A Note A Day

26 | on her desk in SLP

"God, shut up," she replied, poking him with her pencil, trying to do her homework like a good student. "I didn't want to. Don't make me feel even more guilty."

"Sooo," Shane murmured, falling onto a beanbag chair. "What're you gonna do with Teddy?"

Her cheeks burned. "I... I don't know."

He fell silent as she busied herself in her homework, her cheeks stained red.

"Have you talked to him lately?" she asked, her pencil dangling above the paper. "Malcolm, I mean?"

"I've been leaving him be," Shane responded. "I think he's trying to make up all of his work and studying for finals at the same time."

Charlotte rested her head with a thump on the counter.

"Why so angsty?" Shane questioned, and Charlie could see him peering at her through the corner of her eyes.

A guttural sound escaped the back of her throat. "It's just... I don't know how to react around him. I'm too awkward and nervous to tell him again, and I don't want to make our friendship weird by saying something out of line... I'm stuck. In the middle," she ranted, her brown eyes wide. "Like, I'm always stuck at a fork in the road, a constant, never-ending decision to go left or right. If I go left, I'll just lead myself to the same split in the road, the same choices. If I go right, I could become completely lost, or-"

"-or you could have a great relationship," Shane butted in. "I call being the best man."

"This is serious!" she exclaimed. He just kept staring at her with the same side-eyed look, a massive smirk on his face, eyebrows raised and everything.

"Shut up!" she said, all frazzled.

"I didn't say anything," he laughed, crossing his legs. He had sunk down so low in the beanbag chair that she thought he was trapped in quicksand.

Her eyes narrowed. "I swear t-"

The bell to the bookstore rang, signaling Charlotte's silence. She glared at Shane, giving him a shut up and let me be professional look as she straightened her back, pasting on a smile. She hoped she looked presentable. She probably wasn't, with Shane's stupid teasing in her mind. Charlie probably just looked like the
mess of a teenager.

"Hello," she started, drifting her eyes towards the man walking through the doorway. "Welcome to-"

Her throat clogged up.

It trapped her voice, the words bubbling up, threatening to overflow and spill, her heart pounding, malfunctioning, her mind not knowing what to think. What to think.

He just grinned at her stunned expression in the kind, mischievous way of his. Beside her, Shane stood up, as if sensing she knew the man walking towards her. He glanced at her, bewildered. Bewildered. Bewildered as to why Charlotte had tears building up in her eyes, bewildered as to why it looked like she wanted to move but she couldn't, as if physically being stuck, trapped in concrete.

He stepped closer, the man. Closer, closer, his boots thudding heavily against the hardwood floor. Her body was trembling, lips quivering, and she had dropped her pencil and shoved aside her homework, forcing herself to stand.