2 Home Alone Horror Stories That Will Make You Check Every Lock

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Join for just $20 at BJ's.com slash mesquite and save 10 cents per gallon for six months. Open soon. Limited time offer, new members only. BJ's, home of the save. Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile. I don't know if you knew this, but anyone can get the same premium wireless for $15 a month plan that I've been enjoying. It's not just for celebrities. So do like I did and have one of your assistant's assistants switch you to Mint Mobile today. I'm told it's super easy to do at mintmobile.com slash switch. Upfront payment of $45 for three-month plan, equivalent to $15 per month required. Intro rate first three months only, then full price plan options available. Taxes and fees extra. See full terms at mintmobile.com. My dad sold our old house in Duluth last spring. During one of the showings, somebody asked about the deadbolt on my bedroom door. He said we'd had a break-in a few years earlier and left it at that. I don't blame him. It's a lot to explain to a person who's just trying to decide whether their furniture will fit. I was 21 when it happened. I'm 29 now, and until recently, the only people who'd heard the whole thing were my family, a few friends, and the people who worked on the case. I can talk about it without getting upset now. Writing it down. Writing it down has been harder. There are parts where I still have to stop and think about the room I'm actually sitting in. This happened in July, while I was living at home between college semesters. I worked mornings at a building supply place during the week. On weekends, I mostly slept, played Xbox, and met up with the same friends I'd had since high school. I wasn't particularly responsible, but I could keep myself alive for a couple of days. My parents went out of town fairly often. Being left at home was normal. That weekend, they were going to a cabin outside Ely with another couple. They planned to leave Friday afternoon and get back Sunday evening. I could have gone, but my friend Grant had organized a street hockey game for Saturday, and I wanted the house to myself. My mom made a container of pulled pork before they left. There was pasta in the fridge, too, which she pointed out twice, as though I might somehow forget how refrigerators worked in her apartment. We lived in an older neighborhood, on a block where most of the houses had been standing long before any of us were born. Ours had a detached garage behind it, and a narrow paved walk along one side. The houses weren't isolated. Our nearest neighbor could have stood at her kitchen window and watched us eat dinner if either household had been interested in doing that. I mention that because people tend to imagine this happening somewhere remote. It was a sunny Saturday afternoon in a neighborhood where you could hear lawn mowers and people unloading groceries. There was nothing about the setting that should have made me nervous. Our house had two staircases. The main one came up from the front entry and ended near my parents' room. The other was a steep back staircase between the kitchen and the upstairs bathroom. It was only 12 steps, with a wall on either side. At the bottom, you had to turn right around the end of a wall before you could see the kitchen. My bedroom was at the back. It was on the back of the upstairs hall, just past the bathroom. Between my room and my parents' room was a small spare bedroom that my dad mostly used for storing things he claimed he was going to sort through. There had once been a doorway connecting that room to mine. At some point, somebody had covered it on both sides. My side was at the back of my closet, behind a rail of hanging clothes. From the spare room, it looked like a painted panel near the corner. We knew it was there. My dad had shown it to me when he was talking about redoing the upstairs. But it had been covered for as long as we'd lived there, and I'd never thought of it as a door. It was just part of the closet. There was a small flat roof outside my bedroom window, over the enclosed back porch. It wasn't a balcony. You couldn't step out there through a door or anything. My dad went onto it occasionally to clear leaves from a gutter, and he always used a ladder from the yard. The window above it was an old wooden one that took two hands and some persuasion to open in humid weather. That's probably more information about a house than anybody wants, but I need you to understand where everything was. I spent a long time afterward wishing I'd thought more about that window, or that covered doorway, before I needed them. Friday night was uneventful. I heated up some pork, put too much barbecue sauce on it, and stayed in the living room playing online with Grant until almost three in the morning. At one point I went into the kitchen to get a drink, and noticed the inner back door wasn't shut all the way. The screen door outside it was closed. I pushed the inner door shut, and turned the lock. I remember that clearly because the latch didn't catch the first time. It was an old door in an old frame, and you had to lift slightly on the handle. My dad kept saying he'd fix it when the weather cooled down. I didn't think somebody had opened it. I'd taken the trash out earlier, and assumed I'd left it that way myself. I still don't know if that assumption was right. There are a few things about that weekend I can explain now, but I don't want to turn everything ordinary that happened before it into some warning I should have understood. I went to bed around 3:15, and slept until a little after 1:00. When I checked my phone, Grant had sent a message confirming hockey at 3:00. We were meeting at a paved court a few blocks from his apartment. He'd asked if I wanted a ride, and I told him I'd drive myself. My parents had sent a message saying they'd just finished breakfast, and asking whether I'd made plans for the day. I answered that I was awake, which didn't really answer their question, and left my phone charging beside the bed. Then I got in the shower. I used to take ridiculously long showers when nobody was home to complain. I don't mean an extra five minutes. I could use up most of an hour standing there doing absolutely nothing. I'd been in for around 40 minutes that afternoon when I heard the back door open downstairs. I knew the sound. The screen door had a metal spring that dragged against its bracket. Then the inner door gave a little squeal near the end of its swing. I heard both, one after the other, even with the water running. I stopped moving. For a few seconds, I kept my face under the water and listened so hard that I couldn't really tell what I was hearing. My first thought was Grant. It wasn't unusual for him to come over without calling. Then I remembered he'd offered me a ride and I'd turned it down. My second thought was that my parents had forgotten something and driven back. Neither explanation worried me much. I was mostly annoyed that someone had come in while I was in the shower. I called out, asking who was there. Nobody answered. I turned the water off. The bathroom fan was still running, so I switched that off too. I stood there dripping onto the bath mat, waiting to hear a cupboard open or somebody call my name. The house was quiet. I waited long enough to get cold. Then I wrapped a towel around myself and opened the bathroom door. From the top of the back stairs I could see the little square of floor at the bottom and part of the wall beyond it. There was nothing there. Sunlight came through the kitchen windows around the corner. A lawnmower was running somewhere down the hallway. I looked down the block. I said Grant's name. Then I called for my dad. Still nothing. My room was only a few feet away, and my phone was right on the nightstand. I could have walked over, called my parents, and stayed upstairs until somebody answered. That's one of the decisions I replayed for a long time. At the time, though, I didn't feel like a person who was making a decision. I felt stupid for standing at the top of my own stairs, afraid to go into my own kitchen, so I went down. I took it slowly at first. The stairs were narrow enough that my shoulder nearly brushed the wall. My damp feet made little squeaking noises on the painted wood, and I kept stopping after each one because I thought I'd heard something else. About halfway down, I noticed the air smelled faintly of laundry detergent. That made me think of my mom, and for a second I relaxed. Our laundry was in the basement, which you reached through the kitchen. Maybe she'd come back and gone downstairs. I called her name, too. By then, I was speaking softly, which made no sense. sense. If it was my mom, there was no reason to be quiet. If it wasn't, whoever was there already knew exactly where I was. At the second to last step, I stopped again. I remember looking at a chip in the paint beside my hand. I remember thinking that I was going to feel like an idiot when I got around the corner and found nothing. I gave this small, embarrassed laugh, mostly at myself. Then I took the last two steps normally and turned into the kitchen. A man was standing less than an arm's length away. He was facing the bottom of the stairs. He wasn't reaching for anything. He wasn't carrying a television or opening a drawer. He was standing exactly where a person would stand if they knew someone was about to come around that corner. He had a huge smile on his face. People always ask what he looked like. I can tell them a few things. He was white, probably in his forties, with short brown hair that was going gray above the ears. He wore a gray T-shirt and faded brown work pants. He had stubble on his chin. He wasn't a giant. He was a little taller than me and thinner through the shoulders than I'd expected when I hit him. But his face isn't what comes back first. It's his arms. He was holding them down and slightly behind himself, with his elbows turned out so far that I couldn't make sense of them. His wrists were bent away from his body, and the insides of his forearms were facing forward when they shouldn't have been. His hands were open. His fingers were spread. I don't mean his bones were actually reversed. I've had years to think about it, and I know a person with flexible shoulders could probably hold that position. In the moment, though, it looked wrong enough that I couldn't stop looking at it. He'd arranged himself that way and was waiting for me to notice. He didn't blink when I appeared. At least I didn't see him blink. I had just enough time to register that his bare feet were planted on the kitchen floor. His shoes were sitting together beneath the table, beside my mom's grocery bags. Then I hit him. It wasn't anything impressive. I had no training, and I hadn't decided to do it. I shoved my right hand toward his face with my fingers half open. The heel of my hand caught him under the left side of his jaw. My wrist bent backward, and I felt something hard scrape my palm. His head turned. His smile came apart. He made a short, breathless sound and hit the edge of the counter with his hip. That was all I waited to see. I turned and ran upstairs. The towel caught under one of my feet and came off somewhere near the bottom. I banged my knee against a step and used my hands for the last few stares. I could hear something moving behind me, but I never looked back. I got into my bedroom and started to think. I was not sure what it was. I slammed the door. It had a little push-button lock in the knob. I pressed it, grabbed the wooden chair from my desk, and shoved the back of it under the handle. The chair didn't sit right. One leg slid across the bare floorboards, and the whole thing fell sideways. I'd always seen that work in movies. Finding out it didn't work immediately, while I could hear somebody coming upstairs, was one of the worst parts of the whole thing. I left the chair where it fell and pushed my dresser toward the door instead. It was waist-high, full of clothes, and much heavier than I remembered. I got one corner against the bottom of the door, just as the handle turned. The door moved inward a fraction, then stopped against the dresser. The little lock had either failed or not caught properly. I