Lost

It had only been five minutes since she sat down, and she had already drank half of her smoothie. The room is quiet, besides the ticks from her keyboard and the quiet murmurs from the others in the library. She stops to rub her face, and huffs a sign. She finally places her head in her hand.

"It will just take a few minutes," Ivy thought.

She and her roommate had just enough income to pay their rent and tuition fees, but trying to pay for wifi too was a bit of a stretch. So, they would come to the library.

With another heavy sigh, she starts again on her report. More and more paragraphs form after sometime. Suddenly, the sound of the last bit of liquid being sucked through her straw catches her attention.

Kara, her roommate, looks up at her over her glasses.

"Dude, why don't you just take a break?" Kara asks. "You said it wasn't due until Wednesday right? It's the weekend. I need just a few more minutes to finish this last equation, and let's get outta here.... and do something fun."

Ivy leans back in her chair, cracking her neck and stretching.

"That sounds delightful." Ivy says. "Just let me see if they have that new book, and I will be right back."

She gets up and heads toward the back of the shelves. While fumbling through various anime and manga comics, she spots a small black notebook that seems to have fallen in the back.

Ivy reaches in and pulls out the little Moleskine leather bound journal. She undoes the elastic and flips through the pages.

A check that had been tucked inside flutters to the ground. It was made out to a Stephanie. The bottom reads: "For new car, so proud of you!" And the amount was $20,000.

"What did you find?" Kara asks as she walks over.

She looks at the notes and drawings in the journal over Ivy's shoulder.

"We should try and return the journal and check to her." Kara says after a moment of examination.

"There has got to be a phone number in here..." Ivy mumbles, scanning the first and last pages of the journal.

"Do you see anything?" Kara asks.

Ivy just shakes her head.

"They probably already stopped the check, Kara."

"Maybe, but still they probably would like their journal back. It looks like they spent a lot of time drawing calendars and writing notes in it."

"Then let's just give it to the librarian to put in the lost and found, and call it good." Ivy says and shrugs.

Kara breaths in, and reaches for the journal. She flips through, finally stopping on a calendar page.

"She must have lost it yesterday. All of the days have been crossed off until then... and it looks like she planned to go out tonight." Kara says.

"...that's just down the street. Remember that one place we went with Jake? Come on, let's go see if we can find her!"

She pulls Ivy along.

"Because the chances are..." Kara continues as they hop in her car "...she probably already checked with the librarian if she lost it yesterday... and/or is under the impression that someone took it..."

"All hypotheticals." Ivy says. "Heck! We could mail it to the check sender if you are that concerned. Their address is on the check."

"They are always losing stuff in the mail!" Kara exclaims.

"You know...porch pirates?" She continues, rolling her eyes and turning the key in the ignition.

"Come on, let's just go see if we can take it to her."

"But wait, how are we going to know who she is? We don't know what she looks like. Even if the check was stopped, we can't just go flash money to people--"

"We aren't going to flash the check. We know her name thanks to the check. And, we will just ask about the journal first, see if someone recognizes it. And then, just ask their name to make sure it is her!" Kara explains.

"I don't know..." Ivy says softly.

"Hey if someone tries to pull some funny business, and doesn't want to tell us their name first, and then escalates the situation... we can always get a manager or someone involved at the restaurant. The journal literally belongs to someone named Stephanie and a simple ID check will solve everything. But, no one is going to want to talk to the cops about trying to take a possibly stopped check and a bullet journal with some doodles in it that isn't actually theirs... honestly."

Ivy pauses for a minute, and sighs.

"Fine. I'm in."

"Sweet!" Kara squeals.

She puts the car in drive and cranks up the music.

The girls wander into a low light local eatery. There is some karaoke being performed in the back corner, and a few familiar faces that they recognized from the university sitting at the tables.

It didn't take long for them to notice a particular group. Everyone was excited and laughing with the exception of one person.

She very clearly had a lot on her mind, and was disconnected from the group.

"I bet you that's her." Ivy whispers

"I think you're right..." Kara whispers back.

Ivy takes a deep breath and moves toward the table.

The girl looks up at them, as if awoke from a dream. Her eyes search their faces.

"Hi, umm... I was just wondering," Ivy stammers as she grabs the journal out of her bag. "We found this in the Library. Do you... recognize this at all?"

Her face instantly lights up

"-- and I was wondering what your name was." Ivy continues.

"It's Stephanie! Oh my God! Thank you so much! I have been literally tearing up my dorm all day searching for this---"

She flips through the pages, holding on tight to the check.

" -- I have been terrified to tell my Mom that I lost her check. And, I have been a complete mess without my bullet journal... you don't know how much this means to me! Thank you so much!"

"Oh it's no problem." Ivy says. "I'm glad that we could help."