UNDER EDITING
Charlotte Cooper's life had been a simple one up until Louise Bauman went missing. And she was okay with that. The day that the girl had gone missing, everyone immediately became on edge, growing suspicious of each other, trying their...
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"So he's coming... to your house... tonight..." Ren trailed as he buckled himself up, turning to look at Charlie afterward. "Is your mom going to be home? Or is it going to be just you two?"
Charlie sent him a look, one showing she could tell that he was jealous. She sighed, rolling her eyes. "Ren, you have nothing to be jealous about." She told him, setting her backpack on the floorboard. "I'm telling you, Ben is not someone you need to worry about. There's honestly nobody you need to worry about. And I don't think we need to keep having this conversation."
Ren started the vehicle, wasting no time in starting it up and driving in the direction of Charlie's house. He waited a couple of moments to speak, thinking about what he wanted to say before saying it out loud. "I can't help it when I feel like this, Charlie." He finally mumbled, tapping his fingers along the steering wheel. "We're not dating. It's not too late for you to decide you don't want to hang out with me as often, and for you to decide that- I don't know, Ben's the person you want to spend all this time with."
Charlie glanced over at him, seeing he wasn't glancing over at her as he usually did. He just looked straight ahead at the road, paying attention to where he was driving. He had a gloomy look on his face, and he didn't look happy at all. This seemed to be serious, and Charlie let out another sigh, this one much quieter than the first. "I understand what you mean, Renny. But I guarantee spending one or two nights with him isn't going to change my mind on how I feel about you." She told him, reluctantly reaching up and resting her hand on his neck.
She moved her fingers up to the back of his head, running them through his hair and sending shivers down his spine. This caused him to finally glance over at her, the girl offering him the tiniest smile and he smiled back, unable to resist smiling at her.
"I know, it just scares me. I've never- I've never done anything like this before." He admitted, "I've never been in a relationship, or handled my emotions. I don't handle them well all the time, and seeing Ben look at you like that all semester and knowing you're going to be alone in your house just doesn't sit right with me."
"You do realize that you need to trust me, right?" Charlie asked.
"I do trust you," Ren spoke, as Charlie pulled her hand away from him and sat them in her lap.
"Well, I know that you can't control your emotions or anything, but when you repeatedly bring things up like this it just feels like you don't. Because even if Ben were to act out on this crush - which he won't, what happens next is how I act on my actions. Whether I react by acting back or pushing him away. And since I don't have a crush on him or have any romantic feelings, I wouldn't lead him on, I'd let him down easy. Because I'm not that type of person." Charlie explained, "So you'd just have to trust that nothing would happen because I wouldn't let it. It wouldn't be all on him, it'd be on me and how I act too. I mean, what about Ocean?"
"What about her?" Ren asked, looking over at Charlie in confusion.
"How many times are we going to have this conversation, Renny? We get it. You think Ben's got this childish crush on me, I know Ocean's got this crush on you and you do too. So what about when I'm not around. She's way bolder than Ben is. Hell, she's bolder than I am. One of these days she's gonna make more effort than she already has to get with you; more than just getting you to ditch me at homecoming." Charlie smiled a small smile at the boy, showing she wasn't upset or anything of the sort.
