Next Door

“You okay?”

Danielle shrugged but she may as well have flipped Chloe her middle finger. “We’re together for about ten minutes and you already go there. God, Chloe…haven’t you learned to live your life without dragging that shit up? If you recall, when you called to tell me that you were moving to Pinecrest, we decided to not talk about it. Water under the bridge, remember?”

Chloe was taken aback. She’d just watched Danielle go from dry and sarcastic to absolute furious in the blink of an eye. Sure, the topic of their parents was a sore subject, but Danielle’s reaction was bipolar in nature.

“How long have you been off the meds?” Chloe asked.

“Fuck you.”

“How long?”

“Three weeks, give or take a few days. Why?”

“Because I’ve only been here for about fifteen minutes and I can already tell that you need them.”

“Thanks, doc.”

“Will you start taking them, please? I want you at my wedding. Maid of honor, remember? As selfish as it might seem, I’d like for you to actually enjoy it. So would you please just start taking them again?”

The mention of maid of honor did something to Danielle. She sighed and then relaxed her posture. She was able to look at Chloe again and while she was still angry, there was something warm there as well.

“Fine,” she said.

She got up from the table and went to a little decorative wicker basket on the kitchen counter. She pulled out a prescription bottle, shook out a pill, and swallowed it down with her coffee.

“Thank you,” Chloe said. She then pressed a bit more, sensing something else amiss. “Is everything else okay?”

Danielle thought about it for a moment and Chloe caught her casting a quick glance toward her apartment door. It was very brief but there was fear there—Chloe was sure of it.

“No, I’m good.”

Chloe knew her sister well enough to know not to press it.

“So, what the hell is a block party, anyway?” Danielle asked.

Chloe laughed; she had nearly forgotten Danielle’s ability to drop a subject and start another one with all the grace of an elephant in a china shop. And just like that, the subject was changed. Chloe watched her sister to see if she ever looked back to the door with that bit of fear in her eyes, but it never happened again.

Still, Chloe felt that there was something there. Maybe after some time together, Danielle would fess up.

But to what? Chloe wondered, casting a glance at the front door herself.

And it was then that she realized that she really didn’t know her sister at all. There were parts of her that seemed very much like the gothed-out seventeen-year-old she’d last known so well. But there was something new to Danielle now…something darker. Something that needed meds to control her moods, to help her sleep and function.

It occurred to Chloe in that moment that she was scared for her sister and she wanted to help in any way she could.

Even if it meant digging into the past.

But not now. Maybe after the wedding. God only knew what sort of arguments and mood swings talking about the death of their mother and incarceration of their father would bring up. Still, Chloe felt the ghosts of her past stronger than ever while sitting there with Danielle and it made her wonder just how haunted Danielle had been by it all.

What kind of ghosts lurked around in Danielle’s head? And what, exactly, were they telling her?

She sensed, the way she did a coming storm, that whatever Danielle was suppressing, it would all eventually involve her. Her new life. Her new fiancé, her new house. Her new life.

And it would all lead to nothing good.

Chapter Five

Danielle sat on her couch, reclining back against Martin, her leg draped over his, and she was very aware that she was not wearing underwear beneath her pajama shorts. Not that it would matter; somehow, he had refused her last night, despite no bra and the skimpy little panties. It seemed Martin was taking this whole taking-things-slow thing seriously.

She was also beginning to think that he was either just being a gentleman or was not sexually attracted to her. The latter was hard to believe, though, because she’d literally felt the proof of his attraction grinding against her legs and hips on the multiple occasions they’d made out.

She tried not to let it bother her. While she was indeed sexually frustrated, there was something to be said about finally finding a man who wanted more than just sex.

Tonight was a great example. They’d chosen to remain low-key, just sitting around her apartment and watching a movie. Beforehand, they had discussed Martin’s day. Yet as an assistant manager at a print shop, there were only so many details to discuss. It was like listening to someone explain how paint dried. As for Danielle, she hated talking about her day. As a bartender at a local restaurant, her days were boring. She sat around and read most of the time. The nights were filled with stories to share but by the time she managed to get some sleep and woke up around one in the afternoon, she never wanted to go over them.

Once the niceties were over, they had kissed a bit, but it was all very PG. Again, Danielle found that she had no problem with that. Besides, ever since Chloe’s visit, she had been bummed out. The mood stabilizers likely wouldn’t even kick in until she took her second pill right before bedtime.

Thanks to Chloe’s visit, Danielle had been thinking about her mother, her father, and the childhood that had passed her by like a warped flicker of film. Really, all she wanted was to be held by Martin—something it pained her to admit to herself.

They’d settled on one of her DVDs, popping in The Shawshank Redemption and curling up together on the couch like a couple of nervous and inexperienced middle school kids. On a few occasions, his hand would slip a little lower than her shoulder and she wondered if he was trying to make a move. But he remained respectable, which was both refreshing and infuriating all at once.

She also noticed that on a few occasions, his phone would ding. It was sitting on her coffee table right in front of them but he elected not to check it. At first, she assumed he was just being polite and not infringing on their date time. But after a while—what Danielle assumed had been at least seven or eight little dings—it started to get obnoxious.

Just as Tim Robbins locked himself in the warden’s office and played some opera music over the PA for the prisoners of Shawshank Prison, it dinged one more time. Danielle looked to the phone and then to Martin.

“Are you going to check on that?” she asked. “Someone must really need you for something.”

“Nah, it’ll be okay,” he said. He pulled her closer and stretched out. They were lying side by side. If she wanted, she could easily kiss his neck. She looked at the exposed space there and thought about it. She wondered how he might react if she kissed him there, maybe softly ran her tongue along the side of his neck.

The phone dinged again. Danielle let out a little chuckle and, without any kind of warning, sprang across Martin’s chest. She grabbed the phone and pulled it to her chest. Stalled at his lock screen, she said, “What’s your pass—”

Martin violently yanked the phone away from her. He looked more surprised than furious. “What was that about?” he asked.

“Nothing,” she said. “Just playing around. You can check your phone while you’re with me. I don’t mind. If it’s another girlfriend or something, though, I might have to go bitch-mode on her.”

“I don’t need you to oversee my phone usage,” he snapped.

“Um, hold on. There’s no need to get crazy about it. I was just playing around.”

He sneered at her and shoved the phone in his pocket. He sighed and sat up, apparently no longer interested in cuddling with her.

“Ah, you’re one of those guys, then,” she said, still trying to find the line between joking around and being a little persistent. “Guard your phone like it was your dick or something.”

“Leave it alone,” he said. “Don’t be weird about it.”

“Me? Martin, I thought you were going to break my wrists getting it out of my hands.”

“Well, it’s not your phone now, is it? Don’t you trust me?”