Charliee

Chapter 2

Thomas had continued to drive for another few hours, while the girl talked in vague terms about where she’d worked and why she’d left and the new life she had planned. Eventually, as he felt his eyes begin to sink despite his best efforts, Thomas invited her to take over. She seemed glad to, and full of energy. Thomas was awake long enough to begin to feel comfortable being a passenger in his own car. After all, she drove very well – faster than he did but confidently and with a smooth control. He was just considering asking where she’d learned to drive like that when sleep claimed him.

‘Turn left at the next lights.’ Thomas spoke drearily, though he’d slept remarkably well. He’d given her instructions of when to wake him and had guided her street-by-street the rest of the way. It was nearly dawn now as they pulled up to the red lights he had grown to despise. She had driven most of the night and it was beginning to show, though she claimed she would have been fine for another few hours. Thomas was a little surprised when he believed her immediately.
Pulling up in front of his house Thomas asked the obvious question: ‘What are you going to do now?’ He had tried to sound both non-threatening and non-committal in his tone, but sensed he had failed at both.
The girl thought for a moment. ‘Well I can’t stay here, have to keep moving…’ a large yawn broke of the end of her sentence.
‘You’re too tired to go any further tonight,’ Thomas said without thinking. With a grimace he realised he’d left himself with only one course of action. ‘Stay here and rest. Tomorrow you can catch a train or whatever you like.’ He had his doubts about her, but she’d been honest with him this far, and besides, she was too tired to do anything now, or so he told himself.
‘Thanks,’ she replied. She still spoke in that unique voice that gave away nothing. ‘That sounds good. It’ll only be until tonight anyway.’ He was glad to hear that.
Inside the house Thomas went about his regular routine, moving his bags inside, sorting out the papers to take to the office when he next went in. He turned on the coffee maker and let it warm up... he was going to need it. Walking back into the main room with his nose in a stack of scheduling plans, he looked up to ask her how she took her coffee, and stopped short. For a moment he just watched her: collapsed on the couch, her arms curled around her backpack, snoring softly. He realised then that she was trusting him as much as he was trusting her, and with that knowledge, he moved back into the kitchen to claim his coffee, and start making his phone calls.

Thomas emerged from his study later that day and was shocked to learn his mysterious guest was gone. A quick search of the rooms confirmed she was nowhere inside, and just as importantly, all his stuff was still there. What surprised him more was that her backpack, which she had seemed so eager to protect, was still on the couch where he had left her. He would wait to see if she came back for it, he decided, and then if necessary examine the contents to see if he could find where to send it. He checked the clock and decided it was too early to start cooking any dinner, and besides, he had nothing in the house. Against his better judgement, he went back to his study and continued his work, leaving the peculiar luggage sitting ominously in his main room.
Before long, his train of thought was violently interrupted by a knocking at the door. He opened it without thinking, and took a moment to register the girl standing in front of him. Her eyes still had the same all-encompassing brightness as before, even stronger now for having rested. She seemed to be completely energised, which he envied, for as far as he knew she hadn’t had any coffee yet. There was what looked like grease on her hands, but she was freshly changed and was carrying a large bag of Chinese food in either hand.
‘Dinner time!’ she cried, and smiled widely.
She was by all accounts, he decided, preparing to leave. Between takes of noodles and diced meat she was carefully organising the unknown contents of the backpack, which now included a few new label-less boxes that had been buried in the bags beneath the take-away. He would have to check once more that nothing was missing from his house, and then offer to drive her to the station himself. His eyes took a quick trip around the room, but it seemed as though everything was where it ought to have been. It was only when he got back around that he realised her eyes had been following his, probably from the beginning, and he quickly looked into his bowl.
The sound of her giggling made him look up again. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I’m not going to take anything. And I understand that you wanted to check.’ Thomas felt like saying something back, but nothing seemed appropriate. Instead he waited for her to continue.
‘Why should you trust me after all?’ An over-emphasised shrugged accompanied her rhetorical question. ‘You don’t know me; you never even asked my name.’
Thomas was stunned, and a bit annoyed that he hadn’t thought to do so sooner. Finally he managed to speak.
‘So what is your name?’
‘Charliee,’ she said. ‘With two ‘e’s’.
‘Why ‘two ‘e’s?’’ he asked, somewhat robotically.
‘No reason,’ she answered. The giggling from before hadn’t completely vanished – it was lingering somewhere behind her answers now. ‘It’s just different… unique. Sometimes, names are too important to be always the same as everyone else’s, don’t you think? It’s like, your name is a password, and now, you have a password to me.’
Thomas wasn’t sure what she meant by a ‘password to me,’ but at least his mysterious guest had a name now.