Apparently, when the son of the president goes slightly crazy and almost discovers a secret CIA operation going on in the White House, the CIA agents trying to protect what’s left of the secret forget to actually feed the secret. Pancakes only last a girl a few hours.
I waited.
I waited for eleven hours, thirteen minutes and forty-two seconds before I thought it was safe to break out again. Which was exactly five hours and nineteen seconds after my stomach started to eat itself.
Damn CIA.
For a moment I wondered if they had installed their cameras in the hallway, then I remembered how little I cared and how I would have killed one of them for some food. I waited until the wee hours of the next morning to creep out. The situation was eerily similar to the night before, but I knew my way to the kitchen this time.
All of my training meant I was as silent as a cat when I entered the kitchen. My eyes were adjusted to the dark, and my hand was halfway stretched towards a cabinet I hoped contained some bags of chips or anything cheesy. Unbeknownst to me, there was another pair of eyes that were well adjusted to the dark.
The small light of a flashlight blared right in my face, and I felt exactly like a criminal on Cops, caught in the spotlight of a waiting law enforcement helicopter that was ready to take me to jail. I should have laughed. I mean, it was a freaking flashlight. But what it meant was actually quite terrifying. I had been caught again.
And by the same boy.
I turned and felt the light shine too brightly in my eyes, making it sting. I covered them and waited for what I guessed would be a pre-practiced speech. I was right.
“They tried to convince me I was sleepwalking, but I knew better. Now tell me why you’re in my kitchen, or I’ll call the cops.” He tried so hard to sound threatening. He should have practiced the speech to sound less like an actor who had just been handed a script and pushed onstage.
“You can’t be serious.”
“W-what do you mean?” he stumbled. I’d driven us off script.
“It’s the freaking White House. All you would have to do is scream,” I explained, already feeling disappointed in the lack of competition. “Idiot.”
“Oh, right.”
“I suggest you turn off the flashlight before you seriously regret it,” I threatened and felt relief on my eyes.
I was blinded to the dark, though, and felt around for a lightswitch.
I felt a little bad for the guy. This was probably supposed to be his shining moment. He caught me, and now I was treating him like chopped liver (which I would have gladly eaten). Instead of playing along in his dramatics, I searched through cabinet after cabinet until I found food sufficient enough to quench my painfully hungry stomach. My hand looked like it was wearing a powdered cheese glove before Warren spoke up.
“Um, wow, you’re really hungry.”
Between mouthfuls I spoke up. “I haven’t eaten for fifteen hours, twenty-eight minutes and thirty two seconds.”
Shit.
And that was the first clue I ever gave to Warren Layne Edley that I was far from the norm.
And it wouldn’t be the last.
“How do you know that?”
I never answered.
“How long did you wait in the dark?”
“Like, three hours.”
I nodded with recognition. That’s pretty good for a pressed-suit-wearing pretty boy.
A silence stretched between us only filled with my obnoxious chewing and him staring at me. I guess he expected one of those comic book-like thieves. A slim leather jumpsuit that hug every curve, flowing long black hair, pouty pink lips, just emanating sexiness.
Sorry to disappoint.
“Are you done, yet?” he asked, with overflowing annoyance at my spectacle of the epitome of teenage girldom.
“Are you?”
What was this guy’s deal? He’d proved that I existed; what else was there to this?
“No! I have some questions for you.” He whined loudly.
With the knowledge that the president of the United Stateswas not, in fact, deaf, I gave in; grabbing the chair across the table for where he sat and plopped down, chewing on some cosmic brownies. “Fire away.”
“What’s your name?”
I looked at Warren for probably the first time in real detail. The gel he had put in his brown hair made it glisten in the lighting. He had stunning blue eyes that have probably graced the first pages of magazines all across the country. The muscles that prodded out from under his shirt were formed in the safe environment of the White House facilities he had lived in since he was twelve. Now, all grown up, eighteen year-old Warren was enough to make preppy girls all over the country swoon.
I had a choice to make: either I could give him a silly name like ‘Lani, with an i’, or go gothic and edgy with a name straight out of a fantasy novel. Or I could tell him the truth and dive into a whirlwind of adventure that was sure to get me into legal trouble with my future employers.
The decision was easy.
I outstretched my hand for him to shake; it being the first remotely friendly thing I’d done. “Charlotte.”