never found out which. I threw my weight against the dresser and stayed there, naked and wet, with my feet sliding on the floor. Someone pushed my dresser toward the other side. It wasn't a violent shove. The pressure increased slowly enough that I could feel the dresser beginning to move beneath my chest. I put my foot against the leg of the bed and pushed back. The pressure stopped. For a moment, neither of us moved. Then the handle returned to its normal position. My phone was on the nightstand, maybe four feet away. I looked at it and couldn't figure out how to get there without letting go of the dresser. I actually considered calling for help through the wall, as if someone in the next house would hear that better than an emergency operator could hear a phone. Eventually, I lowered myself onto the floor, kept both feet against the dresser, and reached behind me. My fingers caught the charging cord. I pulled the phone off the nightstand and onto the rug, then pulled the charging cable out of it. I called 911. The first time I tried to say my address, I gave the number and forgot the street. The woman on the line had me repeat it. Then she asked what was happening. I told her there was a man in my house and that he was outside my bedroom. I said I'd just gotten out of the shower and lost my towel running away from him. I kept repeating that I'd hit him, because I was suddenly afraid that was going to be a problem. She kept bringing me back to where I was and whether the door was locked. I said it was blocked with furniture. She asked if I could get out through a window without passing him. I looked to the other side of the room and saw that the door was locked. I said it was the window above the porch. The shade was halfway down, and I could see the lower branches of a tree in our yard. I knew there was a roof under it. I also knew I couldn't reach it without moving away from the dresser. I told her I was upstairs and didn't know whether I could get out. She said help was on the way. Then she asked whether he'd had a weapon. I hadn't seen one. I tried to tell her about his arms instead. It came out badly. I kept saying, that they were backward, and she asked if he was injured. I said no, then yes, because I'd hit him. By that point I was crying without really noticing it. My teeth kept knocking together when I tried to speak. She asked me to slow down and take a breath. That's when the light beneath the door disappeared. There was a fairly wide gap under that door. The hall had a window at the front of the house, and on sunny afternoons, a bright strip of light showed across my bedroom floor. I was sitting at an angle where I could see the part the dresser hadn't covered. Something had blocked it. I stopped talking. The woman asked another question, but I couldn't make out the words. I was staring at the space under the door, waiting for the handle to move again. A bare foot shifted on the other side. I could see the tips of his toes. They were so ordinary that it made the situation worse. There was a little dirt beside one of his toenails. His skin was pale where his work shoes were. I couldn't see anything. I couldn't usually covered it. This was a real person, standing in the hallway, where I'd walked out of the bathroom a few minutes earlier. He'd followed me up the stairs and was now listening to me ask someone to save me from him. I lowered the phone onto my stomach with the microphone pointing away from the door. The operator was saying something about staying on the line. I couldn't answer her. One of his feet moved again, and the floor pressed down enough to make a bored rub against the one beside it. Then there was a soft scrape against the outside of the door, at about the height of my face. I imagined him lowering himself until his mouth was near the gap. Instead, I heard him speak from above me. You didn't need to do that. His voice was calm, a little thick, probably because of where I'd hit him. He sounded annoyed in the ordinary way a person sounds annoyed when you interrupt them. I pressed the phone to my ear and told the woman he was talking to. I said, she asked what he was saying. Before I could answer, he spoke again. Open it, and I'll go. I didn't respond. I couldn't understand why he thought that would work. If he wanted to go, there were two staircases and two doors downstairs. He could leave whenever he wanted. The woman told me to keep the door closed. I remember that sentence because it was the first thing she'd said that cut through everything else. Keep the door closed. I could do that. I didn't have to explain him or decide what he wanted. I just had to keep the dresser where it was. He waited outside for a while longer. I don't know how long. It felt long enough for my legs to start shaking from the strain of holding them straight. Then his feet moved out of view. I heard him cross the hall. The bathroom floor creaked near the doorway, and a moment later, the shower came on. For several seconds, I thought I'd somehow left it running and hadn't noticed until then. I could picture reaching through the curtain and turning the handle, but I was doubting everything I'd done since leaving the bathroom. Then the water changed from the tub spout to the showerhead. I heard the difference clearly. He was in our bathroom, turning our shower on. I told the operator. She asked if he was still talking. I said no. She asked whether anyone else was supposed to be in the house, and I told her about my parents being out of town. It took me three tries to remember. I said no. I said no. I said no. I said no. I said the town near the cabin. She said that was okay. She needed to know whether there was anybody else inside, and I said there wasn't. The shower kept running. I stared at the door, waiting for him to come back with something from the bathroom. There were scissors in the drawer under the sink. My dad kept a heavy glass jar on the counter for change. Every object I'd seen a thousand times was suddenly something I could imagine him carrying into my room. My wrist had started to hurt. There was a thin cut across my palm, and when I wiped it on my thigh, I left a streak of red. I hadn't noticed bleeding before that. I checked my arm, then my chest, because I couldn't remember if he'd touched me in the kitchen. He hadn't. I could say that later with confidence. At the time, I was trying to put together a few seconds that my memory had stored in separate pieces. I told the woman my name, which she'd already asked for. She used it when she spoke to me after that. I don't want to put it here, but hearing it helped. It reminded me that there was someone outside that house who knew a real person was inside it. She asked if I could get dressed without moving the furniture. There was a pair of shorts on the floor beside the bed. I pulled them toward me with my heel, keeping one leg braced against the dresser, and managed to get them on while sitting down. It was awkward, and took much longer than it should have. I never found a shirt. The water was still running, but something else was happening underneath that sound. I could hear objects being moved in the spare room. A box dragged across the floor. Something heavier bumped the wall behind my closet. I turned my head. My closet door was half open. I could see a row of shirts, my old winter coat, and the handle of a vacuum cleaner my mom kept telling me to bring downstairs. A plastic laundry basket sat on the floor underneath them. I looked at it for a second, without understanding why it mattered. Then I remembered the clothes. It was a covered doorway. I don't think I've ever felt anything as awful as that particular realization. Until then, I had one place to watch. One entrance to hold shut. The wall between my room and the spare room had never seemed any different from the other walls. Suddenly, I could picture my dad pulling a row of shirts aside and showing me the outline in the wood. I tried to get up, but my legs had been braced so hard that one cramped. I had to pull myself upright. The woman asked what was happening. I told her there might be another way into my room. I said it too loudly. The movement behind the closet stopped. I stood there with the phone against my ear, listening to the shower and looking at my clothes. My winter coat was navy blue. There was a broken plastic hanger hooked over the rail beside it. I can still picture those two things more clearly than most of what happened at school that year. I kept waiting for the coat to come off. I kept waiting for the coat to move. The operator asked me to explain the other entrance. I backed toward the window and told her there was an old doorway behind the closet. I said it was boarded over, but I didn't know how well. She asked if I could move farther away from it. I was already doing that. Something struck the back of the closet. It wasn't a huge crash. It was a hard, contained impact, and a few flakes of old paint fell onto the laundry basket. I grabbed the window handles and pulled upward. Nothing happened. I checked the lock. It was already open. I pulled again, harder, and the frame lifted enough to make a narrow opening before sticking. Warm air came through it. I could hear that lawnmower more clearly now. I wanted to scream, but the first attempt barely made a sound. I tried again and shouted for help toward the gap. I don't know whether anybody heard that one. Behind me, the closet rail trembled. I switched the phone to speaker, put it on the bed, with the call still connected, and got both hands under the window. I lifted with my knees and felt a sharp pain in the wrist I'd hurt downstairs. The frame moved another inch. I shifted my grip and pulled until my fingers slipped off. The window dropped back down. I had this sudden, absurd urge to apologize to the operator. She was still talking, and I wasn't doing any of the things that would have made it easier for her to help me. I couldn't answer questions. I couldn't open a window. I couldn't even remember whether the front door downstairs was locked. I picked the phone up, took it off speaker, and told her that last part. I said I thought it was locked, but the back door had been open. She told me officers were almost there. Something scraped behind the closet again. I heard a brittle cracking sound, and the lower corner of the panel pushed forward against the clothes. I could see it then. A line of unfinished brown wood, where paint had broken away from the edge. The boards we'd always called a wall weren't even thick enough to keep their shape under pressure. I backed toward the bedroom door. For a second, I seriously considered moving the dresser and running. He was in the spare room. I could get into the hall and take the front stairs. Then I thought about the distance from the spare room door to mine. He'd reach me before I reached the stairs. The handle behind the dresser moved. I hadn't heard him come out of the spare room. I jumped away from the door so fast that I hit my hip against the desk. The chair I'd knocked over earlier was still on the floor. I almost fell over it. He pressed against the door again. This time the dresser moved several inches before I got back behind it. One of its drawers slid open and struck my knee. I pushed with my shoulder, screaming that the police were coming. He didn't answer. A moment later, another scrape behind the closet told me he'd gone back into the spare room. That's when I understood what the running shower was doing. I could hear him moving furniture or working at the panel, but the water had covered his return to the hall. I couldn't reliably tell which entrance he was going to try until he was already there. Whether he'd planned it that way or not, it was helping him. I told the operator. I was talking so fast that I had to repeat most of it. She stayed calm. She kept telling me where the officers were in terms I could understand. They were on my street. They were arriving. I heard a vehicle outside, then a car door shut. I started crying again, this time from relief. Someone knocked hard on the front door downstairs and shouted that they were police. I called out that I was upstairs. I said it as loudly as I could, over and over. Then I heard a second voice outside, closer to the back of the house. For the first time since I'd come around the kitchen corner, I thought I was going to be okay. The man in the spare room hit the panel hard enough to knock my winter coat off its hanger. The hanger fell into the laundry basket. My coat landed over it, and behind the shirts that were still hanging, I saw an opening about the size of my head. A hand came through. He felt along the broken edge of the panel, found a place to grip. and pulled. The wood split farther down. A couple of shirts came off the rail and fell on top of the coat. I was yelling into the phone now. I don't remember most of what I said. I know I told the operator he was coming through the closet, because I heard her repeat that part. The hand disappeared. I looked at the window, then at the chair on the floor. There wasn't time to make it neat. I put the phone in my shorts pocket, grabbed the chair by its back, and swung it at the lower pane of glass. The first strike left a white mark and a crack. The noise was much louder than I'd expected. I swung again, and most of the pain fell outward onto the porch roof. Someone in the yard shouted up at me. I didn't look down. I hit the frame once more to knock out the large pieces still hanging along the bottom, then threw the chair onto the bed. I grabbed the comforter and pushed a section of it through the opening. There were still points of glass around the edges. I knew that, and I knew a blanket wasn't going to make it safe, but all I could think about was getting something between my skin and the window. Hey, it's Kelly Rowland. 