The grocery store is mostly empty. Alice skips around in front of me like a little kid. She's in her pajama pants and her yellow-orange-ish hoodie. Her long, wavy brown hair bounces behind her as she runs down each isle.
How did I fall in love with this? I ask myself.
Alice has been my girlfriend for almost two years now, and she's always been like this. The dorky five year old trapped in a 20 year old's body. But I love her for that. I love all her quirks.
Alice grabs a bag of Muddy Buddies off the shelf and holds them out in front of me. I shove them back at her, "get that excuse of puppy chow away from me," I say, "you know what a disgrace that stuff is,"
Alice giggles to herself, "only you hate Muddy Buddies that much,"
"Because homemade puppy chow is superior, I won't argue anything else," I reply.
Alice puts the bag back and kisses my cheek before bounding off to find the m&m's. She had the "feminine urge" the make popcorn with m&m's and when she realized that we didn't have m&m's, she dragged my ass to the grocery store across from our apartment complex.
I follow Alice to the next isle over where she's intently deciding which back of candy to get. Peanut butter, brownie batter, regular. She's hopelessly indecisive.
"Ollie, help me, they're all so good," she complains.
I crouch down next to her and move her bangs off her forehead slightly, "Close your eyes and pick one,"
She closes her eyes and hovers her hand over a bag of m&m's. Alice reaches out to grab the party size bag of regular m&m's. I laugh once she opens her eyes.
"Good, extra ones to snack on outside of the popcorn," I press a kiss on her head.
Alice stands up and smiles at me, "yup,"
She goes to the register and pays for her goods, then takes my hand and drags us back to our apartment complex. We enter the lobby, which is empty. Alice goes to the elevator and presses the up button. It takes no time getting down to us.
We step into the elevator and I press level five. Despite the room, Alice stay close to me. I put my arm over her shoulder and she smiles.
"I love you, Ollie," she says.
I kiss the top of her head, "I love you too,"
The elevator stops on the third floor and the doors open. A lanky looking guy with long unkempt hair. Alice immediately shrinks into me. She hates being in elevators with other people that aren't me. Especially when they're a guy older than her. Something happened in an elevator when she was younger, and she hasn't really sprung back from it.
I wrap both my arms around her subtlety, just so the guy doesn't get suspicious or offended. He steps in and checks the button we've already pressed. He chooses level seven. I can tell that Alice is breathing heavier with her pressed this close to me; she's absolutely mortified.
The guy doesn't notice though, and soon we've reached our level and we get off. Alice springs out of my hold once the doors close and happily walks to our apartment. She unlocks the door and lets the two of us in, making sure to lock it when the door closes.
She sets the grocery bag down and looks at me with her beautiful eyes, "did that guy look weird to you?"
I nod, "I've never seen him around before; I doubt he even lives here,"
Alice frowns, "how would he have got in then?"
At this point I think she's starting to get more freaked out, and my previous statement didn't calm her down. I take her in my arms once again and say, "someone probably let him in, baby. I'm sure he's visiting a friend or something and he doesn't have a good living situation. It's okay, we're fine,"
Alice nods in my chest then looks up to kiss me. I oblige. Her lips are soft and sweet, and she's no longer trembling.
Eventually we separate and I give her a smile, "now, I was promised Mean Girls with popcorn and m&m's,"
Alice beams, "on it,"
**
Alice and I fell asleep on the couch. I woke up five minutes ago and haven't been able to go back to sleep. There's a horrible feeling in my gut, like something bad is about to happen. I don't dare wake Alice to tell her that. She's tough, but not when she's already on edge about something.
I carefully and quietly get up from the couch to make sure the door is locked. Alice shifts slightly when I stand up, and for a second I fear that she's awake, but she rolls over so her back is facing me. I sigh and head to the door.
It's locked, thank God. I decide that I should probably wake up Alice so we can go to sleep in our actual bed, she'll thank me later for that.
I head over to her when someone bangs on the door a few apartments down. I jump from the noise, and unfortunately it wakes Alice up.
"What was that?" She says tiredly, rubbing her eye.
"Someone'a being an asshole," I reply simply, walking over to her.
She flops against me as soon as I sit down and I run a hand through her long hair, "c'mon, baby, let's move to our room,"
"M'kay," is her response.
We get up and I lead her to our bedroom. We climb in and Alice immediately snuggles into my chest and I know she's asleep in minutes. But I still can't fall asleep. Another loud bang happens, this time it's closer. Alice wakes up again and looks terrified.
"Oliver, what the is happening," she murmurs.
I brush her hair, "I don't know,"
Another bang, this time at our door. Alice tenses completely. Her body feels like it's about to break in my arms. The bangs on our door repeat, one after the other. I get up and walk to the door. I'm not gonna open it but I need to see what prick is outside.
It's the guy from earlier. My heart drops and I step back slightly.
"Let me in," the guy shouts.
"I'm calling the police!" I shout back.
As a result the guy takes off down the hallway. I head back to the room and grab my phone to actually call the police. Alice remains frozen in shock during the majority of the call until she slowly calms back down and presses herself into me.
The police arrive shortly and check around the apartment for the guy. He's found in a cleaning room with a steak knife.
The police tell us a few weeks later that the guy had a knife in the elevator and was planning on killing the next person he found in there. When he saw us, he knew he couldn't get away with it, so he got on the elevator and tried to seem harmless. He was going around to rooms later that night trying to find Alice. He had every intention to kill her.
