Charlotte's Story

Family

Renee's POV:

"Who are you?" A guy who was standing in my kitchen, cooking something on the stove, asked me.

The smell had tempted me out of my room; I was hoping it was Ryder, alone.

Maybe it would give us time to talk, to clear the air.

It had been one whole week of silence from both ends of the apartment.

However, the man standing in the kitchen was not Ryder. He was lean, wearing black dress pants and a white button-up dress shirt; he looked nothing like the type of friends Ryder brought home. He had no tattoos, no piercings, no scruff; he was clean-shaven. And lastly, he spoke to me; all of Ryder's visitors would stare at me but never talk to me.

When Ryder had girls over, it was the worse; they became very territorial; I wanted to slash all of their eyes out when they glared at me in my own apartment. Most of them would whisper something to Ryder, and he would glance up from the TV to stare at me.

"Renee, Ren," I say; Charlotte was my blog name.

"I take it you are the new roommate, Ryder keeps complaining about." The unknown guy washes his hands off in the sink before grabbing a head of broccoli out of the fridge.

I should be worried; he will soon kill me and leave my disassembled body parts lying about the living room floor. Ryder would then come home, look down at my dead body and give his friend a high five before they sat together for dinner.

After these thoughts run through my mind, I whine, thinking: He complains about me?

What did I do to him?

Because I had done nothing to Ryder, he was the one who was unbearable to live with. He was the one who allowed him and his buddies to eat all of the groceries that I had bought and stock the kitchen with. He blatantly smirked when I had walked out to grab my cereal out of the cupboard, and the box was empty.

I slammed the door to the cupboard, threw the empty box away, and then proceeded to slam the door to my room.

He was also the one who kept me awake night after night, and he was the one who did not have manners.

Instead of asking the stranger what I had done, I show that I am the type of girl that shakes it off and doesn't care what my roommate thinks of me. "Who are you?"

He takes his hand and places it on his heart, lightly tapping it. "I am hurt; you do not know about me. He must not be too upset with me of late. I am Josh, his oldest brother."

I stand in front of the kitchen island as I watch him cut the broccoli into bite-size pieces; on the stove was a pot of water it had just started boiling. He stops chopping to bring a green box out of a tote bag sitting on the counter. He starts breaking handfuls of angel hair noodles in half as he places them in the pot. He sets the timer for fifteen minutes. It was as if he had done this a million times.

"Do you want to help?" he holds up a knife to me, the handle facing me.

"Sure" I walk the rest of the way, happy to do something other than watching him and his hands work. My stomach was doing somersaults, my mouth watering from the smell. This was the first time I was able to cook and chop in my own kitchen.

I had been wanting to use the kitchen and was glad for the chance.

"Like this" he grabs my hand, curling his fingers around mine. "Just like this," he repeats, putting more pressure onto my hand, so I chopped the broccoli the same size his were. My previous batch looked just like this batch, and I wondered if this was just a tactic so he could hold my hand.