“If you are bored, that just means you’re too stupid to find something to do.”
I couldn't remember where I had first heard that quote from, but it was probably said by some professor in a business suit who was (probably) yelling at the resident cool-kid druggies. At the time, I probably could not have agreed more.
My previous boarding schools kept me busy with encryptions and essays so lengthy they could have been novels. I always worked efficiently and free of distractions, getting the work done much faster than the girls who stayed up until three A.M. to catch up on the latest episodes of their favorite teen dramas. And when I ran out of work, I explored.
I would walk about the school, channeling my second consciousness, or what some call a sixth sense, and I would memorize the building from the inside out, down to chipped paint spots and stained glass patterns. It was all still a game – something to occupy my mind. Using math equations to determine the intricate pattern of the inlaid stone of the main foyer was a lot more fun than dwelling on the fact that Dad had forgotten it was Christmas. . .again.
The bigger the mansion, the more fun.
I would wander the halls, sense a crack in the plaster, and find secret hideaways or holes that other students had carved for less-than-clandestine missions. More than once I had wished the government only put in me same-sex institutions. The awkwardness of stumbling in on a make-out session never does wear off.
And when I was finished committing the buildingto memory, I planned my escape.
I got my skirts dirty by cutting off wired cameras in the duct work. I searched for loose floorboards of attics. I dug deeper; observing the daily routine of staff; learning when each one was most likely to eat lunch or give into their diets. I had gotten too many glares from other kids who knew my lineage – people who knew I would live up to my name. They thought I was a girl who could disappear into thin air, and they thought that’s who I would become.
Whenever I ran away, I always managed a minimum twenty-eight hour head start. On average, I wasn’t found for seven days. What I did during that time, I never confessed to anyone. And I wasn’t about to, either.
My protection detail had managed one thing by moving me to the White House: they completely ruined my record. All statistics were thrown out the window. I failed at escaping. I memorized the confines of my room in less than fifteen minutes. And I was more bored than I had been my whole life.
It had been two days since my encounter with Warren. The edginess that I had after that little rendezvous had worn off already. I realized shortly after that my little truth spell had been a big mistake. If anyone found out that he knew what I was, there would be hell to pay. When he came around again, I would keep my mouth shut. Any future interaction with him would be strictly for enjoyment, to get out of that damn fourteen by fifteen room.
I had given up on my bookshelf almost two hours ago, finding all of them all superfluousand unnecessary.
My fingers were moving rapidly across the keys as I attempted another encryption that would hopefully break through the database and get me internet access. I had tried guessing the WiFi password to no avail; that required so much more work, and the firewall was pretty good. With more time I would crack it. All I really wanted was some kind of connection to the outside world. I felt like if a nuclear war had broken out, I wouldn’t even know.
It was then that a folded up piece of paper came sliding underneath my door. I grabbed it quickly and read, feeling an irreplaceable excitement welling in me.
15 minutes. Be ready. - Warren
I don’t know how normal girls feel when they receive a mysterious letter from a boy that implies an adventure, but I guess it’s kind of like someone just lit a firework in your stomach and the fuse is burning down and all you want it to do is explode even though it would burn the hell out of you. But in a good way.
But, be ready for what?
I settled on dressing as if we were going out, though I really had no idea what we were going to be doing. Maybe I might get a look into the hidden nooks and crannies of the White House.
I left my laptop open, the black and white numbers flashing across the screen, and slipped into a pair of jeans, a v-neck, and a school cardigan that didn’t really look like a school cardigan.
Instinctively, I stashed a pocketknife and a hair tie into my tennis shoe before I remembered that Warren wasn’t likely to make me break into a bank like one of my teachers. I still had twelve and half minutes to get ready. He had assumed that since I was a girl, I would need all that time. And I might have...if I wasn’t taught the art of a quick getaway when I was in third grade.
