She Had Ten Seconds

Anybody Want a Pizza?

I threw an empty container of Nutella across the kitchen. Talk about getting your hopes up. I wasn't a huge fan of violence, but I would literally kill for some Nutella right now. Prison food sucks. "You'd think someone would've fucking cleaned out the cabinets. Isn't anyone trying to sell the house?"

"Nope. It's still ours. Which means it's our job to keep it clean if we want it clean."

"Or we can hire somebody," I suggested, scooping up as much as I could and dumping it in the trash. All of it was either expired or empty. Disappointing.

Chase snorted. "With what money?"

"Our parents? I thought that was obvious."

"Right. Because you obviously have their credit card on you. How could I have forgotten that?"

"Oh, shut up," I sighed. "I'm going to order a pizza-"

"With what money?" Chase demanded. "I'm hungry too, but that isn't going to make money just appear out of thin air!"

"No, but I can raid the rooms upstairs. I'm sure you and I have a couple bucks hidden somewhere in our rooms, and your dad always kept a couple franks lying about for drugs."

Chase paled. "I'll just check my room then and I'll call the pizza guy when I'm done. You can get the others?"

The corners of my mouth twitched. Nearly two years, and my cousin was still scared shit-less of his abusive father. Then again, I suppose I wasn't much better. I wasn't exactly thrilled to go into my parents room.

I crept upstairs. It was dark, but I guess no one had paid the electric bill, because the light switch wasn't working. That, or the neighborhood was having a blackout.

I started in my room. Suddenly what people were talking about when they said PTSD really messed with you. My head was filled with the blaring of sirens and flashes of red and blue danced in front of my eyes.

I stumbled back. I squeezed my eyes shut tightly and took a deep breath, before striding into and grabbing the box with my secret stash of money. My father always said that Chase and I didn't our own money since we were all family and family shared things with each other. Yet he never bought anything us either, since he believed we were to young to actually need money or to be responsible enough to know how to spend it.

A very contridictal man, my father.

I scanned through bills. A twenty, three tens, seven fives, and about a dozen ones. More than enough for pizza for a couple days. I wouldn't have to go into anyone else's room just yet.

My stomach rumbled. Chase better have called the pizza man, because I was hungry.

I got downstairs and realized the lights were still off. I frowned, considering that the electricity bills probably hadn't been paid in two years. Or the water bills, but I don't think that was as big of an issue at the moment. God, I don't think we had anything right now, except for the roof over our head, clothes, and just a little under a hundred bucks in cash.

Maybe it was a little brash to break out of prison. It sucked balls there, but at least they kept us fed. What I wouldn't do for a slice of pizza right now.

Disclaimer; there wasn't much. Save talking to my parents or just seeing any of my other family members that were in jail right now, I would do pretty much anything. I'm aware that includes murder. But, considering my childhood and how hungry I was, murder was starting to look like a pretty good option. Especially if it involved cannibalism afterward.

Yet, as I'm saying this, I'm realizing how bad that sounds. You know what, just forget. All you need to know is I was really really really hungry.

I looked in the kitchen first, but Chase wasn't in there. I did notice though, that he had finished clearing out the cabinets as well as the fridge and freezer. Both of which were working too, so I guess my parents were rich enough to continue paying their bills while they were in jail. That or maybe somebody new had bought the house and was on vacation. I doubted the second option though. All of our stuff was exactly the way we left it.

I wandered into the dining room. Nothing. The sitting room. Nothing. I walked around towards the back of the house. Chase was sitting in one of the papasans, curled up with his knees tucked into his chest, ordering a pepperoni pizza. I allowed myself a small smile. It was probably the most normal thing I'd ever seen Chase do, besides panicking over a test he forgot to study for. It was nice.

He hung up the phone and I asked him, "How long until it gets here? Also, how much? Because guess what I found?"

I held up the money I'd found in my room, fanning out the bills so he could see how many there were. He smiled.

"It's twenty bucks and it'll be here in half an hour. From the looks of it, we'll be able to order pizza for at least the next three nights," Chase estimated. He tilted his head the side and added, "Or Chinese. We should order Chinese tomorrow. Shit, breakfast. We're going to need milk."

"Milk?"

"Yeah. There are a couple boxes of cereal, by which I mean two, that haven't expired yet. We're going to need milk though, because that shit curdle a long time ago."

As I considered how I was going to get milk, I asked, "What type of cereal is it?"

"Pretty sure it was Honey Nut Cheerios and Cornflakes."

I rolled my eyes. "So we'll need real cereal and milk, as well as Nutella and bread. Probably some soda and a couple bags of chips. Maybe some sort of meat. Also, pasta. And sauce. I'm going to find some paper."

"M'kay. You do that. I'll see what kind of stores are close to our house."

"You know we could just get someone to get it for us. Pretty sure there's an app for that."

"We shouldn't blow our money though."

"Yeah, but we're supposed to be in jail."

"There are these things called sunglasses and baseball caps. Plus, it's practically winter. Wear a hoodie or something."

"Fine," I agreed, putting my phone back into my pocket. "I'm going to write down what I think we need and then I'll give it to you so you can add whatever you want. We'll probably also need things like laundry detergent, shampoo, and things like that. And maybe some new clothes and shoes, so you might want to make sure your stuff fits."

"Will do," Chase sighed, pushing himself out of his chair, and headed to his room.

I went to my room to find paper and a pencil and started writing things down. I did a quick run down of what we did have and was surprised to find that we had most of the things we needed, or at least enough to keep us going for a little while. Although I guess, if nothing had been touched since we left, and we were living here when we went to jail, it made since that all the non-edible supplies we needed would be here. My old clothes were too small, but I was able to steal a couple things from my father's closet. I guess I had really grown in jail, because I fit perfectly in my dad's suits. I chose the least classy ones he had, since he had nothing but suits to wear. While I hate my dad and everything he stands for, I had to admit, the suits I had taken were pretty nice. I can see why he liked them.

The pizza came just as I handed the list to Chase. I paid the delivery guy, and Chase worked on adding to the list while we ate. He finished it up just as we finished eating. Chase taped the list to the front door, so when we passed by it, we'd be reminded to take it with us and go shopping. I went ahead and threw away the pizza box and threw the two left over pieces into a bag and put them in the fridge. We both hit the sack after that and fell asleep almost instantly. It had been an eventful day, and tomorrow promised to be just as laborious, with the shopping spree ahead.

All I could think of though, was the fact that I hadn't gotten to see Paige yet. I couldn't help but wonder if she even remembered me. We'd barely known each other a month after all was said and done. And I hadn't seen her once since I was arrested.

I wondered what she was doing right now.

A/n-....yeah, i have no excuse. enjoy the new chapter! i'm thinking the next one is probably going to be from paige's perspective.