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Ask your doctor about Epglus and visit epglus.com or call 1-800-LILLY-RX or 1-800-545-5979. I don't know if knew this, but anyone can get the same premium wireless for $15 a month plan that I've been enjoying. Upfront payment of $45 for three-month plan equivalent to $15 per month required. I heard the back door open downstairs. A man's voice called up the stairs, announcing that he was police. I shouted that I was in the back bedroom and that the other man was coming through the wall. Behind me, the closet rail came loose on one side. It dropped at an angle and dumped everything still hanging from it onto the floor. The man had pushed his shoulder through the broken panel. His head was turned sideways to fit through the space, with one cheek pressed against the ragged edge. For a second, his face was partly hidden by a blue shirt that had caught on a splinter. Then he lifted his head and looked at me. His lower lip was swollen. There was blood on his chin and down the front of his t-shirt. He wasn't smiling anymore. That should have made him look more normal. It didn't. The expression underneath the smile was completely blank. He looked at the broken window, and then at my legs, as if he was deciding whether he could get to me before I climbed out. He had something in his right hand. I saw a yellow handle but couldn't see what was attached to it. I turned back to the window. The opening was smaller than it had looked from the floor. The wooden middle bar was still in place. I stepped onto the little trunk. under the window, lifted my right leg through the broken pane, and felt around for the porch roof with my heel. The roof was hot. I remember that clearly, too. My bare foot landed on black roofing material that had been in the sun all day, and for one strange second, all I could think about was how much it burned. I leaned forward, put one hand outside, and tried to bring my head under the wooden bar. Something struck the bed behind me. Then he caught my left ankle. I couldn't see him. My upper body was outside, bent awkwardly over the sill, and my left leg was still in the bedroom. He pulled hard enough to knock my knee against the frame. I screamed and grabbed at the comforter, but it started sliding through the opening with me. The man below the porch roof shouted again. I could hear urgency in his voice now, but I couldn't understand the words. I kicked backward with the leg the intruder was holding. I hit something, but he didn't let go. His grip moved from my ankle to the loose fabric of my shorts. For a moment, he was pulling me into the room by my clothes. The waistband dug into my stomach. My ribs pressed against the bottom of the frame, and I couldn't get a full breath. I remember thinking that if he got me back inside, I wouldn't make it out a second time. That wasn't a dramatic thought about dying. It was very plain. I'd used up whatever chance I'd had, and I couldn't do all that. I was tired. I was tired. I was tired. I was tired. I was tired. I was tired. I was tired. I was tired. I was tired. I was tired. I was tired. I was tired. I was tired. I was tired. I was tired. I was tired. I twisted onto my side and managed to look back. He was right against me, close enough that I could smell the same laundry detergent I'd noticed on the stairs. There was sweat on his upper lip. His right hand was beside my hip, and now I could see what he was holding. It was a screwdriver. He lifted it, and I grabbed his wrist with both hands. I don't know what I was saying. I know I was making noise because my throat hurt for days afterward. I held onto his wrist while he tried to pull me away from the window, and the screwdriver scraped against the wooden frame beside my body. Somewhere behind him, an officer was shouting at him to let me go. The intruder looked over his shoulder. His grip on my shorts loosened. I let go of his wrist, pushed against the frame, and dragged my left leg up toward the opening. My shin caught on a jagged piece of glass. I felt the skin tear as I pulled the leg through. He still had a handful of my shorts. I fell forward onto the porch roof. My chest hit first, followed by my chin. The comforter slid off the sill with me and bunched beneath my arms and face. I pushed at it, kicking and crawling until the fabric at my waist pulled free. I got the comforter off my face and rolled away from the window. His arm was still through the opening. He was reaching for me with the same strange rotation of his shoulder I'd seen in the kitchen. This time, the arm was still through the opening. This time, the arm was still through the there was a reason for it. He was trying to extend his hand farther without putting his head through the broken glass. I dragged myself backward until my heel touched the gutter. The man in the yard shouted for me to stop moving. I looked down and saw a uniformed officer with one hand raised toward me. Beyond him, our neighbor across the alley was standing beside his open garage. There were other people farther back, but I couldn't focus on them. I stared at the officer because he was the first person I'd seen since coming downstairs who looked concerned about what was happening to me. He told me to stay low and keep away from the edge. I flattened myself against the roof. Inside my bedroom, somebody shouted an order. I heard a heavy impact, followed by something scraping across the floor. Then there was a struggle I couldn't see. I expected the intruder to come through the window after me. Every time something hit the wall inside, I pulled my legs out of my body. The officer below kept speaking to me. He asked if I was badly hurt. I told him I didn't know. He asked if anyone else was inside. I told him it was just the man. Then I heard a voice from my room say that they had him. I didn't believe it at first. I kept staring at the broken window. A uniformed officer appeared behind it. He had to lean around the wooden bar to see me. He told me the man was in custody and that I needed to stay. I didn't want to stay where I was while they got me down. I asked him to say it again. He did. I started shaking so badly that my teeth hurt. Our neighbor brought a ladder from his garage. By then, more police had arrived, along with an ambulance. Someone came up onto the roof and checked my arms and legs before helping me to the ladder. I was convinced I'd fall if I tried to climb down, even though the drop was much shorter than it had looked from the window. The paramedic said, The paramedic went down just below me. I kept one hand on his shoulder almost the whole way. They sat me on the ambulance step in the alley and put a blanket around me. My left shin was bleeding, and there were cuts on my forearm and the side of my hand. My knee had swollen where I'd struck the stairs. None of that hurt very much yet. I kept asking whether the man was still upstairs. An officer said they were bringing him out through the front. I asked if they could take me somewhere I wouldn't see him. They helped me into the ambulance and shut one of the rear doors. Through the other, I could see our back porch, the ladder, and a heap of broken glass beside the downspout. My towel was still somewhere inside the kitchen. That was when I remembered my phone. It was still in my pocket. The call had disconnected, although I don't know when. There were marks across the screen where I'd handled it with my bleeding palm. I called my dad. He answered normally and asked whether I was on my way to hockey. I tried to say there had been a man in the house, but I started crying so hard that one of the paramedics took the phone from me. I could hear my dad's voice get louder on the other end. The paramedic told him I was alive, that I was talking, and that they were taking me to the hospital. He repeated those things until my dad seemed to understand them. I kept looking at the porch roof. The window I'd climbed through looked tiny from the ground. It seemed impossible to see. I couldn't that I'd fit through it or that a person had been able to hold me there while I tried to get out. There was a strip of my comforter caught on the frame, moving whenever the breeze reached it. I wanted somebody to take it down. I didn't say anything, but I couldn't stop looking at it. Before we left, an officer came to the ambulance and asked if I recognized the man. I said no. He asked whether anyone had been working at the house recently. I told him there'd been people there doing repairs, but that my dad arranged all of it. I couldn't even remember what month they'd last come. The officer said that was fine and that somebody would speak with my parents. I asked if the man had told them why he did it. The officer didn't answer right away. Then he said they were still figuring out what had happened. I didn't like the pause. I liked it even less when he asked me to describe the first time I'd seen him, from the moment I stepped into the kitchen. I told him about the smile. I showed him, as well as I could with my wrist hurting, how the man had been holding his arms. The officer listened without interrupting. When I finished, he told me I'd done what I needed to do to get out. At the time, I didn't know how much I needed somebody to say that. I'd already started picking apart every choice I'd made, as if there'd been one correct sequence that would have made the whole thing stop sooner. I hadn't even left the alley, and I was blaming myself for not finding it. The hospital treated the cuts and checked my wrist. I'd sprained it, and my shin needed stitches, but there wasn't anything that required me to stay overnight. That surprised me. I felt as though something much worse had happened to my body than the list of injuries could account for. Grant got there before my parents did. One of the neighbors knew his family and had called him. He sat beside the bed, holding the bag of clothes he'd brought. Even after I'd already taken a shirt out of it. He said he'd let the other guys know we weren't going to make it to hockey. I looked at the clock. It was already after three. I'd completely forgotten that I'd made plans for later that afternoon. Remembering them made me feel worse for a while. Other people were still having the day I'd expected to have. When I'd woken up, the only thing I had planned was showing up with a stick and a ball. My parents arrived later that afternoon. After driving straight from the cabin, my mom hugged me carefully because she didn't know where it hurt. My dad stood at the end of the bed and kept asking questions nobody in the room could answer yet. He wanted to know how the man got in. He wanted to know whether the police had searched the garage. When I mentioned the opening