I was eleven years old when I first saw Charlotte.
It was late afternoon, the kind of quiet day where the road behind our neighborhood felt forgotten. I was walking home from school, hands shoved deep into my jacket pockets, replaying the familiar embarrassments of the day—kids laughing at my worn sneakers, a teacher snapping at me for daydreaming, the heavy silence waiting at home.
That’s when I noticed her.
For illustrative purposes only
A woman lay near the edge of the road, half on the grass, half on the gravel shoulder. A grocery bag had split open beside her. An apple had rolled down the slope. She was down on one knee, one hand pressed to the ground, her shoulders trembling—not from cold, but from something deeper.
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