Shaun tore around his apartment, throwing things into a suitcase. A handful of socks, a few books, his cell phone charger, toothbrush. It was easier to throw all the shirts in rather than to pick and choose. All he was thinking was that he wanted to get out as soon as possible, knowing that Dr. Glassman was bound to come looking for him. Then he left, backpack on his back, suitcase in hand, locking the door behind him.

When he made it to the main door of the building, it was clear that Shaun had no plans for where to go. It was so much easier when he had his brother. Instead, Shaun set down the suitcase and began pacing back and forth just inside the door, trying to think.

After a few minutes, Lea came in. She paused and watched her neighbor pacing. "Hey, what's up?" she said.

Without breaking his pacing, Shaun said, "I need to find a place to stay but I don't know where to go."

"Is something wrong in your apartment? I knew some of that plumbing looked sketchy."

"No the plumbing is fine. I need to find a place to hide from Dr. Glassman."

Lea raised an eyebrow. "Um, okay. And Dr. Glassman is looking for you because…?"

"I hit him." Shaun stopped pacing and stood, looking at some point over Lea's shoulder.

"You hit him? So did he call the cops or something?"

"No, he wouldn't do that. And he knows that it was his fault that he made me mad."

"So you're just trying to avoid him for a while, I guess?"

Shaun nodded.

"Well, why don't you just stay with me? There's plenty of room if you don't mind the couch."

Shawn shrugged. It was better than anything he could think of. And besides, Lea was nice. She didn't treat him as though he were different. "Okay," he finally said after a moment's hesitation.

"Great! Sometimes it gets so boring around here that I could use the company."

So, picking up the suitcase, Shaun followed Lea back the way he had just came, except stopping when they reached her apartment. She unlocked the door and ushered Shaun inside before she closed the door behind them.

Lea's apartment had sparse furniture. A bed and dresser were shoved in one corner and mostly hidden behind a couple of folding partitions. A door near it led through to the bathroom. The kitchen was on the other side, with a table against the wall with a few chairs around it. In between, filling the middle space, was a shelf with a small TV and a sofa and old armchair facing towards it with a beat up coffee table in the middle.

After taking off her coat, Lea turned on a ceiling light over the kitchen and a lamp by the sofa. "Just put your stuff anywhere where it's not in the way. I'm gonna change out of my work clothes-" She gestured to the crisp yet drab pants and blouse she was wearing. "-and then we can just hang out, I guess. Unless you've got something you want to do?"

Shaun shook his head.

"Great." And Lea disappeared behind the partitions and then into the bathroom.

Shaun gingerly sat down on the edge of the sofa and looked around the apartment, waiting for Lea to come back. After a few minutes, she reappeared, now clad in sweatpants and a t-shirt with come colorful, unidentifiable logo on it. "Good, you're making yourself comfortable. I remembered that I forgot to check my mail. I'll be right back."

Lea crossed the apartment and left, closing the door with a click behind her. Getting her mail was uneventful, but as she returned down the hall to her apartment, she saw a couple people entering Shaun's apartment at the end of the hall. She missed the first, but got a good glimpse of the second.

As she reentered her apartment, she closed the door and told Shaun, "Hey, there were a couple guys going in your apartment."

"What did they look like?" asked Shaun.

"One of them was balding and slightly older that middle aged. He sort of looked like my father. I didn't see the other one, sorry."

"That would be Dr. Glassman. He has a key to my apartment. He's probably looking for me."

"Why don't you go talk to him?"

No, that would defeat the point of leaving, and why I am in your apartment."

Lea just shrugged in reply. After a moment, she said, "I don't know about you, but I'm hungry." She went to the kitchen and dug around in the freezer for a bit. "I'm not in the mood to cook, and if I had to venture a guess, I'd say you aren't either. I've got frozen pizza-" She paused and shifted the pizza box around. "-or chicken and French fries, I guess."

"Both of them are almost equally unhealthy," Shaun called from where he still sat on the sofa.

"I guess I get to pick, then." Choosing the pizza, Lea preheated the oven and stuck the pizza on the rack. Then she flopped down on the sofa next to Shaun. Leaning back she said, "So, what do you want to do tonight?"

Shaun didn't reply right away. Finally he said slowly, "Probably read a book. Or a medical journal. I found an interesting article about tendons and haven't had time to read it yet."

"I think I'll just watch TV or something. I need a distraction. Real life is just too much at times, you know?"

Twenty minutes later, in the middle of eating pizza, someone pounded on Lea's door. Grumbling about cold pizza, she got up to open it. When she opened the door to her apartment, she let out one of the loudest sighs that Shaun had ever heard.

"What is it, Brandon? And I thought that I told you never to come here. Or were you drunk that day and that's why you forgot?" Lea paused, and a moment of silence followed.

Shaun leaned to one side from where he was sitting at Lea's kitchen table to see around her and out the door. He caught a glimpse of a guy wearing faded jeans, a sweatshirt, and a baseball cap.

"Lea, just hear me out for a momen-" His words were slightly slurred.

"No, I don't think so, Brandon. I gave you more chances than you deserved. What did you think it meant when I said don't bother calling me? God, you're an idiot."

"It wasn't like that. Sure I like to have fun when I drink-"

"Apparently you like fun all the time."

He tried to push the door open, but Lea stopped him.

"I don't think so. Get lost, Brandon. So lost that you never come back.

"Oh I see." Brandon had managed to push the door open just enough to spy Shaun sitting in Lea's kitchen. "You've got another guy. And he's better than me? Is that it? Well, he looks like a loser. You know what? I think I'm too good for you." Then he peered over Lea's head and called into the apartment, "Good riddance. She's all yours now, buddy!" And with a wave through the door to Shaun, he stormed off down the hall without another word.

Lea slammed the door and leaned against it. "Oh, if I wasn't so mad at that idiot, this would have almost been funny."

"Why was it funny? I didn't think it was," Shaun said.

"It's just that Brandon thinks he's so great, but he'll run off for a night with any girl who'll have him, and he thinks I'm the one who's cheating for dumping him."

Shaun merely said, "Hmm," and gave a slight nod. He felt that this came after flirting, and he hadn't mastered flirting yet. Maybe he'd have to ask Claire about it the next time he saw her, whenever that might be. If he was going to avoid Dr. Glassman and his nagging, then he wasn't going to work. He didn't know what he was going to do, but it had been a long day and Shaun didn't much want to think about it.

After he and Lea had finished the pizza and cleaned up, Shaun made up the sofa with a blanket from Lea. Lea turned off all the lights except for a lamp behind the screens as she wasn't ready to sleep yet. Lying on his back on the sofa that was just as wide as his shoulders, Shaun watched the shadows from whatever Lea was doing in the dim light that shone on the ceiling above.

Shaun hadn't quite drifted off when his phone made a noise. Sighing, he turned so he could reach it where it lay on the coffee table. In addition to several missed calls from earlier in the evening, there was a text from Dr. Glassman. It read "Where the hell are you?" Shaun put the phone back on the table without responding and fell asleep.