Fragile Bones

Chapter Twenty-Nine

"So you spent the night there?" Charlie asked, grinning at me.

"Yeah, but it doesn't mean anything. We're friends." Except now, I wasn't so sure. "And anyways, we shouldn't be talking about this. I'm trying to catch you up in Physics and if you keep up like this, I'll be here all day."

She groaned and flopped backwards on her bed where she had previously been sitting criss-crossed, me opposite her. I watched a purple mechanical pencil roll off her worksheet and onto the floor. Bending over to scoop it up, I tossed it back at her.

It had been a few hours from when I had woken up in Asher's room, without much sleep might I mention. The sunlight had woken me up earlier than planned, and I had made my escape when Asher was still asleep. I didn't want to be rude, but I also hadn't wanted to wake him and on the off chance my mom was wondering where I was, I didn't want to show up late into the day.

Now, I was sitting with Charlie discussing the details of last night, against my better judgement. Of course, I conveniently left out the argument we had and the information about his dad. It wasn't my place to tell, as much as I wanted to get everything off my chest.

Charlie crossed her arms over her chest while still laying horizontally. "Well that's boring."

I scoffed, shaking my head. "Being friends with Asher isn't boring, not in the least."

She quickly sat back up, raising an eyebrow at me. "Oh, so it's that kind of relationship, huh?"

"What do you..." I trailed off when I realized what she meant. I furiously shook my head. "No, it's definitely not like that. Now can we please go back to working on this?"

A few minutes passed in silence as she begrudgingly started scribbling down answers. Although I had been slacking in my schoolwork, I was still pretty smart, and finished it quicker than her. Not to say that Charlie wasn't intelligent, because she was. It was just unfortunate that our school moved quicker than her old one and now she had to play catch-up on everything. It gave us a chance to spend more time together though, which was good if I wanted to keep her as my friend.

Getting bored with watching her struggle through the paper, I began to let my eyes wander around her bedroom. I assumed her room would have looked like mine since we live right next to each other, but it really didn't. Her floor was dark wood while mine was carpeted, and her walls were painted an olive green while mine was bare. It made me wonder if her parents had renovated before moving in, but I don't remember any loud noises coming from the house.

Eyeing Charlie carefully once in a while to see if she noticed me looking around her room, I continued on. Her parents clearly had a little more money than us since the furniture in her room was more elegant, and large. The pink shag rug on the floor reminded me of something I might have wanted at ten years old, but outgrew now. We had very different styles judging from the clothes in her closet, and that made me a little anxious. Then again, I got anxious about everything.

"Here," she huffed, pulling me out of my musings. She slid the sheet over to me, the paper decorated in things crossed off, erased, and scribbled out. "How'd I do?"

I slowly checked her answers with mine, putting a little star next to the ones that were correct. There weren't many.

She grimaced when I handed it back to her. "You're getting better!" I said cheerfully, or as cheerfully as I could muster. I was seriously exhausted.

Maybe I should have stayed and slept in some more.

The thought had been swimming around in my head all morning, but I knew it was a dumb idea. I was already getting too comfortable with him, and I couldn't afford to be that close to anyone, even if I wanted to.