She pulls from my grasp. “Which teacher? How? What?”
I stand up to get her some water, knowing she’ll take this hard. Art is her passion and her favorite part of school. I hand her the glass, which she disregards. “Just tell me, Mom.”
“Mr. Wallis.”
Her chair screeches back and she rushes from the room. I know she’ll need space so I fight all my instincts to follow her, and pick up the glass of water and drain it.
This is too close to home. Too familiar, too terrifying. It’s as if my nightmares have manifested into my waking hours.
I hear the front door slam, pulling me from my panic. “Blake?” I receive no answer. No one entered.
Cereus.
Cereus must have gone to the school to see what’s happening, and she’s in shock. I throw some sweats and sneakers on and go looking for her.
“DO YOU LOVE ME?” CEREUS asks. She’s wearing that white dress from the photograph her friend sent me.
“I can’t love you.”
“Are you trying to hurt me?” A tear leaks from her eye but it’s not clear, it’s red. It’s blood.
“No, not yet.”
“Are you going to?”
“YES.”
“You sound like you want to hurt me. Do you?” she asks, reaching out for me
“Yes. More than anything.”
I jolt awake. What the fuck? I never dream.
My breath tastes fucking awful. My first priority today is to buy floss and mouthwash. I peel my tongue from the roof of my mouth. I drank too much last night. I can’t remember coming back here, but here I am in my barren apartment, on the floor. The only difference is I have covers, and a pillow supporting my head. I squint against the light reflecting through every window and bouncing off the walls. I need drapes or blinds. I don’t need people looking in at me. I sit up and my heart pounds slightly in my chest when my eyes fall on a blonde woman lying on her stomach, naked, in the middle of the room. Fuck. I jump to my feet and look around to see how visible we are to anyone outside, and then the bitch makes a weird noise and I panic more. She’s not fully dead, and making noises when my neighbors will be up and getting ready to go to work. Any one of them can see in if they’re nosy, and let’s face it, I’m a new, single, good-looking guy. Of course they’re going to be nosy. I take a few tentative steps towards the body and bend down to move some hair away from her neck so I can check her pulse. Green eyes flash to mine.
“You seriously checking for a pulse?” she asks, shifting onto her ass and pushing her hair from her face. She has no make-up on and her eyes are a little glossy. She’s naked and comfortable enough not to cover up.
I’m so confused and I’m not sure what she’s doing here. “You’re the neighbor,” I say, and she studies me for a second.
“Wow, that drunk?”
“What the fuck are you doing in here? Did we fuck?”
She looks over at the duvet and pillow I woke up on and smirks. “Well, we didn’t cuddle.” She stands up and sways a little. I don’t steady her. I can’t believe I fucked her, blacked out and she’s still standing, breathing. “Don’t sweat it, Ryan. I was drunk too and it was fun. I’m not one of these clingy women. You don’t have to pretend you don’t remember.” She picks up her scattered clothes and gets dressed. “I know you don’t care but I just want to say I don’t usually do things like this. It was fun to laugh and fuck with no agenda or strings.” She shrugs and I’m lost. I feel like I’m tripping out.
She opens the door and crashes straight into Cereus, who looks like she’s just woken up herself. They do an awkward dance around each other and Blondie laughs and apologizes, but Cereus only has eyes for me. She’s out of breath.
I rush over to her and clasp her cheeks in my palms. “What’s wrong?”
“This is going to sound crazy and you may hate me for asking, but I need to,” she says quickly.
I drop my hands and fold them over my chest. She blushes when she notices I’m wearing only a pair of boxers. “I don’t know why I’m asking you and you may hate me for thinking it but . . .”
“Spit it out, Cereus.”
She checks outside the door and then closes it, turning back to me. “Did you kill Mr. Wallis?” She drops her eyes to her feet and looks up cautiously through her eyelashes.
Did she just ask me if I killed her teacher? I don’t know what’s more unusual, her asking or me having to try and remember the night before, because frankly, it’s possible.
“What? Is he dead?”
“Yes.” She’s animated today, using her hands to convey her distress and shock.
“Cereus, I got a little drunk last night and fucked the neighbor. I have no clue what you’re talking about.”
She flinches when I say fuck and looks to the door. “Gross, Ryan. I don’t need to know that stuff.” She hardly ever uses my name and I like hearing it on her lips. “Where’s your phone?”
I look around the mess and locate my jeans, digging out my phone from the pocket and handing it to her. I busy myself getting dressed.
“Oh my God.”
I turn to see Cereus staring at my phone. She holds it up and there’s the picture of her in her dress from the mall that Stacy sent me.
“You’re Stacy’s Sean? Oh my God.”
I walk over and take the phone from her hands. “I wanted to know about you. I wasn’t sure if I was going to interact with you. I didn’t want to bring my shit life onto you, and you’re all the family I have. I just wanted to know you in any way I could,” I claim, lowering my eyelids and furrowing my brow.
“Then why did you start interacting with me?”
“Because how could I not? You’re incredible. I needed to be in your presence.”
“That’s fucked up, Ryan, what you did to her.”
“I didn’t do anything to her. She read it all wrong. There was nothing romantic or sexual in the least, it was just conversation to learn about you. She went weird, texting me clingy girly stuff and I knew it was time to cut her off and ignore her. I’m sorry. I know she’s your friend.”
She holds her hand up to stop me. “It’s okay, I just don’t like secrets or lies, okay?”
That’s unfortunate, but my little pleas appear to have worked. I hold my phone up. “Was that why you wanted my phone? To go through it?”
She takes the phone back and fiddles with it, and brings up Facebook. She signs her name in and scans through it.
“Everyone’s talking about it. They say he was beaten to death with something. A few people are saying it was an old rock he keeps on his desk from a trip he took to some volcano. Who would do that and why?”
Memories of my first kill play through my mind like a video. Did I kill this teacher? I chase the thoughts from last night and keep hitting a brick wall.
“I need to get back home. Mom will be freaking out and Dad grounded me last night for coming in late so I won’t see you until the weekend.”
I grab her arm before she can dash out. “You were late home? Did the date go that well?”
She pulls her arm free and glares at me. “Actually it was nice. He’s quite charming. He reminds me of you in that way.”
Me? She thinks I’m charming? Apart from the odd time here and there I’ve never been anyone else around her other than me. I use charm to manipulate people. It’s all a fa?ade, but not with her.
“So he didn’t talk about your Mom all night?” I cheekily ask.
Her eyes enlarge and then she bursts into laughter. “Is it crazy that I actually was mad at Mom for that? He talked about her all night. She’s an inspiration to be so successful and to stick with real news, real stories. Blah blah. I ended up being saved by Stacy.”
“How so?”
“Her Dad can get a little rough on her when he lectures her about the money he wastes on her private schooling, and she doesn’t appreciate it and stuff. He’s a total pervert when it comes to her friends but he would never really hurt her, but she’s dramatic. They got into an argument and he got a little rough left a small red mark on her arms. She called me in hysterics”