It was a joke. A way for me to rationalize the absolute and utter terror that started to wrap itself around my throat. Jake chuckled, offered me a strained smile. It made me feel slightly better. Even though I had no idea what the hell was going on, seeing Jake manage even the smallest of smiles made me feel like we weren’t about to lose our lives in some home invasion. “Put on some clothes but not because you’re in any danger,” he said. “Whoever tried to get in here was scared off by the alarm.”

I breathed a sigh of relief, getting out of bed and rummaging through the bedroom, finding a pair of gym shorts that I was positive weren’t even mine, but I pulled them on regardless, finding my shirt on the dresser.

“Is the person gone?” I asked, going over to Jake’s side and far from the now shut bedroom door.

“I think so.”

That didn’t sound very reassuring. I swallowed a lump, looking at the door again with a renewed sense of dread. It was the kind of fear that stole the voice from you, throwing me back to being a kid when my mom and I were home alone on a week my dad had a work trip and a similar situation occurred. I woke up to the blare of alarms, my mom in a panic as she rushed into my bedroom and slammed the door behind her. But we only had landlines back then, so she’d be calling out to the police, and they’d be calling in, and no one could get through. So it was about five minutes of utter panic, with my mom telling me to just stay on my bed and to be very quiet. I listened, crying into my pillow so that I wouldn’t make a sound, even though it wouldn’t even be heard over the alarm.

Finally, the police got through, the alarm stopped, and they came and searched the place. Turns out, someone had broken in. They smashed through the basement window and took a few meaningless items before they decided to make a run for it. But I always wondered what would have happened if they were more bold? If they came upstairs? Or if my mom decided to go downstairs herself before the cops showed up? Would that night have had a vastly different impact on my life?

This night felt oddly similar to that one. Where one single decision could change the outcome and get us hurt—or worse.

Jake turned off the alarm and looked through the two cameras he had, one on the front door and one on the deck of his backyard. Neither showed any activity or movement, the peaceful scene painted in a brightening orange as the sun started to come up on this chaotic morning. He rewound the footage, scrubbing through it a second at a time.