Page 33 of Unbelonging
By the time I'd gotten the blouse back in my clutches, Chucky had been thoroughly entertained, but I was flushed, breathing hard, and my hands were damp with ketchup and dog-slobber. I did a quick rinse in the sink, and then, holding the blouse by my thumb and forefinger, I marched straight out the back door and stalked the few short steps to the trash bin near the back entrance.
It wasn't until I'd flung the ruined blouse into the bin and slammed shut the lid that I had a horrible thought. Ihadunlocked the back door, hadn't I?
The door had one of those annoying safety features that let you turn the knob from the inside whether it was locked or not, but wasn't nearly as accommodating the other way.
My pulse racing, I hurried to the back door and gave the knob a twist. It didn't move, well, at least not enough to count. The damn thing was locked. Of course.
I'd been outside less than a minute when the chill night air started to seep in with a vengeance. Normally, I'd have never stepped outside the house in so little clothing. But it was dark, and I'd been roasting from the hot bath and the chase with Chucky. I didn't think it would matter.
Apparently, I was wrong.
My hair was still wet, and I was dressed for bed, and then only just barely. Maybe I'd been stupid to step outside like this in the first place, but I hadn't planned to be out for more than a few seconds.
It was a clear night with a full moon, which gave me a good view of my surroundings. Frantically, I glanced around the back patio, looking for something. What, I didn't know – a blanket, a jacket, anything. It didn't take me long to realize that unless I could snuggle up with a patio chair, I was so screwed.
Shivering, I tried all the back windows within reaching distance, and then, made my way around to the side of the house, and finally to the front, the fear of someone seeing me like this fading to near insignificance compared to the fear of freezing any longer than I had to.
Returning to the backyard, I glanced in the general direction of Lawton's house. He was the only person in the neighborhood I remotely knew. He was a friend. Maybe more than a friend. I blinked hard. Maybe he wasn't anything. I'd just seen him a few hours earlier, and he hadn't mentioned anything about a party.
It was pretty obvious I wasn't on the guest list. Then again, the way Brittney talked, it wasn't exactly a normal party. If she was telling the truth, if only girls were invited, I could only imagine what the entertainment would consist of. The whole thing made me sick to my stomach.
Glancing at the back fence, I listened for the sounds of music or voices. Were Brittney and Amber there right now? Were they all laughing at me, telling Lawton all about their freaky good time? I didn't hear anything, and I didn't see any lights through the shrubbery. Then again, only an idiot would be outside in this temperature.
An idiot like me.
I couldn't go to Lawton's house. I just couldn’t. Not like this.
I needed to find another solution.
It wasn't a terribly windy night, but the air was so frigid it barely mattered. Dressed as I was, even the slightest breeze cut through me. The cold burrowed deep into my bones as I hustled to the driveway and tried my car doors. They were locked. Of course.
And even if my carhadbeen open, what then? I didn't have my car keys, so I couldn't exactly start it up. And without any heat, sleeping in my car really wasn't an option.
By now, I was cursing out loud, but even the foulest words I knew – and I knew plenty – did nothing to stop the chattering of my teeth.
It was becoming painfully clear that I had two choices – break one of the Parkers' windows or knock on a neighbor's door. And then what? If I broke a window, I'd have to pay for it. If I knocked on a neighbor's door, would they even answer at this time of night? And if they did, what then?
Even using their phone, there was nobody I could call, not now. Erika was two hours away, Grandma didn't drive, and neither of my parents were any kind of option. So my alternative was what, exactly? Asking to sleep on some neighbor's sofa until I could get a locksmith to come out tomorrow morning?
I winced. How much would a locksmith cost? And what would the neighbors tell the Parkers when they returned?
Shit. No matter how I looked at it, I was beyond screwed. I wrapped my arms tight around my shivering body, feeling the first sing of tears.
I knew what I had to do. It was the thing that had been rattling around in my brain from almost the very first moment I'd gotten locked out.
I didn't want to. Out of all my options, it was the least attractive, with the possible exception of freezing to death.
The thought of facing Lawton, along with Brittney and her friends, was almost too mortifying to contemplate. The humiliation from earlier was still fresh, and the thought of heaping on another dose made me want to throw up in the bushes.
Stop thinking about it, I told myself. Just march over there and get it over with. You can borrow some clothes, see if he knows a cheap locksmith, whatever. But you can't stand outside forever freezing your ass off.
I glanced at the back property line. Technically, only a fence separated the properties. But it wasn't your average fence. It was tall, pointy, and iron, with no place to gain a foothold.
If I were a tiny terrier, I'd simply squeeze between the posts. If I had a death wish, I'd try to climb over. If I wanted to make the evening news, I'd skip the fence and go the long way, by sidewalk.
And then I remembered the stepladder. I vaguely recalled seeing it behind the Parkers' second garage, hanging off a hook or something. Before I could give it too much thought, I rushed over and yanked the ladder off its hooks.
Shivering, I dragged the heavy thing across the back lawn and stood it next to the fence. The ladder's top platform didn't quite reach the top, but it got me a whole lot closer.
