Wait.
For a blink, I look back to the nightstand in the mirror. Then I turn around on the stool to see it firsthand.
It looks so… bare.
Because it is.
Because it is!
My pulse quickens as I quiz myself.
Where are my notes?
Did Mom move them? Did she put them away?
No, she wouldn’t do that. Or would she? I stand and rush across the room. I check the nightstand drawer and the desk drawers, too.
I chew my pointer fingernail, thinking. I turn slowly around the room, scanning every surface.
Did I take them somewhere?
Where would I take them?
Where did I have them last?
My breath sucks in almost before I fully realize what’s happened.
I know where my notes are.
They’re right where I left them.
Right where I was reading them before Luke picked me up tonight.
Right where I sent Luke to hang out.
They’re in the kitchen.
“Luke!” I shout, running out of my bedroom and down the stairs, as if it will make any difference. “Luke!” I shout again in vain.
I know even before I’m down the stairs that he’s already seen them.
No answer comes from the direction of the kitchen. I quicken my pace and nearly slip on the polished hardwood while rounding the corner to the kitchen.
“Luke,” I say again, to his back. He faces the table and doesn’t speak.
“Luke?” I try a gazillionth time.
He turns, holding a single letter in his hands.
I stand, frozen, staring at him.
Finally, he speaks.
“I wondered how you did it,” he says.
Still frozen, I’m confused.
“Did what?” I ask.