A Note A Day

5 | in her lunchbox

| 5 |

❝ I would make a list of all the things that make you cute, but it would be too long to fit on this piece of paper. ❞

HER HEARTBEAT ACCELERATED far too fast, her pulse racing quicker than a Porsche. Her palms were sweaty as she wiped them on her patterned leggings, and her throat was dry as hell. She clumsily walked into History class with buckets of anxiety crawling and slithering through her stomach.

She was almost ninety-nine percent sure that Theodore was her note writer. And he sat right behind her in this class.

Charlotte kept her head down as she sped into class, sliding into her desk and putting down her books. Her breathing was short and choppy, and her hands were slightly trembling.

Her eyes were trained on her desk as she saw, out of the corner of her eye, the lanky outline of him.

Oh gosh, oh gosh. Holy shoot. Oh gosh.

He waltzed into his desk and she felt his feet rest on the back of her chair, as if he were slouching. He did this every class, but she had never really noticed it until now. She had never really noticed him in general until now. Her heartbeat picked up.

The teacher sauntered into the room, Mr. Hollins, and set himself up for his usual note session. Mr. Hollins was famous for his notes, something everyone dreaded.

She heard some groans and scuffles as everyone flipped to a blank page in their notebook. She gnawed on the inside of her right cheek, something she always found herself doing in times of anxiety an nervousness.

The note-taking began as Mr. Hollins started his rant on World War II. She kept her eyes glued to her notebook, terrified to talk to Theodore, because a.) she couldn't coherently form well-processed sentences when talking to people or socialize in general and b.) Mr. Hollins gave detentions faster than than her favorite fictional characters died. Which is pretty fast.

When Mr. Hollins had excused himself for a couple minutes, saying he was going to the bathroom [a frequent thing of his] and expected silence, she was ready. Ready to speak with her note creator without getting a detention. And without stumbling over her words... Hopefully.

Now or never.

Charlie turned around in her desk and stared as blankly as she could at his nose, thinking that if she looked him in the eyes she would screw up. "Could I please borrow your notes? I, uh, I'm missing some."

She mentally thwacked herself. She was missing notes? Was that really how she was approaching this?

His pencil wavered on the paper and he barely glanced up at her pleading face, his head down and arms looped around the notebook, blocking it from her sight.

She should have kept staring at his nose, because as soon as her eyes slightly lifted to lock into his baby blue eyes, she was unable to turn away.

They were hidden behind his big, bulky glasses, but nevertheless made her hitch her breath, unable to blink.

Their eyes seemed to connect like attracting magnets. She was unable to remove her laser-beam gaze, and he didn't look like he was stopping his anytime soon. He looked captured, entranced in her eyes, somehow.

He was blinking at her though, looking confused as he tapped his pencil on his desk, licking his lips. His head was cocked slightly to one side and his adam's apple bobbed up and down.

She'd never heard his voice, and when she did she held her breath.

"Uh, y-yeah, yeah," he softly croaked in a gruff manner, his voice a touch deeper than what she had expected, the sound gravelly and strangely appealing to her.