Chapter One

A slight girl with corn silk hair stands in front of a dresser, studying an object set upon it.

The object is a music box.

Her wide hazel eyes examine every visible surface, ridge, and brushstroke as she does every morning. Once satisfied, the girl takes four deep breaths.

One...

Two...

Three...

Four...

It is then, and only then, that she can go to school.

It is one of her many routines.

Her routines keep her sane.

Leighton observes the clean-cut suburban neighborhood through the spotless pane of glass that is his car window. Boys with their sagging pants and girls with their tote bags and colorful flip flops trek their way towards the direction of the local high school. He's been waiting for Charlotte for quite a while now. What was taking her so long? Glancing in the rearview mirror, he sees Ella staring out the window in boredom.

"Hey, sorry I'm late." Charlotte apologizes as she climbs into the car. Her perfume permeates the air and attacks Leighton's nose in a sickly sweet punch. While he wrinkles his nose in disgust, Charlotte quickly pecks him on the cheek, oblivious to his reaction to her overwhelming scent. She leans back and furrows her brow as her eyes scan his face.

"What?" Leighton raises an eyebrow at her scrutiny.

"Oh, nothing, it's just... you're wearing your glasses." She opens her mouth as if she wants to say something else, but thinks better of it and closes it back.

"I always wear my glasses." Leighton replies, starting the car. He backs out of the driveway and onto the road.

"How about those contact lenses I gave you last week? Did you lose them?"

"No, they're just uncomfortable." Leighton states blatantly.

"Ah."

"Why?"

"Hm? Oh, nothing." Her tone contradicted her words. However, Leighton didn't sense this and the rest of the car ride was filled with the soft murmurings of the radio.

Once at the campus, Leighton got out of the car first, then went around and opened Charlotte's car door and took her bag in addition to his because that was "what good boyfriends do." So he was told.

At once, Charlotte flocked to her social circle with Leighton standing behind her, coolly detached to the conversation, yet involved enough that he wouldn't be mistaken as a loner. Leighton never really had friends; he wasn't that social of a person. The only things he liked to talk about were things he had interests in. And most people weren't interested in absolute convergence or principle quantum numbers. Thus, he stayed to himself.

Setting Charlotte's bag down, Leighton reaches into his back pocket, unravels the wire from his iPod, and sticks the ear buds into his ears. Charlotte stops talking and glances over at him with a slight frown.

"Babe, where are the new headphones I got you for your birthday?" She asks gently.

"Oh, they were too bulky and I prefer earphones anyways," Leighton murmurs, already lost in the words of J.D. Salinger. His words clearly upset her, but she puts on a fake smile and replies with an, "Oh," then returns back to the conversation she was having with a girl with wine red hair.

Once again, Leighton is oblivious to the palpable tension between them.

A few minutes later, the bell shrieks at 7:53 A.M., signaling for all students to part from their friends and reluctantly head to first period.

"Ready to go?" Charlotte asks.

Leighton just nods his head, knowing that it didn't really matter if he was ready or not. It only mattered that he pretended to be.

"What's up, beautiful?" Brandon asks, slinging an arm around Charlotte's waist as she and Leighton head towards the parking lot. With her hand still intertwined with Leighton's, she pulls him closer, trying to send hints through her body movements that the open flirtatiousness of Brandon's actions wasn't welcome.

"Nothing much. You?" Charlotte asks as politely as she can, wondering why Leighton wasn't telling Brandon to get his paws off his girlfriend. Looking over, she sees him staring straight ahead in total concentration with his ear buds wedged in his ears. He was the only person that Charlotte knew that used his iPod for audio books, not music. And when he did listen to music, it was either classical music or classic rock. Leighton acted like such a middle-aged man sometimes that it deeply amused her. However, Brandon's less-than-subtle come-ons certainly did not.

"Come on, Charlie, just one date? Please?" Appalled, Charlotte turns her head towards Leighton, expecting him to say something, even punch him maybe.

He just glances over, raises an eyebrow and turns back to focusing on his audio book.

Angry, Charlotte nearly spats out the words, "I have a boyfriend, Brandon. And he's standing right next to me!"

Brandon glances at him, and then turns his attention back to her. "He doesn't seem to mind."

Sputtering, Charlotte's about ready to smack him across the face before she realizes how true his words were. He doesn't seem to mind.

When was the last time he did seem to mind?

Never.

After they pick up Ella from the local junior high and drop her off at Leighton's house, they arrive at Charlotte's home. It's a quaint, one-story home with a vibrant explosions of flowers set in various places of the front lawn.

Leighton goes around the car to the passenger door of the seat and opens her car door for her, as usual. However, this time, she doesn't immediately get out. Instead, she slowly looks up and into Leighton's glasses-framed eyes.

"Why don't you ever kiss me on the lips in public?" She asks, her blue eyes dead serious.

"I think PDA's distasteful. It's enough we hold hands and kiss each other on the cheek in public, don't you agree?" Leighton furrows his brow, confused.

Charlotte sighs. It obviously wasn't the answer she was looking for. "Why didn't you stop Brandon from harassing me earlier? He was asking me out right in front of you and you didn't even blink." Her words were getting sharper by the syllable, like angry slashes of a hand scrawling out insults to an enemy.

"Because I knew he was joking." He simply replied.

"Well, what if he wasn't!" Charlotte exclaims, her cheeks flushed red with emotion. Now standing up, she tilts her head a bit upward to stare Leighton in the eye. "What if he was dead serious and wanted to steal me away from you? What would you do then?"

Leighton paused for a moment in thought while Charlotte stood beside him, demanding answers. "Then... I'd have to ask him to stop." The obvious answer, of course. However, not the right one according to Charlotte's reaction. She looks as if she were about to burst with the biggest scream of frustration ever heard when her face suddenly changes expression. It becomes... neutral, almost blank.

"Do you love me?" She asks.

It's a big question, with many possible answers.

"Yes." Leighton replies, his expression serious and his gray eyes cold and calculating.

Her face falls.

"You don't know what love is." It's more of a statement than a question, because, deny it all she wants, Charlotte's known the truth all along.

"Of course I do," Leighton starts, unaware of Charlotte's crestfallen expression. "It's when you do things you don't want to and make illogical decisions for people that you care about. When you open car doors, or hold bags, or kiss their cheek in public, or--"

"No, Leighton." Her tone's become nostalgic. "It's when you do those things because you want to. Not because it's expected of you."

Leighton falls silent. He doesn't understand what she means.

"I don't think this is working out, Leighton."

He stays silent.

"I think we shouldn't see each other anymore."

Silence. Then footsteps marching up the driveway to the painted white door of the house. Keys jingle, then the door slams and Leighton's left alone on the pavement with only obnoxiously-bright colored flowers for company. He doesn't feel remorse, or regret, or a desire to chase after his girlfriend of fourteen months. Instead, he feels nothing. And he wonders if he ever really cared about Charlotte as much as he thought he did.