I stared at the mirror, turned my head at different angles and tried to conjure a part of my brain that still held on to teenage girl ideologies. I fixed my hair and tucked my bangs back with a bobby pin, just like how I had seen other girls my age do. I brushed my teeth, then put on my glossiest tube of chapstick.
When I looked at the clock, I saw I had so much time left, so I put on some eyeliner and knew that it might as well be a proven fact that girls have better hand-eye coordination if they can put it on without poking themselves. The only reason why I knew that was because, halfway through doing my left eye, Warren knocked on the door.
His hushed and excited voice whispered to me through the wood, and I couldn’t help but wonder what he had planned, “You ready, Charlie?”
When he first told me he was going to call me that, I didn’t know how I felt about it. Hearing him use it casually, it didn’t sound as delicate as Charlotte. And I liked that.
“Coming,” I whispered back, putting away the liner and taking a quick glance around the room to make sure it was the same as it had been fifteen minutes ago.
I loosened the doorknob and stashed the screwdriver under my mattress before poking my head out and checking the hall for any signs of agents. Warren was curling his lip in that nervous way he did, hands resting at his sides and foot tapping.
“Where are we going?” I whispered, still cautions and watching for the cameras Porter mentioned they might put in. At any sign of a lense, I knew I would be disabling them as soon as possible. I couldn’t risk evidence when I finally managed a permanent break out.
He smiled, a mischievous glint in his eye that every teenager gets when they’re about to do something they won’t be able to tell their kids about. “Out.”
“Like, out-out?” I stumbled. He couldn’t mean he was sneaking out. Was that even possible? There was a constant flow of people taking pictures of his front lawn for goodness sake!
He gave me a funny look. “Yeah, I’ve done it loads of times.”
“And you’ve never been caught?”
“Nope.”
I was stepping as silently as I could, tailing behind his noisy and fast-paced walk. And the farther we got down the hall without any sign of agents, I was really starting to get angry because 1) I had done everything right and been caught on my first try at breaking out and 2) There were supposed to be people protecting me, and this place was supposed to be safe.
I stared at the back of Warren’s dark blue hoodie, deep in thought, until I heard a noise. I jumped in front of him, using my arm to press him against the wall beside me. Other than a sharp intake of breath, he made no sound. I had expected him to start asking me dozens of questions like a normal person would, but I guess he didn't lie. Maybe Warren really did know more than what I thought.
The noise of footsteps was coming closer so I ducked us into the nearest open doorway, not even catching a glimpse of the agent as they passed. Warren and I huddled inches from the door, close together. The only sound was his breathing as my heartbeat and lungs went into hibernation mode. The shadow of footsteps passed by the door, and I counted to twenty before I turned to him and nodded to advance, my hand already turning the knob silently. His hand gently stopped my arm before more than a crack of light flooded in the stark white hallway.
He cocked his head the opposite direction of the door. “This way.”
All I saw was a dark nothingness, and I hesitated questioning, “What is this?”
His hand was still on my arm, and then he was guiding me into the dark. I watched him carefully as his body began to lower into the darkness. All I could see was the glint of his playful blue eyes as he said mischievously, “The emergency stairs. It’s going to be dark for awhile.”
I gulped, feeling his warm hand that had not left my arm yet. My fingertips tingled as my feet found the stairs. At the bottom, Warren finally let go of me, but the nervousness was still there. I knew almost nothing about him and we were in a pitch black, narrow passageway that supposedly lead to freedom. I could have been walking straight into a human butcher shop or a rapist cult.
I thought I would feel relief after he let go of me, but my eyes hadn’t dilated and adjusted to the dark. I was blind.
“W-Warren?” I stuttered, not feeling his presence. He’d chosen that moment to become as silent as a cat.
What if he was secretly working with the militant group from Budapest?
What if he’d been replaced by the Bolivian rebels?
I couldn’t stop my heavy breathing. I focused on keeping my heart from pounding right out of my chest.
A pair of lips huskily whispered in my ear out of nowhere. “Scared?”
