𝚂𝚄𝙿𝙴𝚁𝚄𝙽𝙺𝙽𝙾𝚆𝙽 ✩ ɢʀᴜɴɢᴇ

𝚟𝚒𝚒. 𝚊𝚙𝚙𝚕𝚎𝚜

October brought with it more cold than ever. The girls were both used to harsh weather, but it just kept getting colder and colder and neither of them owned anything thicker than a heavy flannel. And they were starting to go hungry; their bosses were cutting their shifts and extra money made by picking up extra hours was now impossible to come by. Talk about tough times.

✩✩✩

"Noodles, we need noodles! We need--WE NEED NOODLES!"

"I HEAR YOU!"

"THEN ACT LIKE IT!"

Grocery shopping was something neither Charlie nor Alex enjoyed doing very much. They'd gone out to get some food with the few dollars left over from their miserable paychecks after paying their bills, but found the most they could afford were some bagged noodles and canned fruit. That would only last them a couple days (in reality, it should've lasted one, but they'd gotten good at saving food), and they were both paid by the month. Who knew when they'd be able to come back for more.

"If we were rich, this would be so much fun," Charlie said as she pushed the cart.

Alex turned to look at her from her spot in the basket of said cart. "Or if we had money at all," she said with a sour laugh. "Hurry up, I wanna get home already."

"This might go faster if you weren't in there." She was joking; this was their tradition. The one in the cart reached out and grabbed items while the one pushing it simply steered. They traded positions every market trip.

"That's it, I'm movin' out. See ya, Charlie--" Alex started to stand up, but Charlie jolted the cart forward, making her quickly sit back down.

"That's what I thought."

They paid for their food and left, Alex wrapping the groceries in her flannel and throwing them over her shoulder like Santa Claus. That was another funny little tradition of theirs.

They got home to quite the strange surprise: several impatient rockers waiting outside their door with their arms crossed, tapping their feet and looking around in pure boredom. Stone stepped forward when he saw the girls, hands out as he opened his mouth to explain.

"I didn't mean to tell them all where you guys live, we were all just hanging out and I remembered I wanted to bring you something and I also have news but then Sean wanted to know where you lived because he didn't think it was fair that I know where the place is at and he didn't and Ben said the same and I said no because if you hadn't told them then that might mean you didn't want them to know and I didn't want to be the one to bring them here but this really couldn't wait so I came and they all followed...but then you weren't here anyway..."

Alex blinked. "I caught like...twenty-five percent of that. I mean it's no big deal, we don't care if you guys know where we live. But why didn't you go in?"

"You think I was gonna let them know where the spare key is?"

"That's okay, you know. It's right here," Charlie said to the other guys. She took the coat hanger tied to their doorknob and lowered it into a crack between the wall and the floor, fishing around for a moment before carefully lifting it, the key hanging on the end. "It doesn't even matter who you are; if you can get it out of there, you've earned the right to get in."