behind the closet, he sat down. He knew exactly what I meant. Apparently, the doorway had been covered with thin hardboard nailed over the old frame. There was an empty space between the panels, with no studs across the opening. From my side, you couldn't see much of it behind the clothes. From the spare room, a shelving unit usually stood in front of it. That was what I'd heard being moved. The man had shifted the shelving unit, broken through the panel on that side, and used the screwdriver to work at mine. The shower made it harder for me to hear how far he'd gotten. When I yelled about the other entrance, he'd paused. Then he'd kept going. I found out later how the officers reached me. Two had entered through the back after meeting beside the house. One went up the narrow stairs, while the other checked the rooms immediately below. Another officer arrived in time to see me breaking the window and went into the yard. The officer who came upstairs had been told about the closet. When he couldn't open my bedroom door, he went through the spare room. He had to get past the moved shelves and pull away more of the broken panel before he could enter my room. That delay was why I heard him before he could reach us. The man holding me had several chances to stay. I couldn't hear him. I couldn't hear him. I couldn't hear him. I couldn't stop. He didn't. Even after I got onto the roof, he kept reaching out of the window until the officer pulled him back. There was a struggle beside my desk. A second officer came through the closet to help, and they restrained him on the floor. The screwdriver fell behind the radiator. They found it when they searched the bedroom afterward. I learned those details in pieces. Nobody sat down that evening and gave me a complete explanation. There were things my parents were told first, and things I heard from the detective assigned to the case. Some of it didn't become clear until months later. One thing my dad recognized almost immediately was the name of the man they'd arrested. He'd worked at our house that spring. My parents had hired a contractor to repair plaster after some electrical work upstairs. The man had been one of the contractor's helpers. He'd spent three days carrying materials in and out and cleaning up while I was away at school. He wasn't some stranger who'd guessed that there might be a way through my closet. He'd been in those rooms. My dad remembered moving things out of the spare room so the crew could get at a damaged section of wall. The covered doorway had been exposed the whole time they were there. When the police searched him, they found a key that opened our back door. My dad had given the contractor a key for the job and gotten it back when the work was finished. He hadn't considered changing the lock. Neither had my mom. I wouldn't have thought of it, either. I didn't need to hear more about the key that first evening. I knew what it meant. I'd spent part of the ambulance ride worrying that I'd forgotten to lock the door. And now I understood that I could have checked it a dozen times, and he still would have been able to walk inside. We didn't go home after the hospital. We stayed with my aunt. My parents returned to the house with an officer the following morning to pick up clothes and whatever else we needed. My dad called from there and asked me a question that didn't seem to have anything to do with the break-in. He wanted to know what the man had been wearing. I told him about the grey shirt and the brown pants. He asked if I remembered a small patch of white paint near one of the front pockets. I said I didn't know. I'd spent most of the time looking at the man's hands. My dad went quiet for a moment. Then he said both pieces of clothing were his. He said they were his clothes. My mom had washed them Friday morning. They'd been in a clean basket in the basement laundry area when my parents left. The police had found the man's own clothes behind some stored furniture down there. His work shirt and jeans were folded together. There was a bottle of water beside them, and a small cushion from an old chair we kept near the furnace. He hadn't just come in while I was taking a shower. He'd been in the house overnight. He eventually admitted that much. He'd gone inside Friday evening and said, stayed in the basement. He described hearing me play games in the living room. He mentioned how late I'd been awake, and he knew there was nobody else upstairs. While Grant and I were arguing about a game through our headsets, he'd been beneath my living room, close enough to hear my voice through the floor. I'd gone into the kitchen for a drink. I'd shut the back door. I'd gone upstairs and slept for ten hours. He'd stayed. I asked the detective whether he'd come upstairs while I was asleep. He said he'd stayed. He said he'd stayed. She told me they couldn't establish that. I appreciated the answer eventually. At first, I wanted someone to say no, even if they had no way to know. What they could establish was that he'd gone out through the back door on Saturday and come back in shortly afterward. A neighbor had seen him in the yard near the detached garage. He was carrying his shoes. She hadn't called anyone because she'd recognized him from the work crew and assumed he was there to finish something. That was the door I'd heard during my shower. He'd left briefly, then let himself back inside. He had an opportunity to walk away from the house without me ever knowing he'd been there. Instead, he returned, set his shoes under the kitchen table, and waited at the bottom of the stairs. For months, I kept trying to find an explanation that made the kitchen encounter less intentional. Maybe he'd panicked when I came downstairs. Maybe he hadn't known what to say. Maybe the smile, which was a strange attempt to convince me he belonged there. I wanted one of those things to be true, because it would mean I hadn't walked straight into something he'd prepared for me. But he'd heard me call out from the bathroom. He'd heard me ask whether it was Grant or my dad. He'd had plenty of time to answer. When I got around the corner, he was already facing me, already holding his arms that way. Later, the detective told me he'd been asked about that. He didn't offer an explanation about his shoulder, or claim he couldn't help it. He said he wanted to see what I'd do. I don't have a more satisfying explanation of his motives than that. I can't tell you what made him become the kind of person who wanted to spend a night listening to someone in their own home, then wait downstairs to frighten them. I can tell you he knew I was afraid, and that my fear didn't make him stop. I also know this hadn't started with our house. During the investigation, another adult came forward about finding the same man inside her home after he'd worked there. She'd gotten outside before he could reach her. I never met her, and I don't know all the details of her case, so I'm not going to fill them in. Her account became part of the investigation into him. The case took well over a year to finish. I gave statements, looked at evidence I didn't want to see, and answered questions that made me feel as though I was back on the bedroom floor. I had to explain why I'd hit him. I had to explain why I'd tried the window instead of waiting longer. By then, the emergency call and the officer's accounts supported what I'd said from the beginning. His claim that he'd only entered to steal things didn't explain following me upstairs or forcing his way into the room after police arrived. He pleaded guilty before the trial began. The sentence was 28 years. I went to the sentencing with my parents. I'd written a statement, but when it was time to speak, I set the paper down and said what I could remember. Mostly, I talked about how much work ordinary things had become. Taking a shower, sleeping with a door shut, walking into a kitchen without first checking the space beside the stairs. He looked at the table in front of him while I spoke. The officer near him had to tell him to stand when it was over. I watched him leave through a door I couldn't follow him through, and for once, that was a good thing. I knew where he was going. There wasn't going to be a search that went cold. Or a face I kept trying to find among strangers. He was caught. He was convicted. He's still in prison. Getting those answers didn't fix everything at once. I stayed with my aunt for a while, then moved into an apartment with Grant when classes started. My parents had the old doorway properly closed, replaced the back door and its frame, and put the deadbolt on my bedroom. I couldn't sleep there for a long time even after the work was done. I saw a therapist, it helped, though I resisted going at first, because I thought I should have been grateful enough about surviving to stop feeling afraid. Eventually, I understood that both things could be true. I was glad to be alive, and I was having trouble living normally. I still check the locks before bed. I don't stand there checking them over and over anymore. If a door opens unexpectedly, my first reaction is stronger than most people's, but it passes. I've lived alone since then. I've had plenty of quiet weekends that stayed quiet. Before my dad handed the house over to the new owners, I went back to help him carry the last few things out. My old room was empty. The floor had been refinished, and the window opened easily. The closet had a solid wall at the back. I walked down the narrow stairs to get a box from the kitchen. My dad was outside by his truck, and I could hear him talking to the neighbor. On the second to last step, I stopped without meaning to I knew why I'd stopped I let myself stand there for a moment Then went the rest of the way down The kitchen was empty I picked up the box and carried it outside My dad asked if that was everything I told him it was And we locked the house and left Hey, it's Kelly Rowland You may not know this, but I have eczema So I get how it can steal your time But why let eczema take over When you can talk to your doctor about Eclis Eclis, Lubricizumab LBKZ A 250 mg per 2 ml injection Is a prescription medicine used to treat adults and children 12 years of age and older Who weigh at least 88 lbs or 40 kg With moderate to severe eczema Also called atopic dermatitis That is not well controlled with prescription therapies Used on the skin or topicals Or who cannot use topical therapies Eclis can be used with or without topical corticosteroids Don't use if you are allergic to Eclis Allergic reactions can occur that can be severe Eye problems can occur Tell your doctor if you have new Or worsening eye problems You should not receive a live vaccine When treated with Eclis Before starting Eclis Tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection Paid partnership with Lilly Respect your time Ask your doctor about Eclis And visit Eclis.com Or call 1-800-LILLY-RX Or 1-800-545-5979 Starting a business can seem like a daunting task Unless you have a partner like Shopify They have the tools you need to start and grow your business From designing a website To marketing To selling a product To selling and beyond Shopify can help with everything you need There's a reason millions of companies like Mattel Heinz And Allbirds Continue to trust and use them With Shopify on your side Turn your big business idea into Sign up for your $1 per month trial At shopify.com Slash special offer Hello I've been meaning to send this to the podcast For a while now But every time I sat down to write it I ended up with a few paragraphs About the police getting there And almost nothing about what happened before they did That's usually how I tell it in person too I'm leaving my name out But I want to get the full story down this time It happened in broad daylight While I was home alone at my boyfriend's dad's place And it started with a man telling me He was there to collect our trash cans The part I used to leave out When I told people about this Was how close I came to opening the second door I'd already opened the door into the sunroom I had my hand on the latch of the outer one And I was about to let a stranger inside Because I thought it would be rude To keep talking to him through glass That's embarrassing to admit now But I