I felt a moment of pure fear as my body tensed up, choosing the third alternative in the fight-or-flight decision: stand paralyzed like an idiot and brood in your fear.
With a tiny click, a flashlight that Warren held under his chin, flicked on and shadowed over his face in a horrible way for a person who had just been creepily seductive. And as he caught a glimpse of my shocked face in the dark, he let out a small guffaw. He then extended to flashlight to me, saying happily, “If it makes you feel better, you can hold it.”
He thought I was afraid of the dark. If only he knew about the all the people he should be afraid of just because he was associated with me. Maybe that was why my detail would sell their souls just to keep us from interacting. I had always assumed it was to keep my identity protected.
Warren guided me through the dark, and, with the shitty flashlight he brought, I could see were in a concrete tube. The ceiling had large ductwork in it – most likely for emergency escapes. The walls were solid, and the space was cool. I could tell we were underground, though not that far.
“Where does this open up to?” I asked him. The silence had stretched on awkwardly for a few minutes.
“The basement of the visitor’s center. It’s not too far, but it’s by the mall. So we just need to be careful not to be too obvious.”
I looked down at what I was wearing and thought back to what month it was. “Isn’t it freezing outside?”
“We probably won’t go outside,” he said, never taking his eyes off of the darkness that lay ahead.
I felt myself deflate. My first taste of the outside world in over a week, and I couldn’t even breathe fresh air into my starving lungs. I didn’t know what to think about this whole trip. A part of myself kept maliciously whispering to knock Warren over the head and make a run for it. Then another thought was implanted into my head, something every spy learns when they begin fieldwork: gaining trust is goal number one. I guess that one was supposed to be the theoretical angel. Somehow I knew that my genes and history would forever prevent me from being all good.
Warren already trusted me enough to bring me into a small, very long and dark space without any means of protection other than a flashlight (which wasn’t very smart on his part); and I knew it would have been easy to throw him into the cement wall and make a run for it, but I just couldn’t do it.
I looked at him through the dreary light, and he just looked so oblivious. Staring straight ahead, breathing evenly, and completely content with his daring adventure out of the building that kept him so pampered and safe. Using people is what I do. He was helping me so much already by showing me his secret escape route. I wouldn’t run just yet.
Secretly, as much as I hated it there, I wasn’t stupid. I managed to get out and live on my own so many times without running into serious trouble. It was five months before my eighteenth birthday, and the statistics were bound to catch up with me sometime. I would plan first. I would plan and prepare.
“So... Why is this tunnel here?” I asked.
“There are lots of emergency routes. I only know about a few. Some lead outside, others to offices. Just about anywhere you can think of, really.”
We continued to pad along silently, our footsteps echoing in the confined space. The more we walked along, the more I began to realize the tunnel was slowly narrowing. The distance of which I had spaced myself away from Warren at the beginning of the journey had almost been swallowed whole. My elbow kept bumping into him as we went farther, and I was uncomfortable with the closeness. He seemed indifferent.
I was just about to ask him out on it when it opened up. As I felt the echoes bouncing back at us much quicker, I knew that there would be a wall dead ahead.
I stopped walking, and Warren stepped in front of me.
“How are we supposed to get out of here?” I asked, worry in my voice.
He smiled at me, the light casting odd shadows about his face, making him look dark and mysterious. Then he suddenly moved the light along the wall and illuminated a metal ladder.
“Oh.”
He laughed and moved to climb the ladder in front of me. “You know, I suddenly have a feeling that you don’t trust me.” The smirk he wore on his face was fully visible in my head as I listened.
“What if I don’t?” I retorted, pulling myself up closely behind.
“Then we will just have to change that.”
The tunnel put us in a merchandise storage facility room in the White House Visitor’s center. We melted into the crowd in the gift shop. There wasn’t very many people around, which was understandable, seeing as, outside, icy wind whirled a few snowflakes around. We could see it through the store windows.
