Just Give Me One Good Night

Knock, knock.

I furrowed my eyebrows in confusion, momentarily glancing away from the blinking cursor that was just too threatening to deal with at the moment.

I spun around, using my feet to stop the chair from spinning. I glanced at my clock, sitting on the nightstand.

8:14pm, the red letters flashed. Who could possibly be knocking at this time of night? Alex was out and neither of my parents were home.

It happened again. The soft knock, knock. Only this time I realized where it was coming from. Not the front door, like I had originally thought, but instead, my window.

Now, in hindsight, I shouldn’t have opened it. I was a teenage girl alone in the house. I was easy prey to any creep. But...I was, also, as curious as I was cautious. So, I let it propel me to my feet and carry me over to my window.

I slowly moved the curtain, and squinted through the little slit in the blinds. I caught a glimpse of blondish-brown hair and purple crystal earrings. Knowing it was a girl, I felt the tiniest bit safer, but still something tugged in my stomach.

I parted the curtains before grabbing the blinds and pushing them up to reveal...my neighbor.

This was particularly odd, for many reasons, but the biggest one was the fact that I had never spoken to her before.

We had lived next to each other for years and we saw each other in passing. There was that one year I went to school online. I used to sit at the dining room table, with a perfect view out the window. I used to always see her come and go, day and night.

Her cat sometimes wanders over into our yard as well, and I’ve seen her and her family out gardening or playing volleyball or sunbathing.

I had always doubted that she even knew I existed. It wasn’t like I went outside much. 

All of this, though, still doesn’t change the fact that we’ve never spoken.

I had never even actually seen her up close before, always at least 20 feet away.

Though now, she was merely two away and in the dying rays of the sun I could see the freckles painted so clearly over her skin, as if an artist had designed them himself. I saw the natural streaks of light blonde in her hair that really wasn’t brown at all, but actually a dark shade of blonde.

I saw the purple crystal earrings with a white crop top tied right above her navel, along with her jeans that were the lightest shade of blue they probably sold. I saw the tie dye sweatshirt she had tied around her waist and how her hair was fuzzing out of her bun. She had a line of gold bracelets on her left wrist and her phone in the other.

Curious as to what she was doing at my bedroom window(how did she even know it was my window?) in the evening when we had no idea who the other was, I unlocked the window and lifted it, although I did leave the screen.

“Hi,” She spoke. Her voice was probably the softest I’d ever heard. It reminded me of the Dove commercials where they’d pour the chocolate into the fountain and swirl it around. I never had someone’s voice remind me of something but this was a night full of firsts and it didn’t feel like the most important thing to address at the moment.

“Hello,” I answered, unsure of what to do.

“I’m Katie,” She introduced.

“Lila.”

“Lila,” She repeated, lips twitching upward which might’ve counted as a small smile, “That’s a nice name.”

“Thanks,” I say, because I don’t know what else to.

“I’m your neighbor,” She says as if I didn’t know.

“I know,” I say, to let her know I know.

We stand in silence for a few seconds, the screen the only thing separating us. Somewhere in the distance, a bird tweets.

“You wanna do something?” She asks, as if we were bored friends sitting together in a room.

There’s multiple reasons I should say no. For one, I don’t know her, she could be a psychopath and axe murder me in the words or play a cruel prank on me where I end up dead. Two, there’s the fact that we’re both women and it’s almost completely dark. I don’t need to elaborate. Three, how will I know where we are going? What if she takes me to a party and leaves me there with no way to get home and no idea where I am. 

Instead of telling her some lame excuse like I have a bunch of homework, I said, “Like what?” Because I’m curious and weak.

She shrugs as if she hasn’t decided yet.

“Okay,” I say. I don’t know why. I don’t know why I’m doing this.

“Cool.” She says in a tone that almost sounds like she doesn’t care.

A few more seconds of silence pass.

“Do you wanna come in?” I ask because it seems polite.

“Sure but only because you need to change.”

