Aftermath

I just want to get home. I just want to get home. That’s been my mantra for the last twenty minutes, after humiliating myself at the Mandals’.

Except I don’t feel humiliated. Not really. I get the sense that I should, but for now I only feel wiped out. It reminds me of the last time I had food poisoning. I’d say I was poisoned – I made the mistake of accepting peace-offering brownies from a tormenter – but my guidance counselor told me I was being paranoid. My own stupid fault for accepting them, really, but that was in the early days, when I was still reeling, certain the bullying arose from a horrible misunderstanding and as soon as they got to know me, it’d stop.

Yeah, it’s like that speech Chris got in school. Just let them get to know the real you, and it’ll be fine. It wasn’t.

When I finished that bout of food poisoning, I felt like I do now. Empty and drained, but in a weirdly good way, shaking with relief, knowing I’ve gotten something toxic out of my system.

I take a cab home. Dr. Mandal insisted on getting me one and prepaying it. Arguing would have only increased the likelihood of Jesse showing up.

I text with Gran and Mom on the ride. Then I return to an empty condo with a note on the table, Mae saying something came up at work and she didn’t want to disrupt my visit by texting.

I take off my jacket and open the closet door and…

My boots are outside the closet.

That gives me pause. I’m wearing sneakers, as I have all week. I wanted to assess the fashion choices at RivCol before reverting to my favorite footwear. So my Docs have been in that closet since I unpacked them.

Now they’re outside it.

So? They must have been blocking a pair of shoes Mae wanted, and she forgot to put them back. I pick them up… and a clod of dried mud falls off one.

I flip the boots over. The soles are caked with mud, and I know I cleaned them before putting them into my suitcase.

I start a text to Mae: hey, did you wear my Docs today?

That sounds accusatory, which isn’t what I mean at all, so I change it to: noticed my Docs are out. Looks like you…

Looks like you what? Wanted to see how they’d pair with your business suit? Decided they looked perfect for your morning jog?

There must be a rational explanation. I should just call and ask Mae.

And what do I say when she tells me she hasn’t touched my boots?

Okay, thanks. I found them sitting out with mud on them, and I know I haven’t worn them since I got here, so I was just checking.

That sounds crazy. But what other explanation is there? That somebody broke into Mae’s condo and borrowed my Docs to tramp through the mud?

The door was locked when I arrived. There’s a security alarm that came with the place, but Mae hasn’t used it since I arrived.

While it’s a controlled-entry building, I’ve only had to use my downstairs key a few times – if someone’s coming or going, they hold the door.

Am I really considering the possibility that someone broke in and muddied my boots?

Drop it. Just drop it. Lock the front door. Slide the deadbolt. Figure out later how to use the security system and tell Mae I’d feel more comfortable with that. For now, just lock myself in and read through past online editions of the RivCol Times, like I promised Tiffany.

I walk into the kitchen to see my laptop where I left it. On the table, in plain sight.

See, no one broke in. Valuables present and accounted for.

I take my laptop into the living room, and I’m opening it as I head for the couch and —

There’s a brown streak on the white fabric. It looks like… well, it should be obvious what it looks like. I hurry over and see it’s part of a candy bar, mashed in, as if someone sat on it.

When I grab paper towels and scrape it off, I see chocolate with an almond sliver.

I have a Hershey bar with almonds in my bedroom.

I jog there. My food stash is on the dresser, and I can see the brown wrapper. I walk over. The Hershey bar is where I left it, but it’s been opened. And it’s half gone.

I turn it over in my hands, as if this is some kind of optical illusion. It’s not. Half the bar is gone. Smushed into Mae’s white sofa.

Even if Mae had a sudden chocolate craving, she’d have left a note promising to replace it. And she would never have dropped it on her sofa – she’s already given me side eye for drinking Coke in there.

Someone caked my Docs in mud and left them in the hall.

Someone took half my candy bar and crushed it into the sofa.

That makes no sense. Absolutely no —

Something tinkles behind me. Softly, like wind chimes.

My closet door is ajar. That I might have done. Easily.

But the tinkling… Mae has wire hangers. They make that sound when they knock against one another.

The closet door is ajar, and something in there jangled the hangers.

I should run. That’s what I’d do if I was writing this scene. And so the heroine – who was not a complete idiot – fled the apartment and called 911 to report an intruder.

But if I was writing the scene, there would be an intruder. As the writer, I’d know it, and my audience would expect someone to be in there. So to have my heroine do anything except run creates a classic too-stupid-to-live protagonist. For the person in that scene, though, it’s very different. One jangle doesn’t prove someone’s in my closet.

Um, and also, the boots, the chocolate…

I envision fleeing. Calling 911. Then I imagine shame. Shame and embarrassment and a flood of excuses.

I just… I panicked. I’ve had a rough week, and I’m on edge, and I know it sounds crazy, reporting an intruder based on hangers jingling in the closet. But the boots? The candy bar? Okay, sure, it’d be weird for an intruder to do those things…

I take out my phone. I hit 9. Then I pick up Gran’s heavy silver hairbrush from my dresser. I press 1. Step toward the closet. Brush clutched in one hand. Finger poised over the 1 to hit it again the second I see anything.

I snag the door with my foot, yank… and lose my balance, and down I go, hairbrush falling, phone falling, brain screaming that I really am too stupid to live.

Tears fill my eyes. Hot tears of shame. I have this split-second image of my body on the floor, a phone on one side, weapon on the other… and I died crying, pitying my stupidity.

I scramble up and snatch the brush, my gaze riveted to that door.

The closet stays silent. The closet stays still.

I manage to scoop up my phone without taking my eyes off that door. Then I consider my options. I can’t see inside the closet, even with the door open. The angle is wrong, letting in only shadows.

I need light. Wait – cell phone. I flick on the flashlight. Shine it at the closet. Swing the beam of light at knee level, under the clothing, above the stuff piled on the floor.

I see only the back of the closet.

I move closer, still tensed, and I kick my foot through that knee-height swath, making absolutely sure it’s empty.

It is.

There’s nobody in my closet. There is, however, one of Mae’s dresses snaked on the floor, the empty hanger still on the rack. A dress that slid off, leaving the wire hanger to clink against the others.

Well, there’s my rational explanation.

The tears come again, those hot ones that fill my eyes but don’t fall. Tears of shame.

Would I think myself smarter if I’d ignored the clinking, gone about my business and ended up dead?

No, what I want is to be the old Skye, who’d have marched to that closet, armed with something better than a hairbrush, and thrown open the door.

If wishes were horses, beggars would fly.

That’s what Gran always says, and I have no idea what it means, but I understand what she means by it – don’t sit around wishing for change; make change happen. Take comfort in knowing I’ve kinda done the right thing and resolve to do better next time.