Chester runs after the doorbell as I turn on the lights in the kitchen. I lean back on the counter and scroll through Twitter a bit whilst I wait. I wonder what Charlie's been doing. It must be pretty lonely up there alone in her room for all those hours. Chester's and my conversations flip flopped back and forth for hours until he finally decided to order pizza. Eventually Chester comes back up with two pizza boxes and plops them down onto the counter. He runs and tells Charlie to come and eat. I open up the first box only to find the most disgusting sight in my life: vegetarian pizza. I immediately close the box and open the other. Vegetables don't belong on pizza, just meat, and this pepperoni and ham pizza looks absolutely delicious.

"Why'd you get vegetarian pizza?" I ask and scrunch up my nose as Chester re-enters the room.

"It's Charlie's favorite. When she was younger she'd always ask for vegetables on her pizza. Her brother and I would gag, making her laugh, but I actually like it," he picked up a piece and took a mouthful of cheese, mushrooms, broccoli, and spinach.

"That's disturbing." Charlie comes in a grabs a slice herself, happily biting into what I could only describe as hell.

"Hey, uh, I hope you don't mind you guys don't mind, but tonight I have the night shift," Chester explains.

"What kind of place do you work at that trusts you to look after the store at night?" I tease, gaining a laugh from Charlie hard enough for her to spit out a bit of pepper.

"Wow, rude much?" Chester laughs. "CVS, actually. I'm employee of the month 5 months in a row!" he brags.

"I bet your the only employee who's worked there for five months in a row," I jab. Charlie's now practically bursting with laughter now.

"A pharmaceutical company is a great place to work," he slaps my arm.

"Oh, so now it's a fancy 'pharmaceutical company' and not just a place where people go last minute if they forgot to bring a pack of tissues somewhere with them."

"Actually shut up!" he hits my arm again, and now we're all laughing. "So yeah, nobody else could take the shift, so I was sort of forced to take it. I hope you guys don't mind me not being here tonight."

"Yeah, that should be fine with me," I say, and Charlie shyly nods her head.

"Good. I wasn't too sure since it's your first day living here, How."

________________________________

"Alright, see you! I should be back a little after sunrise! Are you sure you're okay?"

"Yes!" I assure him from the couch, trying to connect my laptop to the wifi. "Before you go, what's the wifi network and password?"

He rolls his eyes as he puts on a sweat jacket, "Of course you were going to ask that. Name's Pugsley, and the password's bacon, no caps."

"Pugsley?"

"Aunt Cassandra's dog. I'm going to try and get that changed. Bye."

"See ya." I look at the bottom corner of my screen and see that it's about 11:50 pm. Charlie's in bed, and I know that I'm not going to be able to sleep in a new bed tonight, so it's just me and my laptop. I head into my room and sit up on my bed with my laptop resting on my lap. I click on "Pugsley" and type in "bacon." I wait about two minutes, and then an error pops up on my screen. I try it again. The error appears. After about 10 more times of trying it, I give up. Then I come across an open network named with a bunch of random numbers and letters. Desperate for the full free wifi it's promising I click, and it works. I turn out all the lights, leaving one light on in the hallway, unlock the door in case Chester forgets his keys (which he tends to do a lot), get into a t-shirt and some green, plaid pajama pants, and lie back down in bed. I scroll through Tumblr, Instagram, and watch a couple of pointless YouTube videos. I glance at the clock and realize it's 3:47 in the morning. Not one yawn escapes my mouth. I don't feel tired at all. I guess I'm just used to staying up this late.

I hear the door open and large footsteps shuffling around. I sit up a bit taller trying to figure out what's making the sound. Is Chester just home early? All the noise comes to an abrupt stop. I slowly close my laptop sneak out of bed. I cautiously tiptoe down the stairs and through the hallway and peer down the stairs. A wave of worry rushes over me as I freeze up. A group of four burly men were gathered at the door, each holding guns. I begin to breath a little faster. I know exactly who these men are, but not necessarily what they want. How did they even find where I live now? Not even the organization I work for has that information. And what the heck do they want with me? I'm just a dude who carries out tasks given to me. I wouldn't be able to answer anything. I begin to swear quietly to myself. My mind is racing, and I have no idea what to do. I back away from the stairs with a panicked look in my eye. It's not like we have a back door or something, and there is no way I'm jumping out of a window. And what about Charlie? What's going to happen if they catch us? What's Chester going to do? I hear them begin to walk towards and up the stairs, mummers escaping from them. 

I bolt down the hallway, up the stairs, grab my phone, and into Charlie's bedroom. She's gone. 

"Hey, I heard some footsteps from upstairs."

"Are you sure he's here?"

"Of course he's here, he connected to the wifi network with his laptop. It's probably him upstairs. Come on."

Crap. I run back and take a peak down the hallway only to see four men looking around the kitchen. I dart into Charlie's room and shut and lock the door a bit louder than I wanted to.

