| 13 |

❝ One look at you leaves me breathless ❞

HIS BIG BLUE eyes were tracing her every move, her every shuffle. He looked worried, running a hand through his onyx hair. His voice came out like a rushing river. "Are you okay, Charlotte?"

Charlotte... Charlotte... The way that name rolled off his tongue made her take a deep breath. "I'm fine."

"Are you sure?" he inquired, taking a couple steps closer to her. She gulped.

"Yeah, I- I just got a little stressed."

"Why?" He looked her in the eye, the look on his face as if he were concerned, his eyebrow curving. Charlie felt herself walk towards him as if he were a magnet.

"I- I don't-"

"Because I'm not the one who writes you the notes?" he grinned, his pearly white teeth giving her a headache.

Her jaw nearly dropped. Incoherent thoughts buzzed through her mind. "How do y-"

"This is a dream, Charlotte," his voice was hushed, soothing.

Charlie's head spun and the room, which she suddenly realized was her bedroom - why would Theodore be in her bedroom, she was such an idiot -and she squeezed her eyes shut. He wasn't even wearing his big, nerdy glasses. How did she not realize this was a dream? "We kissed."

"I suppose we did," he laughed, and she was shocked to realize how much Teddy's cheerful laugh affected her even in a dream.

He reminded her of a tempest. A storm. The way he kissed, the way he smiled, the way he was lodged in her mind. Theodore Orion Higgins was a storm.

The sleepover was just the calm before the storm. Then the hug, and... The kiss. The heart-wrenching, mind-numbing kiss that awakened the raging winds in her mind and summoned the massive amounts of thunder in her heart. Bum. Bum. Bum. Crash. The start of the storm.

To know Teddy wasn't her note writer, however... It utterly petrified Charlotte. The whole tempest collapsed, the winds howled, the thunder clapped, her mind blanked.

And she woke up.

Charlotte's eyes flew open, a gasp of breath escaping her lips. The first thing she saw was a white popcorn ceiling.

"What the hell, Charlotte?" A deep voice sounded through the room. She whipped her head to the side and saw Shane sitting on a plastic chair to her right.

"What happened?" Malcolm's voice made an appearance.

It was then when she realized she was in the nurse's office at school. The room was filled with cheesy posters and drab walls and such. Malcolm and Shane were looking at her with frightful, concerned faces.

Charlie gulped. "I..."

Their faces looked at her, waiting for an answer. Charlotte gulped down the truth and violently shook her head.

"Are you sure you don't know why you fainted?" Malcolm whispered with a hush, leaning in closer to her with a caring expression on his cute face.

Should she tell him they kissed? How Theodore, his cousin, and her kissed? And she'd have to explain the whole note deal. That would take forever.

"I- I don't," she hastily spewed a lie. "I don't know why I fainted."

•|•|•

It was a week later.

She had been thoroughly avoiding-dash-ignoring Theodore [who had been coming to school again] with a brain full of fuzz and nonsense. The notes just didn't add up.

Charlotte was stressed. When she got stressed, more nightmares appeared.

This had been the second time this week. Usually she would go to Theodore in Dunkin' Donuts or call him or something, but, y'know. Notes. Confusion. Kiss.

Anxiety. That was what it was.

Her doctor had said she had a slight anxiety of panic disorder; all the symptoms were there. The lack of sleep, feelings of terror randomly striking, heavy breathing, sweating, chest pain. Inability to remain calm, nausea, dizziness, all of those things.

It got worse sometimes and got better others, but right now, this position with the notes and the kiss and Theodore, was not a wonderful position to be in. Her anxiety was currently at [quite possibly] one of her top ten anxiety filled moments in her life.

The nightmare awoke her like the process of a plane taking flight, first driving down the runway, beginning slow with a grueling sense of agony and anticipation and then suddenly roaring into flight, the plane rumbling and shaking and quaking. Her nightmare was full of storms and earthquakes and every bad possible scenario to happen to a plane in the sky. And then she woke up, as if the plane nose-dove into the ground, crashing and burning all the while bringing the horrific journey to a sudden end.

She bolted straight up in bed, feeling as if she had actually been in a plane crash at that moment, sweating and quickly breathing and gulping down screams. She forgot what the nightmare was. She always did. It just always ended in the jerking awake and the near-barfing experience (sometimes not 'near') and the sweaty, sticky skin.

Charlie couldn't call Teddy. She couldn't run to Dunkin' Donuts. She couldn't cry to him, she couldn't hug him, she couldn't kiss him. Kiss the pain away, hug to forget the horror. She couldn't huddle up in his sweatshirt that smelled so, so... euphoric, couldn't listen to his deep voice that sounded as if he just rolled out of bed, his gruff, gravelly voice, she couldn't smile at his cute remarks to her, she couldn't be with him. It would push her over the edge. She needed to clear some confusion first.

Sliding out of her warm bed, pushing some of the blankets aside, Charlotte headed to the little box that lay on her desk. Her XL t-shirt that was used as makeshift pajamas stretched down to her knees.

Sitting herself cross-legged on the rough carpet floor she silently opened the wooden box that was overflowing with small notes.

She spread the notes on the carpet, making sure every note was facing upwards towards her.

They were all the same handwriting, she was pretty sure. All scribbly, stiff words on each piece of paper. The paper varied from lined to post-it to plain white paper to index card. There was about, she'd say... Ninety, one hundred, maybe up to one hundred and twenty notes in total so far. All saying around the same thing, a corny joke or a sweet compliment or a cute pickup line. All nice things, all nice things.

She was so confused. Looking over note after note, trying to see if there was anything personal on them. A name, a grade, a gender, anything.

As confused as she was, her small smile on her face shortly grew wider and wider after each note she reread.

She fell asleep curled up on the floor, a few notes loosely enclosed in her hand.

