelle was sitting with her legs crossed, Aisan-style. I was sitting with my back against my pillows and my legs spread out in front of me.

"That would work, I suppose." Annabelle said finally, turning her head to look at me. My gaze hadn't left her, so the moment she turned to face me, our gaze locked.

If I'm being perfectly honest, the only reason I think she isn't popular is because of how shy she is. I mean, Annabelle is pretty, there's no denying it. She's incredibly kind and she has self-respect for herself. If she wasn't Annabelle, she'd be good girlfriend material for me. Like I said before, I'd want a girl that has dignity and respects herself, Annabelle has both of those. But she's Annabelle, she's too innocent to get involved with someone like me.

"Do you want to get started then?" I asked, watching as she awkwardly played with her fingers in the earlier silence I'd left her in.

"Yeah, I guess." She mumbled, pulling a pen out of her bag. I found a pen on my bed-side table and picked it up. I gave it a second glance and a small smile appeared on my face. It was the pen that Annabelle had let me borrow. I hadn't given it her back. Must've slipped my mind, I thought to myself.

Annabelle looked up for a moment before letting her gaze fall on my hand. An amused smile drifted onto her lips as she nodded to the pen before speaking. "Is that the pen that I let you borrow yesterday?" She asked.

Running my tongue across my bottom lip, I nodded. A soft laugh escaped Annabelle's lips and she shook her head. I gave her a confused glance as she continued to laugh to herself. "What are you laughing at?" I questioned. Annabelle stopped laughing for a moment, though her smile was still on her lips and she looked like she was trying not to laugh again.

"Your face when I asked you that question just made me laugh." She stated. My jaw dropped in a joking way. "You looked like you thought I was going to be angry with you or something. It was funny." She repeated. I placed my hand over the right side of my chest and shook my head in mock-sadness.

"That really hurts, right here." I said, motioning down to my hand. Annabelle started laughing again then, leaving me confused.

Eventually, she stopped laughing and let out a long breath. "Charlie, that's the wrong side of your chest." She stated knowingly, pointing to my hand which was placed over the right side of my chest. "Your heart is on the left side." Annabelle continued, moving my hand from the right side, over to the left side. A soft chuckle left my lips and I gave her a goofy smile.

"I knew that," I said, trying to make it look like I wasn't that stupid. "I was just testing you." Annabelle gave me a sarcastic grin before shaking her head.

"Whatever you say Charlie, if it helps you sleep at night." Annabelle replied. I smiled to myself and picked up the script that Mr Jones had given us.

"Trust it to be us that gets Romeo and Juliet." I said, letting out a sigh. "I'd much rather do Macbeth or Hamlet."

"You only want to do those because they have murders in them." Annabelle said. "And because there's a lot of blood." I looked up at her to see her looking at me knowingly. It's true, I'd much rather do those because of the deaths than a stupid sappy love story between two people that both die in the end anyway.

"You're right about that, but I can tell you don't want to do it either." I said bluntly, looking at her accusingly. Annabelle's eyes found mine and she shook her head.

"I don't want to do this one, I'd much rather do A Midsummer Night's Dream. But Romeo and Juliet is a good story, if you pay attention to the whole bit," Annabelle responded. "Even though they both die, it's the story around them that's good. It's so lovely that two people can love each other enough to try and get past their families to be together."

I shrugged and flipped through the first pages before sighing. "Does it have a film?" I asked. Annabelle gave me a look that said 'are you stupid?'

"Of course there's a film to it. It was Shakespeare's most famous play." Annabelle told me. "A lot of films have been based on this. They've modernized a few of them or just used it's story." Annabelle took the script out of my hands.

"Could we not just watch the film instead of reading the script?" I asked. "It would be a lot easier."

"I tell you what," Annabelle said, about to reason with me. "I'll read this script and we can watch the film another day. I mean, I highly doubt we can watch it now, you're not exactly the one who would go out to the shop and buy Romeo and Juliet. Even I don't have it. We'll have to rent it or something."

Nodding in agreement, I watched Annabelle put the script away in her bag. Then, she pulled out a notebook and ripped out a couple of pages from it. She passed them over to me and motioned for me to start writing. "Write about what you think love is about. We can have a look what we've written afterwards and apply it to the essay and presentation." Annabelle said. She really takes these things seriously.

Well she's going to have to if she wants to get into Yale. Shrugging the nagging voice in my head away, I placed my pen to paper.

'Love is an emotion. It's an emotion shared between two people. Or it can be families. The love shared between two people is often one of the the rarest, most beautiful things in the world of emotions. Usually, if two people love each other enough, it can get them through problems and bumps in their relationship.
If you really love someone, you'll know by the way you feel when they're around. They make your heart lift, they make your heart feel whole.
When someone is in a relationship with someone, whom they love, and they argue; people from the outside, looking in on the relationship can't understand the actual relationship. Only those two people know what it's like to be in love with the other; and only those two people can re-kindle their relationship.
But, when two people love each other enough, they will always find a way back together. No matter how hard the road is to reach each other, they will always find the other again. That is the power of love.'

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