Shattered

Carter (e)

Carter
27.
The sound of my phone ringing made me groan. I squeezed my eyes closed and rolled onto my side, away from the incessant buzzing. As hard as I had tried to will sleep to come, I could only feel the restlessness dig deeper.

The buzzing continued, seemingly endless, and I reluctantly turned back to silence it. Only, I caught the name before I could follow through.

Hazel.

I sat up straight and pressed the phone to my ear.

"Hazel? Why are you calling me?" I had to force the hardness into my voice, to keep any concern I felt at bay.

What didn't make me feel any better was that it was past midnight.

Only, a voice reminded me.

Why was Hazel calling me so late? Was there something wrong?

My mind raced as I thought about what danger she could be in, but I was fairly certain that I already knew. With the sound of Hazel's frightened voice, and remembering the last time I had heard it, it wasn't hard to tell.

"Someone broke into my apartment," she said quietly, voicing those exact thoughts. "A-Again."

The line grew quiet as Hazel took a deep breath. "I-I'm sorry, I didn't mean—I shouldn't have bothered you. I just needed to tell someone."

"Where's your apartment?" I asked quickly, before she could hang up.

"What—why?"

"Where is it?" I repeated, the words harsher than I had intended.

Silence fell over the phone, until, finally, Hazel said,

"Okay, fine."

Once she had given me her address, I stood from my place on the bed and quickly pulled on a shirt, saying,

"Don't go anywhere, I'm coming over."

I took the short trip across Manhattan to get to Hazel's complex. I could feel the heat of anxiety begin to take root in my chest as I parked, glancing up at the tall building and then to the busy street behind me.

Why was I even doing this? Why did I care? Surely, I could walk back to my car and not think twice about Hazel.

If that was true, then why couldn't I keep her image from my mind? I couldn't stop thinking about her.

Room 308 wasn't hard to miss. The door was left ajar, and one peek inside told me that I was most definitely in the right place. My eyes swept the room—it was like a tornado had come through—with broken glass to litter the floor, furniture knocked over and even more contents strewn the farther I walked inside.

There was no sign of Hazel at first, the apartment nearly silent except for the sound of a ticking clock. I held my breath with the two rooms I passed down a smaller, narrow hallway—but they were only a pantry and a bathroom, and clearly unoccupied.

The last door on the left was my only other option, and I strode toward it. To my relief, Hazel was inside, but her back was to me.

I took a step closer and called her name.

Hazel yelped in surprise at the sound of my voice, spun around quickly to face me, but stumbled forward, and would have fallen if it weren't for my quick movements and my arm that reached out to catch her.

I didn't pull away at first as I steadied Hazel, and was very aware of my hand that was holding the upper part of her back, which was bare and smooth underneath my fingers.

"Are you okay?" I asked slowly,

"S-Sorry," Hazel spoke, backing away from me. Her cheeks were a light shade of pink. "I thought you were an intruder."