was 24 I was in somebody else's house And the man outside was acting as if I was making a very ordinary visit Unnecessarily difficult There were two of them I didn't know that yet This happened in September of 2016 A few months after I moved in with my boyfriend Owen We lived outside Padusa, Kentucky In a mobile home that belonged to his dad Owen and I had been together since the previous winter And moving in was supposed to help us save for an apartment I lost my job at a small medical billing office Almost immediately afterward The owner retired Someone else bought the business And the person taking over had their own staff So instead of saving money I was sitting in Owen's childhood bedroom Sending out applications And trying to convince myself I wasn't becoming a permanent guest His dad, Walt, never made me feel that way He told me to help with groceries when I could And stop apologizing for using the washing machine He was divorced Worked early mornings at a warehouse And liked having someone around Who would actually eat the food he brought home Owen worked at an auto parts store On most weekdays Walt was gone before I could see him Before I got up Owen left a little after seven And I had the place to myself until mid-afternoon I liked being there I need to say that Because I don't want to make the place sound Obviously dangerous from the beginning It was an old mobile home On a gravel lane with a carport A little glassed-in porch And enough room outside That we never had to listen to anyone else's television The living room smelled faintly of furniture polish Walt kept the kitchen clean He'd replaced the worn carpet himself And was unreasonably pleased with how straight he'd gotten the edges The land around it was a different matter The lane served four rented lots Two were occupied, including ours One had an empty mobile home with a broken awning And the last was just a concrete pad with a disconnected water pipe sticking up beside it An older man owned the whole property But he lived elsewhere and wasn't doing much with it anymore Beyond our back steps Was a field nobody had cut that summer There were weeds taller than my shoulders in places Along with discarded fencing And an old metal shed whose doors didn't meet properly Our closest neighbor lived nearer the public road Around a bend A row of trees and the empty mobile home blocked the view between us If I stood outside I could sometimes hear her car start But from inside our place It was easy to forget she was there She worked during the day, too Walt had a theory about everything that happened on that property A loose panel under the trailer was raccoons A missing gas can was teenagers A bright light over the field one evening Had apparently been something neither the airport nor the weather could explain He told that last story seriously enough That I thought he was joking Laughed And then felt terrible when he kept explaining it Owen told me later not to worry His dad liked having an audience That made it easy to dismiss the smaller things Walt mentioned Somebody had moved a lawn chair off the porch Somebody had driven down the lane after midnight And turned around by the empty pad Somebody had opened the lid of the outside storage box Without shutting it properly Nothing had been stolen from the box There were only extension cords and a cracked plastic watering can inside I assumed he was attaching too much importance to things that happened on a shared property He was particular about the locks, though And I respected that because it was his house The sunroom had been added to the front of the trailer years earlier It wasn't much more than a covered porch enclosed with mismatched windows But it gave us a place for muddy shoes And Walt's folding chairs To get into the house from the front You came up three steps Opened a metal-framed glass door Crossed the sunroom And opened the solid front door into the living room Both doors locked Walt wanted the outer one locked Even when someone was home The other entrance was at the back Directly off the kitchen It opened onto a small wooden landing That door had a normal lock in the handle And a separate bolt Walt had added I always checked both after I took the trash out I didn't think of it as a security routine It was more like making sure I hadn't left the milk on the counter Our bedroom was down a short hallway beyond the kitchen With a bathroom between it and the living area Walt's room was at the opposite end of the trailer Every room had at least one window facing the yard You could stand near the kitchen table and see both entrances It felt convenient until I needed somewhere inside that nobody outside could see I had my own little silver sedan Most days it stayed under the carport Because I didn't have anywhere to go that wouldn't cost money That meant anyone driving past could see exactly When I was home At the time Having a car in the driveway seemed like a good thing I thought it told people the place wasn't empty About a week before this happened I was taking a bag out to the bins When a white pickup slowed on the lane It was an older compact truck The kind that looks too small beside newer ones A man leaned toward the passenger window And asked whether the empty mobile home was for rent I told him I didn't know He asked who he needed to speak to And I said the owner didn't live there Then he asked whether my husband would know I remember correcting him I said my boyfriend was at work But his dad might have the owner's number The man thanked me and drove on around the empty pad I went back inside thinking I'd been helpful without getting involved I didn't tell Owen because there wasn't anything to tell Later I spent a lot of time wishing I'd just said I didn't know and stopped talking The morning it happened was warm enough that I had the air conditioner on by 10 I'd been waiting on a call about a receptionist position So I kept my phone with me instead of leaving it charging in the bedroom I had on jeans, an old green shirt And the sneakers I wore around the house because the kitchen floor was hard on my feet None of that seemed worth remembering until afterward At around 11, I went outside to bring in a towel I'd left drying over one of the carport rails The lid of our recycling bin was open We only put clean cans and cardboard in it So I didn't think an animal had been at it But it had been windy the evening before I shut it, brought the towel in, and locked the sunroom behind me Then I made coffee, opened a book I'd already read twice And sat on the end of the couch where I could see my phone on the table I was planning to call the receptionist job myself if they hadn't called by noon But I was never worrying about sounding too eager When a vehicle came down the lane, I assumed it was our neighbor coming home for lunch lunch. The tires made a familiar grinding sound on the gravel. Then the engine stayed running, close enough that I could hear a loose part rattling beneath the hood. I put the book down, slipped my phone into my back pocket, and got up. Through the living room curtains, I could see white paint where there should have been an empty driveway. Before I reached the front door, somebody knocked on the glass outside. I opened the inner door without checking first. Owen sometimes forgot his key, and for a second, I thought maybe he'd come home to get something. I stepped into the sunroom with my phone in my back pocket and saw a man standing on the other side of the outer door. He was short, somewhere in his 40s, with close-cut hair and a dark blue work shirt. There wasn't a company name on it. He was holding his right arm behind his back, and his left hand was resting against the doorframe. He looked past me into the window, and I saw a man standing on the other side of the door. I looked past him, the living room, before he looked at my face. The white pickup was stopped under the open side of the carport. Its front bumper was almost level with the sunroom steps. I could see the driver's door hanging open, but the angle kept me from seeing much of the cab. I recognized the shape of the truck from the previous week without being sure it was the same one. There were plenty of old white trucks around there. He said he was with the garbage company. They'd come to collect our garbage. There had to be a mistake. I'd gone with Owen to pay that bill earlier in the month. It was one of the household expenses Owen handled, and he'd paid in person because something hadn't worked on the company's website. The man nodded before I finished speaking. He didn't seem interested in whether we'd paid or not. He said he just did what was on the list, and if I wanted to dispute it, I needed to come out and sign something. That's when my hand went to the latch. I wasn't agreeing with him. I didn't want to be a burden to him. I didn't want to I was going to step outside, explain it again, and ask for the paperwork. I could already imagine having to tell Walt I'd stood inside arguing while someone took his trash cans. It sounds ridiculous, but in that moment I was more concerned about being blamed for a stupid mistake than I was about the stranger at the door. Then I looked at his left hand. It was empty. The hand behind his back might have been holding a clipboard, but I couldn't see any of it, and he hadn't brought it forward when he mentioned a signature. He was standing close enough to the glass that the toe of one boot touched the bottom of the door. I took my hand off the latch and asked him to hold up whatever I needed to sign. He looked down at where my fingers had been. Then he said the paperwork was in the truck. I said he could leave it on the steps. If the bins had to go, he knew where they were. I could see both of them through the window on the side of the sunroom, still upright beside the back corner of the carport. I could see both of them through the window on the side of the carport. He didn't turn to look. Instead, he asked whether Owen was home. There was a brief stupid second where I wondered if the garbage account was in Owen's name. I was still trying to find an innocent reason for him to say that. Then he added, or Walt, either one. I said they were busy. He smiled a little, not in a frightening way, just impatiently. It was the expression somebody makes when they know you're lying and don't see the point of it. He asked me to tell him to go get one of them. I didn't move. Neither did he. The engine kept rattling behind him. A drop of sweat ran down the side of his face, and he wiped it with the back of his left wrist. He still hadn't brought his other hand out from behind him. I told him to call the account holder and started backing toward the inner door. He grabbed the outer handle. The first pull wasn't especially hard. The door shifted against the lock, stopped, and went back into place. I heard myself say, it's locked, as if he might not have understood what had happened. Then he pulled again, much harder. The top of the frame moved. One of Walt's folding chairs scraped the floor where the frame hit it. I went backward through the inner doorway, slammed the solid door, and turned its lock. My fingers slipped on the little knob. I tried it twice before I was sure it was all the way over. At almost the same instant, the handle on the back door went down. I could see it from where I stood. The back door was across the living area, beyond the kitchen table. Its handle pushed down, came up, and pushed down again. Then the entire door gave a short, hard shake. The man at the front had been in my sight until I'd closed the inner door. Even running, he couldn't have made it off the front steps, around the carport, and up the back landing that fast. Someone else was already at the back. Pulled my phone out and yelled that I was calling the police. I meant to sound furious. My voice came out so high that I barely recognized it. The back handle stopped moving. Outside, the truck's engine sped up. I heard tires scatter gravel, and for a moment I thought I'd scared them off. I went just close enough to the kitchen window to see through a gap where the curtain didn't cover the frame. The truck came into view around the rear corner. There was a narrow gravel spur along the side of the car. I couldn't see it. I couldn't see it. I