"That's it."

7.22 PM

Tré tilted her head back, tears streaming the sides of her face. Belly aching, mouth wide as she continued laughing hysterically. She swiped the droplets, shaking her head, unconvinced that the story Stella told was true. "No, Wait," Tré hiccupped, failing miserably to control her misfit giggles. "Say it's not so," she continued, wheezing in between breaths.

"Oh, but it is so!" Stella collaborated, all while trying to maintain her fit of laughter. "I swear it."

"How did you manage to lock yourself out again?" Tré demanded, wanting to hear the story again. Stella exhaled, hoping that would silence the next round of giggles.

"When I first moved in here, the front door bottom lock would sometimes lock behind me. Even when I unlocked the darn thing. I would have to jam the key in, jimmy with it before it would finally cooperate. Anyway," Stella continued, rolling her eyes, watching Tré's mouth curl into a grin. Knowing darn well, what happened next. "I decided to grab the mail, as I do almost every day. Unfortunately, that was the one time I choose not to grab my keys like I usually do. For some reason, I thought maybe I was being overdramatic, and so I didn't take them. And not only that, my dumb ass decided to close the door too." Stella grunted, she raked her fingers through her hair as the memory of that day came to mind.

It was one of the worst days she had that year. And only living in her home for a few months while still assimilating to the house's quirks. From remembering to shimmy the back patio windows on cold nights or the frame will stick to how she couldn't heat food past four minutes in the microwave or the wires will short circuit. Causing the kitchen and dining area to blackout. That hard lesson was learned after reheating Chinese food before taking a shower. She was stuck in pitch blackness until she made it to the breaker board and flip the switches back on.

"Honestly, I blame my phone and that overly addicting Candy Crush game I was playing. I was utterly entrenched with keeping my high score, I mindlessly walked to my mailbox, grabbed my mail, and when I walked up to my door," Stella said, shaking her head. "Lo and behold, I was locked out of the house."

Tré's face started to twitch as she tried not to laugh. She knew how the story ended yet couldn't contain the giggles from manifesting. Trying to remember the last time she was locked out of her home only to draw a blank. Although she had to admit, that must have been terrible being locked outside of your home and not knowing what to do about it.

Stella glared at Tré baffled that she dared to laugh at her situation. Only to find her own mouth pulled back in a half-smile. Admittedly, if the roles were reversed, she would be equally tickled. "You can imagine my devastation when I realized the door was locked. Then I had the nerve to look for my keys. Which I left inside. Because I told myself I didn't need them. I cursed myself for not taking the time to make spares when I first moved in." The regret she felt that day reemerged, and how different it could have ended.

"So, what did you do next?"

Stella reached up and scratched her nose. "Well, the thought to cross the street and ask my neighbors if they had a spare crossed my mind. I have a rapport with them thankfully when they first greeted me when I moved in. Then the idea of talking to them to anyone sounded unbearable. I was already locked out, why torture myself anymore?"

Tré chuckled, she took another bite of her pizza chewing contently as she listened to Stella's story unfold.

"So, next, I thought, 'Hey, why not break-in? It's my house.' The problem, however, was a lot harder to do than I initially thought."

"What did you use?"

"Well, despite being versatile, my luck was not. And since there were no tools happily available, I used a rock. About the size of a golf ball, I tried breaking my bedroom window only for it be ineffective." Stella leaned back, tilting her chair, a humorless snicker slipped past her lips. "Emphasis on tried, the stupid rock had the nerve to bounce back and smack me in the face. I ended up with scratch and not the window," Stella mumbled, tracing the small indent marked right above her left eyebrow.