I look down, suddenly self conscious of the fact that I was in a soft pink nightshirt and shorts with palm trees on them.

…………..

I let her in the front door, because it seems like the nice thing to do.

She follows me to my bedroom, eyes wandering around the house and the pictures lining the hallways. I wait for her and once she’s done, I let her go in first.

She inspects my room with the same intensity that she inspected the hallway. She trails around the room, starting in one corner and going all the way around, and just like in the hallway, I let her look. I let her trail her fingers along the wall, over the haphazardly placed pictures and hastily pinned up posters.

She stops when she reaches the closest and pulls open the knobs, doors sliding open, as if welcoming her.

I sit on my bed and watch as she shuffles through my closet. I should probably feel weirded out or like my privacy is being invaded, like I normally would. I should think about how unusual this was, but instead I wasn’t.

I wasn’t quite sure why, but then again I wasn’t quite sure I wasn’t dreaming, slumped over onto my keyboard, the keys imprinting on my face and leaving a long trail of l’s over and over again on the page.

I’m knocked out of my thoughts when she throws my sister's light green shirt at me, along with one of my pants that actually had pockets, “Put this on.”

I debt going to the bathroom, but she keeps her back turned as if giving me privacy, so I change as quickly as I can. It’s like she has some psychic sense, or maybe she can just hear the rumbling of the fabric, but either way she turns mere seconds after I’m done.

“Ready?” She asks but she’s already halfway to the window as if it was a rhetorical question.

I answer anyway. “Yeah, I’m just gonna go get my shoes.”

I don’t say I run, because that would be awkward and unnecessary but I grab the first pair of slip-on tennis that I can find and hightail it back to the room.

I make it back just in time to see her jumping out of the window, like she forgot we had a door. Not wanting to be the odd one out, I climb out of the window as well, closing it once my feet touch the ground.

When I look back she’s halfway to the street and I have to jog to catch up to her.

I briefly remembered my list of worries and figured I should have added mode of transportation. However, I blindly follow her and hope she has a car.

…………..

She doesn’t have a car.

She does, however, have a bike.

I’m not sure that’s better.

She heads to it and I think I see a light in a neighbor’s house flick off. She climbs on the seat and nods behind her, motioning for me to get on. I do and all of two things flood my mind, that scene from SKAM and if she’ll be strong enough to push both of us, because if not, that would be embarrassing. For both parties.

Despite my worries, she pushes off with practice ease and we glide down the driveway. We bike(or she bikes, I stand and try not to think about falling) out of our cul-de-sac. I’m not sure where she’s taking me but I don’t ask. My thoughts somehow drift to Genera+ion and Greta.

We bike for a while, not really saying anything. About twenty minutes later we arrive at a Shell Gas Station. As she locks up her bike I suddenly get hit with a very important realization. I’m broke.

I still follow her inside though, and think about how to tell her. We head to the cooler section first. She throws open the door like she could care less and props it open with her body. She leans in and starts grabbing two of things and handing them to me, without stopping to ask if I like any of them.

“Um,” I stutter out. She stops and looks at me. “I left my wallet at home.” It technically wasn’t a lie.

She rolls her eyes as if it was the most ridiculous thing she ever heard and quite literally waves me off. She grabs two more different kinds of drinks and hands them to me before turning around and starting to pick bags of candy off the shelf.

I follow her to the register, both of our arms full. There’s only one guy in front of us, who had a Honey Bun and a box of brownies in hand. It makes me realize how much I want a Honey Bun and some brownies.

As if Katie reads my mind, she reaches over and grabs a Honey Bun and a box of brownies. The guy finishes checking out and we unceremoniously dump everything on the counter.

We leave with almost four full bags. I think about how exactly we were going to carry these things until I realized she had a basket attached to her bike. That would certainly make things easier.

We place the bags in the bike and a few seconds later we were off, riding down the city streets. This time we only rode for five minutes until she pulled into an alley. As we got off I wondered if she was going to buy some drugs but she kicked the bike behind a dumpster and used a tarp to cover it up. 

