Possessive Neighbor

Cold.

Like I’ve been sucker-punched.

Turning on my heel, I slowly walk back to my house and quickly unlock the door. Quietly closing it behind me, I triple lock it and shed my coat.

Shivering, I head upstairs, stripping my clothes off as I go, intent on having a hot shower.

My emotions are on overload, and panic is sluggishly creeping in as the water begins to run just as soon as I hear Reed pounding on the door and calling my name.

Ignoring him, I need to focus on me.

Five minutes ago, I felt nothing but happiness and excitement. Even having decided to tell Reed about the baby, I didn’t feel like I do right now.

The worst part is not always understanding what I feel.

I know happiness because I was taught about it. It’s one of the most common emotions. Anger and panic go hand in hand in my life, and I can sometimes identify them after they’ve consumed me. Excitement, though? It’s so new for me, and now that I’m finally able to experience it without question, it’s been quickly extinguished by this crushing feeling in the pit of my stomach.

But this? Right now? What I feel inside my soul. That cramps my heart and makes it hard to breathe?

What is this?

I don’t want this. I never want to feel it again.

4

Reed

My eyes burn as I chug the coffee Colby forced into my hands while he barks orders at the crime scene we’re currently working. A break and enter that could have turned out much worse. The family wasn’t home, thankfully. However, their house was gutted and destroyed. Someone was looking for something quite specific.

I spent most of the previous night sitting on Hope’s porch, waiting, hoping she would have mercy on me. But she never opened her door. Didn’t answer my calls, and I filled up her voicemail. She didn’t reply to any of my texts either.

As I was leaving, her brother Luca arrived with a scowl on his face, so I get the feeling he knows how badly I screwed up.

“You’re scaring the techs, man.” Colby nudges me with his elbow, and I see some of the crime scene techs shooting worried looks my way.

“I’m gonna take a walk,” I tell him and exit out the door.

After hours of cataloging their missing items from the house, the family is back at the station giving a statement. There isn’t much more that can be done here. Patrol officers are canvassing the neighborhood. Talking to residents. And if they find someone who might have seen or known something, they’ll call me, and then it’s a whole new set of interviews to conduct.

All I can do right now is think about how horrifically I've fucked up with Hope. I’m not like my brother Theo, secure in knowing for so long who his wife would eventually be. I never really looked for that forever kind of love. I have contemplated it but never actively searched for the right girl.

Then she moved in next door, and from the second she smiled at me, I knew she was going to be mine. If only I could stop screwing up long enough to convince her of

that.

“Hey, techs are almost finished. Let’s go talk to the family again. The teenage son was a little skittish when we spoke to him.” Colby shares his suspicions after coming down the front steps.

“You noticed that, too, huh?” The boy couldn’t hold eye contact, and when we asked what he was missing from his room, he simply shrugged and brushed us off. “What do you wanna bet, he had some friends do it while they were all out?”

“Yup. Drugs or women?”

“Probably both,” I reply as we hop in our squad car. Colby drives us back in silence until we’re about a block away from the station.

“You want to share what’s going on with you today? You’ve never been so indifferent.” His observation is correct. I would have called the kid out on his odd behavior any other day.

Carla is all I have to say for him to understand.

“What the fuck did she do?”