"Down that hallway! I heard him shut the door!"

CRAP. They can knock down the door. There's no where for me to hide. You'd think with this much space she'd have something to hide behind. Nothing but a desk, a bed, and books. 

Knock Knock Knock

"What are you doing? Why the heck would you knock, you idiot? Help me bust the door down."

I'm going to die. There's nothing I can do. I lie down on the ground and accept my defeat.

"Howard! Get up!" a ladder drops from the ceiling and onto the bed. I look up and see Charlie's head peaking out of the giant window in the ceiling. I don't ask any questions, so I grab onto the ladder and climb. She pulls the ladder back up and shuts the small door. She ties a blanket around the latch so that it can't be opened. "Follow me," she says and climbs over to the edge of the roof. She steadies herself and hops to the next building's roof. I stare in awe.

"Come on! You don't have time to just stand there! Hurry up now." 

And with that, I did exactly what she told me. We hopped across about ten or eleven buildings until she decided that it was a good place to stop. I sat down immediately to catch my breath. I haven't hopped that many roofs in a while. We could barely see the house from here. Charlie pulls out her phone and stares at the screen for a minute or two. She's sitting now, too, but not breathing nearly as heavily as I am. I look at her intensely, just now realizing that she talked. My gaze is fixed on her.

She looks up from her phone, "It's rude to stare."

"Sorry, I-I just, I didn't think you-" I stutter. 

"One of them is guarding the front door. I don't suppose he'll leave his post anytime soon. The rest are probably still rummaging through the house." My eyes never left her face. Her eyes were fixed on the screen. My breath has scarcely slowed.

"I know you're still staring," she almost barks her words at me. "I have a lot of questions to ask, but I'll wait. I'm guessing they're going to be here for a while. I don't know if you're wearing a wire or something, you're just really suspicious to me right now, so I'm not going to ask anything."

"I have a question," I speak up. Her eyes leave her phone, but they go right back to it. "How the heck are you talking to me right now? Is it the adrenaline speaking or something?" Her eyes immediately shift from her phone and lock on my eyes. Her expression changes suddenly and her mouth opens, but nothing comes out. 

"What, so you can't speak one minute, can the next, and then you can't speak again if your life depended on it? I think it's all an act. I mean, you've proved you can speak," I snap at her.

"I didn't even realize I was speaking until this very moment," her voice is soft and timid like her personality. She bites her lip and abruptly breaks eye contact with me. With a swift turn her posture slumps. Her back was now to me going back to looking at her phone. "I'm going to try and fall asleep," her words slip out of her mouth and feel cold to my ears. I place my hand on her back without even realizing that I'm doing it.

"I'm sorry," I find myself saying. "I shouldn't have snapped. I know you've been through some tough crap. Talking is hard. I get it," but I really didn't. I had no idea what it was like to have no parents and have your brother die. I had no idea what it was like to feel that amount of pain at such a young age. I truly felt bad for accusing her of faking it, but I didn't get it. I really didn't, yet for some reason I could feel her pain without really feeling it. I don't understand, but I do. I feel her back begin to move under my hand. I hear a couple of sniffles.

"I guess it really didn't phase me that I was actually speaking to you. You just seem, I don't know, different? You're the first person I've talked to in years, and somehow I'm okay with that. You're familiar," she lifts her hand to wipe away a tear. 

Familiar

"Okay," I have no idea how else to respond. I take my hand away and leave her alone for a while. 

An abundance of time passes as I lie down and look up to the sky. She's next to me, her back still turned, sound asleep. I watch the Sun rise above the skyline, feeling at peace. I look over at her phone. I turn it on to find it's broadcasting our front door. One man is still there, thus indicating that they haven't left yet. What could they want from me? It doesn't make any sense. I just wanted a nice Summer to myself. Apparently I can't have something like that. It never ends. I'm always on my toes. 

I lie back down and try to steady my still heavy breathing until I hear the door opening coming from Charlie's phone. Are they finally leaving? I pick up the phone and watch my best friend open the door and jump back in surprise. He yelps a bit like he usually does when he's scared. My heart leaps into my throat. The man grabs him by the shoulders and wraps his arm around him, reaching into his own pocket with his free hand.

"How! Charlie! Help! Ahh! Get off of me you freak!" I hear him screech from the faint audio. I cover my mouth with my hand as I watch Chester struggle in his grasp. There's nothing I can do. The man brings out a cloth and sets it on the small coffee table by the door. Then he submerges his hand into his pocket once more to bring out a small bottle of some sort. He pours it on the cloth and sticks the bottle back into his pocket. He grabs the cloth and brings it to Chester's face. Chester shrieks and screeches in protest, wiggling his head as far back as he can.

"Shh..." the man coos as Chester's screams are muffled by the cloth. I watch his eyelids flutter in protest. "That's it, go to sleep, kid." His consciousness gradually slips away from him, and he eventually goes completely limp.