That told me we weren’t going to be staying in the alley. She turns to me and looks me up and down with narrowed eyes. She unties the sweatshirt around her waist and hands it to me. For the second time that night she says, “Put this on.” I do as she says.

I slide the surprisingly soft material over my head and try my hardest not to get it stuck. I fix the sweatshirt and push my hair back to find her staring at me. She looks away, as if she didn’t mean for me to catch her. She hands me a couple of drinks and tells me to put them in my pocket. 

I’m confused but I do it anyway. She hands me two bags of candies before she opens the box of brownies and grabs three out. She hands those to me as well. She stuffs some candy down her front pockets, as well as her back, but there’s still some left in the basket.

Before I can say or think anything, she grabs the bag of skittles and the honey bun and shoves them down her shirt. I can’t do anything but stare in disbelief as she fixes the candy so it doesn’t look that suspicious.

When she’s done, she nods her head and I once again follow her. We make our way around the building and once I spot the huge sign attached to the front of the building the candy smuggling makes sense.

“Oh, that’s why.” I point dumbly to the sign.

She makes a sound that closely resembles a laugh and takes my hand, dragging me inside(although she doesn’t have to do much dragging).

She gets tickets for a horror movie I’ve never heard of and we sit in the back, waiting until the lights dim and loud music or screams to crack open the drinks and candy. Some guy near us ended up telling an employee who came up to us and rudely told us to give them the candy. Katie told them to shove it and we were escorted out.

We exited the theater laughing and I couldn’t say I wasn’t impressed. “Come on,” She took my hand again, “I know a place.”

We took the bike down some back roads and up multiple hills. I was quite impressed at her stamina, although maybe it was all the sugar we drank. We stopped once again at the gas station to grab slushies. 

Once we had them, instead of going back down the street, we trudged up a back pathway up a hill, both of us holding a slushie and a bike handle. Once we reached the top(which took longer than expected) Katie dumped the bike on the side and we grabbed all the snacks before sitting on the edge.

Normally, I’d be freaked, but somehow, being with Katie, it doesn’t make you feel that way. We talked for a little while, chatting about school and homework and life. Hobbies and interests and sports we played(okay, well, sports she played).

After some time, we lapsed into a comfortable silence. 

“Oh!” She said, as if she just remembered something. She dug a hand in her shirt and I was about to ask what she was doing when she pulled out a bag of skittles and my honey bun. I laughed as she handed me it. 

“Sorry, kinda forgot about it,” She apologized.

“It’s alright. It can be a midnight snack,” I said.

She leaned over, “Hey, I, uh, hate to tell you this but it’s midnight.”

“What?” I glanced down at my watch and threw my head back, laughing, “It is!”

Silence slowly fell over us and we bathed in the lights of the city and the honking of the cars heard somewhere in the distance.

Katie was, once again, the person to start the conversation, “I come here sometimes when I want to be alone.”

I looked towards her, giving her my attention.

“Sometimes it just gets too much, you know? Like you just wanna escape, forget for a little while.”

I nodded, “I get it. It’s why I read. To escape to some fantasy world where you can be a hero. Where you can pretend, if even for a second, that you actually can make a difference in the world.”

I don’t know why I said that. I’ve never said that out loud before.

We don’t continue the conversation. However she does ask me an unexpected question. She turns her head towards me, and says, “Wanna go bowling?”

…………….

We go bowling.

Two rounds and she destroys me in both of them. She buys me another honey bun to make up for it. We were about to head home when Katie spotted a miniature golf course across the way, so of course she dragged me there for some night golfing. They also had an arcade.

We finally make it home in the early morning hours. The sun was peeking through the trees ever so slightly and birds were chirping somewhere in the distance. We land in her driveway, laughing and high on adventure.

Eventually, though, it fades and we bid each other goodnight and head for our prospective doors. 

“Hey,” Her soft voice brings my attention back to her, “Thanks. For everything.” And she disappears inside before I can say anything.

That was the last time anyone saw Katie Mellock alive.