•|•|•

Looking in the mirror, the bags under her eyes were more noticeable than ever.

All because of the stupid nonsense nightmares.

She got to school and unfortunately forgot about her math test. Walking in, Mrs. Wyatt, the teacher, handed out the tests with a glare. He tried to be hard on the students, but it never worked out.

When she finished the last answer, she grimaced. Her pounding headache wasn't helping her think, and she could have sworn they never learned this. Flipping through her pages one last time, she stood up and walked to the front, handing in her test.

She began to read to wait for the bell to finally did, and when it rang she sprung up from her desk.

She almost made it out of the classroom. Almost.

"Ah, Ms. Jackson? A word?"

Crap.

She slowly backed up to her desk.

"I've noticed your scores have decreased a lot in the past couple weeks... You're a good kid, Charlotte. I don't know why your grade isn't up with my A students, so I'm going to assign you a tutor."

Goddamnit.

"I- I guess it could help." It wouldn't.

"Great, I think Mr. Harlens would be perfect as a tutor for y-"

"No no no, I'm sorry, but can it be someone else?" she said weakly. That guy was, to be really blunt, an ass. "Um, if I could get Malcolm Dawes to tutor me, could he do it instead of Henry Harlens?"

"I guess so," Mrs. Wyatt mumbled, her thin eyebrows furrowed. "He is one of my top students, so yes, if it's fine with him."

Charlie breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank you."

•|•|•

She almost ran into him.

"Malcolm, Malcolm! Oof."

It was the end of the day and Charlotte had sprinted to catch up with Malcolm.

"Oh, hey Charlotte, whassup?" He had on a blue hoodie and a beanie was lying loosely on his head. She had to admit, he was pretty cute. She could kind of see a resemblance between him and Teddy.

"I- I was wondering if you could tutor me in math?"

He was a lot taller than her, he had to crane his neck down it seemed. His hair looked fluffy.

"I'd love to," he smiled, his smile almost blinding.

"Thanks," she grinned, and ran to her bus line.

a/n

IT'S BEEN FOREVER OMG

(chapter was kinda short... sorry)

i'm so sorry i haven't posted in forever. i swear i have good reASONS!
1- i have been doing a crapload of work for school since it's nearing the end of the year. i'm in the running to read my essay at my eighth grade graduation, one of the 9 people out of something like 430 kids. so yeah. wow.

2- stress. i recently got a solo in chorus and i've been freaking out about that, and i finally sang it at my concert and now that is out of the way! so a little less stress right now

3- procrastination. i am so sorry

4- this chapter was a little hard, hard to start, hard to end, yadda yadda

5- IM ON A WEBSITE!!!! i've been writing for that @awkwardhomeschooler has me on her website, www.amazinkreations.com and it's SO COOL!! go check it out, there'll be short stories by me on there, and you can check out other hella cool things. maybe i'll even post a sneak peak to a new book for the future/future chapters...? maybe a theodore POV oMG I JUST CAME UP WITH THAT IDEA AHHH!!!!!!!1!1!1!1!1!!?!

6- i have so many tests/quizes/projects/finals, i'm super sorry. but almost all of that is over, because school is nearly finished!!! yay!

geez, ok. now that my personal stuff is over, how are you? did school already end? what grade are you in? did you like the chapter? what'd you like best/think was lacking?

Dedication goes to @bubbleclouduniverse
"Literally I'm crying. My mom thinks I need a therapist. My OTP SHATTERED. I need help."

me tbh.

GOALS:
1.2k reads
160 votes
160 comments

OKAY SO I SAID I WAS DONE but i was nominated by @chene99 to do 20 facts about me, so here it goes. (i applaud to you if you read it all, it's a doozy)

1.) I'm obsessed with Sam Claflin.

2.) I love moose tracks ice cream

3.) I get super obsessed with things

4.) I'm currently in love with Parks and Recreation (Orin is my SPIRIT ANIMAL)

5.) I live in the USA, in MA

6.) My favorite color is blue

7.) i'm such a fangirl. i have fandom shoes that i made myself, a fandom sweatshirt i also made, so many posters, mockingjay pins, time turner necklaces... i usually wear the time turner necklace every day, along with the pin. i don't wear the shoes that often because i don't want to wreck them

8.) my birthday is march 26th, 2001

9.) my favorite number is 53, and if someone can guess why (besides you bri) you'll get the dedication next chapter

10.) i'm a hardcore cat person, even though i'm allergic (whoops). my cat's names are Chipotle (Chippy) and Hickory

11.) i am super awkward/clumsy/breakable and according to my friends, i am "going to die of natural selection. i had five casts in all of my years in elementary school, split my head open when i was four and had to get staples, had braces for like six years, i'm basically blind (i wear thick glasses), and my friends tease me because i always say 'what?' because i can't hear them.

12.) i tend to ramble in my writing. sorry.

13.) i actually joined wattpad a long time ago, hated it, deleted the app, and then got it again. that was a couple years ago.

14.) i wish i was british. i'm totally moving to the UK when i'm older.

15.) i have sam claflin's autograph. i sent him fanmail and when i got the letter back i started sobbing like a baby

16.) i wrote a lot when i was younger, too. before i could write i got my grandmother to write out my stories word for word for me when she watched me while my parents were at work. i still have the stories. they're like weird books about kings and stuff, and then there is one short story about a monkey (i don't even know)

17.) i'm such a sucker for love. i'm corny. 'true love' and yadda yadda

18.) i would love to become a published author one day. maybe i can someday, who knows.

19.) Daniel Howell is my son

20.) my middle name is................................*drumroll please*........................Ann. so original, right?

| that was really long, i'm sorry. but i swear, a new update will come sooner than this one did |

THANK YOU ALL I LOVE YOU