A Note A Day

30 | in the palm of her hand

She was wide awake now. Her eyes grew and she suddenly dug around her covers for the small note Theodore Orion Higgins had placed in her hand before she fell asleep. He should have just put it next to her glasses, damnit. She could never hold items in her sleep.

She looked under her sheets and came up empty. She glanced around for her phone and found it on her bedside table.  It took her a few minutes to structure the right words.

Charlotte Jackson: hey, i can't find that note you gave me last night when i was sleeping...?

Ding.

Teddy Orion: it wasn't that big of a deal, don't worry about it

Don't worry about it? What did he say?  It could have been anything!

Ding.

Teddy Orion: do you want to come over for our friday night sleepover @ my house

Her fingers flew on her screen as she shoved her glasses on her nose.

Charlotte Jackson: sign me up :-)

Charlotte pulled up jean shorts and slipped into a cat t-shirt and made her way downstairs to her daily bowl of cereal.  When she sat down at the dining room table, her parents were there as well, her father with a newspaper covering his face.  Skylar and Spencer were whispering at the end of the table, and Lucas was making poptarts in the kitchen.

"So, Charlotte," her mother began, stopping Charlie just short of putting the cereal in her mouth. "How was Comic Con with your little friends?"

"Good," she replied, finally taking a bite. 

"Make any summer plans? How was the pool? Was there a breakfast bar?"

"Mhm," she responded, shrugging.

Skylar was glancing at Charlotte strangely, in almost a pained way. The silence was strained.

Her father suddenly put down the newspaper, his thin-framed reading glasses still on his face. "Charlotte . . . "

"Yeah, what's up?" she asked, gulping down another bite.

Her parents exchanged worried glances, and Skylar excused herself (Spencer following).

"Well . . . " he stated, folding up his reading glasses.  "It's Hazel."

Charlotte's heart stopped.  The looks on her parent's faces did not comfort her at all.  She was being drowned, run over, crushed like a crunchy leaf in autumn. She had heard nothing from or about Hazel for days, weeks.  "What? Wh-what do you mean? Did you find her? Is she alive? Is she okay? I-I don't understand—"

Her father pushed a crumpled, folded up letter towards Charlotte, and her mother's lips were pressed into a thin line.

"This is for you."

•|•|•

Theodore's house felt as if it were an old teacher she had loved, one she visited so rarely but knew so well.  She knew all of the rooms and twists and turns and every cabinet and drawer.