CODE HEART ♥

*CHAPTER 2: The Rooftop Bet*

"You don't share your bench? It's okay. I understand."

Charlotte's voice was sweet. Too sweet to be innocent.

"When someone knows he's going to lose his topper position, he gets insecure."

Silence. Dead silence in 12-A.

Every head turned. Lucas, Alex's best friend and the only one who dared to sit near him, slowly lowered his laptop screen to watch the drama.

Alex finally looked up. For the first time since she entered, he actually looked at her. Not at her cap, not at her cat carrier, but at her. His ice-cold grey eyes narrowed. The air in the class became heavy.

"What did you say?" His voice was low, dangerous. The voice that had made seven girls cry.

Charlotte didn't flinch. She was not like the other girls in St. Augustine who would start stuttering under his gaze. She opened her laptop. Her laptop was covered with stickers - Python, NASA, Hello Kitty, and one that said 'I Code Like A Girl, Try To Keep Up'.

Click. Click.

In three seconds, his entire code - the code he had been debugging since morning - was mirrored on her screen. She had hacked into the school's shared drive.

"Line 47," she said calmly, pushing her big glasses up. "You used a `while` loop with no proper break condition inside a nested `for` loop. Your dataset is over 50,000 rows. That's why your AI model is taking 8 hours to run and your laptop sounds like a jet engine. It's an infinite loop trap."

She typed something. Fast. Her fingers were flying.

"Mine takes 8 minutes. Because I use vectorization. Want me to fix it for you... benchmate?"

Lucas couldn't control himself. He leaned over Alex's screen, looked at Line 47, then at Charlotte's screen.

"Bro... bro she's right. Oh my god. That's the bug we've been searching since 9 AM! That's why the accuracy was stuck!"

A small gasp went around the class. Sophie and Mia, who sat in the second row and were secretly tired of Alex's attitude, looked at each other.

For the first time in two years, Alex Shepherd was speechless. A girl had corrected him. Not in private. In front of everyone. And she was right.

His jaw clenched so hard that a vein popped on his neck. His hands, which were always so steady while coding, were now in fists.

He looked at Charlotte, at her confident smile, at the white kitten carrier beside her.

"Sit," he said finally, his voice cold. "But one rule. Don't talk to me. Don't look at my screen. And keep that animal away from me."

Charlotte smiled, closed her laptop, and sat down gracefully, placing the carrier on her lap.

"Don't worry, Alex Shepherd. I only talk to humans who are kind to animals. So I guess we won't be talking much."

From the back row, Sophie and Mia gave her a silent, wide-eyed "YOU ARE QUEEN" thumbs up. The class was officially in love with the new girl.

Alex put his AirPods back in, louder this time, but his code was no longer running in his head. For the first time, someone else's voice was.

*LUNCH - ROOFTOP - 12:45 PM*

St. Augustine's rooftop was officially closed during lunch. It was a student council rule, made by Alex himself as the Vice President of the Council.

But Charlotte didn't know that. Or she didn't care.

She was alone in the corner, sitting against the wall, her cap now off. Her brown hair was tied in a messy bun. In her lap was the white kitten, Cookie. Cookie was not cute and fluffy like in the morning. She was weak, breathing very slowly, her eyes half-closed.

Charlotte was feeding her with a small syringe, drop by drop, her hands shaking a little.

"Good girl... come on, Cookie... you will be fine... please... you have to be fine for me... you are the only one I brought from London..."

Her voice was breaking. The confident coding champion from the morning was gone. Now she was just a lonely girl talking to her sick kitten. A tear slipped from behind her glasses.

"So you're the girl who stood up to Alex."

Charlotte quickly wiped her tears and turned. Her hand instinctively went to protect Cookie.

It was Simon Keyes.

Blonde hair, perfect uniform, perfect smile, the boy every teacher called 'the ideal student'. He was Alex's biggest rival for the topper position, but unlike Alex, he was warm. Kind. Everyone liked Simon.

"Are you here to warn me about him too? That I should stay away from your rival?" she asked, her voice defensive.