Now I’m no expert on cheesy tourist attractions that are built to look strangely like their historical counterpart, but I had been completely right about the Visitor’s center. Fake marble pillars were visible through the window, as well as pictures of the center on various ceramic mugs. Cheap (but not in price) cotton t-shirts displayed a miniature and less imposing and detailed White House. And what is a tourist attraction without a gift shop, after all? And when that just doesn't rake in the funds anymore, you add a slightly expensive – but very convenient – food and drinks cafe.
The coffee was bitter and black. The creamer was high in fat and cost extra. The five muffins, which were still left under the warming lamp, were all either raisin or bran. So I sat with Warren, sipping my black coffee and enjoying the warmth it gave my hands through the styrofoam cup. Apparently, less visitors in the winter meant that the heat could be turned down to save the center some cash. Warren was fine in his hoodie, but my body hadn’t quite adjusted to the cold yet. Scalding hot coffee and uncomfortable plastic chairs was what I settled for until I would settle into the cold like I always did.
Warren pulled the hood over his face and muttered sarcastically under his breath, “The people here might actually recognize me... and try to turn me into an exhibit.”
And I cracked a laugh, leaning back in the chair as it squeaked on the tile.
Warren lit up pointing his finger at me exuberantly. “Ha! I made you laugh!”
I returned it with a quizzical look. “You want a medal or something?”
“No, it’s just that you have a weird sense of humor.”
“How do you know I’m not the normal one, and you’re weird?”
“Because,” he began, shrugging as he stretched his arms over his head and let out a sigh, “you and my parents are the only people who don’t find me absolutely hilarious.”
And I laughed again.
Warren could usually make me laugh or at least smile, but I liked how he thought he had to try to. Something about playing this cat and mouse game with him was making my solitary confinement less depressing. Watching him struggle was worth every second of that crappy coffee.
I looked around the room and thought out loud, “So why here? What makes this place so special?”
I sat there on the hard metal chair and wondered what could possibly make a pampered political heir want to come here. It was nothing special, and in the summer it would be filled with obnoxious, sunburned tourists. He had to hide himself under his hood just to make sure he wasn’t seen. The adventure that comes with hiding in plain sight wears off quickly. If I wasn’t mistaken, Warren wasn’t just running for the rush of it, he was trying to get away from something. It didn’t make sense to me.
“Well,” he started, setting down his own black liquid and sticking his hands in his pockets, “the first time I came here, I was thirteen. My dad had been inaugurated a week beforehand, and I guess I just didn’t want to be there. I missed my friends from school, and I wasn’t taking the move too well. There was always people walking around that I didn’t recognize, and there was so many people telling me what to do. I found the staircase and followed for awhile, then I climbed up and found this place. I sat alone at a table and wandered around the shop, even took a look at the museum. And I liked it. For the first time since before my dad became a senator, no one was trying to take a picture, and I didn’t have to smile just in case someone did. I came back the next week and kept to myself so no one would notice me. I sat outside for a while. In my big hoodie I guess I looked like I was a few years older, ‘cause some scruffy guy offered me a smoke, and I took it.” Warren paused to laugh. I smiled, feeling like I was living his memory.
“I coughed a lot, but I think it was worth it. Sometimes you just gotta do exactly what everyone tells you not to.” Warren’s eyes glazed over with nostalgia.
“So,” I held in a chuckle, “you’re a chainsmoker, eh? I should probably stay away from your bad influence.”
“Yep. Bad to the bone.”
“Interesting. . .” I mock-narrowed my eyes.
“You gotta admit, though. This place is pretty special,” he said exuberantly, straightening in his chair and gesturing to the room. In the moment of complete silence that followed, a Benjamin Franklin bobblehead, which had been teetering on the corner of a display, fell over, and the head shattered. I raised my brow in a quizzical and critical look.
“Okay, it’s a shithole. But it’s my special shithole.”
“I wish I had a special shithole.”
“Some of us are luckier than others.”
And then we both erupted in laughter.
