“ there was nothing there, sir.”

“Okay, back to the house then. Next time, i’ll shoot.” The two left and once it was safe we put on the rest of our clothes and made our way back to my grandmother’s. On the way I asked Harvasha, “ Will anyone be looking for you?”

“ what do you mean?”

“ parents, grandparents, guardian?” I slowly started to feel like a jackass for even asking.

“ no- I mean, I have someone to go home to but it’s not like they care.”

“ do you want to stay over?” not realizing the implications she turns her head and looks at me.

“ so you wanna have a sleepover?” she smiles.

“ oh- OH! I didn’t mean-” I got so flustered I couldn’t make a single sentence. “ -it’s silly, nevermind.”

“ listen, I was just pulling your leg.” she giggled, “ sure, I’ll stay over but we need a plan for the morning. I don’t think your grandma would be pleased to see me at the breakfast table uninvited.”

We thought about what to do while we stood just outside the house, after making a proper plan we snuck into a window and tip-toed up to my bedroom.

Quietly shutting the door behind up, harvasha turns and say,

“ um, could i borrow something to sleep in?”

“ y-yea, I could find something for you.” I pulled a large shirt from my suitcase, “ is this alright?”

“ yea, thanks.” She takes the shirt from me and stares at me for a bit, “ Could you look away?”

“OH! Yea sure, sorry.” I turned and closed my eyes. kind of weird, she wants me to look away but we were just swimming half naked. “ so, are you gonna tell me about that guy and how you know him?”

“ I guess I have to.” She sits on the bed and I sit next to her and she begins to tell me her relation to Jamie, “ he’s my brother- well, not my actual brother but that guy, sir. He’s got this…” she had this look on her face as she was trying to find the words while fighting painful memories.

“ it looks like you’re having a hard time with this, you don’t have to-”

“ no, it’s fine. It’s a cult.”

“ wait, what?”

“ Well, most parents think of it as a church camp. They send their kids there and then never come back for them. Jamie and I were close.”

“ was he your-”

“ no, God no. He was like a brother to me. Look he got into some trouble and was nearly punished, i stood up for him and took the punishment for him. Since then he’s owed me a favor, but I ran away before he could repay me.”

“ oh so that’s why he-”

“ yeah, but we gotta go back. We have a lot to catch up on and I need to apologize to him for just leaving.”

“ i guess we should get some sleep then.”

“ yeah, you're right.” she climbs on the bed, getting under the blankets. I grabbed a pillow and an extra blanket from the closet and got down on the floor.

“ what are you doing?” Harvasha asked, leaning over the bed looking down at me.

“Oh, I just figured you’d want the bed for yourself-”

“ nonsense, it’s your bed and i don’t want to put you out anyways.”

“ oh, um. Okay but if you don’t mind, i want to put a pillow between us. I really don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

“ yeah, oaky. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

“ no, it’s fine. I just don’t want to overstep my bounds.” with the pillow separating the two of us we let the adrenaline subside for the night.