xx48.11.29 / 04:12 / Tuesday

Can't sleep. It feels like my heart is still beating too fast, and I keep thinking I hear something outside. I've never been scared before. It's horrible. It's worse than getting hurt. Maybe I'll have another shower. That might help calm me down a little, anyway.

xx48.11.29 / 06:01 / Still Tuesday

Is it still too early to call C2? After six should be okay, right? But they're probably all still sleeping. I don't want to wake them up. I should wait a little longer. Maybe half past six would be acceptable. I hope so.

xx48.11.29 / 13:42 / Still Tuesday

I didn't make it to six-thirty before I called C2. I didn't even make it to ten past six. But I'm really glad I called her.

"Hello?" It was her father who answered.

"Hello, Mr Crescent," I said. "This is Charlotte Powers. Is your daughter awake?"

"Charlotte. Are you all right?"

I guess my voice must have been a bit shaky.

"I'm. I'm. Could I please talk to C2? To Charlotte?"

"I'll get her, just hold on."

So he went and he woke C2 up. By the time she said "Hello?" very sleepily into the phone I couldn't hold it in any longer and I just started sobbing. It took about five minutes before I could even talk properly. I could tell she was confused, but I could hear her father in the background saying something to her, maybe he was explaining that there was something wrong, but I think even C2 would've figured that out on her own.

"Charlotte," she said, after I'd managed to calm down a bit. "What's wrong?"

"I just need you to tell me everything's going to be okay," I blubbed. There was a pause, then she said exactly that to me:

"Charlotte, everything's going to be okay."

And then I started sobbing again. After that it was just basically me blubbing into the phone and C2 doing her very best, oh she's just so sweet I know it must've been so hard for her to even understand what was going on, but she was so good, she just kept telling me it was okay and it was going to be all right, and then I jumped, really jumped because there was a knock at my door, but then I heard Mr Crescent outside calling, he was saying "Don't get a fright, it's just Mr Crescent", and it must have taken me five minutes just to get the bar off the door and to unlatch it, then I kind of just collapsed into him and he took me down to his car and he drove me back to their house, and C2's mother had made pancakes and hot chocolate with marshmallows, she gave me a big hug when I went in and her gown was so soft, and C2 was in her pajamas, they have little robots on them, little red robots floating in a soft blue sky, and she hugged me too, I don't think she really knows how to hug but she tried, for me she tried, and then they all sat me down and we had pancakes and hot chocolate and Mrs Crescent chatted away at me until I stopped sniffing and hiccuping and Mr Crescent gave me a big brown dressing gown to wear because I was shivering, I wasn't cold but somehow it helped, and C2 just being there was enough.

I must've fallen asleep, because I woke up in C2's bed. She was at school, her mother told me. Her father had to go to work, too. Neither of them wanted to leave me. Guess what happened then? Yep, I started crying again.

Eventually, though, I got a hold of myself, and I ate some of the meatloaf Mrs Crescent had made especially for me, she remembered how much I liked it when I came for dinner that one time, and after that I felt a bit better. Just a bit. Sometimes 'just a bit' is enough, though.

Now I'm sitting in their tiny little friendly living room, writing this with shaky hands while Mrs Crescent puts the washing out. She once washed my uniform for me. Just now she looked in at me and smiled and said, "That's a gorgeous dress you're wearing."

That set me off crying again. But they're halfway good tears.