And I guess I had to stop making Warren figure me out, because he smiled confidently and stared at me as I tried to refrain myself from making loud noises. Half the fun in mingling with Warren was watching him struggle.
Oh well.
“I know it seems stupid, but this is a lot better than sitting in the house all day.”
I shook my head. “Oh, I know! I was going crazy!”
“Maybe next time I'll take you exploring.” Warren wiggled his eyebrows as he sipped his coffee again, and I almost spit out mine.
“Sounds like fun!” I said as sarcastically as possible.
“What? You don't like sightseeing?”
I laughed haughtily to myself and said quietly, “That's not what I was referring to.”
Warren was like metal to my bullet – any attempt I made to push and undermine him ricocheted off. The guy was eternal.
“It’s time for your story.”
“Excuse me?”
“I told you my odd and potentially embarrassing childhood story, and now it's your turn. Or, really, any story. I'm sure you've got lots. So come on. A mission—a gunpoint standoff?” He whispered the end. I could have crushed my styrofoam cup with how much anger was pulsing through me. The little shit better shut up.
“Will you shut the fuck up?” I said achingly under my breath, speaking my mind to him.
Without any fuss, his mouth was clamped shut. But his eyebrows seemed to say condescendingly to me, “Let's hear it…”
I exhaled my breath, irritated by this strange being. Y Chromosomes and me just don't mesh well. They're so authoritative and demanding, and they always seem to think they were born holding the reins on their high horses. If he hadn't of been cute, and we weren't surrounded by unsuspecting citizens, I would have had him confined to one of the outside pillars using the nothing but the merchandise.
“One time, when I was ten,” I started, not quite sure if where this was going, “my school mates wrapped me in maple syrup-afied tin foil during P.E.”
“What?!”
“They called me robot girl,” I stated quickly, then chugged what was left of my bitter drink.
“Why?”
“I had a knack for knowing things they didn't, and never smiling, and then after I got out, I beat them up with my sticky hands. Their puny brains could only think of one of two nicknames: alien or robot. After they came to the conclusion that I did not actually have green scaly skin, they called me robot.”
He face was twisted in horror, and I wanted another cup to hide behind.
“That's horrible!”
“You said you wanted a story. 'Odd and potentially embarrassing' were your exact words.”
“But,” Warren stuttered, at a loss for words, “that is just cruel.”
“Kids are cruel.” I shrugged, drawing circles on the tabletop.
“I said embarrassing, not scarring.”
“I may or may not have left out the part about smelling like Vermont for about a month.”
And I forced myself to act like it was hilarious so Warren would stop looking at me like a worried psychologist and laugh along. He didn't.
“That's really fucked up.”
Then, very quietly and condescendingly, “You wanted a story…”
As if just realizing she had people that were actually customers, the employee Warren ordered the coffee from came to give us a refill. I could smell her black lungs as the stench lingered in the air.
“You don't really smoke, do you?” I asked him, mostly because I didn't know when to assume he was joking.
“Not very often.” He shrugged, taking a sip. Steam was still billowing from the fresh brew.
“I seriously can't see you doing that.”
“There's a lot you don't know about me.” I guess that was supposed to make him look mysterious and alluring, but other than the smoking thing, I could read mister pressed khakis like an advanced chemistry book.
I looked at him more closely for a second before taking a big breath and letting it all out at once, “You broke your arm as a child, and the doctor didn't quite place it right, so your left arm hangs five degrees closer inward than your left. You were raised in southern Virginia, which is why you pronounce your R's heavily, despite your father’s obvious effects to keep you as moderate and normal-looking for your age. Your hair is cut in the most common style for teenage boys in the U.S., and you wear contacts because your left eye is the weaker one. You had braces at a very young age – five to seven I'm guessing – and they had to remove two of your teeth because your mouth was too crowded. Nearly all of your clothes are tailored before they go into your closet, which is why they fit you perfectly. And last summer you took a trip and got caught in some nasty coral, which is why there is an oblong scar on your right shoulder by your collarbone.”
