Page 45 of Play Nice

“I don’t want to see,” she says.

“You don’t want to see wallpaper?”

“I’m sorry, Cli. I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself, but I don’t want to think about it.”

A waiter comes by and saves the day. Daphne chats them up, and the chef sends over oysters and potato chips with caviar and crème fraîche.

Later, when we’re back at my apartment wearing sheet masks and sipping adaptogen soda through straws, Daphne says, “I didn’t mean to snap at you earlier.”

“What?”

“About the wallpaper,” she says, suddenly morose. “I had a dream about the house the other night. A bad one.”

I don’t know what to say, so I say nothing.

“I haven’t had an Edgewood nightmare in forever. I used to have them all the time. I’d wake up Amy and she’d make me hot chocolate. Those fucking gross packets with the freeze-dried mini marshmallows. Woof.”

“Why are you telling me this?” I ask, unreasonably annoyed at her harshing my mellow. “How does this affect your ability to view floral wallpaper.”

“Because all this shit is coming up again. I was in a good place with everything before Alexandra died. Now you’re at that house, and I’m having nightmares about the time she chased you down the stairs with a knife.”

A flash. A vision.

A memory, buried deep, now bursting through the dirt like a zombie.

My back to my locked bedroom door, bracing it against Mom’s pounding. I will bleed you out! I will bleed you out!

My breath hitches. I clear my throat and stand up, peel the sheet mask off my face. I toss it in the kitchen garbage, gently pat the remaining serum into my skin.

“You know I appreciate some dramatic flair, but if you want some woe-is-me hot chocolate, just ask,” I say. “I’d make you some. I’d even go out and get you some real marshmallows. Fresh and gooey.”

She narrows her eyes at me. “That’s not…”

“Not what?”

She seems surprised that I’m being a smidge bitchy while she’s trying to be vulnerable and open with me, and I wonder if she knows that she’s being manipulative. She’s typically pretty self-aware.

“Never mind,” she says, getting up. She goes into the bathroom, shutting the door a little too hard behind her.

I make up the couch for her to sleep on while she gets ready for bed. The toilet flushes, the faucet runs. I hear the swish of her toothbrush, the spritz of toner. Resentment. How can something silent be so damn loud?

When she’s done in the bathroom, she comes over and sits on the edge of my bed. I get under the covers.

“You love to tell me how you and Leda won’t care if I abandon the house. Won’t hold it against me if I change my mind. But I’m not the one who changed my mind. Just admit you don’t want me there,” I say. “Don’t plant seeds and pretend you’re not. I’m smarter than that.”

“Okay. You’re right,” she says. “I don’t want you there. I don’t like it. It bothers me. I didn’t think it would, but it does.”

“You’re having nightmares about the place while I’m there getting finger-banged on the couch by the hot neighbor,” I say, smiling so big it pushes the tension out of the room.

“Dude. Stop,” she says, shuddering. “And how come this shit always happens to you? It’s so unfair. Where’s my meet-cute?”

“It wasn’t a meet-cute,” I say. “No meet-cute involves Yuengling and oral.”

She clicks her tongue. “Mine would.”

“Yours would be in an orchard, on a beautiful fall day, reaching for the same apple.”

“Fuck. Yeah, that’s true,” she says. “All right. Show me the wallpaper.”