You Found Me

I woke up to a series of hard, loud knocks on the glass of my window. Sitting straight up, my heart racing, a sweat breaking out across my brow, I cautiously made my way across the room. I opened the window, but not before grabbing a huge umbrella out of my closet, ready to attack anyone that dared to invade my house.

But instead, Harry came tumbling through, landing in a heap on the floor after smashing some body part into my bookcase. It looked like he might have broken something from the strange angles his tangled limbs made, but he bounced up a second later, looking healthy as he brushed the wrinkles out of the front of his thermal shirt.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” I whispered angrily, very conscious of the fact that my father was a room away.

Harry grinned at me, a little dimple appearing in his cheek. God, I wished he wasn’t so goddamned cute. “I’m breaking you out.”

“Excuse me?” I questioned, my eyebrows shooting to my hairline. “It’s two thirty in the morning.”

“I know. All the better time for escaping. Your dad’s asleep, right?”

I stared at him and blinked a couple of times before looking down at myself. “Harry, I was sleeping.”

“And now you’re not. Grab a jumper, and let’s go.”

What the fuck was a jumper? “I’m in my pajamas,” I reminded him, looking down at my bright pink t-shirt and black running shorts.

He rolled his eyes. “It’s not like we’re going anywhere fancy. Just grab a jumper.”

“What the hell is a jumper?!” I snapped.

“Oh, sorry. Like, a sweatshirt or a sweater.”

I glared at him. “Where are we going?”

“God, you ask a lot of questions, don’t you?”

“Don’t you think I have a right?” I replied, realizing that I wasn’t answering his question. Oh, well, he could deal. “You come spazzing through my window at an ungodly hour and ask me to go somewhere that still remains a mystery, and I’ve only known you for a week. Remember? We met last Saturday at my sister’s wedding.”

He pondered that for a minute. “Oh, yeah. Seems like longer.”

There was a long pause before he stared into my eyes again. “Coming or not?”

The silence was thick and awkward, tearing us further and further apart. I could feel the distance growing between us, splitting across our friendship the longer we waited.

Finally, I sighed and picked up the light blue Victoria’s Secret sweatshirt that was hanging off the back of my closet door.

“If I die, I’m suing you,” I warned him.

“That’s not possible,” he told me smugly. “Also, your sweatshirt…you make a habit of shopping there?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?”

The two of us tip-toed through the dark and silent house as quietly and quickly as possible, making sure to skip over the squeaky step in the middle of the staircase. Once we were out on the porch, I closed the door as softly as I could and locked it before slipping the key into my pocket.

“So,” I whispered, as if I was still afraid I was going to wake up my father, even though I knew I was safely where he could no longer hear, “how, exactly, did you find out my address?”

“Your sister,” he responded nonchalantly, pulling open the passenger’s side of the SUV that was parked on the lawn in front of my house. “She’s a pretty cooperative girl, that one.”

I shook my head. “God, that’s just ridiculous. Shouldn’t she ask me before she gives my personal information to perfect strangers?”

He shut the door and walked around to the driver’s side before answering. “We’re not strangers. I thought we got to know each other pretty well at the wedding.”

My face filled with a nice shade of red as I remembered just how well we got to know each other. “Uh…yeah. Well, um, it’s still not her place to give you my phone number and address.”

“But good thing she did. Because, otherwise, we wouldn’t be able to have this adventure.” He put on his blinker and squirmed a little in his seat so he was sitting up straighter.

“I don’t think I want to be on this adventure,” I replied honestly, suppressing a giant yawn. “I’m exhausted.”

“Really? I’m wired.” He turned to me at the red light and grinned. “I don’t think I could sleep if I tried.”

“That’s because you’re on a completely different time zone,” I reminded him. “I’m from here. And, in my body, it’s two fifteen AM, like what the clock says.”

“Then take a nap,” he allowed. “It’ll probably be twenty minutes before we get where we’re going, anyway.”

I raised an eyebrow at him, but he just nodded toward the window. “Seriously. I won’t mind.”

Before he could change my mind, I shimmied down further in my seat to get comfortable and readjusted my seatbelt, leaning my head against the cold window. Almost immediately, I lost consciousness, my breathing slow and even as Harry guided us through the nearly pitch-dark streets of Connecticut.

* * *

“Leigh,” a deep voice whispered as my entire world shook, throwing off my center of balance. “Leigh, wake up.”

Blinking slowly, I came back to life, resisting the urge I had to yawn obnoxiously. “Where did you take me?” I asked in a voice garbled with sleep.

“This is the house I’m staying in,” he replied. “Or, really, a condominium.”

Ugh. Big words when I was exhausted. Perfect. “What?”

“It’s a condo,” he repeated. “Like a big apartment. It’s my uncle’s, but he’s back in England visiting the rest of my family for the summer, so he said I could come out here for a little bit to get used to America before I come here for uni.”

“Okay,” I agreed, even though I hadn’t understood half of what he said.

“Alright, we need to get some caffeine in you,” he announced as he threw open the door. “There’s no way this is going to be a success if you’re going to be a zombie through the whole thing.”

“Caffeine,” I repeated, the only word that had really sunk in. “Okay.”

He shook his head, chuckling lightly. “Coffee it is then.”

He climbed out of the car and shut the door loudly. It wasn’t until he was almost halfway toward the condo that I realized I was probably supposed to follow him.

I fumbled to get my seatbelt off me as quickly as I could to follow him, smacking myself in the face with the metal part in the process. I was vaguely aware that I must have had a red blotch on my face, but it didn’t so much matter to me at the moment.

“What kind of coffee do you like?” Harry asked as I scampered through the sliding door after him, only remembering after a second to close to thing to keep out mosquitoes.

“Uh,” I replied. “I don’t know.”

“Great. I guess I’ll just pick whichever one is in front.” He let out a short sigh. “You can sit on the couch, if you want. Just try not to fall back to sleep.”

I did as he asked, but of course, the second my body felt soft cushion, I was out cold.