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She would wash it later. She had to go. She stepped out of her apartment and paused in the bright hallway light.
A smear of blood on the wall. Some on her doorknob. She wanted to wipe it off but didn’t have anything to wipe it with. And she didn’t have time to go back inside. She would deal with it when she got home. It’s not like anyone would notice it in the meantime. It’s not like she ever had visitors.
Her eyes drifted back to the spot on the wall and then she stared at the wall the whole way down the stairs, looking for a trail.
There wasn’t one. And there was no visible blood on the banister, the building’s front door, or the front steps. Did this mean she’d encountered the bleeding person inside her building?
Had the bleeding person been inside her apartment? Her stomach lurched at the thought. She was going to be sick. She hurried toward her building’s parking lot, taking deep breaths of sharp ocean air.
No, she told herself, she could never be drunk enough to let some stranger into her apartment. And if the bleeding person had been in there, she would have seen more blood in spots other than on herself.
She tried to think, tried to be rational, but her thoughts were dragging themselves through sludge just to connect to one another.
There had only been one smudge in the hallway ... one smudge ... as if she’d staggered into the wall, something she probably did frequently.
She fought back tears.
Calm down, she told herself. She had blacked out many times and not once had she ever found out later that she had done something evil.Alcohol lowers a person’s inhibitions. It does not make you an entirely different person.
She had not done anything risky or evil.
She put her head down against the cold breeze and walked faster. She had to get to her car. She had to get to work.
Just get through the next eight hours. You’ll deal with this after that.
Chapter 2
Brent knocked on thepastor’s open door, and he looked up from his desk. “Hi, Brent! Come on in!” Brent stepped into the cramped but welcoming space, and Adam stood to shake his hand.
“What can I do for you?”
Brent sat in the only open chair and considered his words. He didn’t know Pastor Adam well. He hadn’t known him long. Was it weird to get super personal with a man he hardly knew?
The Mainer in him suggested that yes, that was weird. Men didn’t gush about their feelings, even to their pastors. But his spiritual desperation overrode his New England stoicism.
“I wanted to get your advice on something, but I’m not sure how to even ask the question.”