couldn't see it. I couldn't see it. I couldn't see it. I couldn't see it. I couldn't see it. I couldn't see it. I couldn't see it. The truck came out of the back of the carport that let Walt get his mower and utility trailer around to the shed. The driver had followed it behind the house. A second man was on the back landing. He was taller than the first, wearing a tan cap and a gray shirt. He stepped off the landing without using the stairs, landed in the dirt, and got into the passenger seat. Something long and dark was in his right hand. I couldn't tell what it was before he pulled it into the cab. I ducked below the window. By then I had the emergency number on my screen. I pressed call before I could talk myself into deciding they'd left and it wasn't necessary. The woman who answered asked for my location first. I gave her the street number, then explained that we were down a private lane and ours was the cream-colored mobile home with the green carport. I said there were two men trying to get in and that I was alone. Saying I was alone made it worse. Until then, I'd been thinking about whether I could get the words out. Once I said it, I started crying. She asked whether either man was inside. I told her no. Both doors were locked, but they'd tried them at the same time. I described the pickup and the men. She said help was being sent and asked whether I could stay somewhere away from the windows. I moved into the narrow space beside the refrigerator. From there, the door opened and I could still see most of the back door. I hadn't barricaded anything. I hadn't picked up a weapon. I stood holding the phone so tightly that the edge pressed into my cheek and watched a kitchen chair because I was afraid to look at the door itself. The engine moved farther away. It sounded as if the truck had followed the cleared strip past the shed toward the empty lot. Then it stopped. I waited for the sound of it reaching the lane. Cars leaving our place always hit a shallow rut. I couldn't side the empty pad. You could hear the loose gravel and, sometimes, whatever was in the trunk bouncing around. I listened for that familiar little sequence and never heard it. The dispatcher asked if I could still see them. I said I didn't think they'd gone. She asked me not to approach a window to find out. I remember being grateful she said that. Part of me had already decided I needed to check, even though checking was the last thing I wanted to do. There was a hard knock on the solid front door. The outer door had been locked when I left the sunroom. I knew it had. I'd watched it hold against the man's hand. Now somebody was inside it. I told the dispatcher, and she asked me to move farther from the front entrance. There wasn't very far to go. I backed down the hallway until I reached the bathroom, carrying the phone at my ear. From that angle, I could no longer see the front door, but I could see the kitchen and the top half of the rear one. The shorter man called my name. Not just ma'am or miss. My actual first name. He pronounced it correctly, too. People sometimes get it wrong when they're reading it for the first time. He said it the way Owen said it, casually, as though I'd been ignoring him across a crowded room. I didn't answer. He said he'd spoken to Walt. There'd been a misunderstanding, and Walt wanted me to let them in. He sounded annoyed on Walt's behalf. I could hear him moving something on the wall. I couldn't hear him. I couldn't hear him. I couldn't hear him. I couldn't hear him. I couldn't hear him. I couldn't hear him. I couldn't hear him. I couldn't hear him. I couldn't hear him. I couldn't hear him. I couldn't hear him. I couldn't hear him. I couldn't hear him. I couldn't hear him. I couldn't hear him. I couldn't hear him. I couldn't hear him. I couldn't hear him. Followed by the scrape of a chair against the inner door. I covered the bottom of my phone and called back that Walt could call me himself. The man said Walt was working and couldn't stay on the phone. He'd sent them to pick something up. I was wasting their time, and I was making this harder than it needed to be. I uncovered the phone. The dispatcher was still there. I don't remember everything she said, but I remember telling her that he knew our names. I expected that to change something about the help coming. It made the situation feel more serious to me, although she'd already understood it was serious. She asked whether I knew either man. I said no. Then I remembered the pickup slowing on the lane and started trying to explain that too. She brought me back to what was happening right then. Was the door still shut? Could I hear both men? Did I have a way out that I knew was clear? I didn't know where the second man was. That was the worst part of the next few minutes. Every time the one at the front spoke, my attention went to him. I kept having to remind myself that listening to him didn't tell me anything about the other one. The second man could have been at the back door, at our bedroom window or waiting beside my car. I couldn't keep track of both sides of the house without moving into view. I stepped into the bathroom and shut the door. The little window above the toilet faced the same overgrown field as the kitchen window. It was high and narrow, frosted enough that I couldn't see through it. The bathroom door was thin, with the kind of privacy lock you could open from outside with a coin. I turned it anyway. For a moment, being behind another closed door helped. Then the man outside stopped pretending to be from the garbage company. We know about the boat, he said. Walt had sold his fishing boat the weekend before. It wasn't an expensive new one, but he'd taken good care of it. And the sale had brought him a little over $9,000. He'd been talking about getting rid of it all summer. He didn't use it enough to justify the upkeep, and he wanted some work done on the trailer's roof before winter. I hadn't been there when the buyer collected it. Owen and I had gone grocery shopping. When we got home, there was an empty space beside the carport, and Walt was at the kitchen table counting the money. He'd made a joke about finally being able to park without reversing around a boat trailer. The money had gone to the bank on Monday. This was Wednesday. I told the dispatcher what the man had said. It came out in pieces because I kept stopping to listen. She asked whether there was a safe in the house. I said no, not that I knew of, and that the money wasn't there anymore. At the front, the man said he only needed the envelope. He said Walt had already agreed, and that I could bring it outside without letting anybody in. He wasn't asking where it was yet. He was giving me a chance to tell him. I said the money was gone. He repeated that they knew about the boat. There was a long pause, and then he said they knew when Walt went to work. They knew when Owen left. He named the auto parts store. My phone vibrated against my face with an incoming call from Owen. I didn't switch over because I was afraid of losing the dispatcher. The sight of his name nearly made me answer anyway. It was lunchtime at work. He usually called to ask how the job search was going, and whether I wanted him to bring anything home. The dispatcher told me to stay with her. I asked if someone could contact him and gave his number. She said she'd pass it along. I was relieved and immediately frightened that he'd come straight home and walk into it. I told her to make sure he didn't do that. I don't know whether I was making sense. I remember saying, he's going to come home, more than once, while the man in the sunroom, kept telling me nobody needed to get hurt. The word hurt changed how the bathroom felt. There was nowhere to sit, except the toilet lid or the floor. The little rug by the sink was damp because I'd washed it that morning, and put it back before it was completely dry. One corner of it had folded under my shoe, and I kept trying to straighten it with my foot. I kept staring at that rug, and thinking I should move it. I couldn't make my brain stop noticing things that didn't matter. At the back of the house, metal struck metal. It wasn't a knock, it was a short scrape, a heavy thump, then another scrape. The sound was coming from the kitchen door. I released the bathroom lock, opened the door an inch, and looked down the hall. The rear door was still closed, but the molding along the handle side had separated from the wall. A narrow strip of paint hung loose beside the bolt. As I watched, the door moved inward and stopped. I told the dispatcher they were breaking it open. The man at the front called out to his partner. I couldn't make out every word because the air conditioner was running, but I heard "wait" clearly. The pressure on the back door stopped. Then the shorter man spoke to me again, much closer to the inner door than before. He said they weren't going to leave without the money. He said if I opened up now, I could sit on the couch while they looked. He made it sound as if that was the reason I was the only reasonable option. As if the only reason the situation was getting dangerous was that I wouldn't cooperate. I had a sudden, horribly clear picture of the two of them inside with me sitting on the couch. I didn't say anything. "We can check it ourselves," he said. I didn't believe him when he said I could stay on the couch. I didn't believe any promise he made about what would happen after I opened a door. There was already one lie after another, and every new one needed me a little closer to him. I looked toward our bedroom. My purse was on the dresser inside it. My car keys were in the small outside pocket, where I always put them. For the first time since the second door handle had moved, I thought about getting to the car. I told the dispatcher where the keys were and that I was going to get them. She asked if I could reach them without going near either entrance. I could. The bedroom was only a few steps behind me. I went in low, even though the curtains were shut. I pulled my keys out so hard that the purse fell off the dresser. The coins in the bottom spilled across the floor, and I froze, waiting for the men to react. Neither said anything. I left the purse where it was. I didn't take my wallet or my shoes from the closet or any of the things I would have imagined taking if somebody had asked me about escaping a house. I already had shoes on. I had a phone in one hand and a key ring in the other, and that was all I could manage. As I turned to go, the bottom edge of the bedroom curtain lifted. Something had pressed against the screen outside, pushing it into the open gap at the base of the window. I'd left that window raised an inch the previous evening, and forgotten about it when I turned the air conditioner on. The lower corner of the screen had come out of its track. A fingertip came through the gap. I hit the bottom of the window with the heel of my hand. It dropped against the finger, bounced, and I hit it again as the hand pulled away. The window slammed shut. I pushed the little catch over without checking whether it had lined up properly and stumbled backward into the dresser. The man outside yelled and struck the wall beneath the window. Then he called to the other man that I was in the bedroom. I didn't stay to find out whether the catch was holding. I went back down the hall, past the bathroom, until I could see the kitchen again. The man at the rear had moved away from the door while his partner talked to me. He'd tried to reach me from the other side instead. I kept thinking about how quietly he'd done that. The trailer wasn't soundproof. I could hear trucks on the public road, I could hear trucks on the public road, the refrigerator switching on, a loose carport panel shifting when it was windy. But I'd heard nothing that warned me he was directly outside the room I was walking into. The dispatcher asked if I was injured. I said no. She asked whether the window was closed. I said yes. Her voice was steady enough that I kept wanting her to give me one more thing to do. As long as she was asking questions, there was a next thing. I could answer a question. I could look at a door. I couldn't make myself think about both men getting inside. I was back near the refrigerator when the