Simon laughed softly and raised his hands. "No. No warnings. I'm actually here to thank you. Finally someone told him he's not a God in this school. That was epic in class. I'm Simon."

He didn't sit too close. He kept a respectful distance, unlike other boys. He sat beside her, looking at the city view.

"You know, the rooftop is closed. But I come here too when I need silence to think," he said.

He even remembered from morning assembly - he offered her his water bottle. "You like less sugar, right? I heard you telling the canteen lady in the morning."

Charlotte was surprised. No one in this new school had noticed such a small thing.

Downstairs, in the parking lot, Jack was showing Alex something on his phone. A video from someone's i********: story.

It was the rooftop CCTV footage that a junior had recorded. Simon and Charlotte, sitting close, laughing. Simon's hand almost touching Cookie.

"Bro, look," Jack said, with a smirk. "Your new benchmate is already moving on to Simon. Classic transfer student. Topper hunting."

Alex didn't say anything. He just stared at the rooftop window from the parking lot. For ten minutes straight. He was not blinking.

His chest was burning. A strange, tight, uncomfortable feeling he had never felt before in his life. He had felt anger, ego, pride, annoyance. But not this.

It was jealousy. Raw, burning jealousy.

Without saying a word, he walked straight to the rooftop. Lucas and Jack ran behind him. They knew that when Alex walks that fast, drama is coming.

He pushed the rooftop door open with a bang.

"STUDENT COUNCIL RULE: No students on rooftop during lunch!" Alex shouted, his voice echoing.

Simon stood up instantly, surprised. "Come on Alex, don't do this. She was just—"

Alex ignored him completely. His eyes were only on Charlotte and the weak cat in her arms. His cold eyes fell on Cookie.

"And school rule: No pets allowed inside campus. That's a hygiene issue. Give me the cat. I'll give it to the guard downstairs. He will throw it out."

Charlotte stood up in a second, holding Cookie protectively against her chest. Cookie meowed weakly.

"Touch my cat and I swear—" her voice was shaking with anger.

Alex came one step closer. Too close. They were face to face now, wind blowing her hair and his shirt. The whole rooftop was silent except for the wind.

"You swear what? You will hack me? Go ahead. Try," he whispered, his face just inches from hers.

Everyone held their breath.

Charlotte looked straight into his cold eyes, her own brown eyes fiery and full of tears.

She whispered, so only he could hear, her voice like fire:

"I don't need to hack you, Alex Shepherd. That's too easy. I will just beat you. In the coding finals next week. In front of the whole school. I will show everyone that the boy who hates girls just lost to one."

For a second, his cold mask cracked. And a dangerous smirk appeared on his face. The smirk that he gives before a challenge.

"Challenge accepted, Lane. But if you lose, you will leave my bench forever. And you will never bring that rat again inside the school."

"And if YOU lose," Charlotte said, her chin up, "you will apologize to Cookie, on your knees. And you will carry her carrier for one whole day around the whole school. In front of everyone."

From behind, Lucas shouted, forgetting all rules, "OHHHHH s**t. BET! BET! BET!"

Alex extended his hand. His big hand, with veins.

Charlotte looked at it, then placed her small hand in his.

"Done."

Their handshake was electric. It was cold and warm at the same time. Neither of them wanted to leave it.

And from the corner, Simon watched. His soft, perfect smile faded slowly. He realized something scary in that moment.

The heartthrob bully, the boy who hated every girl in the world, had finally started to like someone.

And he, Simon, who actually liked Charlotte from the moment he saw her, was already losing her before even trying.

But the real twist was still waiting.

Because as Charlotte picked up her bag to leave, a small folded paper fell from her laptop bag onto the rooftop floor.

Alex picked it up. He opened it.

It was a medical report from a London Vet Hospital.

*PATIENT NAME: COOKIE LANE*

*DIAGNOSIS: Feline Leukemia - Stage 3*

*ESTIMATED TIME: 7-10 DAYS*

Alex's face changed. He looked at Charlotte, who was walking away with Cookie hidden in her jacket.

Was that why she brought her cat to school every day?

What was Charlotte hiding?