Next Door Hater (Love Under Lockdown)

“Warned you?”

“After I invited him over for dinner. I thought you were just being dramatic, trying to keep me away from him. That was before I saw the bloody clothes hidden under your bed. I just figured he put them there. Came in through the gap in the wall and stashed the evidence. No one would think to look here.”

“That’s not what happened at all,” I said coldly.

“I really don’t think -”

“At all about anything. I was with Dad last night. He scared away the punks in the side lot who were having another illegal rave. Scared being the operative word. Neither of us even touched them.”

“Oh, and where did the blood come from?” Sara snarked, going into full bitch mom mode.

“A customer at work, my work, who wouldn’t wear a mask and pulled a gun when I told him he had to. I thought I was going to die, but I got the gun away from him and battered him with it. Self-defense the cops said. The bloody clothes were in Elise’s room because she helped me. I was a mess and -”

The words just stopped. Like a car that had run out of gas. I couldn’t stand to look at either of them anymore. Knowing that Sara had gotten Dad arrested because Elise had been telling lies about him. He could be gruff, even scary bud I’d never known him to be dangerous. Not proper dangerous. He might get into a brawl if pushed when drunk, but that was it. A few bruises, maybe a lost tooth or two.

I knew real danger. Lived with it every day. The constant fear I might go off. Especially after it happened once. If anyone should have been arrested it was me, and there was a good chance I would have been if I stayed in that kitchen a minute longer. The cops were gone and there was no protection, for myself or for Sara and Elise against me.

It shouldn’t have been possible but there it was. Two of my largest bookcases, emptied of their stock and stacked against the gap in the hall, effectively blocking off the two sides. I barricaded the main door as well. It was the only other way into the house.

Secured inside my room, one of the other bookcases, still holding it propped up against the door, the monster really came out. Alone in the room, it took out its rage mostly on the walls, getting right through to the support beams and pipes behind one of them.

Blood dripped onto the carpet. The remaining plastic, broken, and jagged along one edge, cool against my flushed face. There was no pain. Aside from the one in my chest. The physical reaction to love, flipped to the opposite emotion. Like a white cloud turned dark. It was over. Everything I thought. Everything I knew. Everything I’d hoped for since coming home for the lockdown. Hope was a liar. Only chance was fair.

Chapter Fifteen - Elise

It was a dream of home. The neo-Victorian campus rising into view from its hilltop vantage point. Its clock tower the only available public time piece in the area for centuries. A piece of history, far enough away from town that it felt like it could be another world.

We drove in a comfortable silence. Despite all that had happened, I really didn’t blame her, even if Nate did blame me. Not that I could really blame him, it was my fault really. Telling that really horrible lie about Hank, for my own selfish reasons.

I didn’t like the idea of Nate coming over every day. I had still hated him then and wanted to stay as far away as I could, even while we were both stuck in the duplex during the lockdown. How quickly the tide could turn. From enemies to civil housemates to friends, in less than a week. Where things had gone after our friendship had set boggled all belief. I really did love Nate, even if he did hate my guts. Even worse than in high school, and for a much more compelling reason.

“Love you,” Mom said, as I got out of the car.

“Love you too.”

Hate beckoned. It would have been so easy to blame her, for what happened with Nate, but she really wasn’t to know. She was only going by what she’s seen and what I’d told her. In a sick way it just showed her trust in me. Something that had been badly shaken in the aftermath.

The quad stretched out before me, opening a world I’d once thought lost. I’d asked Mom to drop me off on the other side of campus, so I could get the experience of it once again. See if I could find some of the happiness I was sure I’d had there between bouts of caffeine withdrawal.