#tresspasing

A rapping on your windowpane awakens you from a deep sleep instantly. 

Not just a rapping, but a full-blown banging. That isn’t the sound of knuckles tapping on your window. That’s the sound of a fist. Someone is using their entire first to bang on your window, and you quickly bolt upright with a gasp.

“Oh, my God,” you mutter, and you throw back the covers and grab your phone from the nightstand. Immediately, you turn it on like the screen will tell you something about what’s going on–it sounds like the damn police banging out there or something–but all it reads is 1:14.

The noise happens again, and your eyes largen.

“Oh, my God,” you repeat, and you pace across the hall to open the boys’ bedroom door. Both Daniel and Luke aren’t in bed, and you look wildly around. They’re not in their room at all. They’re gone. “Oh, my fucking God.”

Panic floods you while you go to Braylyn and Michael’s room and throw open the door, and when you see the crib and toddler-bed within it both empty, too, it’s then you realize–That’s right. Everyone's out of town for the holidays right now. No one’s home but you. No one’s home but you, and someone’s outside insistently banging on your window. 

What the hell is going on?

In almost pitch-black darkness, you rush to the front door to make sure it’s dead-bolted shut, and then you head through the kitchen for the backdoor. The entire time, you hear a loud, insistent pounding sound from the back corner where your room is. After quickly checking the locks on every single window, you then run into the bathroom and shut the door.

Instantly, you call Sy next, and he answers on the third ring. 

“Sy,” you rush out, your voice trembling.

“What’s goin’ on?” he asks, rushing his words out just like you, and your voice is high-pitched when you reply.

“Are you outside right now?”

“No,” he answers. “I’m in my bed.”

You hear another distant noise, and you jolt. “Fuck,” you mutter, and then you lock the bathroom door with shaking fingers.You keep the overhead light off just because it makes you feel safer that way, and the only illumination in the tiny room is the night-light plugged in by the toilet for when the children have late-night emergencies. You sit down on the closed-lid of the toilet and slightly begin to rock your body back and forth.

“What’s goin’ on?” Sy repeats. “What d’you mean, am I outside?”

“Like, outside my house,” you say, finishing with a whimper of distress.

“Y/N, what’s goin’ on?” he asks again.

“Someone’s out in the bushes by the house. They’re banging on my bedroom window.”

“What?”

“Someone’s outside the house,” you shakily whisper again. “Someone’s outside the house bangin’ on my window.”

“Is it locked?”

“Yeah,” you whisper. “The whole house is.”

“Stay put. I’m leavin’ now.”

“Sy–”

“I’m comin’ over. Stay on the phone.”

“It’s gonna take you, like, twenty minutes to get here,” you tell him. 

“I’ll cut it by half,” he says, and then you hear a door shut. “Call the police.”

After that–another sound from your bedroom.

“Oh, my God,” you mumble. “They won’t stop. What if it’s a neighbor just tryin’ to get my attention?”

“They’d go to the door.”

“What if the house is on fire?” you worry next.

“Is it on fire?”

You sniff. “No, but what if it is?” you worry. “And now I’m gonna burn to death.”

“Where are you right now?”

“In the bathroom.”

“Good,” he says. “Stay put. Is the door locked?”

“Yeah,” you whisper, and then you hear Sy make a long, low groan–a noise the mixture of both frustration and distress.

Your fingernails are in your mouth. “What?”

“Fuckin’ red light,” he mutters. “I’m runnin’ it.”

“You’re that close to town already?” you ask, knowing if there are traffic lights that he’s well outside of where he lives.

“Just messaged my buddy, Kevin. He’s on duty tonight. His patrol is close by, so he’ll be right there ‘fore I get there, alright?”

You’re extremely grateful that you’ve taught Sy how to message someone and stay on an actual phone call at the same time, but still: “I don’t wanna–” Letting your sentence go unfinished, you start breathing faster.

“Don’t wanna what?” Sy asks.

“I don’t wanna bother anyone in case this is all just a big mistake or somethin’.”

“Y/N, it’s his job.”

Just then, you hear glass breaking, and you’re so scared that your scream doesn’t even make it out your throat; it gets stuck there. Your body knows to do nothing else but begin to cry.

“Sy, they broke in–they broke in–they–”

You stand up and get into the bathtub, and when you’re behind the shower curtain, you cower. Sy doesn’t speak for a minute, but you hear his loud breathing. 

“C’mon,” he mutters to himself. “C’mon.”

Tears run down your cheeks. “Sy, I’m so scared.”

“We’ll be right there, baby. Stay where you are.”

You hear footsteps begin walking down the hallway, and you put your hand over your mouth to muffle your sobbing. The loud sound approaches the bathroom door where it then pauses and then continues into the living room. 

All those presents are under the Christmas tree…

“They’re in the house now.” Your voice is lower than a whisper. “Where are you?”

“Close. Keep breathin’. We’re close.”

Every second feels like it lasts an hour. Every beat of your heart feels like it’ll spiral you into a panic attack. Every loud breath coming out of the hot phone in your hand is just as shaky as yours. Every sound in the house is amplified.

That’s why, when you hear another banging–this time from the front door–you’re able to distinguish what’s actually going on.

You’re not able to make out a lot after that, just “Show me your hands!” and some other shouted orders, but you’ve never been happier for the sound of screaming in your life.

You’re able to finally take a breath and let it fill your lungs, but they burn in a way you hate. Your heart is pounding against them and making everything hurt. 

“They got him,” you whisper. “I-I think they got him.”

“I’m pullin’ up to the house right now,” Sy tells you firmly. “Don’t hang up, and don’t move.”

You nod your head. “Okay.”

You listen through the phone as Sy speaks to whoever must be outside the house, and you stay cowering in complete and total darkness inside the locked bathroom. It feels like a full five minutes later when you’re actually instructed to come outside, but even though Sy tells you it’s safe, you’re scared to.

“They won’t let me inside, Y/N,” he says. “Not yet.”

“Are you sure it’s…Are you sure I can come out?”

“Lookin’ at the fucker right now in the back of Kevin’s car,” Sy says. “Some wimpy-lookin’ teenager.”

Sighing in relief, you slowly unlock the bathroom door and tiptoe through the hallway like danger is still lurking somewhere. You wipe the remnants of tears from your eyes while looking around the living room that’s currently illuminated by flashing red and blue lights from outside. Presents are all over the furniture, having been rifled through and thrown around, but besides that, nothing looks too bad. 

In mismatched, baggy pajamas and no socks or shoes, you run out to the front porch to find Sy at the bottom of the stairs with his phone to his ear. You both drop your phones at the same time in order to embrace, and you squeeze him as close as you can.

“I’m gettin’ you a security system for your new apartment,” he holds you even tighter and says. “Some–Somethin’ with a code. A code no one can fuckin’ think of breakin’.”

“The apartments are a street down from the police station,” you mumble against his shirt.

“Even better,” he puts his large hand on the back of your head and replies, mashing your face into his chest. “God, Y/N–”

You hug one another for as long as you can until you have to speak to the actual officers, and you’re out on the lawn for so long that you’re exhausted and cold and drained by the time everything’s over with.