frontman said something about my silver car. He told me he knew it was mine and that I wasn't going to get very far on foot. and that I wasn't going to get very far on foot. He wasn't shouting. He was speaking through the door at almost a normal volume, close enough that I could hear him take a breath between sentences. He said he didn't want to have to come to the door I looked at my keys. There were four of them on the ring, along with the car remote and a little purple strap I'd bought because I kept losing them in my purse. I put the strap around my wrist. My hand was sweating badly and I was afraid I'd drop the keys if I had to move fast. The rear door shook again. This time it didn't stop after one push. The whole kitchen wall trembled, enough to make the glasses in the cabinet click together. The dispatcher said the officers were on their way. I asked how close and she said she was checking. I remember feeling angry at the word "checking," then guilty, then too scared to care whether I was being fair to her. Outside, the shorter man said I had one last chance. I believed him about that part. The kitchen table stood between the back door The kitchen table stood between the back door and the dining area. It was one of those small tables with folding leaves on the sides, the kind you could move by yourself if you lifted one end. Two chairs were tucked beneath it. I switched my phone to speaker, lowered the volume, and set it on the counter. Then I put both hands against the table and shoved it toward the rear entrance. One chair fell over. The other caught against a cabinet and stopped the table at an angle. I pushed again until the edge was against the door. The table was too light, and the door would push it inward if the frame gave way. But it was something the man would have to move around. I picked the phone back up and took it off speaker. The dispatcher was asking if I was still there. I told her what I'd done. The front man heard the furniture move. He started working the handle of the inner door. I heard its handle hit the end of its travel again and again. A loose strip on the sunroom ceiling rattled overhead. He told me to stop making trouble. I don't know what made me think of the trunk. I wish I could explain it as a plan I worked out carefully, but I was scared enough that I wasn't thinking in complete sentences. I knew the frontman was between me and my car. I knew he wanted the money. And I knew there was a button on my remote that would open the trunk without me going outside. I called out that it wasn't in the house. He stopped touching the handle. I said the money was in my car. Walt had asked me to take it to the bank, and I hadn't gone yet. It was in a bag under the trunk floor, where the spare tire was. All of that was a lie. There was a canvas bag in the trunk, though. It held a cheap emergency kit my mother had bought me when I got the car. I could picture it. Dark blue, faded on one side, with a broken zipper pull. Having one real detail made it. easier to keep talking. The man asked why I'd told him the money was gone. I said I was scared. That was the only thing I said to him that didn't take effort. He told me to bring out the keys. I said I could open the trunk from inside. He told me again to come out. And I said he could get the bag himself, if he moved away from the door. You may not know this, but I have eczema. So I get how it can steal your time. But why let eczema. take over. when you can talk to your doctor about EBCLSS? EBCLSS, Leberkizumab LBKZ, a 250mg per 2ml injection, is a prescription medicine used to treat adults and children 12 years of age and older who weigh at least 88 pounds, or 40kg, with moderate to severe eczema. Also called atopic dermatitis, that is not well controlled with prescription therapies used on the skin, or topicals, or who cannot use topical therapies. EBCLSS can be used with or without topical corticosteroids. Don't use if you are allergic to EBCLSS. Allergic reactions can occur that can be. severe. You should not receive a live vaccine when treated with EBCLSS. Before starting EBCLSS, tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection. Respect your time. Ask your doctor about EBCLSS and visit EBCLSS.com. Or call 1-800-LILLY-RX or 1-800-545-5979. Starting a business can seem like a daunting task. Unless you have a partner like Shopify. They have the tools you need to start and grow your business. From designing a website, to marketing, to selling, and beyond, Shopify can help with everything you need. There's a reason millions of companies like Mattel, Heinz, and Allbirds continue to trust and use them. With Shopify on your side, turn your big business idea into. Sign up for your $1 per month trial at Shopify.com slash special offer. For a few seconds, he didn't answer. The man at the back was still working at the frame. I could hear him breathing hard between the impacts. I couldn't tell whether he'd heard the conversation at the front, and I didn't want to yell loudly enough to make sure. Keeping the man in the sunroom talking was the only reason I could imagine him choosing to move. I told the dispatcher, very quietly, that I was trying to get the front man away from the door. She asked whether I could see a safe route to the car. I said not yet. She didn't tell me to run. She told me to stay on the phone and tell her what I could see. The front man said, I held the trunk button down. My car gave its familiar little chirp outside. The sound was so normal that I almost cried again. I'd heard it at grocery stores and outside my mother's apartment, and after work when I was carrying too much. Now it was coming from a car I might not be able to reach, with a man standing between us who'd been explaining what would happen if I ran. He opened the outer sunroom door. I heard it catch again. I heard it catch against the stop, then settle back partway on its closer. The inner door stayed shut. I moved toward the living room window that faced the carport. The curtains were thin enough to show shapes when somebody stood close, but I needed more than that. I crouched beside the couch and moved the fabric with one finger. My car was still where I'd parked it, facing toward the lane. The pickup wasn't blocking it anymore. Through the carport posts, I could see a clear stretch of gravel out to the bend. The shorter man came into view beside the rear bumper. He lifted the trunk lid the rest of the way and leaned over it. In his right hand was a pair of long-handled pliers. He put them on the edge of the open trunk and reached inside. For the first time, I could see a way out that didn't have a person standing in it. I moved to the front door and put my hand on the lock. Then the back door came open. The table scraped across the kitchen floor. The fallen chair caught underneath it and made the whole thing tilt. The man in the tan cap forced his shoulder through the gap, pushing against the edge of the table with one hand. I could see his face clearly. It was red, sweaty, and furious. He looked straight at me. The object in his other hand was a short pry bar. He said, don't move. I put the phone on speaker, pushed it into my front jeans pocket, and turned the front lock. The door opened inward. I pulled it toward me, stepped around the edge, and squeezed through into the sunroom. Behind me, the kitchen table hit something hard. The taller man was getting past it. I pulled the front door closed. I couldn't lock him inside from that side, and I knew it. I just wanted something between us for another second. The outer door was still unlocked. Its frame had bent near the latch, and there was a pale scratch down the painted metal. I pushed it open, went down the steps too quickly and nearly fell when my heel landed on the edge of the bottom one. The short man looked up from my trunk. He saw me. I saw him understand. There wasn't a moment where he looked confused and gave me a head start. He dropped the canvas bag and came around the side of the car immediately. I hit the unlock button on my remote as I ran. The driver's door was closer to the sunroom than the trunk, but only by a few feet. I got my left hand under the handle and pulled. My right hand had the car key out, separate from the other keys, because I'd been feeling for it since I left the house. I sat down hard, hit my knee on the steering column, and pulled the door toward me. His hand closed around the top of the door before it shut. He yanked it open so hard that it pulled my left arm straight. I had hold of the inside handle and couldn't make myself let go. He leaned into the opening, filling it, one hand on the door and the other reaching toward the ignition where I was trying to put the key. He wasn't smiling now. He didn't look patient or official or even especially angry. He looked busy. He told me to slide over. That frightened me more than anything he'd said through the door. He wasn't telling me to get out. He wanted the space where I was sitting and he wanted me in the passenger seat. I pressed the horn with the heel of my right hand. The sound filled the carport. He flinched and grabbed at my wrist and I pulled it back against my chest. My key scraped the plastic around the ignition. Behind him, I could see the taller man come through the outer sunroom door. He still had the pry bar. He stopped at the top step, looked at us, and started down. I got the key in on the next try and slipped my hand out of the wrist strap. The short man reached across me again. His forearm pressed against my mouth, and I turned my face toward the seat so I could breathe. I kept my left hand on the door handle. My right hand turned the key. The engine started. I put my foot on the brake and moved the gear lever into drive. He was still trying to get hold of my right arm. I don't know whether he saw me change gears. I took my foot off the brake and pressed the accelerator before I'd put both hands anywhere useful. The car moved forward with the door open. He had to step with it. For two or three steps, he kept hold of the top of the door and ran beside me. I pulled inward with my left hand as hard as I could. He lost his grip, the door came toward me, and I dragged my elbow out of the way just before it slammed. I hit the lock button. I heard him hit the side of the car. I didn't look to see whether he was still standing. I got my left hand onto the steering wheel and turned away from the nearest carport post. The passenger mirror struck the post with a crack. Something plastic hit the window and dropped out of sight. Then I was out from under the roof and on the gravel. The trunk was still wide open. It filled the rearview mirror, so I couldn't see either man behind me. For a second, I panicked because I thought the pale shape in the mirror was the truck coming up on me. Then I understood what I was looking at and forced myself to look forward. I drove around the empty pad faster than I'd ever driven on that lane. The front tires slid where the gravel was loose. I corrected too much, ran onto the grass, and came back onto the lane hard enough to make my teeth hurt. My phone was talking in my pocket. I couldn't understand the words over the engine and the trunk lid rattling behind me. I yelled that I was in my car. I said it twice, then said I was driving toward the public road. I didn't know whether the dispatcher could hear me. I kept yelling anyway. Near the bend, I remembered the seatbelt. I grabbed it and pulled it across myself one-handed, still moving. I had to slow almost to a stop before I got it buckled, then put both hands back on the wheel. It seemed strange that I cared about it then. I was convinced somebody was about to hit my car from behind, and I didn't want to be thrown forward if they did. I stopped short of the public road. There was a work van coming from the left. I waited for it because some part of me could still understand that pulling out in front of it would trap me more completely than anything those men had done. A sheriff's vehicle was approaching the lane from my right. I saw its lights as the van passed and pressed down harder on the brake, afraid I might accidentally roll out of the lane before he saw me. I leaned on the horn. The deputy stopped at the mouth of the lane. I kept my door locked. I didn't want to