18

I woke up to a sudden noise, and immediately was awash with shame over my carelessness. I might have cobbled together some sort of plan, but I was in no condition to be relaxed enough to fall asleep. Even sleeping on a train would have made more sense.

I immediately thought that I must have missed the parents coming home, and I jolted around to stick my face into the closet door’s gap. But the only shoes I could see in the shoe rack at the end of the dimly lit hallway were U‘s sneakers.

That meant that U had already disposed of my sneakers at that point, but I wasn’t thinking about that at the time. My only concern was whether I could find her parents’ shoes there.

But I couldn’t. The shoe box was otherwise empty.

It was possible that the parents were extremely fussy, the type of people to tuck each shoe neatly and fully into the shoe box, but otherwise I could be a little more at ease… I felt like I had just awoken from a deep sleep, but perhaps it had only been a few minutes.

Some might argue I wasn’t nervous enough, but I’d been high-strung and put under tremendous stress for quite some time, so it was reasonable that I at least wanted to let my guard down for a little bit… That thought, or should I call it that defense, came to mind as I pulled out my cell phone, powering it on to check the time.

But the moment I saw the display, all possible self-defense disintegrated. It’s been 10 years, so I’ve forgotten the exact time, but suffice it to say that it was rather late into the night. I hadn’t just dozed off for a few minutes, I’d fallen completely asleep in that ridiculous scenario. I might’ve even been snoring for all I know.

All of my prior stress began working its way back into my body. Not only had a significant amount of time passed that I couldn’t account for, it was getting harder and harder to deny the strange reality that U‘s parents hadn’t returned home yet.

But perhaps they were very finicky people, and had put their shoes all the way into the box? It was a possible conclusion, given I only had sight on a fraction of an inch of the outside of the box. But I knew that wasn’t the case.

It might be a bit overdramatic to chalk it up to instinct, but… it was like the presence of the house. It was late at night, but still before midnight. Naturally U, an elementary schooler, would be asleep, but it was far too early for all the adults to be in bed. Yet strangely, not a single sound echoed throughout the house.

On the subject of my line of sight, the fact that the hallway was dim was also quite odd. If other people were expected to return home, then I would’ve left the lights on for them. So why did I have to rely on the light of the moon to check what little view I had of the entryway shoe box?

There were no parents around. The only two people in the house were U and I. I didn’t have any direct proof of that, but I was almost certain.

Of course, it was possible that both of her parents just worked the graveyard shift or something… That’s the natural next step, but as an eccentric, aspiring author, my mind immediately jumped to other, more imaginative and impossible ideas.

Like what if… U was living alone in the house? That was an idea. It would explain why she wanted to take me there.

It was outlandish. I had no supporting evidence, in fact only having evidence to the contrary. Like the car parked in the driveway. There was a lot of absurdity and craziness surrounding this little girl, but not enough to believe she could own or possibly even drive a car.

But I couldn’t stop all the haunting delusions rampaging through my mind. Just when I had finally thought I’d reach a solution to the problem I was in, the parents didn’t show up, adding another layer of panic and shock.

Uncertainty is terrifying. There might’ve been a few cracks of light shining through the door, but as long as I couldn’t see what was coming up next, it was no better than being in complete darkness. I have to wonder how many times I considered just giving up and calling the police then. It was getting to be too much of a hassle, too much of a roller coaster ride, and I was ready to throw in the towel.

But I didn’t, because I had set a singular goal: to endure just one night. Things were getting negative, dragging my thoughts straight down, but there were several valid reasons for parents to leave the house for an entire night. They weren’t getting any points for leaving their child alone, especially a child as abnormal as theirs, but it wasn’t so unacceptable as to be considered severe child neglect. Realistically speaking, every family in the world probably neglects their children at one point or another.

One night. I only needed to last one night.

Surely I could manage that. I certainly didn’t want to cause a whole fuss and bother over a situation that would’ve resolved itself had I just waited patiently for that little while longer. I didn’t want that regret hanging over me for the rest of my life. If I really wanted things to settle peaceably, and to just be able to forget it all within a week, then one night was nothing.

And really, it wouldn’t be nearly as hard as it sounded. I’d already been sleeping leaning against the door, which was an admittedly awkward position, but all I had to do was put myself on the ground and find a more comfortable position to sleep in. Then it’d be morning before I knew it.

With my decision made, all I had to do was follow a routine. When I knew what to do, it was easy enough to get moving. I took off my shirt (which wasn’t much of a shirt any more with all the slashes in the back anyway), spread it out on the ground, and lay down on it.

The closet wasn’t large by any stretch of the imagination, but as long as I didn’t try to get too needy and stretch my legs fully out, it was enough room for a fully grown adult. But even though I was a fully grown adult, the situation ended up with me acting more like a fetus in the womb.

I whispered good night to nobody in particular as I closed my eyes. Naturally, I didn’t hear any kind of reply.