He seemed pleasantly surprised, and he shook my hand back. “Warren.”
“Oh,” I assured him, “I know.”
“Right, I forgot. First family.” He seemed to have honestly forgotten.
“Don’t get out much?”
“Not really.” I thought I saw a hint of sadness. It quickly vanished as he continued his string of predictable questions. “Why are you here?”
"I'm being forced to against my will."
"No, seriously."
Honesty is so overlooked.
"Oh, I'm sorry. Where you expecting me to be thrilled about staying in this hell hole all alone? Because that's exactly what every teenage girl dreams of." I couldn't help my anger. I was annoyed with this place already. It was unbearable. Where was Health and Human Services when it mattered?
"No," he agreed, and then I got the first glance of cover boy Warren with what I assumed was supposed to be a smoldering look. "But there are girls who would kill to be in your position right now."
No professor trained me about how to react to an attractive guy flirting. I settled on keeping the sarcastic attitude up. I might have felt nervous or excited if I wasn't sure he was only acting that way because 1) I was the only other person in the building near his age of the opposite sex, and 2) Teenage male hormones cause boys to do the strangest things; including flirting with a girl who could kill them with a can of silly string.
My lack of response propelled him to continue. "Why are you here?" His right eye was narrowed a degree more than the other, and he was leaned across the wooden table to hear me better. For some reason, I really wanted to answer that question honestly.
I'd never had friends at all my other schools. The girls were too bitchy, and I was too weird. I had never really needed one, either. I still had human contact with my teachers and the occasional janitor with a hobby of small-talking with the students. The teachers who everyone thought had a stick up their ass liked me enough to fulfill my inborn human need for friendship. I wasn't going to find a friend in a room all by myself. With my only other option sitting in front of me, just begging for me to let him in, it was hard to keep my mouth shut.
"Can't tell you," I settled on saying, suddenly finding the wood grain more interesting than his disappointed frown.
"I'm sorry. Is it a broken home, family thing or—”
"Just," I sighed, "complicated."
Another silence passed for a while. My hand found its way to my unfinished pastry that laid on the table, though I wasn't really hungry anymore.
Frosting makes everything feel better.
"Well, it's kind of getting late," he noted.
It was. Thirty one minutes and four seconds had passed since he'd shined a flashlight in my face. "I don't know what else to ask, but I do have one more question."
"What?"
"Can I see you again, or is there going to be another fifteen people trying to convince me this never happened?"
The reasoning part of my brain screamed at me to tell him that we would never see each other again. The ID in me was the one that responded. "Of course we can. Just do yourself a favor, and don't get caught." And then, to top off the possibly the strangest night of my young life, I winked at Warren Edley.
Did I mention he's the president's son?
And I left him up to his own moral decision, walked away and back towards my room, a couple stolen bags of goodies tucked under my arms.
I managed to make it back to my room just fine in the dark. I replaced the doorknob and glanced around for the tiniest reflection of a camera lense.
Under my covers with my mind free to wander, the severity of what just happened hit me like a ton of bricks.
I'd just sat in the White House kitchen and conversed freely with one of America's most protected teenagers. Despite my grotesque display of manners, something I said or did made him want to break dozens of rules to see the freaky mystery girl again.
I thought back to Penny's face, how angry and disappointed in me she had been.
Everything I was doing was exactly what I wasn't supposed to do. It's the teenage stereotype. I swear the whole reason reverse psychology even exists is because of adolescence.
I was being stupid and immature.
And I really liked it.
So I would leave Warren up to make the next advancement. I wouldn't be breaking into his kitchen to steal any more delicious treats.
He wasn't as annoying as I thought. The way he apologized after I told him things were complicated showed the boy possessed even a little bit if empathy in his body. He could be worse.
I liked to think that his interest in knowing me was innocent, but I'd felt him staring at me as I left. And not at a part of my body that usually gets stared at.
Damn hormonal boys.
__________________________________________________________________________
So if any of you have read Of Mice and Men, you will know just how many swear words there are in that book. Why? For characterization. Charlie is a swearer, and as much as I may not like it, it's for the book. I'm not going to replace every word with a silly counterpart just to keep things more wholesome.
Anywho, thanks for reading. Special surprise next chapter! ;)