touch the handle again. When he got out, I pointed back down the lane through the closed window and tried to explain everything at once. He asked me to put the window down just a little. I did. I remember the glass moving smoothly and being surprised that any part of the car still worked. I told him there were two men behind us, a white truck, and that one of them had been inside the house. I said they knew my name. It was still the detail I couldn't stop returning to. He told me another deputy was close and directed me onto the shoulder across the road, beside a fenced equipment yard. I drove where he pointed. He stayed at the lane entrance, pacing back toward the bend. I finally took the phone out of my pocket. The call was still connected. The dispatcher asked whether I was with an officer now, and I said yes. I hadn't heard any sirens before I reached the road. I hadn't known how close help was. If I'd stayed inside for another minute, I don't know what would have happened. I try not to decide that it would have been fine just because a deputy was almost there. The short man had already had his arm across my face. I didn't know what would have happened. A second sheriff's vehicle arrived and stopped near me. The deputy who got out spoke to the first one briefly, then came to my window. He asked me to turn off the engine and stay in the car while he checked behind it. I watched him close the trunk in the side mirror I still had. I unlocked the passenger door for him. He opened it, looked inside, and told me I could get out on that side if I wanted to. The dispatcher stayed with me until she heard me speaking to him. She said she'd let me go, and I ended the call. I unbuckled my seatbelt and climbed awkwardly over the console toward the passenger door. I couldn't make my legs hold me at first. I got one foot onto the gravel and sat there, still hanging on to the keys. The deputy didn't pull me. He let me take the time I needed. Another vehicle went down the lane. I could hear an engine somewhere behind the trees, then men calling to each other. I couldn't see them. I couldn't see them. I couldn't see them. I couldn't see what was happening, and the deputy beside me wouldn't let me walk to where I could. That was when I started shaking badly enough that he called for medical help. My knee hurt, my left wrist was swelling, and there was blood on the back of one hand. I hadn't felt any of it while I was driving. I asked him to make sure they got both men. He said they were working on it. I asked again. I knew I was repeating myself, but I couldn't stand the thought of one of them slipping away while everyone watched the other. That was how they'd worked at the house. One man had kept my attention while the other went around to the back. I needed somebody else to remember there were two. They did get both of them. I didn't find that out all at once. First, the deputy beside me learned that a man had been arrested near the pickup. A few minutes later, he told me the second man had run into the field, and that officers were looking for him. I sat on the edge of an ambulance while somebody examined my wrist. I couldn't watch the trees at the far end of the lane, terrified that a person could come out of them without anyone noticing. Owen arrived before they found the second man. Someone had reached him at work. He parked beside the equipment yard and came toward me so quickly that the deputy stopped him until I said who he was. I expected to feel better the second he got there. Instead, seeing his work shirt made me think of the shorter man naming the store, and I started crying again. Owen crouched in front of me and asked whether I could look at him. I could, but I couldn't explain why I was having so much trouble. Walt came later. By then, the police had caught the shorter man behind the old shed at the edge of the field. He'd tried to crawl beneath a collapsed section of fencing and gotten tangled in it. The taller one had driven the pickup toward the public road, reached the bend, and stopped when he saw the first deputy blocking the lane entrance. Another deputy reached him there before he could turn around. I learned those details afterward. All I cared about at the time was hearing that the search was over. The men weren't garbage collectors. Neither had ever worked for the company that serviced our bins. They weren't friends of Walt's, and he hadn't asked them to collect anything. He did recognize one of them, though. The taller man had come to look at the before it sold. He'd spent nearly an hour in the yard asking questions, looking at the motor, and trying to talk Walt down on the price. Walt said he'd seemed friendly enough. Too friendly, once he went back over the conversation. The man had asked whether Walt worked nearby, whether Owen helped him with the boat, and whether all three of us lived in the trailer. Walt had talked about us. Of course he had. A person was standing in his yard making conversation, and he was trying to sell a boat. The man hadn't bought it. He'd said he needed to think about it, and left a number that Walt never ended up calling. After the actual sale, Walt took down the online listing. That alone would have told anyone watching it that the boat was probably gone. The rest had come from visits to the lane. The man who'd asked me about the vacant mobile home was the shorter one. Once I saw him in court, without the work shirt, and without a door between us, I was sure. The pickup had been the same one, too. He'd used the empty lot as an excuse to stop close enough to learn who was home. I'd answered one of his questions for him. An investigator told us the men had exchanged messages about our cars and the times they left. One message described my sedan still being under the carport after Owen drove away. I don't know how many mornings they'd watched us. Knowing they'd done it even once without me noticing was enough. I don't know which conversation gave them my name. Walt might have used it while showing the boat. Owen might have called it across the yard. The police couldn't give me an exact answer, and eventually I stopped asking them to. It hadn't required anything complicated. We'd been living normally around people we didn't know were paying attention. There was no cash hidden in the house. Walt showed investigators the deposit from Monday. That was a detail I wanted written down, even though it didn't change what the men had done. I'd told them the truth before I lied about the trunk. The thing they claimed would make them leave had already been somewhere I couldn't find. I'd told them the truth before I lied about the police recovered the pry bar from the pickup. They also found tape and several plastic restraints in the cab. The pliers had ended up inside my trunk, caught in the carpet he'd lifted while looking for the money. I didn't see the items laid out. An investigator told me what they'd found during an interview a few days later. He explained that they were looking at the attempt to force me across the car seat as part of the case, too. Until then, I'd been calling it an attempted robbery, when I described it. That was easier to say. I could imagine people wanting money and leaving disappointed when they didn't get it. I had a much harder time thinking about why they'd brought something to keep a person from using her hands. Walt kept apologizing about the outer door. The latch had held when the man first pulled on it, but the metal frame was old. The pliers had left marks where he'd forced it while I was on the phone, listening for the truck to leave. I'd mistaken the second man's ride from the landing for both men leaving. The driver had parked behind the shed and come back around to the front while his partner stayed near the rear entrance. I had only lost track of them for a short time. They'd used all of it. The back door had failed at the frame around the extra bolt. The bolt itself was still in place when the police examined it. Walt looked at that damage for a long time before anybody persuaded him to leave it alone for the evening. I stayed with my mother for the first week. There were bruises on my arm and across the side of my face, but nothing was broken. My wrist needed a brace. The scrape on my hand healed before I could get through a night without waking up to check where I was. For a while, the hardest thing wasn't sleeping. It was being home during the day. Sunlight coming through a kitchen window didn't feel reassuring anymore. A vehicle slowing outside made me stop whatever I was doing. I couldn't read more than a paragraph without looking up to make sure a door hadn't opened. Owen never complained about the phone calls. Sometimes I called him from my mother's living room with her sitting in the next room, just because I needed to hear him say he was at work and would be home later. He didn't try to argue me out of being frightened. He told me where he was and listened while I talked. The case took more than a year. I gave evidence at the trial, including what the short man had said when he tried to get into my car. There were parts of that day I couldn't place in exact order, and I said so. I didn't have to invent a perfect memory to explain what had happened. The damaged doors, the things in the truck, my injuries, and the emergency call supported the parts I remembered clearly. Both men were convicted. The shorter man received 20 years in prison. The taller man received 15. Neither has been released. I keep the victim notification information current, but I don't spend my evenings searching their names anymore. Walt replaced both entrances before I went back to the trailer. Owen offered to move out immediately, but I didn't want us to sign a lease we couldn't afford because I was scared. We worked it out one week at a time. I got the receptionist job at a different office, started contributing again, and stayed another seven months. Being there was difficult. Leaving on a day we'd chosen helped. There wasn't one morning when I woke up completely over it. Counseling helped. Time helped. So did finding out that I could be nervous and still finish making dinner, take a shower, or sit through a whole movie by myself. Those things sound small until you can't do them. Owen and I are still together. Walt lives in a different place now, closer to his sister. We go over for dinner most Sundays, and he still insists on sending us home with enough food for three more meals. He doesn't tell the story for me. If somebody brings it up, he lets me know. He lets me decide how much I want to say. Last month, Owen had to work late, and I spent the evening at home alone. I made something to eat, finished a book, and went to bed before he got back. Nothing happened. I didn't call him to come home early. I didn't sit in the driveway waiting for his car. I checked the locks once, because I wanted to know they were locked. Then I went back to what I was doing. There was a time when I couldn't imagine having an evening that ordinary again. I'm glad those men never got to find out how much of my life I eventually took back. I don't know what happened, but I'm glad I didn't have to go to bed at night. I don't know what happened, but I don't know what happened. I don't know what happened, but I don't know what happened, but I'm glad I didn't have to go to bed at night. Starting a business can seem like a daunting task, unless you have a partner like Shopify. From designing a website, to marketing, to selling and beyond, Shopify can help with everything you need. They call me BJ. Call me the road warrior. Home of the save. Join for just $20 at bjs.com slash mesquite and save 10 cents per gallon for six months. Open soon. Hey, Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile. Now, I don't know if you've heard, but Mint's premium wireless is $15 a month. But I'd like to offer one other perk. We have no stores. That means no small talk. The weather we're having. No, it's not. It's just weather. It is an introvert's dream. Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch. Upfront payment of $45 for three-month plan. $15 per month equivalent required. New customer offer first three months only. Then full price plan options available. See mintmobile.com. 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