Empêchement

Alice

And waited.

I rang the doorbell a second time. No! Please! I need someone to be home! The next house was at least a mile away and it was already too dark out for me to comfortably walk that distance.

Still, nobody answered.

I rang the bell again just in case.

There was an immediate, muffled "Ohmigod, what do you want?!' from just inside the door. The person swung open the door with an irritated vigor. "You do know that it's polite to leave after no one answers the second time, right?" The girl exclaimed. Her blond hair was a mess and looked especially tangled towards the back to the left, like a cow-lick gone wild. She was wearing mismatched pajamas and socks like she had just gotten out of bed.

Her annoyance did not help my nerves. Que my panicked explanation: "I'm really sorry. My names Ena. My truck just ran out of gas and I don't have any cell signal. I was hoping to use your phone. I'm sorry." I said in a rush

She just stared at me for a moment, all her past irritation gone. "You apologized twice while talking just then."

I looked down at the welcome mat. I had to resist the urge to apologize for apologizing so much. "Yeah, I'm sorry, I'm a very apologetic person." I screamed at myself internally. I did it again! I just told myself not to!

"I noticed." She looked at me for another moment. I kept my eyes on the doormat. "You said you ran out of gas and needed a phone?"

I looked up and nodded.

"Well, you're just outa luck, aren't you? We just moved here, like, five days ago. We haven't gotten a phone that works, and I don't have cell signal either."

I had a sudden urge to bang my head against a wall. My parents are gonna kill me.

"But, my parents aren't home, so you could just stay over tonight and get your truck in the morning. It's kind of weird staying the night in a stranger's house, but we're both relatively new here. This could be an advantage." She smiled warmly and stepped out of the threshold, gesturing me in.

I hesitated for a moment. I never told her that I was new here.

Whatever, Ena. I began reasoning with myself. You're lost and stuck in the woods. It's this or that tree over there. Besides, she has no ill will.

I had always been weirdly in-tune with people's intentions and basic feelings before they told me. I would always get weird looks when I mentioned someone's crush to another person before I was told about it, so I tried to keep it as to myself as much as possible and justify it by convincing myself I was really good at reading body language. So far, I haven't been wrong, so I entered the house.

The moment I in I instantly froze. There was about a 90% chance that I would break something or smear dirt on the perfectly white carpet.

Everything in this house, or at least the entryway, looked so damn excruciatingly expensive.

Directly across from the door was a sunset-colored wall, about five feet away from where I was standing. There was a giant, perfectly clean mirror with a large, golden frame around it. Under the mirror, there was a tall, rectangular table with a large golden bowl on top with nothing in it.

To either side of the table where two small, very green trees that only looked fake because they were so green in such a dim entryway. There was a coat rack to the left of the door, and I was standing on a very expensive looking white rug. Under the rug was real tile. Not linoleum. Everything was so symmetrical.