He was stunned to silence, his lips pursed and open.
“Shall I continue?”
“How did you…?”
“It's a thing,” I said proudly.
"Can I try it? Obviously I won't be as good at it."
I perked my eyebrow up curiously, before throwing caution to the wind. “Sure. Why not?”
He cleared his throat dramatically and cracked his fingers and knuckles before starting. “Well, I think you secretly liked that those horrible kids called you robot-girl, because it gave you premise over them and made you not a part of their group, because, inside of your little girl self, there was a rebel who wanted to be anything but the other kids. And that’s probably because you grew up with some kind of authority figure – a parent, probably – who nailed into you that you were different and meant for greater things than them. So, even though you continue to defy the orders of as many authority figures as possible, you're living in the mold they placed you in because you're convicted there is no way out of the labyrinth that is your life.”
And it was my turn to be at a loss for words.
“How do I know?” He guessed my question. “Cause I'm in the same boat.”
I stared up at the ceiling tiles, which were laid in a brick pattern. There were four hundred and nine in the room and eight different varieties of tile. I pictured the lit up menu of the cafe; three hundred and ninety six different meal options if you ordered two different items. And…
“Charlie?” he said, breaking my game. I didn't want to look him in the eye. those big blue eyes with the tiny ring around the iris that were his contacts. I wanted to tell him he was wrong about me, but somehow I didn't know which part he was wrong about.
“I'm sorry; I shouldn't of said anything. I didn't mean it in a bad way... I just—”
“I don't like this place. The coffee stinks, and it smells like crushed almonds,” I interrupted in a monotone voice, my long fingers slowly turning the cup around in a circle on the table top.
“We don't have to come here all the time. Just sometimes. I swear when it starts to get warmer they have these amazing sugar cookies with this frosting that's like—”
“Or we could just not.”
“Not what? Come here at all?”
“Or we could just not leave.” My fingers were still turning the cup around for the fifth time, only about four more seconds until it would complete its sixth revolution. “Maybe not for awhile. I have work I should be doing.”
“Oh.”
“Let's go back.”
I was up and out of my seat, dumping the coffee into the bottom of the soda dispenser, heading back to where the restrooms – and the merchandise supply closet – was. Warren caught up with me just as I was slipping through the hole in the floor behind the stack of SnapBack boxes. I was like Alice then, escaping back to Wonderland.
He climbed down after me, breathing quickly. We walked for about ten feet before I had a notion.
“I need to stretch my legs.”
And I took off running at the pace I would have in my routine runs I used to do at school. Back then, they had a trail that would weave through a small outcropping of trees and by natural streams. The school installed bright orange goldfish into the ponds to float aimlessly around in circles. They were so unnaturally bright and big for the small stream; I hated it. And every once in awhile, they would have to buy a new one because one fish would take the tiny sloping current that came with a heavy rain and be washed down the side of the incline and away, most likely to its death. They were foolish fish.
I ran all the way back to the entrance we first climbed in from, Warren a few meters behind me in good enough shape to be handling himself. My unfamiliar hands couldn't find the steps or the door as easily, and Warren was right behind me as I came into the white hallway and checked to see if anyone was watching.
We came to my door without any trouble, and he still waited patiently behind me as I tried to get the doorknob to open.
“I’ll see ya, Charlie,” he said right before his honey voice was broken by my door.
And I kind of hoped he didn't mean it.
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This is the longest chaper I've ever writen for anything! Over five thousand words! I couldn't decide whether I should split it into two parts, but I didn't. I think I deserve like a prize for this, or at least a participation ribbon.
My editor, Amy, would like to point out how there is a perfectly set up 'that's what she said' joke in this chapter.... because she just really likes them and catches me setting them up all the time. It's actaully really funny. Just look at chapter nine of IWRNLT....
I"m babbling. Thanks for reading and pleeeease drop a comment saying you love Warlie (Warren and Charlie's ship name) as much as I do?
<3 thatcrazybookworm