Half a heart ( Book 1)

Chapter 4

⚠️Tw: anxiety, emotional, embarrassed, sadness, depression⚠️

Charlie's POV:

I said bye to Nick and headed inside. It felt weird not seeing or hearing from Tori all day. Usually, she would text me if she wasn't busy to check up on me, but it was radio silent from her.

I was still shocked at what I had said in the car. I shouldn't have said what I did; it was so stupid of me. A guy I barely knew, the star school rugby player, and he has a girlfriend who is the most popular girl at Higgs School for Girls. I just embarrassed myself by calling him pretty.

My cat Sprinkles was curled up on the armchair in the living room. I took my shoes off, hung my coat and bag on the hooks, and went upstairs to change before coming back down to cuddle up on the couch with Sprinkles. I started another episode of this show on Netflix that I'd been really into lately.

The plot was so gripping that I ended up watching a couple more episodes, which turned into an entire season. I think I was on the fifth season. I love horror, and this show was written so well.

I thought about texting Nick to thank him for today, but I found myself drifting off to sleep.

"Knock, knock, knock." I woke up in a panic at the sound of loud knocking at the front door. Maybe it was Tori, and she forgot her house keys again. I picked Sprinkles up and walked to the door.

Opening it, I was shocked to see it was dark outside. When I was watching my show, it was still daylight, so I must have been asleep for quite some time. Instead of Tori, it was two detectives from her unit. One was her partner, Sam.

I liked Sam; he was really nice, and I could see he made Tori happy. He would sometimes drop me off at school in a cop car with the sirens and lights when I was younger.

Tori has been a detective for 15 years. She became a detective at just 17 years old, the police academy's youngest candidate to ever get 100% on all tests. I can see now where I get my overachieving and smartness from.

Tori has always taken time out of her day or evening to help me with anything school-wise or if I've had a bad day she checks up on me and we watch any movie I want and we have lots of sweet snacks as well to make the night better.

She always put my needs first before anything else, no matter the circumstances, and that's why I love her so much.

There was another detective standing next to Sam. She showed me her badge and said, "Hi, I'm Lily."

I'd never seen her before, so she must be new. "Is everything okay? Where's Tori?" I asked, my voice shaking a little.

Sam looked at me with a gentle expression. "Charlie, we need to talk. Can we come in?" he asked.

"Sure," I said, stepping aside to let them in. My heart was pounding. Something had to be seriously wrong for them to show up like this.